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Why aren't smart people happier?

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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#631

Post by martin-t »

9rx wrote: post #610
martin-t wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> why FPTP is one of the worst options possible. There are certainly tradeoffs in everything, but majority rule is good enough. In practice any candidate that couldn't possibly handle the job has no real chance of winning. By the time you get into the race amongst those who have a realistic chance, they're all pretty much equally capable. Even if you don't get exactly who you want to see, the winner will be fine. It'…

A lot has been written about FPTP/plurality voting:

- https://rangevoting.org/

- https://rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig.html

- http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/

- https://ncase.me/ballot/

TL;DR

- It forces people to vote strategically according to who they believe has a chance to win instead of accurately describing their preferences.

- They can only express their opinion about one candidate, not all of them.

- The spoiler effect - more candidates for one side (on a given axis) increases the chance of a candidate on the other side winning.

I really encourage you to read all of those pages and play with the explorable explanations.

Dumb people are either able to understand this or generally have lower tendencies to engage in self-education so they don't know about these issues.

And, changing this fundamentally requires convincing dumb people because last time I checked there was not a single country where votes were weighted by intelligence.

> Since the dumb people end up being too dumb to participate

Again, this is incredibly wrong, everybody's vote counts the same.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#632

Post by machomaster »

jebarker wrote: post #374
machomaster wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is not saying anything about your smartness vs. being actively told that you are dumb. Radical examples should be compared with each other, as should more balanced ones. In both cases I would prefer to be told about being smart. In a vacuum, self-confidence in kids is more useful than lack of it.

I think you’re right that I’m a negatively biased person, so the praise may have been received differently if I was a more positive person. However, the outcome of the praise was that I was never self-confident and had/have low self-esteem. I think what I received was closer to “you’re the smartest kid” and that set me up believing I was destined to be the _most_ successful adult even if I never felt capable of achie…

Do you honestly think that your self-esteem would be better if people around you would praise you less?

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#633

Post by jongjong »

lisbbb wrote: post #566
jongjong wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and also, being able to perceive the world in high resolution when everyone else is blind has its own challenges. Less intelligent people may be asking you to step in front of a bus because they don't see the bus and you cannot convince them that the bus exists because they're looking in the same direction as you and they don't see anything there. They don't trust your judgement, especially when others who also…

I feel this way whenever anyone on here downvotes me when I rail against socialism and communism. Like, hey, maybe some people have some lived experiences that are counterexamples, just maybe?

Probably. My parents are relatively well-off and their experience of reality is very different from mine and keeps diverging more. It's getting to the point that I can't explain my situation because of how bad it is. What happens to me, my bad luck, sounds far-fetched to them and they think I must be doing something wrong... But I work 24/7, day, nights and weekend and everyone around me tells me I'm competent... How can it be?

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#634

Post by int_19h »

kaicianflone wrote: post #505
int_19h wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I am jealous of religious people sometimes precisely because they can believe in things that give them something to pin their hopes on in situation where there really isn't any hope, and even more so, to give them some higher meaning in life that is universally applicable. But it's not about pride. This trick only works if you deliberately exclude at least some premises from rational scrutiny, which is basi…

I actually appreciate how clearly you put that. The honesty in what you said is exactly where most people’s quiet struggle lives. You’re right that faith doesn’t begin with airtight logic. It begins when reason finally runs out of things that can satisfy the soul. The point of Christianity isn’t to switch off rational scrutiny. It’s to realize that reason itself points beyond its own edges. The disciples didn’t follo…

Let's be honest: most people follow a specific religion simply because it is the predominant one in their society, and what they were taught to believe in and not question since childhood.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#635

Post by pfannkuchen »

chermi wrote: post #312
pfannkuchen wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t there a danger though of running into differences between oneself and others and concluding that the cause is oneself being “weird” and not the inherent difficulty of bridging the intelligence gap and correspondingly different ways of thinking? Like I could see a very bright kid ending up with low self esteem due to being different if they aren’t told that the differences may be due to their intelligence. Like…

Do you mean that there may be some harm in "hiding" from children their intelligence? I can see that maybe at early ages, but certainly they'll eventually catch on with grades and such? I don't know when different parts of personality manifest, maybe some child psychologist can chime in. But my hunch is that maybe not saying anything until grade 2-3 could potentially help. Above all, I think the key is to tell them t…

Yeah that’s what I’m saying.

