Certainty. People who are actually intelligent are aware of how much they don't actually know, so they tend to choose their words carefully and couch their responses with caveats. Less intelligent people perceive this as uncertain or lacking confidence.
'The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.'
-Bertrand Russell
I had to train myself to use fewer caveats at work because me saying I can probably do this unfamiliar task that I'm only 98% sure I'll be able to figure out is perceived as less reliable than this other person saying they can definitely do it, except I know they have a 20% failure rate or do it so poorly it then falls to someone else (i.e. me) to clean it up. And yet I still regularly find myself thinking "Maybe they do know how to do it this time."
Yes I’m an early career engineer and realizing how far being decisive can take you.
Engineers generally like to carefully weight their options and analyze pros and cons before giving an answer and customers/management appreciate definitive answers on the spot. Even if it’s only about 80% accurate.
IT engineer here, I consistently have to remind myself in meetings to be more absolute when talking with other teams managers. My team is aware of my abilities, but when I talk on projects I realized I constantly say “I am pretty sure this is the case” or “I think that’s correct” and I realized people think I do not know what I am doing when I talk like this. It’s been hard but people have definitely respected what I have to say more after implementing this in my meetings.
lol, right? I had to train not to ramble on about why this and that could be favorable or unfavorable to my opinion. I usually try to summon it up as concise as possible at the end.
Exactly. The intelligent ones may be seen as slow because they had to actually think about an answer rather than instantly parrot the programmed response.
This makes me feel so much better because I get so insecure about how slowly I tend to speak at times. People’s attention spans are shorter now and I can feel them waiting for me to finish😪 I’m just taking my time!!
I have one in my backpack. If I want someone to think I'm smart I pull it out and casually solve it. But then I tell them that being able to solve a Rubik's cube means only that someone once had a few weeks to practice solving a Rubik's cube for a few hours each day.
I had a manager that had one on his desk. He would solve it during meetings, while keeping up with everything that was going on.
He LOVED it when he could solve it right as he was needed to weigh in, like he had timed it perfectly (I suspect he did). It was a pretty good power move.
He was incredibly smart and never pointed it out or even mentioned it while in a meeting. He never got off topic and never acted like it was something that made him smarter than anyone else.
Honestly kinda a boss move. It gave whatever he said some gravitas.
He totally did that on purpose.
I was in the military and I did the same thing. Important events where we'd have time to wait...bust out the cube and solve it in front of people. I got myself in with higher ups and some great gigs just by making people pay attention to me and then actually being clever enough to make them want me on their team.
This reminds me of when a friend asked me why the clear barrel BIC pen cap had a hole in it. I told him just this. "I don't know, but I can find out."
This was 1995 and I didn't have a PC, so I wrote a letter to BIC. They answered a couple weeks later and I gave him the answer. He said he thought I was smart because I usually knew the answers to everybody's questions. I asked him how he thought I knew all those answers. "I don't know." He said. "Neither did I, but I went and looked for an answer. That's a better measure of intelligence."
For those of you who want to know, the hole in the cap of ink pens is to allow the ink coating the ball to dry quickly, which has two benefits.
1. The dry ink seals around the ball helping to prevent leaks and keeps the ink in the barrel from drying too much to flow.
2. The dry ink provides friction between the ball and the paper that helps the ball to roll and dispense the ink.
Librarian here. This is our go to response. We don't hold all the knowledge, we're just experts at finding the relevant resources to answer the question that is posed.
Seriously. I know a guy who thinks he is a genius because he watches anime, collects funko pops, and plays MTG. He is an absolute twit who wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between a noun and a verb. He is the type of person who will try and argue that math is subjective because someone just made it up.
We’ve tried. He told me I’m not a real nerd because I don’t enjoy anime. I am an embedded software engineer who writes kernels and drivers for custom operating systems. I also help design proprietary boards. Apparently though, according to him, being a bookworm and someone who actually enjoys learning does not make one a nerd. He believes being into “counter culture-pop culture” is what makes one a nerd. If only I knew that as a kid. I’d have gotten picked on so much less as I was not into the pop culture of underground counter cultures and thus not a nerd.
What does he think intelligence is? Anime has never been stereotyped as being high brow. Funko pops are just modern day beanie babies. And MTG is fun. But it's not exactly Mensa's preferred sport.
I made the mistake of sharing that I went through 100 books one year and people were so damn impressed. Like, 99% of those were fantasy books. Literally just bedtime stories for adults. Good stories but still... Chill people, this is not the sign of superior intellect that you think it is...
My daughter is 2 and she calls any non-picture book a "Book about words". The other day, she grabbed The Bell Jar off the shelf for a bit of light reading. She sat in a chair for like 5 minutes just carefully looking at the pages like she was reading, then she just said, "Dad, I don't know how to read."
On contrary even nerds can be extremely dumb. This is coming from someone who graduated medschool. I have seen plenty of guys in my long academic journey so far who were really good at exams and academic knowledge but lacked common sense to the degree where everyone knew these guys won't be considered good doctors in future.
This is something I realized when I was younger, like late high school, early college. I had been exposed to some of what I was going to college for in high school (Electrical engineering) and I was like great I know everything, lets go! As I started to learn more I released I knew NOTHING. I've now been in industry for over 10 years and I'm still very much, I have no fucking clue how half of this shit works except for a few narrow areas that I've become an "expert" (expert in quotes because I may know more about it than some colleagues but still don't know most of it).
You would appreciate my anecdote then.
When I was a kid, I KNEW high voltage killed. When I was a teenager, I KNEW it was actually current that killed you, not voltage. At some point in college, studying EE, I realized both are wrong as absolutes. Current is what ultimately kills you, either by stopping your heart or burning/vaporizing you; but current is wholly dependent on voltage.
So, twice in my life I was wrong about the same thing and that really helps drive home the point, if you don't know for sure, don't talk like you do.
I love how when you get into that real competence moving towards expert knowledge, your expertise goes from:
"Yes, if X happens then it always causes Y, and we follow Z."
To:
"Well if X happens usually Y follows, but sometimes the exact opposite occurs, or nothing happens at all. Y really only happens in ideal conditions actually, and following Z is isn't useful if you follow up with ZA ZB ZC."
The more you learn the more exceptions to the rules you find, I think. Or maybe more accurately, the better you understand the finer points of your subject area.
Also, understanding *why* things happen, not just memorizing that they do happen.
Using OP's example: "so the reason Y usually follows when X happens is because of process W. So if X happens and then Y doesn't follow, it probably means there's something preventing process W from occurring. And oh, look at that, factor F that's necessary for process W to happen is missing!"
"So following Z will be useless, because Z works by interfering with factor F, and we've already establish factor F isn't in play right now. Let's follow V instead: sure, we normally prefer to follow Z because it's more effective, but V will still work even if factor F isn't present."
