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Why aren't smart people happier?

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81–90 of 515 posts

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#81
If intelligence were universally desirable then a stroll through the forest would be akin to a disney feature, with all of the rest of the animals being as intelligent as us. They're not. It's not like they haven't had enough time to evolve superior cognition. Humans proved that under the right conditions, it only takes a few million years.

Superior human cognitive ability is a merely an instrument of male territorial aggression which was subject to a fisherian runaway sexual selection process beginning around australopithecus and terminating with the advent of civilization. This process accelerated, jerked, snapped, crackled, and popped because superior human cognition has a side effect of enabling humans to more effectively extract resources from their habitat.

To even ask the op's question is to presume some utility or value for superior individual cognitive ability. It isn't meaningful, useful, special, or advantageous. An outright stupid human is perfectly capable of achieving the resources, relationships, habits, and social standing among peers necessary to be reliably content.

If anything, the gifted man is burdened by going through life with the false conviction that his life and ideas matter more because of some trait he possesses which is altogether vestigial in the modern world.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#82
What kind of smart people are we talking about? I know lots of dumb smart people, some smart dumb people, and a very few smart smart people. The dumb dumb category I try and avoid as find the company stress inducing. I didn't define these as either you know exactly what I mean, or you don't. If you don't, its not easy to describe.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#83
post #40

The smarter people see the truth of the world and the universe. If the truth was good, that we lived in a wonderful society with wonderful people in a universe that cares about us, smart people would be so happy. But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread. Congra…

This artwork captures it really well

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1767679-tfw-too-intelligent-...

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#85
post #62
post #40

The smarter people see the truth of the world and the universe. If the truth was good, that we lived in a wonderful society with wonderful people in a universe that cares about us, smart people would be so happy. But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread. Congra…

Serious question - how old are you? Anecdotally I’ve noticed smart people tend to have this attitude until their late 20s when it starts mellowing out. Now I’m a bit older I see my smarter friends happier than anyone and the less smart just about the same as always

A possible explanation is that the mellowing is due to the loss of acuity with age. The more likely explanation is that it's an evolutionary adaption in response to how ones function in society changes with age.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#86
post #40

The smarter people see the truth of the world and the universe. If the truth was good, that we lived in a wonderful society with wonderful people in a universe that cares about us, smart people would be so happy. But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread. Congra…

Sounds more like midwits than smart people

Let the poor guy cope.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#87
post #46

Everyone seems to have missed one subtlety: the article only states (with references) that smart people are not happier . At no point does it say that smart people are less happy (it does mention two studies where in one "lowest scoring" were a tiny bit unhappier, and in another "highest scoring" were happier): the overall tone is that they are equally happy regardless of their intelligence. And then it wonders why t…

Yes! And the main theory of the article is barely discussed in current comments thread, but to me novel and very thought-provoking: The model of "well-defined problems" vs "poorly-defined problems" and the hypothesis that what we call "smart" is usually being good at solving well-defined problems, but it's being good at solving poorly-defined problems that might correlate with happiness, and being good at solving well-behaved vs poorly-behaved problems does not correlate.

This rings true to me, in that in that model I recognize I'm pretty good at solving well-defined problems, but pretty terrible at solving poorly-defined problems (and currently not especially happy).

That was all new to me as a way of thinking about it! Most of the comments here are about "why are smarter people less happy", which is not what the OP is about, and is more well-trodden.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#89
The crux of the article:

> Spearman was right that people differ in their ability to solve well-defined problems. But he was wrong that well-defined problems are the only kind of problems. “Why can’t I find someone to spend my life with?” “Should I be a dentist or a dancer?” and “How do I get my child to stop crying?” are all important but poorly defined problems. “How can we all get along?” is not a multiple-choice question. Neither is “What do I do when my parents get old?” And getting better at rotating shapes or remembering state capitols is not going to help you solve them.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#90
post #34

I'm not especially smart, or happy, but, personally, I don't know how to be it, or what it feels like. I know pleasure, but being in a constant pleasurable state is not what is meant by happiness as far as I know. Slavoj Žižek (someone who does seem to be especially smart): “Happiness was never important. The problem is that we don't know what we really want. What makes us happy is not to get what we want. But to dre…

Happiness is not getting what you want. It is wanting what you get.

What if you got diarrhoea?
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