I don’t think grade 2 or 3 grades will paint the picture for them. Elementary school grades saturate quickly, there isn’t enough dynamic range. What IQ do you need to get perfect marks in elementary school? Sure, you’ll know you are above average, but the social experience for someone with a very high IQ is extremely different from someone with a slightly above average IQ.

I think the real problem is not providing enough challenge, so they get used to succeeding without trying and never learn the emotional side of trying and failing, until they can’t keep up anymore, which for really bright kids may not happen until they are basically adults.

If you praise for doing what they can do without trying, you get this problem. If you meet them at their level and actually challenge them from a young age, while also praising them for being clever, I suspect you won’t see this problem.

By analogy, is it harmful to tell a kid he’s naturally good at soccer, while providing the resources and coaching necessary to take advantage of the potential? I imagine the dynamics should be similar from the skill acquisition angle, the difference is just how the activity to perform is generated.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#636

Post by somenameforme »

staticman2 wrote: post #629
somenameforme wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People overwhelmingly view the ideal number of children to have as way more than we're having. [1] So people are likely choosing to not having children for other reasons. [1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/694640/americans-ideal-family-s...

The question is "What do you think is the ideal number of children for a family to have? ?" Not "Do you want a family?" Or "Do you want children?" So it seems to me it will not measure the preferences of Americans very well. Since it did not ask about those preferences.

Here [1] is a poll on desire to have children. The percent of Americans that do not want children is negligible, about 6%. So asking about the ideal number of children to have and comparing that against the number of children that people end up having is a very valuable datum. Because it may be that somebody sees the ideal number as e.g. 3, but only expect for themselves to be able to have 1.

[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.asp...

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#637

Post by rhubarbtree »

alphabettsy wrote: post #284
rhubarbtree wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently encountered someone who spoke like this and I researched what might be the issue. I came across narcissism. The idea that you’re smarter than everyone else. Comes from a grandiose sense of self importance. But the truth is most people are smarter than you in some ways and less smart in others, but you’re unable to see it because you’re in this black and white mode where preserving your ego relies on you be…

Are you sure you’re not conflating knowledge with intelligence?

Yeah no I don’t think intelligence works like that.

There’s not some core reasoning engine in your brain that is independent of your knowledge. The two are intertwined.

Some people are better at reasoning about politics vs maths, for example, because they have both the knowledge, skills, and experience to understood how such systems work vs a mathematician who does not.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#638

Post by rhubarbtree »

LouisSayers wrote: post #424
rhubarbtree wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently encountered someone who spoke like this and I researched what might be the issue. I came across narcissism. The idea that you’re smarter than everyone else. Comes from a grandiose sense of self importance. But the truth is most people are smarter than you in some ways and less smart in others, but you’re unable to see it because you’re in this black and white mode where preserving your ego relies on you be…

Perhaps there are some people like you say that are grandiose narcissists and ALSO some people that are genuinely smarter than most others in the room and can see the obvious through the fog. I think the frustration they're experiencing is more likely to do with a lack of control over their environment (including the lack of ability to control others).

Anyone who thinks they’re genuinely smarter than everyone else is almost certainly unable to self-reflect and understand others’ strengths well.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#639

Post by daemon_9009 »

Intelligent people see and understand the world deeper, more than an average person can, They see the world in all its forms, good and bad, understanding too much does not bring happiness but gloom. existence seems to be absurd, the more we understand existence the more one believes that it shouldn't have existed at the first place.

"happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know" is a quote by Hemingway.

Also intelligent people overthink about a particular situation, while its better for survival but it can reduce happniess.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#640

Post by rhubarbtree »

Rayhem wrote: post #571
rhubarbtree wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently encountered someone who spoke like this and I researched what might be the issue. I came across narcissism. The idea that you’re smarter than everyone else. Comes from a grandiose sense of self importance. But the truth is most people are smarter than you in some ways and less smart in others, but you’re unable to see it because you’re in this black and white mode where preserving your ego relies on you be…

> I came across narcissism. The idea that you’re smarter than everyone else. Comes from a grandiose sense of self importance. This may be the colloquial description of how narcissism manifests, but it isn't even close to (and possibly completely opposite) clinical narcissism. The grandiosity isn't so much a belief as it is a "false self" put on to garner caretaking from others. It's not "I got all the toys as a kid,…

That’s interesting. So from this viewpoint what happens in childhood or afterwards for the kid to end up a narcissist?
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