I am not the smarter, but I believe that I am smart enough. My problem is that my mind overthinks all the possible scenarios that could happen. For example, now with AI, what happens if the AI replaces all jobs, are we going to all live happy lives doing nothing? or are we going to be all super poor with the top 1% living in closed cities?
Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
51–60 of 453 posts
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
My secretary is absolutely clueless about maths and yet every interaction with her improves my mood, she is a lovely motherly 50something person who cheers you up every day. Her being my colleague definitely makes me happier.
For me it's the lack of curiosity that makes me resentful of people. I can understand completely people are clueless about maths. But having no curiosity about anything seems to be so common in this country right now.
It is true that K. is an open and inquisitive person.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#53Maybe happy smart people know better than to spend all their time taking IQ tests and participating in psychological studies?
Maybe it's a generational thing but in my country we were given (real) IQ tests during grade school. Wanting to take an IQ test as an adult is questionable...
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#54Speaking only for myself: you can't be tortured by thoughts you're not having, and I, sadly, am having thoughts.
Or to put it differently: some people can easily ignore things others can not.
More like some people simply don't notice. Or don't care to.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if the population's average IQ was (the current equivalent of) 130 instead of 100.
Would things be better? Worse in more complex ways? Both?
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#55All these studies suggest loneliness makes you unhappy, however I feel happiest most when lonely and doing my thing and not with people. With people I just feel frustrated or weird, because I think so different than the others.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#56Lots of reasons, I suspect. Smart people are smarter than stupid people, but not that much smarter. They are subject to thinking they’ve got it all figured out, when really they don’t. Warren Buffett spoke several times about this, saying that he’d much rather deal with a person of middling IQ and some humility rather than a person with very high IQ but not as smart as they think. Then there are other attributes like…
I don't think Warren Buffet is the last word on this.
The top of the IQ stratosphere is functionally unusual.
Set a room full of 130s on a hard problem. When they get stuck, adding more 130s won't help.
Throw a >160 into the room and see what happens.
>160s don't necessarily think they have it all figured out. But as long as they're functional - not always easy - their raw ability at certain tasks is qualitatively different to those closer the norm.
I've occasionally had dealings with these people. They really do understand things phenomenally quickly, and some of them can turn their insights into gold.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#57Im not smart (maybe average), but a lot of my unhappiness starts from just having access to information. And then more I process the information, the more unhappy I become. Smarter people than me probably have more information and are able to process it faster, uncovering effects that are not readily perceived by normal folks like myself.
While my intelligence is ~ constant, my levels of happiness fluctuated during my life and now, at 48, I am maybe twice as happy as I was at 24. There is definitely an upward trend with me... During the same period, I also absorbed a lot of information, including some ghastly one. And yet my overall feeling of well-being improved. IDK what happened, I can at best describe it as if "someone slowly changed the lens I am…
I think what you're describing is wisdom, as described in the Serenity Prayer:
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#58Technically, the article isn't about the title. It's about the limits of LLMs/AI.
It posits that smart people aren't happier because "living a good life" is a poorly defined problem and smart people aren't any better at figuring out poorly defined problems than anyone else.
And that may be fair. And I guess my conjecture is a bit in line with that.
Just because you know how the system works, does not mean you would be good at working the system. For instance, let's pretend that the easiest way to live a good life, it required you to do things that you felt were morally repugnant. Well, I'd have an unhappy life, because I won't do those things.
Or, let's say that you found out that in order to live a good life, you had to meet some physical requirement. Like, if you wanted to live a good life as a man, you had to be at least 6'0". I'd be fucked. And nothing I could do could fix it.
And in all honesty, there are a lot of factors that go into things like success and leading a good life. And while intelligence does help, it's not a guarantee. And I would think that intelligent people would also figure that out. And it's frustrating knowing that even if you do everything right, you could still fail through no fault of your own.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
While my intelligence is ~ constant, my levels of happiness fluctuated during my life and now, at 48, I am maybe twice as happy as I was at 24. There is definitely an upward trend with me... During the same period, I also absorbed a lot of information, including some ghastly one. And yet my overall feeling of well-being improved. IDK what happened, I can at best describe it as if "someone slowly changed the lens I am…
I think what you're describing is wisdom, as described in the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Oh, that would be nice! Thank you.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#60When people talk about being happy (or not), I always wonder -- why does it matter? I don't expect to be happy, and I don't strive towards it. I DO strive towards making my life better in terms of engaging in enriching and rewarding experiences, spending time around people I care about, perhaps trying to ensure future stability to the degree I can, and generally growing as a person. Never do I consider the pursuit of…
I think your objection may be to a narrower definition of happiness than what was used in the article. The article's measure is a global life evaluation that would be the product of the activities that you "DO strive towards".
Oh yeah, my initial objection is/was indeed to the seemingly-more-common definition of happiness that people often use, and then I did see that the author uses a broader scope which I agree with a lot more (insert thumbs-up emoji here) :)