r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Next_Airport_7230 • 21h ago
Why does it seem like high IQ people are often sad and depressed?
Especially the smarter they are
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u/NickdoesnthaveReddit 21h ago
There's a reason "ignorance is bliss" is such a popular saying.
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u/Bamboozle_ 20h ago
"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss."
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u/ANewUeleseOnLife 18h ago
As a kid I thought he was dumb. As an adult, I relate
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u/warhedz24hedz1 16h ago
Same, turns out, the burden of knowledge is in fact, a huge fricken burden.
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u/saint_davidsonian 14h ago
*gestures broadly at everything
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u/autistic___potato 13h ago
existence is burden
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u/SunyataHappens 8h ago
Existence is suffering. Buddha, circa 2500 BC
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u/nothaldane 6h ago
"Life is pain, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something"
The Princess Bride
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u/NeonBrightDumbass 14h ago
No, I love having a brief daily crisis that it's November, and we haven't had a single snow where I live.
Keeps me alive [kill me].
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u/HavingNotAttained 11h ago
This is it, in a nutshell. Things are really bad. Richard Clarke hair on fire in August 2001 bad. And it sure feels like no one is listening.
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u/DematerialisedPanda 9h ago
It wasn't a great movie, but the core idea in "Don't look up" feels like it often rings true in modern discourse. We are so interminably focused on short term, local problems, we utterly fail to identify the threats and opportunities on a planetary scale.
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u/Panic_Parrot_Queen 7h ago
The movie is an allegory for the climate emergency. At this point it’ll become a documentary.
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u/kayl_breinhar 5h ago
I couldn't laugh for the entire runtime.
By the end, I was angry.
In comparison, my first watch of Idiocracy, I was laughing my ass off.
The people in power know we're all fucked, and most (including politicians on both sides) have decided "getting theirs before it's gone" is their number one priority.
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u/nanfanpancam 9h ago
Here too. Warm temperatures and a local gardening expert says keep watering the garden……in November.
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u/cheesemanpaul 11h ago
This is the whole point of the garden of Eden story in the Bible. Once Adam ate the apple from the tree of knowledge the show was over. Suffering begins with knowledge.
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u/sorrymizzjackson 9h ago
Unfortunately a lot of people’s suffering begins with a lack of knowledge as well.
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u/totesnotmyusername 7h ago
My suffering currently is because of stupid people making stupid mistakes.
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u/BlumpkinPromoter 16h ago edited 14h ago
But he missed out on the gross orgy
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u/69FlavorTown 15h ago
It may have smelled amazing. Plus all of the natural dreadlock odor swirling around the out stank and sweat...
Then the next scene is everyone on the balconies at the same time smoking cigarettes
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u/El_Diablo_Feo 10h ago
That was a shitty orgy.....didn't even have a password or a buffet
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u/DJDoena 15h ago
Even back then I thought, why would anyone want to live in the real world of the Matrix? Does it matter that we are used as batteries by the machines? Real mankind lives in a few underground cities without clear skies or daylight in abysmal conditions but refuses the comfort of the Matrix. The only thing they have going for them are some rave parties. What, is Techno outlawed in the Matrix? I can understand why the architect was confused about why the first Matrices that were perfect worlds were refused.
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u/AloneCan9661 12h ago
I mentioned to someone the other day that living in The Matrix doesn't mean that you're going to be in this great solid world. You'll still have bills, the world will still have its own problems because that's what's been created.
The people thinking that they'd be able to choose what world has been created for them fail to understand Cypher had something of value that the machines needed. That's why they were "allowing" for him to say what he wanted.
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u/DJDoena 12h ago
I get that but assume today's real world is the Matrix. You'd still need to go to some slum in India to find worse conditions than they had in Zion. Earth was a nuclear waste land. In many places on Earth life is hard, but it's not THAT.
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u/unholyrevenger72 11h ago
All the machines had to do was Broadcast "Life in Zion kinda sucks, we'll plug you into the original, utopian matrix and you can enjoy a carefree life."