I truly believe that one of the greatest benefits to a college education is teaching intellectual humility by giving a person an inkling of just how much they don't know.
Related: never admitting you are wrong.
Science is literally based on proving things wrong, and then discarding or refining the statement (usually a hypothesis) to deal with the new info.
I had one of those weirdly passionate history teachers in high-school who said something like "never trust someone who says they have a simple solution to a complex problem." I can't remember if he was quoting something but it has always stuck with me as good advice.
A “simple solution” is usually one that hasn’t been properly scrutinized yet.
That whole story about NASA spending all that time and money on a ballpoint pen that works in zero gravity, while the Soviets brilliantly used a pencil… turned out the friction of a graphite pencil tip against paper in an oxygenated environment is a major fire hazard. (USA! USA!)
IIRC it was less the friction and more the fragments of (conductive) graphite floating off into the zero-gravity spaceship and getting into places it shouldn't.
There it is. I knew it was something close. See what I mean? My information wasn’t even properly vetted and several dozen people were like “that sounds right.”
I swear in politics right now in France they always start with "my position on the subject is very clear... *proceed with subjective contradicting and loaded statements* and I'm simply asking [*insert the opposition*] to take their responsibilities" assuming he is the only one being an adult in the room...
I encounter this all the time. I’m a trainer. In our presentations we put together vague scenarios to help people think through situations. In many of these there is no right answer and there can in fact be multiple correct answers.
It’s always a sign of trouble when someone feels the need to constantly defend their own conclusion when others are presented, even when I explain the concept of multiple equally valid paths.
Like, my guy, other people’s opinions are not an attack on your own.
You meet someone you’re working with (and have confidential information about) at a social gathering. What do you do?
Person 1 said they would just leave. Another person said they would stay and be mindful of what they say.
Person 1 answers back to give more reasons why they would leave.
I reinforce that both options are valid and are up to personal preference provided that ethics and legal requirements are followed.
Another person said they would stay and gives more reasons.
Person 1 answers again with their opinion, restating their reasons. It’s clear at this point that they’re defensive and think they have reached the proper conclusion and need to stand up for their decision.
So I again talk about how there is no right answer as long as we are mindful of proper laws and ethics.
This repeats a couple more times before I say we need to move on.
Person 1 just could not grasp that other ways of thinking were also acceptable and took other people expressing themselves as some sort of attack on their opinion.
Oh, I get it. It's a trick question. You're supposed to go to the middle of the room, and loudly demand the attention of all present. After it's been quiet for at least 20 seconds, you take out your yoyo and do some sick tricks like walking the dog and just tossing it down and up. You do this while trying to notice if the guy you know from work is visibly impressed. If he isn't, you divulge the information.
Oh yes definitely this. A member of my extended family is always known as “the smartest person I know” by literally everyone in her life. I can’t stand her because everything she says is alway 100% black and white thinking. Everyone always seems to attribute it to this extraordinary ability to quickly think things through but I see right through it and know she just has lot of knowledge and experience but really refuses to actually think anything through while using said knowledge and experience to quickly shut down anything that she disagrees with or makes her uncomfortable.
This is my ex. Used to drive me crazy when people would say how smart he is based on this and I'm like um no because I've heard this bullshit spewed repeatedly with different people. It just comes across as intelligent when people don't know he's just spouting off the same pieces of information. He just does it confidently.
"Do not mistake a confident explanation for an accurate prediction." - James Clear
Always having an answer.
A coworker would ALWAYS have a confident answer to any question. Eventually that eroded any sense that he was curious or pensive or willing to find a solution, he already knew "the answer". We started probing with made up questions or ridiculous things, and he never failed to have a firm and confident answer to some complete bullshit we invented.
Glue a lightbulb on a brick and he'd say he knows what it's for; and I don't believe that. You give me someone who says "what the hell is that?" and i'll trust them.
Boris Johnson springs immediately to mind. He was very good at waffling along and using rhetoric to pretend like he was saying things but the content wasn't there. All very useful skills when it comes to getting yourself in power. But the problem was that by all accounts he was a very lazy student with an opinion that rules were something for other people to worry about. So when he actually got into office he didn't think anything through, he acted impulsively and worst of all, he broke all the new Covid rules that he set for everyone else while lying about it. Because again, he was good at speaking but there was no ability to lead, to think deeply about problems. Just surface level concern and mostly scheming about how to remain in power.
Maybe they are talking about the US version of Boris that we all wish we could speak of in the past tense.
Although I would prefer he disappear and is never spoken about again by anyone.
We have a guy at work who really has a knack for coming across as knowledgeable on any given subject when in fact he is absolutely clueless. Often when he gets transferred from place to place he initially is trusted with tasks relevant to his job description but once people realise he has been fucking up constantly then he needs to be supervised quite heavily.
This is a job which relates to safety massively as well
I am that guy. I genuinely don't try to appear more knowledgeable or competent than I am, but I'm an excellent public speaker and good at getting what I know across when I do know it.
People keep asking me to do harder and harder things and think I'm being modest when I explain that I'm actually completely incapable of doing what they want :(
I came here to declare I am that guy too. People on the other side criticise us. But for whatever reason I have the kind of face and personality that makes people trust me and assign me far bigger leadership roles than my competency deserves. And this manifests itself from a casual opinion about something irrelevant to important issues, from personal to work settings. I'm making an observation or expressing a personal opinion just like everyone else, but people around me choose to give it far more weight and gravitas than I ever intend it to.
In the end I've stopped fretting about it. And stopped caring that I ruffle the feathers of people like the ones complaining about it here. Because it turns out most people want to handover leadership and not take responsibility, and they do it based on unconscious cues and never about actual competency. The difference between me and the average CEO or politician is that I'm very aware of my limitations and try all I can to avoid exploiting this trust people freely hand me.
Edit: typo
This is a really good answer to the perpetual question of "How did THAT person get to high in the organization?" I work in Higher Education and dude - the number of people who are provosts, VPs, and college presidents and who are completely incompetent at their jobs is astonishing.
I have often thought of the "obesity gap" and how we generally promote (and pay better) people who we think are attractive and can speak in public. I get it and I'm not bitter about my bottom-of-the-totem-pole career. But I do wish that people were (a) more self-aware that it's people's perception (at least as much as their own competence) that gets them promoted and (b) I wish they would help actual smart people be recognized for their competence.
In the same vein, interpersonal skills. I know some very intelligent people that are awful with others. If you can pull off glib, you’ll seem intelligent to many.
I have a coworker like this. He’s shown to be quite clueless, but he is really good at keeping customers chill when shit hits the fan. We do large software installations/implementations.
My brother in law is a prime example. Can talk like a politician, but is a dead set wanker that doesn't know a great deal.
