Are people on this board too smart for their own darn good?

[Locrian]

@Der_Trihs

Yes. It’s just a curse we have to bear. All we can do is sigh in jealousy as the inhabitants of other message boards knuckle-walk on by.

Ha! Tell me about it! Going to any news forum online,
you find people who can’t spell, type or even punctuate.

Here, among us argumentive gods, we think, therefore we type.

[clairobscur]

@Sitnam

I remember reading a while back in a Cecil column that the only SDMB consensus ever reached was that Bugs Bunny was indeed funnier than Mickey Mouse.

I wasn’t aware of the consensus, but it’s undoubtedly true.

[panache45]

@Rolken

Certainty is overrated, and in complex questions, often merely a sign of rash judgment.

Are you sure of that?

[tim-n-va]

@LonesomePolecat

True, but intelligence isn’t the same thing as common sense or intellectual integrity. A person with high intelligence but without sound practical judgment or respect for facts, language and logic may well do more harm than good, and he may well mislead and injure himself.

Well if you want to change the original question to “Is it possible to be intelligent but have other mitigating factors that make you cause harm?” the answer is obviously “Yes”.

[Lust4Life]

@Starving_Artist

I don’t think of it that way at all. To me, it’s a phrase often used to describe people who have learned just enough to get themselves in trouble. We’ve all heard stories about people who learn just a little about martial arts, the stock market, or criminal activity and then get the crap beaten out of them, lose their money, or wind up in jail.

I would much rather that you left me out of this debate and anyway how the hell did you find out about all three incidents?
Its not like I advertised them to the world.

[Oy]

@The_Second_Stone

@Mangetout

I think it is possible to be too smart for ones own good - to perhaps be so scrupulously exact and pedantic as to find it difficult to function in the real world. I’m not sure that’s what people generally mean when they use the phrase, however.

That’s called obsessive/compulsive disorder and affects not so smart people too. Or so I’ve been told.

Nonsense. Everyone is familiar with the cliche of the absent-minded professor, which is, I think, what Mangetout was trying to describe, not an OCD sufferer.

But I don’t think that’s what the OP was driving at, as the purpose of this forum at least is not to advance practical skills for living. I think the OP is suggesting that we always end up being tangled in the esoteric minutiae of a point rather than arguing the aspects of a question that really matter.

With respect to that, I think that a) it doesn’t happen that often, and b) esoteric minutiae drives nuance, and nuance is often important. One of the worst things about politics is that, in order to be successful, it must rid its points of any nuance whatsoever to reach the typical ignorant voter. That’s how you end up with sound-byte policy. On the other hand, sometimes esoteric minutiae is just that. But given that at least two people find it interesting enough to keep a thread going, I don’t see that it’s doing any harm, so I don’t see how that would make the people on the board too smart for their own good. In GD, at least, we’re not trying to get across the street without being run over by a bus. We’re arguing viewpoints, using cites when possible (and then arguing the validity or relevance of those cites).

[Der_Trihs]

@JRDelirious

And like you and others have said, it’s not that anyone IS too smart for their own good, but that some people’s opinion of their own smarts is too high for their own good.

When it comes to that kind of person, I like the line “The difference between a fool and a genius is that a genius knows his limits.”

[Markxxx]

Being smart about something unimportant has as much value as knowing nothing about that at all.

Being smart about things that are very important yet being unable to get this intellegence from your brain to others less knowledgeable is also pretty useless.

[Oy]

@Markxxx

Being smart about something unimportant has as much value as knowing nothing about that at all.

Being smart about things that are very important yet being unable to get this intellegence from your brain to others less knowledgeable is also pretty useless.

Except that no one agrees as to what constitutes “unimportant.” Also, there are a fair number of people who enjoy knowing things without teaching them to others or talking about them.

[msmith537]

There is no such thing as being “too smart”.

There is such a thing as being:

• a poor communicator
• arrogant
• pedantic
• pompous
• distracted by emotion
• stubborn
• a jerk
• just plain wrong

[Mangetout]

@Oy

Nonsense. Everyone is familiar with the cliche of the absent-minded professor, which is, I think, what Mangetout was trying to describe, not an OCD sufferer.

Thank you - yes - it’s possible for a highly intelligent person to devote disproportionate amounts of effort and time to the different categories of learning - acquiring lots of academic and technical knowledge and expertise (simply because it seems important to them, and they’re good at it) and neglect to attain a normal level in life and social skills - either because it does not seem so important to them, or just because they’re otherwise occupied.

