> Even if you do happen to be smarter than the average bear
> it's still asshole-ish to assume that everyone else just be completely dismissed...
Devil's advocate: If you're above average intelligence, you're smarter than a majority of the populace by definition. Why would you not then dismiss the thoughts and ideas of those less educated?
One person's condescension is another person's logic.
The obvious answer: because if you're wise, you realize that raw intelligence is a fairly small part of what makes someone worth listening to on a given question. On most questions of morals or politics, I'd rather listen to someone of average intelligence, but with a humble, good and patient character, than an MIT grad who's convinced they know everything.
Interesting. I'm not sure I can relate, though. I'd rather listen to Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins talk about evolution and atheism than someone of average intelligence.
Intelligence allows you to search through ideas faster. This is worth nothing if you are evaluating them badly.
It doesn't matter if you are the greatest geinus to ever live - if you are looking for a reason to believe what you already want to, being smart just means you find it.
"You can always design a cryptosystem that you yourself cannot break."
Humility and an open mind are probably worth more than intelligence in this way.
On certain topics, certainly. Listening to me talk about particle physics would do neither of us any good. That's why I constrained my answer to politics and morality (i.e., building the sort of society and becoming the sort of person that tends towards justice). Valuable opinions in those areas have much more to do with what has sometimes been called "practical intelligence", i.e., the ability to sift good ideas from bad using a wide range of personal experiences and a character intentionally shaped in response to those experiences. I suspect raw intelligence generally helps in that process, but it may also hurt, and it's by no means the most important factor.
I didn't say anything about whether I agree with those ideas or not. Stated simply, I'd rather hear any given argument from someone who is intelligent than someone who isn't. Extraneous factors, such as the arguer's humility or tone of delivery, don't enter the picture for me when evaluating the merit of the idea being argued.
Counterpoint: it was pretty common knowledge for the majority of the 19th and 20th centuries that women were categorically inferior and unreliable, that blacks were shiftless and dangerous, and that homosexuals were mentally ill.
That person's logic is narcissism, not insight. I get that they think they're being logical, but really they're just lacking self-awareness. They're not revealing themselves to be smart people making rational choices, they're revealing themselves to be conceited people who aren't as smart as they think they are.
Put another way: someone who believes the stated Devil's Advocate position is by definition someone who doesn't understand the nature of intelligence, doesn't understand themselves, and doesn't understand other people. They might be making logical choices based on those misunderstandings, but correct logic based on false axioms is just as wrong as incorrect logic based on true axioms.
Because your brain is going to lead you into thinking that your ingroup are the smart minority and your outgroups and people that you don't understand are the simple minded majority.
I'm surprised to hear that, considering the story on HN the other day about how educated woman don't marry down. It seems a non-insignificant number of people want to partner with and befriend those of the same or higher intelligence.
Anecdotally, I gravitate towards above average intelligence people for friendships and romantic relationships.
Goddammit. Seriously. It's well-known that all kinds of intelligence are correlated, at least at the lower end. There is such a thing as a benchmark of the brain that gives a one-dimensional result that tells us a something significant about that person. You're just being touchy-feely superstitious (which is way better than the scared-of-different kind of superstitious, but still).
Then I'm sure you'll find it very easy to provide the study that confirms your claims.
You are the first person I've ever heard that called asking for evidence "superstitious". You might want to look up the definition of that word. Goddammit indeed.
Try not to get too touchy-feely in your reply, just give me the studies you are referring to.
> it's still asshole-ish to assume that everyone else just be completely dismissed...
Devil's advocate: If you're above average intelligence, you're smarter than a majority of the populace by definition. Why would you not then dismiss the thoughts and ideas of those less educated?
One person's condescension is another person's logic.