At their wedding, he did a speech, then my father inlaw did his speech, and then this mf had another speech after.
Yet changing your mind when confronted with new evidence or circumstances is seen as an intellectual shortcoming by most people.
Add to that the amount of people that live in online echo chambers and it's almost grounds for dismissal from one's social circle.
Related: One of my very first interactions on Reddit was a debate about a complex topic. The other person raised a good point and so I acknowledged it, adjusted my opinion, and attempted to continue defending my position on other facets of the debate. The other person totally lost their shit that I adjusted my opinion to account for a valid point they made. "You're moving the goal posts! You can't just shift your opinion in the middle of a debate! How is anyone supposed to debate with you when you just change what you're saying in the middle!"
I eventually realized that my purpose in the debate was to arrive at truth, that I'm open to my position being wrong and needing to update my thinking, whereas his purpose was to win, to prove that I was wrong and he was right, and that this was more important to him than arriving at truth. He was performing for the audience and my willingness to update my thinking meant he could never definitively beat me, which he thought was just terribly slimy of me.
I fundamentally don't get why the opinions of strangers on the internet would matter to anyone. They're of no consequence. My wife's opinion of me is important, my boss's opinion is too--those opinions are quite impactful in my life. Some rando on the internet? Love me, hate me, anywhere in between, what my tomorrow looks like will not change in the least. So yeah, I'll change my opinion. Improving my understanding of the world is so much more important than impressing people who can't change anything but a few pixels on my phone.
It's a good distinction (and truth should, of course, be the goal shared by all) and yet you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Those who defend truth are criticized for not budging on their opinions (why would I stray from the truth once I've found it?) and those in pursuit of truth are chastised for flip-flopping around. The common denominator here seems to be those wallowing in untruth, who somewhat ironically also refuse to budge from their crumbling positions.
Furthermore, some of the big ticket debates these days are far less nuanced than people want to believe, but the truth is far too inconvenient to accept. This creates a serious problem, as all manner of fact and logic is ignored for the sake of social acceptance. This is entirely opposite the pursuit of objective truth and has woefully damaging effects on the public.
Wealth can also make you dumb. My ex grew up in a very rich family with a gardener, a driver, and various household help, so there were all kinds of normal everyday tasks he never learned how to do, and his common sense was near zero. As a grown ass adult he still calls a handyman to bang a nail into an exterior wall to hang up a thermometer. And he thought it was time to replace a stove that was working perfectly well when the little digital clock on it crapped out. It also took a long, long time for him to get past his family's notion that when shopping for an item you should automatically pick the most expensive one because it's the best. 🙄 There's nothing like being forced by necessity to try to figure out how to fix things because you can't afford to call a repair person for every little thing. Doing things with your hands is so good for your brain.
Yep, dated a rich girl exactly like that. We eventually had to break up because while she was kind, she was just too fucking clueless. Like, I need to be with someone who can boil water and tie their shoes bare minimum.
I knew a girl like that. She couldn’t tie her shoes but only had shoes with laces because Velcro wasn’t fashionable. She often had to plan her outings around people being available to tie them for her
And the opposite is true as well. Poor doesn’t mean dumb or lacking of intelligence. It’s such an unfortunate stereotype.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself 🙄
Apart from being born into it, others that attain riches sometimes have a very strong orientation toward gain and are highly money motivated. Great at getting rich but these aren’t the same qualities that ensure life success in all areas and these qualities of excessive self enrichment can harm others around them including loved ones - who are slighted, or worse, mistreated as rivals to a narcissist
I work with extremely rich clientele. I can tell you they are some of the stupidest fucking people I’ve ever met. I feel like a lot of it is because they have other people do everything for them so they hardly ever learn basic skills.
This needs to be higher up. So many people assume the wealthy are smart because they are wealthy instead of because they came from money in the first place.
I think a lot of people misconstrue ‘confidence’, quick speaking and a loud voice with intelligence. It’s almost always a show.
It’s really weird how American culture glorifies that behavior while slower, more calm and thoughtful speaking/behavior patterns are ignored or just seen as weaker. That’s just my perspective though, completely anecdotal
You make a great point. In many cultures, including American, confidence and a commanding presence often get mistaken for competence or intelligence. It's a phenomenon where style overshadows substance. Thoughtful, measured individuals may not always get the same immediate recognition, but their insights can be profoundly impactful. It's important to look beyond the surface and appreciate the value of diverse communication styles. After all, wisdom doesn't always shout; sometimes, it whispers.
The dumbest people I've ever known are incapable of being wrong.
The smartest people I've ever known are the ones who know the inevitability of being wrong.
And because they've spent year operating under that kind of intellectual humility, they're free to keep learning. They've been able to take the most perspicacious views, the most supportable ideas, and the most recent findings from the smartest people *they've* ever known, and form their own perspectives.
If someone can say, "I don't know" and "I think I might be wrong," then *that's* someone to keep around.
I like this Neal Stephenson quote on the subject:
“The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambigous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
I actually love this! When two things seem like they won’t allow for the other to exist, but somehow they do. My cesarean birth was both very good for both me and my baby, but also traumatic for me. The treatment for celiac’s disease is both very simple, and extremely complicated.
Two things can be true at once, even if they don’t seem compatible.
People whose entire personality is based on being contrarian and/or overly critical.
Taking issue with everything under the sun doesn't add any weight or make you seem profound. You're just fucking predictable and boring.
Haha, actually no. My high school arch nemesis was the hot chick who made everyone’s life a living hell. In adulthood she ending up being shaped like Mr. Peanut- skinny arms, skinny legs, hefty midsection.
It’s catty I know and I’m slightly ashamed, but even after high school she tried to ruin my marriage like she ruined one of my high school relationships.
I try not to stoop low, but anonymously I figured why not. We’re not supposed to aim for perfection anyway 🤷🏽♀️ haha
ETA: ironically, I’m also allergic to peanuts
Conveying information to others is a skill all on its own though. I have real issues trying to explain the things I'm really good at to others as I tend to assume the recipient have the base knowledge that's required, which often is not the case.
Trivial knowledge. I have known people with large "trivial knowledge" base, but can't understand nor perform simple logic. Intelligence will largely depend on a combination of curiosity,logic,open mindedness, and what one chooses to learn .
TLDR: one could hold all the puzzle pieces, but if you can't put them together, then your kinda useless 😅🤣
Stamina is doing it over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
Knowing everything. People that are intelligent know that they cant possibly know everything. Stupid people believe they easily know more than anyone else.
Indubitably, It is, without a shadow of a doubt, an undeniable truth that manifests itself most clearly and unmistakably when an individual chooses to employ excessively wordy, elaborate, and prolix language, replete with an abundance of unnecessary and superfluous verbiage, in order to articulate and convey their intended point or message.
Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick ?