[Mangetout]

I have also seen examples where a team of individuals considered to be very smart were beaten at specific tasks by a team considered to be quite ordinary, because they took different approaches to the task at hand - for example:

-The smart team had lots of ideas and spent a lot of time deciding and debating which one was best (the dumb team just got on with it)
-The smart team expected to be delivering an elegant, perhaps highly-technical solution - they overlooked the only solution the dumb team could imagine, that happened to be quick, simple and perfectly adequate.

Of course, I wouldn’t dream of trying to generalise that into an assertion that being dumb is better than being smart, because I don’t believe that to be generally true. There are, however, contexts in which it is possible for people to be too smart for their own good.

Trouble is, you do have to plan for the general case - where it’s normally better to be smart.

[Snag]

@tomndebb

Alternatively, some points are so silly that it is presumed that every reader will recognize their lack of merit and so no one feels the need to point out the errors, particularly when the requirements to demonstrate just how silly they are will outweigh the benefit of posting the rebuttal.

That’s probably me! :eek:

[Captain_Carrot]

@Mangetout

I have also seen examples where a team of individuals considered to be very smart were beaten at specific tasks by a team considered to be quite ordinary, because they took different approaches to the task at hand - for example:

-The smart team had lots of ideas and spent a lot of time deciding and debating which one was best (the dumb team just got on with it)
-The smart team expected to be delivering an elegant, perhaps highly-technical solution - they overlooked the only solution the dumb team could imagine, that happened to be quick, simple and perfectly adequate.

Of course, I wouldn’t dream of trying to generalise that into an assertion that being dumb is better than being smart, because I don’t believe that to be generally true. There are, however, contexts in which it is possible for people to be too smart for their own good.

Trouble is, you do have to plan for the general case - where it’s normally better to be smart.

The smart team wasn’t too smart enough, it was simply clever without being sensible. The problem was that they didn’t examine their assumptions, and assumed that they needed an elaborate solution. That’s not smart.

[Mangetout]

Clever without being sensible is, I believe, sometimes what people mean when they say ‘too smart for their own good’.

[Zoe]

Lonesome Polecat:…Intelligence isn’t the same thing as common sense or intellectual integrity. A person with high intelligence but without sound practical judgment or respect for facts, language and logic may well do more harm than good, and he may well mislead and injure himself.

Now where did you get the idea that common sense, sound practical judgment and logic are separate from a person’s intelligence? I’m not certain how you would distinguish among these three things anyway.

And please give an example of how high intelligence would be more harmful than lower intelligence to the person in question.

Snag: That’s probably me!

I would argue with you and say that you are wrong and just being silly, but…(begins to weep…)

[gonzomax]

@Weirddave

There are lots of smart people around here, all of whom will be willing to tell you at the drop of a hat just how smart they are. Digonies the Cynic, RTFirefly, E1vislives, Redfury, gonzomax, Der Trihs…the list goes on and they’ll tell you how smart they are until the cows come home. Me? I’m an idiot. An educated idiot, but an idiot all the same. The difference is that I realize that and have some common sense, while recognizing that while my knowledge is vast, my ignorance is legion. The posters I’ve mentioned above believe the exact opposite, which is why they are so consistently able to post opinions without basis in fact.

Sure thing. I was slaughtered on this board when I said that supply and demand were not what was driving oil prices. I said it was speculation and you right wingers were childishly insulting…and wrong. 60 minutes had a good show on it last Sunday, refuting the obdurate dingbats who just can not see what is happening. I do not see smart on this board. I see people who are as stuck in their beliefs as anyone else. People who can reject any and all contrary evidence that is questions their beliefs. I went through pages of insults from the so called smart people. Yet the common point, is they defend theier ignorance and insult anyone who offers opposing opinions .

[put_down_the_sabre]

Regardless of whether people can be too smart for their own good, I don’t think you would find such people on this board.

My experience of the SDMB is somewhat like a taxi or a pub… with some noble exceptions, people here are too dumb to know how dumb they are.
At times, this whole board resembles a giant case of the Dunning-Kruger effect … I think coming here for genuine debate and intellectual stimulation would be a mistake.

That said, people here are willing to discuss and debate issues, which makes them a cut above a lot of the population.

pdts

[Mangetout]

@put_down_the_sabre

My experience of the SDMB is somewhat like a taxi or a pub… with some noble exceptions, people here are too dumb to know how dumb they are.
At times, this whole board resembles a giant case of the Dunning-Kruger effect … I think coming here for genuine debate and intellectual stimulation would be a mistake.

Interesting… do you have a notable example in mind?

[Chingon]

Common sense is the lowest form of sense. It never has to be understood or analyzed, only memorized.