Are people, generally speaking, smart or stupid?

I don't understand the question

This question is stupid

smupid

i thought we established intelligence is a bullshit concept

who is this average person anyway, has anyone met them

somewhat tautological innit but the average human being has the average intelligence doesn't one? Or taht is to say unless some other variable is thrown in unexpectedly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDUIX2-akuQ

The average person might not be dumb, but they're definitely undereducated. Voted for dumb anyway.

We need truly independent observers to answer this question for us. Let's ask dogs and horses and squirrels what they think.

People = Shit

Most everyone is relatively fine, but dumb in some way

The answer to the thread title is 'yes'.

by definition, average is average, right?

i keep trying to vote but it takes me to a logout screen and then this picture of a naked man come up, can nebody halp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzGnX-MbYE4

Hiking yesterday which always makes me think bout stuff and this time I was thinking about how stupid people are ruining things for smart people. I'm sure not a new observation but applying in particular to COVID.
Smart ppl: hey there's this virus that will be bad for the world
Dumb ppl: lol no it's no worse than flu
Smart ppl: ok it's located king pretty bad. We've figured out that if everyone stays away from each other or at least wears a mask in public it should end its spread
Dumb ppl: lol no we ain't doing that, nice try Illuminati
Smart ppl: ok phew we worked very hard and actually created new type of vaccine. We just need everyone to get vaccinated and this whole thing will he over.
Dumb ppl: lol no we're not doing that either. Nice try, big pharma and big govt, we see u bull gates.

"Located king" lol spell check. "Looking like…"

When it comes to other people, you get what you’re looking for. People are a mix of contradictory impulses. If you want to see their kinder, more thoughtful side, approach them like you expect them to be kind, thoughtful people. If you go out there with a caustic, misanthropic attitude you’ll get that energy right back.

Covid skepticism is due to a growing lack of social trust which is caused by probably hundreds of factors. It’s not primarily about people having low IQ’s or whatever.

everyone except me

Most smart people are stupid

'Where there's a lot of intelligence, there's also a lot of stupidity' is a classic Romanian proverb and verifiably otm.

afaics intelligence is a trait discoverable in some thoughts or actions, but it is not a consistent or reliable trait among humans. this puts it in the same category as kindness or courage or most other traits we admire or despise in humanity. it's not like brown eyes or hammer toes.

now do a poll with the same options but add "are people on ILX, generally speaking" to the topic

I figure we all have to be pretty stupid to spend as much of our lives here as we do

Generally no. Usually typing

Tree ship otm.

Voted stupid, but ime most people are smart about some stuff, average about most stuff, and dumb about other stuff. The stuff varies from person to person.

Treeships theory x and theory y is, ime, not correct tbh

Many apparent differences in intelligence, especially in politics, can be explained instead by differences in values. "It isnot contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to chuse mytotal ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. "

I figure we all have to be pretty stupid to spend as much of our lives here as we do

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, May 2, 2021 7:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

time i spend on this website is time spent not injecting drugs into my eyeballs or getting involved in multi-level marketing schemes

Not mutually exclusive ime.

I like to second screen ILX while doing my MLM scheme

Let people be.

this poll would be better if the options were "yes" and "no"

I can only get my head around one marketing level at a time but I'm doing my best

More serious answer: people mean a lot of different things when they say "intelligent" and I don't think there is such a thing as "general" intelligence. There are people who are amazing at theoretical math who would be the absolute worst person to run a business, or hold government office, or even give you good directions to the post office. There are people who can speak captivatingly to a crowd about french literature and don't understand simple percentages. There are people who can see through anyone's bullshit but can't make heads or tails out of Shakespeare. There are people with encyclopedic knowledge and understanding of plumbing who couldn't make a plant grow, and encyclopedic gardeners who couldn't put up a shelf.

Also, ime, people who consider "intelligence" to be a general trait are often obnoxious, arrogant, and prone to overestimate their own "intelligence," often with bad consequences.

There are also highly "intelligent" people who believe things that seem "stupid," -- PhD anti-vaxxers etc. No one's "intelligence" is free from their emotions. Relative who was one of the most "intelligent" people I knew (spoke 6 languages, amazingly well-read, brilliant conversationalist) also believed in healing crystals and stuff like that.

Being good at calculation and some tasks of cognition is no defense from believing weird/dumb/wrong things. Belief formation and transmission is a complicated as fuck topic that most popular discourse doesn’t seem to have any understanding of

Education/pedigree/cultural capital also often conflated with intelligence, especially by the holder. Be born to two college-educated parents with good incomes, attend a high school where 90% of people go to college, get good grades, go to Cornell and graduate with a 3.2 avg and a poli-sci degree or something, not the hardest life outcome to achieve, does not indicate exceptional intelligence.