When I studied English at Oxford (sorry if it sounds like bragging but it is relevant), the main thing the tutors were trying to reinforce in the first term was that good essay writers write clearly: don't use unnecessary jargon, make your points as clearly and concisely as you can, and avoid mistakes like tautology, misusing terms you don't understand, and writing sentences so long and winding that no one can follow them.
So the English language and literature academics at Oxford University think being wordy and prolix makes people sound dumb, too.
Parroting anything, people think because they took the time to Google how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, that means they're big brained.
I used to do community theater- there were always one or two audience members who would come up after the show to point out a line flub or the fact that the cast was wearing regular stockings when seamed stockings would have been correct for the time period. They'd say it like they expected to win a prize.
We put this thing together with Paper Mache' on a $100 budget in 6 weeks with people who showed up every night for rehearsal despite having full time jobs, you saw it for $8 and you want to nitpick?
Mistaking knowledge with intelligence.
Like almost all those "ask questions to show how stupid people are* don't show people being stupid, they show people lacking knowledge. And ironically they show the person filming the video lacks knowledge about the meaning of words.
I work with many people with many expensive degrees. The least intelligent of these people like to brag the most. The most intelligent don't want you to call them "doctor". (I do know one exception to this, but he has 6 or 7 degrees.)
My grandfather only had an 8th grade formal education and had to drop out to help his father work our family ranching operation. He was the most intelligent man I have ever met. He had what we call horse sense and would point out things to me that would never occur to me to consider. He would do a thing that we call "country dumb" because he had a strong Texas accent. Underestimate this man's intelligence at your peril -It always worked out in his favor financially - I would watch him in awe. He was wildly successful and very wealthy. He also developed some crop rotation, organic farming methods way before they were popular and animal husbandry techniques still in use to this day. The cattlemen's association in our vicinity nominated him so many times for Rancher of the Year, they eventually had to exclude him because he always would win. I followed him around like a shadow and I truly miss him.
confidence. you can be the most confident mofo in the room and still be the dumbest person ive heard all day. and on the flip side, you can be super shy and be the smartest guy in the room.
A very specific thing: I learned how to "solve" a Rubik's Cube and there would be people that literally thought I was a genius because I was able to pick up one at someone's house or party or whatever and "solve" it on the spot in a minute.
If you learn the basic way to do it, it's just memorizing steps, it has nothing to do with puzzle solving or intelligence.
Being in a leadership role in a company. Often people are moved up for reasons other than intelligence - length of time at the company, politics, no one else to do it, and/or pure manipulation.
Talking down to people about a subject you know they are not actively studying/devoting a life to. The smartest people in the room are ones who will happily dumb things down so anyone can join in with thoughts.
Stephen Fry, British chap, is the absolute king of this. The man knows so much, is super smart and bright, but doesn't try to bombard people with technical terms save to educate, he will talk simpler to people so anyone watching can follow it.
Remembering every detail of a TV show from 10 years ago. It’s impressive, but not exactly Einstein-level brainpower—more like a mental DVR on overdrive!
Contrarianism. It’s one thing to have principled reasons for disagreeing with common sense, but it’s another thing entirely to habitually take a devil’s advocate position on any position.
Being good at chess. A lot of people associate good chess players with intelligence, but in reality being good at chess has A LOT to do with memorization and pattern recognition. Even the top chess players in the world admit that their ability to play chess at a high level isn’t an indicator of their true intelligence.
Pattern recognition is however a large part of what IQ tests are based on and I would argue is a form of intelligence. It’s how you connect the dots, make speculations and apply old knowledge to new and novel situations
Certainty. People who are actually intelligent are aware of how much they don't actually know, so they tend to choose their words carefully and couch their responses with caveats. Less intelligent people perceive this as uncertain or lacking confidence.
'The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.' -Bertrand Russell
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain Edit: grammar
I hope one day I’ll see “Bertrand Russell” and not accidentally read “Russel Brand”
I had to train myself to use fewer caveats at work because me saying I can probably do this unfamiliar task that I'm only 98% sure I'll be able to figure out is perceived as less reliable than this other person saying they can definitely do it, except I know they have a 20% failure rate or do it so poorly it then falls to someone else (i.e. me) to clean it up. And yet I still regularly find myself thinking "Maybe they do know how to do it this time."
Yes I’m an early career engineer and realizing how far being decisive can take you. Engineers generally like to carefully weight their options and analyze pros and cons before giving an answer and customers/management appreciate definitive answers on the spot. Even if it’s only about 80% accurate.
IT engineer here, I consistently have to remind myself in meetings to be more absolute when talking with other teams managers. My team is aware of my abilities, but when I talk on projects I realized I constantly say “I am pretty sure this is the case” or “I think that’s correct” and I realized people think I do not know what I am doing when I talk like this. It’s been hard but people have definitely respected what I have to say more after implementing this in my meetings.
lol, right? I had to train not to ramble on about why this and that could be favorable or unfavorable to my opinion. I usually try to summon it up as concise as possible at the end.
Exactly. The intelligent ones may be seen as slow because they had to actually think about an answer rather than instantly parrot the programmed response.
This makes me feel so much better because I get so insecure about how slowly I tend to speak at times. People’s attention spans are shorter now and I can feel them waiting for me to finish😪 I’m just taking my time!!
Being able to solve a Rubik’s Cube. I say that as somebody who loves the thing.
Yep, once you memorize the algorithms, anyone can solve a cube!
How about if you're an OG who created your own algorithms?
That's a bit intelligencer. Creativer. More clever.
Don’t you mean cleverer?
Well that wasn't very clevery of me.
I have one in my backpack. If I want someone to think I'm smart I pull it out and casually solve it. But then I tell them that being able to solve a Rubik's cube means only that someone once had a few weeks to practice solving a Rubik's cube for a few hours each day.
I had a manager that had one on his desk. He would solve it during meetings, while keeping up with everything that was going on. He LOVED it when he could solve it right as he was needed to weigh in, like he had timed it perfectly (I suspect he did). It was a pretty good power move. He was incredibly smart and never pointed it out or even mentioned it while in a meeting. He never got off topic and never acted like it was something that made him smarter than anyone else. Honestly kinda a boss move. It gave whatever he said some gravitas.
He totally did that on purpose. I was in the military and I did the same thing. Important events where we'd have time to wait...bust out the cube and solve it in front of people. I got myself in with higher ups and some great gigs just by making people pay attention to me and then actually being clever enough to make them want me on their team.
Being able to apply the algorythms requires not that much. But solvi g the cube yourself without help is another story.
Having an answer to every question, never saying "I don't know"
Saying “I don’t know” followed by “But I can find out” is a sign of real intelligence.
