All suggestions will be considered. Thanks alot!
Hang around dumb people.
Affect an English accent (non-Cockney, please). Your I.Q. will automatically go up 20 points in the ears of Americans.
All joking aside, read a good newspaper every day. Make yourself read all the stories on the front page of the national, local, and business sections.
Do you want to be smarter or to appear smarter? If the latter, I have some suggestions.
-
Talk loud. This has no logical validity, of course, but people are afraid to contradict you if you talk loud.
-
Browse (do not read) publications like Harper’s, The Economist, the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, &c. You want to know what topics are in the news without actually knowing what’s going on.
-
Have strong, solid opinions. Don’t bother to support them; if someone challenges you, challenge them right back. Remember: TALK LOUD.
-
Drink liquor. Not beer; liquor. You want that I-rule-this-roost confidence that only comes from the sudden onslaught of alcohol, preferably on an empty stomach.
If you want to actually be smarter, I don’t know what to tell you; I was born brilliant and didn’t have to work at it. Hey, there’s an idea! If you want to be smarter, just pay close attention to everything I say.
Happy cogitating!
Jackelope I like your suggestion best so far. However I think of the two choices you gave me I wouldn rather ACT smarter rather than become smarter as that would take less effort on my part.
Stick with me - I’ll learn ya all kinds o’good stuff.
My number one tip - good bathroom reading. When I was a kid, mom kept an old set of encyclopedias in the basement bathroom. Ah, the things I remember about that. They were blue. And kinda musty. And about 20 years old. Learned all kinds of stuff back in them days.
I had some serious catching up to do after having spent most of my formative years in trouble, drunk, or otherwise unavailable for learning.
I bought a book called “An Incomplete Education” that I love.
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?show=Hardcover:Used:0345391373:17.95
I also stared reading the NY Times every day and really studying the foreign policy issues therin. When I didn’t know something, I asked or looked it up. I brushed up on geography by reading the Times, too, since there are often maps accompanying the stories.
I also listen to NPR a LOT, and they have fantastic reports on things you otherwise may never have heard about. They seem to have great sources for their information, and the stories are always educational, IMHO.
One last thing I did was stop watching mainstream media coverage of news altogether. I found that they often report stories quickly without checking facts or report stories based on rumor, and I’d rather get my information from other sources.
Zette
It depends on what your definition of “smart” is. Who do you think is smart?
Read. Read read read read read. Then read some more. I am going to assume you’re smart enough already to know I don’t mean Dean Koontz. Read newspapers, books - fiction and non-fiction. Read a good history of WW2.
Exercise your brain. It really does need exercise - the more you use it the better it will be. Do crossword puzzles. If you’re a logical thinker, have a go at logic puzzles.
Teach yourself something - a new language maybe, or HTML. Take a nightclass.
You see the sort of thing I mean.
And drink at least a bottle of Spumanti a night, dammit. Then post drunk.
Pay more attention to your students. After all, they know all there is to know, don’t they?
Ask questions. Ask more questions. Ask questions even if you’re worried that exposing your ignorance will make you look dumb, maybe especially then.
Ask questions to other people. Ask questions of yourself. Ask questions about the answers you get.
Hang around this message board.
(Someone had to say it!)
CJ
Read the dictionary - learn a new word each day and try to use it
How about Word-of-the-day toilet paper?
Seriously, though. A lot of “smarts” come from good logical thinking skills. If you practice, like Francesca said, you’ll find yourself getting quicker and quicker.
I find that good, non-fictional reading (like the one about the 14th c. I got from the “books I can learn from” thread), while not making you smarter per se, both increases your knowledge base and keeps your brain from drying out over breaks from the tougher stuff (i.e. summer to a college student).
Read the Great Debates threads. Although it can get pretty heated, there is a a fascinating array of ideas in there.
Read as much as possible on as diverse topics as you can; force yourself to study in detail things which you don’t necessarily find interesting, question everything (if someone uses the expression ‘all x is y’ or ‘every a is b’ or ‘p never causes q’, try to imagine exceptions, however far-fetched (although this could just turn you into a pedant, rather than smart). Examine objects in detail (screw threads, milk cartons, balpoint pens) and ask yourself ‘Does it really need to be like that?’.
)
Always close brackets.
Tape Jeopardy!. Then watch, re-watch, re-watch and re-watch it until you get every question correct. Do this every night.
Oh, and read.
Happy
Damn it clog-boy!
That was exactly what I thought when I saw that Aha started this thread.
Guess that is what I get for not checking the boards more often.
Listen to contrary viewpoints. You neevr know when you might be wrong, and admitting is smart. (Might not make you look smart, depends on how well you can browbeat people)