One thing I’ve noticed throughout the years is that intelligent people are much better at rationalization. Their explanations have fewer and less obvious holes. But this does not mean they are actually correct. The assumption that the more intelligent person is right is a definite example of intelligence being overrated. Intelligence may help you see problems, but it also makes it much harder to convince you of your ignorance.
I’m not sure how true this is over all, but I’m inclined to agree with this as a general principle. Although I think this tends to be true more as it relates to areas of specialized knowledge rather than intelligence in a more abstract sense. Pulling the two apart becomes tricky though.
On the one hand you have the paradigm established by Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions where a particular hypothesis becomes established scientific dogma only to be overthrown eventually by a new hypothesis with better explanatory and predictive powers but an equally dogmatic following. This is one kind of intellectual arrogance but I think is a bit different from that countenanced in the OP.
On the other is the situation where someone becomes so enamored with their own intellectual abilities that it becomes difficult to persuade them of the incorrectness of an opinion or decision in any given case. This however may be due less to their being susceptible to rational argument than the fact that they refuse to speak in terms anyone else can understand.
To be clear, it’s not that speaking in such terms isn’t possible, it’s that the conscious choice is made NOT to do so either out fear, vanity or for some other nonrational reason.
ignorance to me is simply not knowing stuff. ignorant people can find answers or ask questions, thus doing the smart thing.
What sends me thru the roof are people who wear their ignorance like a badge, and have zero curiosity of what’s going on around them outside of trite gossip on facebook or their immediate environment.
Some stupid people are delightful and funny some know a little something about their
surroundings and what makes stuff work.
Thank kew Jaysus…
So what if I am “kinda stupid”? Most people are, one way or another. Am I supposed to feel bad about myself because of this? What do you suggest I do about it?
I consider the perspectives of others and do not complain about “ugly fat women” in line when I am asked about cookies. I do not force my “healing touch” on strangers or spread disinformation about familial relationships between writers and pop singers.
I recognize that intelligence is not limited to a certain set of skills or abilities that can be measured with a test. The idea that we can separate it into particular discrete categories may be an oversimplification, but there is merit to the theory. I believe there is something to learn from everyone.
As a stupid person, I lack many valuable skills, but I do strive to improve.
It all comes out in the end. Which is why a coccyx cushion would get in the way.
Why even fake? I’m a pretty bright guy, and I don’t have a problem pausing and saying “What’s PBR? I’m not familiar with that beer.” instead of pretending like I understand, or making stuff up about it.
Maybe that’s another sign of intelligence- asking rather than absorbing?
That said, I’m with the camp that says it’s not so much the stupid per se, as it’s the consequences of the stupid. And since stupid and ignorant seem to go together, you get a double-whammy.
Stop doing stupid things.
No, but you write stupid OP’s, so there is that. If you wish to describe other ways you are stupid, I’d be more than happy to mock you for them too.
Except from stupid people.
You should strive to stop being stupid.
All facetiousness aside, of course there are differing ways of being smart or stupid, or whatever other adjective you wish to throw out there. But one of the keys to improving yourself (and myself for that matter) is to try and minimize the stupid things you do (I, for one, should have never eaten at White Castle with a hangover) and maximize the intelligent things you do (if/when I ever do one, I’ll let you know what it is).
I don’t hate stupid people (though I say that often)…I hate people who choose to revel in ignorance and (for some reason) seem to be proud of that. People who don’t care about learning anything, or have no idea about much of anything in the world. It drives me nuts. I’m not talking about people who had poor educations…I mean people who don’t seek out knowledge, and don’t care to learn anything if there’s a hole in their knowledge of something they actually care about or is important to their lives.
These people often try and speak authoritatively about a subject, and if you try and point out some other information, will respond with something along the line of ‘I don’t need to know all that crap, I just know what I know.’
So, I guess I should say that I hate willfully ignorant people, rather than stupid people, but to me ‘stupid’ doesn’t mean ‘low IQ’…it means willfully ignorant.
It seems like you didn’t really understand the post and think that it says that it is better to be stupid than intelligent. It doesn’t.
Why can’t we all just hate people regardless of their intelligence level?
Are you saying there’s not enough hate in the world?
All we are saying, is give hate a chance.
Especially the children! Won’t anyone hate the children?
Can’t we all just hate along?
Lifespans are getting longer, not shorter. Sciency-stuff is what we’re using to advance toward our own immortalityness. Heck, you yourself have outlived the yesterday you. So there’s your proofyness.
Smart, huh?
Sing along!
Boyo hates the little children
all the children of the world
Red, and yellow
Black and white
Just shut up and leave his sight
Boyo hates the little children of the world.
“Be the hate you wish to see in the world”-Mohandas Gandhi
That was beautiful, in its own way.
Cry? Or barf? Tough choice. 
Sorry for the late reply, but I have heard someone, I think it was Smeghead, in one of my trainwreck threads say, “You know what intelligence is? It’s knowing what you don’t know.”
Reminds me of Socrates’s philosophy. For those of you who are not familiar with this guy, his idea is that knowledge is knowing that you know nothing.
Well if that’s what intelligence is, then clearly it’s underrated, not overrated.