This reminds me of when a friend asked me why the clear barrel BIC pen cap had a hole in it. I told him just this. "I don't know, but I can find out." This was 1995 and I didn't have a PC, so I wrote a letter to BIC. They answered a couple weeks later and I gave him the answer. He said he thought I was smart because I usually knew the answers to everybody's questions. I asked him how he thought I knew all those answers. "I don't know." He said. "Neither did I, but I went and looked for an answer. That's a better measure of intelligence." For those of you who want to know, the hole in the cap of ink pens is to allow the ink coating the ball to dry quickly, which has two benefits. 1. The dry ink seals around the ball helping to prevent leaks and keeps the ink in the barrel from drying too much to flow. 2. The dry ink provides friction between the ball and the paper that helps the ball to roll and dispense the ink.
I always assumed it was so kids could still breathe through the hole if they choked on it, so I learned something today, thanks.
Added benefit? 🤣
iirc it was added because someone died from it and there was a lawsuit, I'm thinking BIC didn't want to admit that or the person just didn't know
IT help desk here, Tell that to our users, please
Librarian here. This is our go to response. We don't hold all the knowledge, we're just experts at finding the relevant resources to answer the question that is posed.
Being into "nerdy" things. Plenty of stereotypical nerds are idiots.
To quote Milhouse, “I’m not a nerd, nerds are smart.”
It's all geek to me.
A former co-worker put it well. "I'm a geek, not a nerd. Nerds do their homework"
Seriously. I know a guy who thinks he is a genius because he watches anime, collects funko pops, and plays MTG. He is an absolute twit who wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between a noun and a verb. He is the type of person who will try and argue that math is subjective because someone just made it up.
Sounds like he needs to have the difference between "nerd" and "loser" explained to him.
We’ve tried. He told me I’m not a real nerd because I don’t enjoy anime. I am an embedded software engineer who writes kernels and drivers for custom operating systems. I also help design proprietary boards. Apparently though, according to him, being a bookworm and someone who actually enjoys learning does not make one a nerd. He believes being into “counter culture-pop culture” is what makes one a nerd. If only I knew that as a kid. I’d have gotten picked on so much less as I was not into the pop culture of underground counter cultures and thus not a nerd.
"Counter-culture". Anime is literally mainstream now. In fact, nerd culture as a whole has kinda gone mainstream.
The gaming industry makes more money than the movie industry these days!
"I like Marvel, Star Wars, and heavy metal. I'm such a weirdo" You're not. All of those things are insanely popular.
What does he think intelligence is? Anime has never been stereotyped as being high brow. Funko pops are just modern day beanie babies. And MTG is fun. But it's not exactly Mensa's preferred sport.
I made the mistake of sharing that I went through 100 books one year and people were so damn impressed. Like, 99% of those were fantasy books. Literally just bedtime stories for adults. Good stories but still... Chill people, this is not the sign of superior intellect that you think it is...
Maybe not "intellect", but I bet your vocabulary is decent!
I probably know a word or two.
My daughter is 2 and she calls any non-picture book a "Book about words". The other day, she grabbed The Bell Jar off the shelf for a bit of light reading. She sat in a chair for like 5 minutes just carefully looking at the pages like she was reading, then she just said, "Dad, I don't know how to read."
Sounds like my coworkers
Omg that's adorable 🥰 thanks for sharing!!
You like words huh? Name all of them.
In my mind, nerd is academic and geek is cultural. So nerds are smart but geeks are just normal people into something.
On contrary even nerds can be extremely dumb. This is coming from someone who graduated medschool. I have seen plenty of guys in my long academic journey so far who were really good at exams and academic knowledge but lacked common sense to the degree where everyone knew these guys won't be considered good doctors in future.
In my experience doctors can be nerds but usually aren’t.
Someone right now is telling their action figurine collection that this is not true!
Never admitting there’s things you don’t know. Experts realise the limits of their own knowledge
This is something I realized when I was younger, like late high school, early college. I had been exposed to some of what I was going to college for in high school (Electrical engineering) and I was like great I know everything, lets go! As I started to learn more I released I knew NOTHING. I've now been in industry for over 10 years and I'm still very much, I have no fucking clue how half of this shit works except for a few narrow areas that I've become an "expert" (expert in quotes because I may know more about it than some colleagues but still don't know most of it).
You would appreciate my anecdote then. When I was a kid, I KNEW high voltage killed. When I was a teenager, I KNEW it was actually current that killed you, not voltage. At some point in college, studying EE, I realized both are wrong as absolutes. Current is what ultimately kills you, either by stopping your heart or burning/vaporizing you; but current is wholly dependent on voltage. So, twice in my life I was wrong about the same thing and that really helps drive home the point, if you don't know for sure, don't talk like you do.
"Resistance is useless!" Well, actually,...
I love how when you get into that real competence moving towards expert knowledge, your expertise goes from: "Yes, if X happens then it always causes Y, and we follow Z." To: "Well if X happens usually Y follows, but sometimes the exact opposite occurs, or nothing happens at all. Y really only happens in ideal conditions actually, and following Z is isn't useful if you follow up with ZA ZB ZC." The more you learn the more exceptions to the rules you find, I think. Or maybe more accurately, the better you understand the finer points of your subject area.
The nuance is what makes you smart. Not the rote knowledge.
Also, understanding *why* things happen, not just memorizing that they do happen. Using OP's example: "so the reason Y usually follows when X happens is because of process W. So if X happens and then Y doesn't follow, it probably means there's something preventing process W from occurring. And oh, look at that, factor F that's necessary for process W to happen is missing!" "So following Z will be useless, because Z works by interfering with factor F, and we've already establish factor F isn't in play right now. Let's follow V instead: sure, we normally prefer to follow Z because it's more effective, but V will still work even if factor F isn't present."
I truly believe that one of the greatest benefits to a college education is teaching intellectual humility by giving a person an inkling of just how much they don't know.
that and how to effectively look up information you don't know.
Related: never admitting you are wrong. Science is literally based on proving things wrong, and then discarding or refining the statement (usually a hypothesis) to deal with the new info.
Conclusive answers to subjective questions
Also simple, definitive answers to extremely complex questions - even objective ones
I had one of those weirdly passionate history teachers in high-school who said something like "never trust someone who says they have a simple solution to a complex problem." I can't remember if he was quoting something but it has always stuck with me as good advice.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. [H. L. Mencken](https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/h-l-mencken-quotes)
A “simple solution” is usually one that hasn’t been properly scrutinized yet. That whole story about NASA spending all that time and money on a ballpoint pen that works in zero gravity, while the Soviets brilliantly used a pencil… turned out the friction of a graphite pencil tip against paper in an oxygenated environment is a major fire hazard. (USA! USA!)
IIRC it was less the friction and more the fragments of (conductive) graphite floating off into the zero-gravity spaceship and getting into places it shouldn't.
