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Why aren't smart people happier?

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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#591

Post by machomaster »

duskdozer wrote: post #457
machomaster wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smarter people get part of the unhappiness from being surrounded by stupidity. And that article is a great example of that. It is full of stupidity (brow-raising premise, invalid arguments, incorrect rephrasing, wrong conclusions, lack of basic understanding, weird theories, unnecessary DEI commentary, inability to ask relevant questions) and it is a mess. I was mad reading it. It made me sad to see such a stupid art…

Curious what diversity/equity/inclusion commentary you took issue with?

The 3 paragraphs under "WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?". This is akin to discussing veganism and saying "Veganism has a history of being supported by Hitler". Irrelevant dirtying by proxy.

In some other case that could be explained by the author unnecessarily wanting to give a historical context that nobody asked for and brushed aside. But in this case the low quality of the article is a common theme and such DEI remarks are only strengthening the overall negative impression. At this point it is not an one-off, but a part of an established pattern. DEI is not at all the biggest problem with the article.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#592

Post by GoblinSlayer »

somenameforme wrote: post #369
Ardon wrote: 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…

>Now in modern times many people have moved away from religion, yet most aren't replacing that philosophical void with anything comparable.

They replace it with postmodernism. It's incomparable on the scale of propaganda, yeah.

>nihilism which is even less satisfying

That's a myth. Nihilism is fine if you do it correctly.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#593

Post by Timwi »

erikerikson wrote: post #415
azan_ wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

What does being adopted have to do with anything?

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#594

Post by erikerikson »

Timwi wrote: post #593
erikerikson wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

What does being adopted have to do with anything?

There are high correlations of intelligence between parents and their offspring. Adoption can break the correlation, statistically giving you "normal" parents. Thus, intelligent adopted children can be systemically isolated inside as well as outside their homes.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#595

Post by margalabargala »

somenameforme wrote: post #430
margalabargala wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The miniscule amount of written work that survives to the present really makes it difficult to do any more than speculate about the philosophies broadly held in the times before Abrahamic religion.

Abrahamic religion didn't really became a major factor in the world until Constantine. So for instance for the entirety of Ancient Greece and the majority of Ancient Rome, Abrahamic religions had no meaningful influence, and there are extensive writings from this time. But while I think it's useful to consider their views, I again think the real goal is to develop one's own philosophy. We all have different perspecti…

I think it's fair to say that "Abrahamic Religion" here means specifically "Christianity and Islam". Judaism arguably encourages exactly the sort of philosophy you're talking about, and other Abrahamic offshoots like Druze are not influential.

That said I'm not actually fully convinced that Christianity and Islam discourage personal philosophy in the way that you say. The Greek philosophies you mention were largely the playground of the Greek elite, and plenty of parallels exist in the Middle Ages and beyond. I don't know that personal philosophical enlightenment from a random subsistence farmer is any different between the two eras.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#596

Post by JennyWeston »

I am sticking with Socrates: "The only thing I know is that I know nothing"

Happiness? That's an experiment. I need to keep learning, keep trying stuff, keep failing.

Intelligence? Intelligence is great for many things, but not everything. I wouldn't use a GPS system to perform a heart transplant. Recognizing the limitations of thinking allows us to appreciate the value of perseverance, creativity, and expertise. Some things are a matter of doing the work. Some things are a matter of experience and time. I cannot think my way through the unknown unknown.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#597

Post by Yoric »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #585
Yoric wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then there's also the fact that high achievers often hold themselves to unrealistic standards even if they "succeed", so they also struggle to be happy. Can attest to this. By most accounts, I've "succeeded" much better than I expected, even as a former "gifted" kid. But I'm far from happy, either with myself, with my jobs, or with the fact that I'm not doing more for the world. I've left jobs that looked great on…

My hobby is my job, that's how you do it. Maybe because it's my hobby, I don't believe there are boring things in my field (programming).

I found some :)

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#598

Post by [deleted] »

Ardon wrote: 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…

[deleted]

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#599

Post by martin-t »

9rx wrote: post #542
martin-t wrote: post #338

From personal experience, because we see a lot more of what's wrong but have no power to change it. Intelligence makes you notice problems and sometimes even come up with solutions much more easily. It does not make convincing other people significantly easier - at least not to the same level.

I'm not sure that adds up. I've never met anyone, no matter how dumb, who doesn't have a long list of things they see wrong with the world. The difference with the smart people is that they use their smarts to figure how to enact the change they want to see, including figuring out how to gain power where necessary.

OK, tell me which dumb people understand:

- The differences between voting systems and why FPTP is one of the worst options possible.

- That opinions are N-dimensional vectors and elections are describing your opinion by picking one point from a small predefined set.

- How much money a day a person in the top 0.01% makes vs the top 50% and for how much time/effort.

I am sure dumb people see problems and they probably also see them to be as severe as those I listed.

But I don't think they understand how hard it is to find solutions, especially when those solutions involve convincing dumb people.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#600

Post by abhaynayar »

zdragnar wrote: post #84
Ardon wrote: 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…

As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Smart people see more variables that could be changed, more components that could be modified, and are less likely to accept things as they are. This creates a false sense of ease by which reality could be modified, and thus higher expectations for the world around them. I suspect this misplaces happiness and contentment, but the two are also…

I'd heard "happiness is reality minus expectations" before but never thought much of it. I had high expectations of myself in certain areas of life and worked hard towards them and I thought that they were realistic, so despite not having achieved them I still had hope.

And now over time reality has caught up to me and I've become sadder because I've realized that my expectations were indeed higher than my circumstances. I was just a naive oblivious idiot and life has now shown me that. It's sad but I now have just let go. I still am working towards stuff just playing to my strengths and inclinations instead of my wants.

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