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Why aren't smart people happier?

theseedsofscience.pub

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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#411
"well-defined and poorly defined problems require completely different problem-solving skills."

Why? I didn't get that from the article. Also the article mentions Spearmans hypothesis, that people who are good at one kind of intelligence are also good at another. So I think the authors hypothesis is not really consistent.

But maybe another article "Why aren't rich people happier?" could shed some more light on the issue of happiness.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a HealthygamerGG video where he talks about gifted kids as special needs kids bc of this factor. I found it really enlightening. I definitely had to confront it in my own life. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUjYy4Ksy1E

There is also one where he talks about how about half of his suicidal patients are not delusional and don't have some mood disorder, but are correctly recognising that their lives objectively aren't worth living. (Which is something he tries to fix.)

How can they give a life some worth to begin with?? That’s messed up.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#413
post #53

Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy? It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more) Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage? Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishmen…

I'd take a different answer to this question: philosophy. In times before Abrahamic religion developing or adopting a life philosophy was seen as a practical obligation for a man. This is where you saw the rise of everything from the Pythagorean to the Stoics. It seems that the rise of Abrahamic religions is what largely brought an end to this and mandated a sort of one-size-fits-all philosophy for everybody. Now in…

[flagged]

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#414
post #411

"well-defined and poorly defined problems require completely different problem-solving skills." Why? I didn't get that from the article. Also the article mentions Spearmans hypothesis, that people who are good at one kind of intelligence are also good at another. So I think the authors hypothesis is not really consistent. But maybe another article "Why aren't rich people happier?" could shed some more light on the is…

The way I see it, most, if not all, of well defined problems amount to search (maze, chess, proving Fermat's last theorem). You search carefully for a long time, and at some moment you are done. With a poorly-defined problem, you never know if you're done: you need to operationalise it in a way that "makes sense" to you and other people and then possibly reoperationalise it again based on new data or intermediate results. This kind of activity demands flexibility; search is more about rigour and exhaustivity.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#415
post #228

I think beyond a certain level surplus IQ begins to cause problems. While still useful, the amount of self-sabotage and thought spirals the brain can generate with the extra power can cause neuroses and unhappiness on a larger scale than those less intelligent are capable of. Combine it with higher societal expectations and it's no great mystery to me why smarter people seem unhappier. Just my thoughts anyways. I'm a…

Not true at all: 1) more intelligent people are happier (author of the blogpost cherrypicked 2 studies, one of which in fact showed that iq is positively correlated with hapiness. 2) IQ negatively correlates with neuroticism. 3) In fact IQ correlates positively with almost every positive facet of human experience - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2212794120

Being on the tail can make you feel very alone. Especially as a child you can end up having only sparse, if any, access to anyone that can meet you in conversation. If you happen to be adopted then you can be alone in your family too. In some cases they are not only unmet but ostracized, vilified, or attacked for being "weird", able to see things that make people uncomfortable, or ask questions that break people's ways of thinking and unintentionally leaving them adrift. Teachers and other adults that are responsible for fostering your success commonly cheer your failures, root against you, and sabotage your efforts. Because everything must be so good for you, you don't need support and can be safely ignored. Over time you become a target for control and manipulation by people that believe your agency is their disadvantage and will use violence, subterfuge, and social arrangement to subdue you.

There are many benefits but it can be a real liability.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#416
I think you are talking about consciousness, that is what drives our life.

Intelligence is physical but consciousness is more than that. And AI will never be conscious. I recommend you and others here to read: Federico Faggin.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#417
post #53

Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy? It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more) Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage? Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishmen…

It also varies during one's life. During my twenties, internal/intellectual stimulation was 90% of what I was seeking. After 35~ the need for family, social bonding, overshadowed that pretty much completely. I still need and like intellectual growth, but only after the other needs are taken care of. Being smart for its own sake kinda hurts now.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#418
Even if you are smart you have to work. And the work isn't necessarily funnier than the "stupid" work that almost anybody can do. I still think I liked my time at construction yard more than my time in front of computer screens. But I do this to be able to pay my bills. There are many counter arguments to the point that smart people are less happy because of what their jobs but I still wanted to say, "better" job is not always happier. Disclaimer, construction workers are smart but there are entry level jobs where smarts is not needed.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#420
For anyone interested the tl;dr, here it is: smart people aren’t necessarily happier because intelligence mostly helps with well-defined problems (logic, puzzles, work tasks).

Happiness depends on poorly-defined problems (relationships, meaning, values, identity).

Being good at solving structured problems doesn’t equal being good at navigating the messy, ambiguous ones that actually determine well-being.

Oh well

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