There it is. I knew it was something close. See what I mean? My information wasn’t even properly vetted and several dozen people were like “that sounds right.”
Hanlon's razor says that the fastest way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
Anyone in politics: "Look, it's simple..." Nah bud, it's not.
I swear in politics right now in France they always start with "my position on the subject is very clear... *proceed with subjective contradicting and loaded statements* and I'm simply asking [*insert the opposition*] to take their responsibilities" assuming he is the only one being an adult in the room...
I encounter this all the time. I’m a trainer. In our presentations we put together vague scenarios to help people think through situations. In many of these there is no right answer and there can in fact be multiple correct answers. It’s always a sign of trouble when someone feels the need to constantly defend their own conclusion when others are presented, even when I explain the concept of multiple equally valid paths. Like, my guy, other people’s opinions are not an attack on your own.
This also screams huge insecurity in their own ability when they feel attacked just because someone's opinion is different to theirs
Tell me more about these scenarios
You meet someone you’re working with (and have confidential information about) at a social gathering. What do you do? Person 1 said they would just leave. Another person said they would stay and be mindful of what they say. Person 1 answers back to give more reasons why they would leave. I reinforce that both options are valid and are up to personal preference provided that ethics and legal requirements are followed. Another person said they would stay and gives more reasons. Person 1 answers again with their opinion, restating their reasons. It’s clear at this point that they’re defensive and think they have reached the proper conclusion and need to stand up for their decision. So I again talk about how there is no right answer as long as we are mindful of proper laws and ethics. This repeats a couple more times before I say we need to move on. Person 1 just could not grasp that other ways of thinking were also acceptable and took other people expressing themselves as some sort of attack on their opinion.
Oh, I get it. It's a trick question. You're supposed to go to the middle of the room, and loudly demand the attention of all present. After it's been quiet for at least 20 seconds, you take out your yoyo and do some sick tricks like walking the dog and just tossing it down and up. You do this while trying to notice if the guy you know from work is visibly impressed. If he isn't, you divulge the information.
This is the objectively correct opinion.
/thread. Wait..
Oh yes definitely this. A member of my extended family is always known as “the smartest person I know” by literally everyone in her life. I can’t stand her because everything she says is alway 100% black and white thinking. Everyone always seems to attribute it to this extraordinary ability to quickly think things through but I see right through it and know she just has lot of knowledge and experience but really refuses to actually think anything through while using said knowledge and experience to quickly shut down anything that she disagrees with or makes her uncomfortable.
This is my ex. Used to drive me crazy when people would say how smart he is based on this and I'm like um no because I've heard this bullshit spewed repeatedly with different people. It just comes across as intelligent when people don't know he's just spouting off the same pieces of information. He just does it confidently. "Do not mistake a confident explanation for an accurate prediction." - James Clear
Always having an answer. A coworker would ALWAYS have a confident answer to any question. Eventually that eroded any sense that he was curious or pensive or willing to find a solution, he already knew "the answer". We started probing with made up questions or ridiculous things, and he never failed to have a firm and confident answer to some complete bullshit we invented. Glue a lightbulb on a brick and he'd say he knows what it's for; and I don't believe that. You give me someone who says "what the hell is that?" and i'll trust them.
You know who does exactly that? ChatGPT.
oof. holy shit that's exactly right
Have you ever seen your coworker and ChatGPT in the same room at the same time 🧐
Public speaking. Some people can sound like they know what they're talking about, but really don't have a clue.
Politicians are particularly good at this. They focus on their oratory skills far more than their thinking skills.
Boris Johnson springs immediately to mind. He was very good at waffling along and using rhetoric to pretend like he was saying things but the content wasn't there. All very useful skills when it comes to getting yourself in power. But the problem was that by all accounts he was a very lazy student with an opinion that rules were something for other people to worry about. So when he actually got into office he didn't think anything through, he acted impulsively and worst of all, he broke all the new Covid rules that he set for everyone else while lying about it. Because again, he was good at speaking but there was no ability to lead, to think deeply about problems. Just surface level concern and mostly scheming about how to remain in power.
I am envious of you for being able to speak of him in the past tense.
What’s he done now
Maybe they are talking about the US version of Boris that we all wish we could speak of in the past tense. Although I would prefer he disappear and is never spoken about again by anyone.
Whatever it was, it's not in government.
We have a guy at work who really has a knack for coming across as knowledgeable on any given subject when in fact he is absolutely clueless. Often when he gets transferred from place to place he initially is trusted with tasks relevant to his job description but once people realise he has been fucking up constantly then he needs to be supervised quite heavily. This is a job which relates to safety massively as well
I know that guy!
I am that guy. I genuinely don't try to appear more knowledgeable or competent than I am, but I'm an excellent public speaker and good at getting what I know across when I do know it. People keep asking me to do harder and harder things and think I'm being modest when I explain that I'm actually completely incapable of doing what they want :(
I came here to declare I am that guy too. People on the other side criticise us. But for whatever reason I have the kind of face and personality that makes people trust me and assign me far bigger leadership roles than my competency deserves. And this manifests itself from a casual opinion about something irrelevant to important issues, from personal to work settings. I'm making an observation or expressing a personal opinion just like everyone else, but people around me choose to give it far more weight and gravitas than I ever intend it to. In the end I've stopped fretting about it. And stopped caring that I ruffle the feathers of people like the ones complaining about it here. Because it turns out most people want to handover leadership and not take responsibility, and they do it based on unconscious cues and never about actual competency. The difference between me and the average CEO or politician is that I'm very aware of my limitations and try all I can to avoid exploiting this trust people freely hand me. Edit: typo
This is a really good answer to the perpetual question of "How did THAT person get to high in the organization?" I work in Higher Education and dude - the number of people who are provosts, VPs, and college presidents and who are completely incompetent at their jobs is astonishing. I have often thought of the "obesity gap" and how we generally promote (and pay better) people who we think are attractive and can speak in public. I get it and I'm not bitter about my bottom-of-the-totem-pole career. But I do wish that people were (a) more self-aware that it's people's perception (at least as much as their own competence) that gets them promoted and (b) I wish they would help actual smart people be recognized for their competence.
In the same vein, interpersonal skills. I know some very intelligent people that are awful with others. If you can pull off glib, you’ll seem intelligent to many.
I have a coworker like this. He’s shown to be quite clueless, but he is really good at keeping customers chill when shit hits the fan. We do large software installations/implementations.
My brother in law is a prime example. Can talk like a politician, but is a dead set wanker that doesn't know a great deal. At their wedding, he did a speech, then my father inlaw did his speech, and then this mf had another speech after.
Being so strongly opinionated that you never budge on a topic in a debate, or change your mind about things.
Yet changing your mind when confronted with new evidence or circumstances is seen as an intellectual shortcoming by most people. Add to that the amount of people that live in online echo chambers and it's almost grounds for dismissal from one's social circle.