One of the posts above raised a question for me - are there hyper-rationalists who consider any kind of aesthetic engagement a literal delusion? People who would consider listening to a record or reading a novel not just a waste of time, but a failure of intelligence comparable to belief in religion or superstition?

Have you met ILX

I think I understand what you're getting at and I feel like I have come across people that are close to that once or twice in my life.

But you also raise a broader point about how the lines between "rational" beliefs or activities and pure "aesthetic engagements" can be blurred for some intelligent people, even deliberately at times. Many rational people also partake in religion while understanding that, on the most literal level, it's not rational and not "true" in a purely rational sense. I always thought it was possible that my relative who liked healing crystals understood on some level that it was an emotional-aesthetic thing that was not "rational" but she never let on. I guess it only becomes problematic where it can harm others.

I have no issue with people engaging with the world irrationally to the extent that their engagement doesn't adversely affect the lives or well being of others. Which is to say that I have a big fucking issue with a lot of the people who are currently engaging with the world irrationally.

Yes, man alive, not to question your judgement of your relative, but what is the difference between getting a healing feeling from a crystal, and from a piece of music or a painting?

Like it's cool to believe in witchcraft until you start burning people in the town square.

the trick is to not assume someone who has an Esq after their name or a Dr before their name is an expert on every topic.

Did this thread last year

Outcome was that ilx gets v funny about calling stupidity a thing in a specific thread like this despite being fairly onside with the essential concept and using the term and related terms and concepts in every other thread

Found it a little....forced...meself tbh

Ledges post about values is interesting.

Like it's cool to believe in witchcraft until you start burning people in the town square.

Don't be so sectarian. Murderous pyromaniacs might be remarkably intelligent in other, subtle ways you're not accounting for.

religion might be true on a more or less literal level, who knows

xpost But they don't as has been illustrated, but don't let that stop you from dancing with the strawman.

the fact that ppl clearly take it more seriously than star charts even here says a lot about how ppl conceive of intelligence

Sorry, Left, but you're trying to pin the tail on the donkey while blindfolded.

Waiting for Left to object to either the activity of pinning the tail on the donkey or the phrase 'blindfolded'.

Don't know how so many people itt can argue against tarot cards while explicitly promoting phrenology, makes u thing

IQ is extremely relevant & the fact that ppl clearly take it more seriously than star charts even here says a lot about how ppl conceive of intelligence, (ir)rationality, etc

― Left, Monday, 3 May 2021 18:04 (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

a good demonstration of intelligence would be to not the 'itt' u tiresome ass also astrology is fuckin nonsense regardless of whether iq is a measure of anything its not involved at all

anyway its noted we cant talk about anyone being intelligent, is anyone keeping tabs at all these days

I notice you didn't call IQ fuckin nonsense which is exactly the fucking oh never mind

if I really wanted to be PC I would object to the rampant use of ableist language like dumb, stupid etc. which I genuinely have problems with but even I know that's a lost cause rn

Ive addressed IQ as a strawman ive addressed astrology as utterly irrelevant ive amended the rest of this post to be nice tbh

I notice you didn't call IQ fuckin nonsense

I notice you didn't call IQ "fuckin nonsense" either.

(licks pencil, scores one point for himself, according to Left's Rules of Debate)

Anyway i think people dont want to be bothered if they can help it and modern life is set up to supply a surfeit of bother and somewhere between something aligned with ledge's start of a discussion about values and keeping the head down and earning a crust without being told you are guilty of something or on the hook for the price of something else people are happy to feign whatever passes for average or below average intelligence unless they have been rewarded for it or anticipate likely reward for it

That latter point is where rearing, class, education all absolutely feed in- the kindling of interest and the interest shown in return imo

(Not on topic, but a gentle aside to Left: Try for once posting like a human addressing fellow humans instead of a lecturer addressing the benighted. You could even try venturing onto ground where you don't feel yourself to be 100% righteous from time to time. It would be refreshing to hear your voice in some other register.)

if I really wanted to be PC I would object to the rampant use of ableist language like dumb, stupid etc. which I genuinely have problems with but even I know that's a lost cause rn

You're a lost cause.

Try for once posting like a human addressing fellow humans

Thank you, Aimless, you've echoed my thoughts precisely.

