I’m piss-poor at assessing other people’s intelligence. I’m not sure what this says about my intelligence.
I keep a licensed psychologist with me at all times, and just administer a standardized IQ test to everyone I meet under controlled conditions. Makes life much easier.
+5 on a 3 sided die 
Well, intelligence is only one part of what makes a person tick. It’s just a tool really, and what matters is how one uses it. There are plenty of smart people who are in jail, or on the umemployment line, or who are unhappy.
In the long run, it’s really more common sense and making the right decisions that gets us closer to our goals, and most of the time you really don’t need intellect to make the right deicisions.
I would have said inquisitiveness was a sign of intelligence when I was younger and more naive. But recent experiences have taught me that arrogance can easily make a smart person accept that they know all that they need to know, when in actuality they know shit. This conceit leads them to not ask questions or conduct adequate research before they draw conclusions. Decisions then get made that are dumb. Just as dumb as if a dumb person had made them.
It’s for this reason that I’d rather have a stupid, humble person in charge than a bright, arrogant one. The former will at least lean on other (hopefully smarter) people to guide decision-making. The latter won’t. And when they do seek input from others, they’ll do the bare minimum just to say they did it.
Eh, trying to read while sitting in a vehicle that makes frequent, lurching stops is a great way to induce motion sickness in someone who is at all sensitive. I am probably worse off than most, but even without reading I sometimes find myself on the subway praying to the Vomit God (I think his name is Ralph) to let me hold it down until I get off and the feeling goes away. Besides, you don’t know whether the person with the headphones is listening to Eminem or Kai Ryssdal.
Most of what I use has been covered - humor, wit, eyes, dogmatic views, belief in pseudoscience - but I would put at least rudimentary knowledge of and concern about current events as one marker of an intellectually curious mind that is not stuck within the boundaries of its own field.
In graduate school I was roommates for a while with another graduate student who died in an auto accident. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. The accident occurred shortly before she finished her PhD in theoretical particle physics. I would amend your equation to read:
No seatbelt = poor judgment.
Anecdotally, here’s something I’ve noticed: This might have nothing to do with intelligence, but if you’re on a college or university campus, you can often distinguish female faculty from female staff based on hairstyle. Short, styled, dyed hair is more common in staff; Long, unstyled, undyed/salt-and-pepper hair is more common in faculty. Although I doubt the relationship is causative, there could be a correlation with intelligence due to entangling factors like social class, eccentricity or academic culture.
I think the underlying principle here also accounts for highly intelligent people who use tobacco.
I rated at an above average intelligence in an IQ test I took as a child, and to tell the truth, I am fascinated by esoteric history and archaeology, such as alleged Pyramid prophecies and ancient technology. I think that there are a number of intelligent people who were fascinated by religion and the occult - Isaac Newton (this guy was obsessed with Alchemy in a day when it was already considered discredited), Jack Parsons (rocket scientist, ritual magician and follower of Aleister Crowley) , L. Ron. Hubbard (regardless of what you have to say about him, he was pretty smart), and others were, to some degree, obsessed with occultic practices and/or lore.
I make sure they’re looking at me, put a biscuit under a towel, and see how long it takes them to find it.
Seriously though, I talk to them and find out what they like to do in their spare time. Intelligent people like to do things-- make things, play skill-based games, explore and learn. Unintelligent people like to sit back and watch things passively, uncritically-- this applies equally to television, books, movies, games, and social interactions. I’m wary of people who quickly agree with everything I say.
I “follow” pseudoscience in the sense that I like to know what the latest scams are, and I want to be able to explain why they don’t work. But yes, people do seem much less intelligent when they believe pseudo-scientific claims, again because it betrays a lack of critical thinking.
It’s also worth noting that “unintelligent” does not mean “unlikable.” I have a friend who believes the moon landing was fake, and another who is trying to treat her malignant ocular tumor with homeopathy and an Amega Nano-Wand. (I like her enough to try to get her to see a real doctor.)
QFT.
Oh come on, it’s right there.
Are you remembering Ann Landers, who wrote it (perhaps more kindly) this way?
"People with great minds talk about ideas.
People with average minds talk about events.
People with small minds talk about other people."
Yeah, I recogonized the source also, but I didn’t want to talk about it because it wasn’t an idea.
Anyone wearing so much perfume/cologne you can smell it across the room has to be pretty dim-witted (or a heavy smoker who’s destroyed her sense of smell).
It would Stupid to say something is “Dumb”, without giving logical reasons for such an argument.
Why?
That’s an interesting concept given that anxiety, at its most extreme, is associated the amygdala which really has no thought…but then again I did not read this link.
How do you separate that blank look of “I don’t understand,” from “I don’t care”?
I apparently have that blank look all the time, more so when a female friend is telling me about how great ‘Twilight’ books/movies are.
I like science. Having someone tell me about Vampires which sparkle in the light isn’t engaging enough to have any kind of spark in my eyes.
If you want to see my eyes light up, talk about something worth talking about.
Several times in my life I have found myself interviewing potential members of a creative writers’ mutual critique group over the phone. I usually could tell whether someone was going to be intelligent enough to be invited to join the group within one or two sentences. I don’t know how I could tell. It was not the content of what they said, but just the quality of their tone of voice. I had no visual clues of course.
Figuring I am not amazing this way, I would guess that everyone can hear this, and then they look for corroboration of their initial impression. One clue for me is how quickly and completely someone seems to understand what I am saying. Do they get the nuance, the tiny hidden joke, the allusion? Can they match me with their own nuanced contribution? Dimmer people talk on a shallower simpler level, generally.
I must add, that it has taken me a few years to truly understand that intelligence is not a virtue, it’s just a quality. A quality I enjoy, but I don’t confuse it with actual virtues any more.
I generally don’t wear a seatbelt for two reasons:
- I don’t like nanny-state, unconstitutional laws.
- I’m smart enough to know that a seatbelt doesn’t do nearly as much good as most people think, and in some cases may actually make people LESS safe.
Somewhere around 80-90% of all accidents are avoidable. Therefore, driving in a truly safe manner is FAR more effective at protecting you than wearing a seatbelt.