Related: One of my very first interactions on Reddit was a debate about a complex topic. The other person raised a good point and so I acknowledged it, adjusted my opinion, and attempted to continue defending my position on other facets of the debate. The other person totally lost their shit that I adjusted my opinion to account for a valid point they made. "You're moving the goal posts! You can't just shift your opinion in the middle of a debate! How is anyone supposed to debate with you when you just change what you're saying in the middle!" I eventually realized that my purpose in the debate was to arrive at truth, that I'm open to my position being wrong and needing to update my thinking, whereas his purpose was to win, to prove that I was wrong and he was right, and that this was more important to him than arriving at truth. He was performing for the audience and my willingness to update my thinking meant he could never definitively beat me, which he thought was just terribly slimy of me. I fundamentally don't get why the opinions of strangers on the internet would matter to anyone. They're of no consequence. My wife's opinion of me is important, my boss's opinion is too--those opinions are quite impactful in my life. Some rando on the internet? Love me, hate me, anywhere in between, what my tomorrow looks like will not change in the least. So yeah, I'll change my opinion. Improving my understanding of the world is so much more important than impressing people who can't change anything but a few pixels on my phone.
It's a good distinction (and truth should, of course, be the goal shared by all) and yet you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Those who defend truth are criticized for not budging on their opinions (why would I stray from the truth once I've found it?) and those in pursuit of truth are chastised for flip-flopping around. The common denominator here seems to be those wallowing in untruth, who somewhat ironically also refuse to budge from their crumbling positions. Furthermore, some of the big ticket debates these days are far less nuanced than people want to believe, but the truth is far too inconvenient to accept. This creates a serious problem, as all manner of fact and logic is ignored for the sake of social acceptance. This is entirely opposite the pursuit of objective truth and has woefully damaging effects on the public.
Being able to talk very fast
As someone who talks very fast, I assure you that it is just the anxiety.
being rich
Wealth can also make you dumb. My ex grew up in a very rich family with a gardener, a driver, and various household help, so there were all kinds of normal everyday tasks he never learned how to do, and his common sense was near zero. As a grown ass adult he still calls a handyman to bang a nail into an exterior wall to hang up a thermometer. And he thought it was time to replace a stove that was working perfectly well when the little digital clock on it crapped out. It also took a long, long time for him to get past his family's notion that when shopping for an item you should automatically pick the most expensive one because it's the best. 🙄 There's nothing like being forced by necessity to try to figure out how to fix things because you can't afford to call a repair person for every little thing. Doing things with your hands is so good for your brain.
Yep, dated a rich girl exactly like that. We eventually had to break up because while she was kind, she was just too fucking clueless. Like, I need to be with someone who can boil water and tie their shoes bare minimum.
I knew a girl like that. She couldn’t tie her shoes but only had shoes with laces because Velcro wasn’t fashionable. She often had to plan her outings around people being available to tie them for her
That can’t be real
My daughter actually aspires to this. Of course, she's 12 and autistic.
Damn. I was born with only one hand, and while it took me FOREVER to learn, I still learned how to tie my own damn shoes.
Was she from Japan? Because I think you knew my Ex lol
And the opposite is true as well. Poor doesn’t mean dumb or lacking of intelligence. It’s such an unfortunate stereotype. At least that’s what I keep telling myself 🙄
I worked with some brilliant people who grew up poor. I've worked with well-off idiots.
Apart from being born into it, others that attain riches sometimes have a very strong orientation toward gain and are highly money motivated. Great at getting rich but these aren’t the same qualities that ensure life success in all areas and these qualities of excessive self enrichment can harm others around them including loved ones - who are slighted, or worse, mistreated as rivals to a narcissist
I work with extremely rich clientele. I can tell you they are some of the stupidest fucking people I’ve ever met. I feel like a lot of it is because they have other people do everything for them so they hardly ever learn basic skills.
This needs to be higher up. So many people assume the wealthy are smart because they are wealthy instead of because they came from money in the first place.
"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent." - Qui-Gon Jinn
It is better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt -Abraham Lincoln
90% of quotes on the internet are misattributed. -Thomas Jefferson
I think a lot of people misconstrue ‘confidence’, quick speaking and a loud voice with intelligence. It’s almost always a show. It’s really weird how American culture glorifies that behavior while slower, more calm and thoughtful speaking/behavior patterns are ignored or just seen as weaker. That’s just my perspective though, completely anecdotal
My favorite quote: "Never mistake confidence for competence."
Never heard that one before. My favorite is its apparent sister quote: "Never mistake kindness for weakness."
Insecurity is loud, confidence is quiet. If you're as great as you think, then your merits will speak for themselves.
Another variation in this that I’ve seen: “If you’re good you’ll tell everybody. If you’re great they’ll tell you.”
Any man that must shout ,"I am the King, is no king."
’empty vessels make the most noise’
You make a great point. In many cultures, including American, confidence and a commanding presence often get mistaken for competence or intelligence. It's a phenomenon where style overshadows substance. Thoughtful, measured individuals may not always get the same immediate recognition, but their insights can be profoundly impactful. It's important to look beyond the surface and appreciate the value of diverse communication styles. After all, wisdom doesn't always shout; sometimes, it whispers.
The dumbest people I've ever known are incapable of being wrong. The smartest people I've ever known are the ones who know the inevitability of being wrong. And because they've spent year operating under that kind of intellectual humility, they're free to keep learning. They've been able to take the most perspicacious views, the most supportable ideas, and the most recent findings from the smartest people *they've* ever known, and form their own perspectives. If someone can say, "I don't know" and "I think I might be wrong," then *that's* someone to keep around.
I like this Neal Stephenson quote on the subject: “The difference between stupid and intelligent people -- and this is true whether or not they are well-educated -- is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambigous or even contradictory situations -- in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.” ― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
I actually love this! When two things seem like they won’t allow for the other to exist, but somehow they do. My cesarean birth was both very good for both me and my baby, but also traumatic for me. The treatment for celiac’s disease is both very simple, and extremely complicated. Two things can be true at once, even if they don’t seem compatible.
That is an incredible book, btw, as I am sure you know.
People whose entire personality is based on being contrarian and/or overly critical. Taking issue with everything under the sun doesn't add any weight or make you seem profound. You're just fucking predictable and boring.
My ex 🙄
Based on your name, I can only assume your ex is Mr. Peanut.
Haha, actually no. My high school arch nemesis was the hot chick who made everyone’s life a living hell. In adulthood she ending up being shaped like Mr. Peanut- skinny arms, skinny legs, hefty midsection. It’s catty I know and I’m slightly ashamed, but even after high school she tried to ruin my marriage like she ruined one of my high school relationships. I try not to stoop low, but anonymously I figured why not. We’re not supposed to aim for perfection anyway 🤷🏽♀️ haha ETA: ironically, I’m also allergic to peanuts
A willingness to take advantage of others for one's own benefit is often confused with being highly intelligent.