I don't seem to be able to do that. everything is just read as trolling at this point

Yeah you dont get to start from scratch as if you havent been sermoning from the mount the past several months but its doable

Hi left, lets start over

it's a paradox, the more sincere and honest and open and earnest I try to be the more I piss people off. clearly I am a lost cause as an ilxor

that's how this website works believe me

but still, you keep coming back -- as do i, as does LJ -- and so that tells you something about yourself and what motivates you. something complicated, probably, requiring some tarot cards.

Sincere open honest and earnest isnt generous, humorous, engaged or interested which all tend to be decent starting points to discuss things with people ime

Now im not everybodys cup of tea neither granted

if the ilxor covertly known as LJ and currently using the dn 'imago', could rehabilitate himself as an ilxor, no one's case is hopeless.

Lots of smart people are pretty dumb. Each finds a different way to be dumb. It's a vast tapestry.

Loads of people (myself included!) got called "gifted and talented" in childhood. But it almost never manifested in a way that made us happier, better-functioning, or less inclined to make terrible life decisions. I would gladly trade 90% of that attention for marginally better life skills.

I don't love the framing of "emotional intelligence" or "multiple intelligences" - much of which is clearly designed to flatter more than to describe. But it does seem like it's not a single sliding scale of smart > stupid. I'm good at some stuff. I suck at some stuff. Same is true of everybody.

Finally, to the ableism point: I have some Feelz(TM) here. My 10-year-old son is pretty seriously intellectually disabled. He's mostly nonverbal and is unlikely to ever talk, write, do math, or read at grade level. At some point he might be able to bag groceries. And I love him utterly because he is my son. He's affectionate, funny, and pleasant to be around. Smart/stupid just doesn't really apply, he's himself and when I'm with him, that's what matters.

My dad used to call me "severely gifted".

Conflating intelligence with worth is why this is a radioactive topic. These things need to be disentangled, utterly so.

xp ye mad puffin

I think in pretty much every context where I employ 'stupid' as a pejorative I almost always actually mean 'lazy'. So something more akin to 'Clearly you have an intellectual capacity roughly commensurate with the task you're undertaking so the fact that it's become a deeply flawed (if not failed) undertaking seems to be more about your unwillingness to expend effort than your ability, idiot.'

OL brings the truth bomb

xpost (Like, generally as applied to work-related concerns, if that wasn't obvious.)

I don't seem to be able to do that. everything is just read as trolling at this point

I’ve done it too

you seems genuinely full of bad feelings for people and that’s OK but it’s not trolling

I am interested in learning more about Left.

Left, your rigidity is anathema to me, it just is, but I trust that it’s sincere. What led you to this militant outlook?

I felt genuine kinship with you when you talked about being misinterpreted on ilx. I know i sound dickish now but i don’t mean to.

regarding earlier posts: I love the iconography of tarot, just as art. I love all of the tarot traditions - early Italian, Marseilles, Etteilla, Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, and the Celtic Wheel of the Year. The confluence of the Kabbalah, the Tree of Life, astrology, numerology, the Waite-Smith tradition, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and especially colour symbolism in the images of the Thoth tarot is very deep and is fascinating

I don't read you as a troll, Left, there just tends to be a pattern in your posts of saying "this artist/person/opinion is shit" with an added implication of "and you're morally suspect for engaging with them/their work." And I don't assume that that's your intention, but it doesn't really contribute to a great vibe on a board that spends of lot of time talking about music and movies and art made by less than morally upright people, and where politics discussions are already well aware of how terrible everything is and mainly divided about the relative merits of purity and incrementalism. I think your posts about music that you enjoy are good!

My mum always says stupid is as stupid does

She’s a fucking dimwit though

I like my mum's daft mixed metaphors in an Irish accent that don't make any sense - there is some wisdom in there somewhere!

She once said, when I was starting a bookie job: "when you are dealing with money, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing"

I am generally speaking smart because I realized this thread was gonna go into tl;dr territory 100 posts ago

I can generally figure things out but I also do dumb shit all the time: the Duality of Man

She once said, when I was starting a bookie job: "when you are dealing with money, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing"

This is funny to me because back when I worked construction in the summers, that last part was the foreman's favorite insult for people he perceived as dumb. I.e. "that new laborer is so stupid his left hand don't know what his right is doing".

when you are dealing with money, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing

Her use of it makes sense if we go by this definition:

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/225650.html

Oh, it's from the Bible.

where does “overthinking” come into play?

Also the Bible

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

67 vs 6 imo