Nothing at all; it wasn’t a criticism of a “work to live, not live to work” attitude, though I admit that my natural disdain for the “I choose to use my intelligence to coast to par rather than apply myself to surpass it” attitude clearly leaked through.
My basic point was that it’s pointless to set too much store in out-scoring people in school on these sorts of tests once you’re done with school. Score-based ego doesn’t carry any weight in the real world. If you can’t do things like work with other people without alienating them, that is a far more limiting trait than getting, say, having scored an 1100 versus a 1600 on the SAT. Similarly, if “a genius” for all intents and purposes fills the same role at what for them is an undemanding job (but with less effort), there is nothing to mark this person as “a genius” to me any more, unless they are investing themselves in a hobby/interest that I happen to share.
ultrafilter is an example of a guy who, based on his postings on the SDMB, fits the profile of “guy who seems to be good at all the stuff I like to be good at, and is as good or way, way better than me at them to boot”
I’ve co-posted or lurked on threads in such unrelated topics as:
computer programming
mathematics
bodybuilding / weight training
bridge (the card game)
all of which are near and dear to me on a professional or personal level, and all his posts indicate he’s been where I’ve been and in some cases have yet to go (possibly ever). Dang!
Ditto for me, for Berkeley. I had the best SAT score in my high school senior class. My randomly-assigned roommate beat me by 100 points; and his best friend (also at Berkeley) was better still (a perfect 1600).
I was taking some evening classes in business and organizational leadership at the university. Doing really well and feeling like I was a genius. Then I blundered into two philosophy classes that were way beyond anything I’d had to that point. One was the “History Of Work” or something like that and the other was “Ethics” or whatever. I’d never taken introductory philosophy and wasn’t ready for these.
Both instructors were extremely intelligent and intimidating. I studied hard and did fairly well but with no real retention of what we had covered. I realized I could study that stuff for a zillion years and never have confidence that I understood it.
Then came the internet, which hammered home the point that not only was I not as smart as a lot of people but not as funny either.