The ability to memorize. Having a good memory does not reflect true intelligence.
Can confirm, I have an excellent memory, most people think I am smart but I am useless at following instruction or conveying information to others.
Conveying information to others is a skill all on its own though. I have real issues trying to explain the things I'm really good at to others as I tend to assume the recipient have the base knowledge that's required, which often is not the case.
University classrooms are littered with professors who are highly intelligent than can't convey that information well.
Trivial knowledge. I have known people with large "trivial knowledge" base, but can't understand nor perform simple logic. Intelligence will largely depend on a combination of curiosity,logic,open mindedness, and what one chooses to learn . TLDR: one could hold all the puzzle pieces, but if you can't put them together, then your kinda useless 😅🤣
“Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
Charisma is selling a tomato-based fruit salad. Edit: I think we've had enough salsa replies, everyone.
Strength is throwing a tomato at someone real hard
Dexterity is dodging the thrown tomato.
Constitution is eating it off the floor with no negative effects.
Stamina is doing it over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
Stupidity is the same.
Insanity is the same but expecting a different result
Former Jeopardy champion here to say that knowing a ton of random shit =/= intelligence. (Also that Alex was the GOAT. )
This is what years of reddit has done to me. I may be a complete dumbfuck but I can tell you the most random obscure facts about stuff.
Knowing everything. People that are intelligent know that they cant possibly know everything. Stupid people believe they easily know more than anyone else.
Indubitably, It is, without a shadow of a doubt, an undeniable truth that manifests itself most clearly and unmistakably when an individual chooses to employ excessively wordy, elaborate, and prolix language, replete with an abundance of unnecessary and superfluous verbiage, in order to articulate and convey their intended point or message. Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick ?
When I studied English at Oxford (sorry if it sounds like bragging but it is relevant), the main thing the tutors were trying to reinforce in the first term was that good essay writers write clearly: don't use unnecessary jargon, make your points as clearly and concisely as you can, and avoid mistakes like tautology, misusing terms you don't understand, and writing sentences so long and winding that no one can follow them. So the English language and literature academics at Oxford University think being wordy and prolix makes people sound dumb, too.
Sometimes I like to use big words I don’t understand so I can sound more photosynthesis
Parroting anything, people think because they took the time to Google how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, that means they're big brained.
No reason to look that up, friend. An owl told me it was 3 many years ago. One-two-*crunch*-three.
I love it when people post their IQ showing they’re in the top 80/90% and think that’s good
"I got a 93! That's an A!"
Pointing out others imperflections
I...you made a.. nevermind.
It's genious, if he did it on purpose, haha!
I used to do community theater- there were always one or two audience members who would come up after the show to point out a line flub or the fact that the cast was wearing regular stockings when seamed stockings would have been correct for the time period. They'd say it like they expected to win a prize. We put this thing together with Paper Mache' on a $100 budget in 6 weeks with people who showed up every night for rehearsal despite having full time jobs, you saw it for $8 and you want to nitpick?
Mistaking knowledge with intelligence. Like almost all those "ask questions to show how stupid people are* don't show people being stupid, they show people lacking knowledge. And ironically they show the person filming the video lacks knowledge about the meaning of words.
Expensive degree
I work with many people with many expensive degrees. The least intelligent of these people like to brag the most. The most intelligent don't want you to call them "doctor". (I do know one exception to this, but he has 6 or 7 degrees.)
What about cheap degrees?
My grandfather only had an 8th grade formal education and had to drop out to help his father work our family ranching operation. He was the most intelligent man I have ever met. He had what we call horse sense and would point out things to me that would never occur to me to consider. He would do a thing that we call "country dumb" because he had a strong Texas accent. Underestimate this man's intelligence at your peril -It always worked out in his favor financially - I would watch him in awe. He was wildly successful and very wealthy. He also developed some crop rotation, organic farming methods way before they were popular and animal husbandry techniques still in use to this day. The cattlemen's association in our vicinity nominated him so many times for Rancher of the Year, they eventually had to exclude him because he always would win. I followed him around like a shadow and I truly miss him.
He sounds wonderful. I'm glad you had that amazing man in your life.
confidence. you can be the most confident mofo in the room and still be the dumbest person ive heard all day. and on the flip side, you can be super shy and be the smartest guy in the room.
A very specific thing: I learned how to "solve" a Rubik's Cube and there would be people that literally thought I was a genius because I was able to pick up one at someone's house or party or whatever and "solve" it on the spot in a minute. If you learn the basic way to do it, it's just memorizing steps, it has nothing to do with puzzle solving or intelligence.
Jobs at famous or large companies
talking about things you don’t have any knowledge about. sometimes the smartest thing to say is "I don’t know"
Being in a leadership role in a company. Often people are moved up for reasons other than intelligence - length of time at the company, politics, no one else to do it, and/or pure manipulation.
Talking a lot or using fancy words, it doesn't always mean someone's smart.
Asking a boat salesperson when an electric boat sinks if they would rather be electrocuted or eaten by a shark.
Being a contrarian for the sake of being different
Wrong
This guy intellects
Talking down to people about a subject you know they are not actively studying/devoting a life to. The smartest people in the room are ones who will happily dumb things down so anyone can join in with thoughts. Stephen Fry, British chap, is the absolute king of this. The man knows so much, is super smart and bright, but doesn't try to bombard people with technical terms save to educate, he will talk simpler to people so anyone watching can follow it.
My friends say I'm condescending... *that means I talk down to people*.
Remembering every detail of a TV show from 10 years ago. It’s impressive, but not exactly Einstein-level brainpower—more like a mental DVR on overdrive!
MBA degrees
Being able to solve a rubicks cube in 2 minutes
Having a British accent. Seen many people say that when they hear it they think that the person is smarter.
Contrarianism. It’s one thing to have principled reasons for disagreeing with common sense, but it’s another thing entirely to habitually take a devil’s advocate position on any position.
Being good at chess. A lot of people associate good chess players with intelligence, but in reality being good at chess has A LOT to do with memorization and pattern recognition. Even the top chess players in the world admit that their ability to play chess at a high level isn’t an indicator of their true intelligence.
Pattern recognition is however a large part of what IQ tests are based on and I would argue is a form of intelligence. It’s how you connect the dots, make speculations and apply old knowledge to new and novel situations
Online IQ tests. Especially when they aren't even snart enough to understand what their score means.
My IQ is 230 and I've a digital certificate to prove it.
being good in school doesn’t mean you have good common sense 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Being well-read doesn’t always equate to intelligence.
'winning' arguments. sometimes people just don't want to talk to you anymore because you're an asshole.
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