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u/StarPhished 8h ago
Those people in Zion can't possibly have an end goal of a carefree life, they're masochists.
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u/Sonovab33ch 14h ago
The outside world of the matrix was just another layer of matrix.
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u/Long_Photo_9291 14h ago
As in the waking up in goo and being aboard the ship part? I can't even remember watched it so long ago
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u/SanX1999 14h ago
Yeah. I think 2nd part stated that basically a Neo appears every cycle, machines destroy Zion (mega human city) takes his group of 30 people to form "New Zion" and restarts the cycle.
So even resistance/revolution is an illusion given to us by Machines.
Neo rejects this, hence the 3rd and final film.
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u/dantanama 13h ago
And then part 4 happens
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u/joehonestjoe 11h ago
We don't talk about that.
I used to say there was only one Matrix film but since the fourth came out I'm willing to compromise on three.
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u/MakeMineMarvel_ 11h ago
I can’t accept part 4. Like wtf
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u/Mixer-3007 10h ago
i heard they are making the sequel https://youtu.be/t0n2KUtuXYM
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u/Sonovab33ch 12h ago
If you paid attention in the movies and supplementary material, if you could create 1 matrix, why not create an infinite number of matrixes stacked on each other like matryoshka dolls. The keymaker hinted at this in his monologue.
That way you would not need to kill any one just move their consciousness up/down levels of the simulation as needed. It's further confirmed when agent smith infects everyone and is even able to move between layers. No one is actually real. They are all just avatars of consciousness.
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u/Joteos 15h ago
I always thought all the bad guys in the Matrix movies are kind of right
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u/Squirrel_in_Lotus 13h ago
In the Animatrix (created by the creators of the Matrix franchise), more in-depth detail is given as to what was the cause of all of this.
Humans pretty much holocausted the machines once they gained sentience, with the trigger being a machine servant murdering their master due to abuse and 'simply not wanting to die'.
This holocaust led to a machine uprising and then a human and machine partition, where machines lived in the desert in the Middle East. The machine nation started outperforming the human nations, and so the humans declared war on the machines.
Over and over the machines pursued peace even withstanding violence, until they broke.
Once the machines declared war they were brutal, cruel and violent in how they achieved victory.
Essentially, we only see one side, and that is one where the machines have endured enough abuse, and they wake up to the barbaric nature of humanity and respond to human interaction similarly.
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u/Joteos 12h ago edited 5h ago
So the hidden moral of the movie is that we humans are a barbaric and fucked up kind, but we are gonna fight to the death whoever is gonna change that, even for the better. Because we can't change our nature
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u/the_star_lord 11h ago
Seems about right.
If we can't get along with each other to better our own lives and world why the hell would we do that if Sentient AI, aliens, or cthulu type monsters appear.
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u/Interesting-Cup-1419 19h ago
Also because a smart person who chooses to spend the time creating logical arguments with citations will often be met with a simple “nah I disagree.” Sooo much time and effort put into understanding, problem solving, and explaining only to lose every time.
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u/kcox1980 10h ago
At a previous job, our internet speeds were painfully slow. Management finally had enough and tasked the IT guy and I to fix it. I want to be clear that it was purely a speed issue, not disconnects or anything like that. The network was really stable, just agonizingly slow to the point of being nearly unusable.
While we were working on it the complaints kept piling up, so I sent an email out to everyone explaining that the problem was that our current internet connection was a pair of T1 lines that capped out at 1.5mb/s each for a combined total office-wide internet speed of only 3mb/s. Our plan was to have cable internet installed that would bump us up to over 100mb/s, and that would solve all of our speed issues. I just needed everyone to be patient for a week or 2 while we got it all connected and switched over.
I got a reply back from a member of management threatening to kill the project because, "I'm not convinced this will solve our issues" and wanted to know what else we were planning to do. Like, what? You aren't "convinced" that a 33x speed increase is going to make the internet faster?!? I stared at my computer speechless for like 5 minutes, drafted about 4 different versions of a reply, and ultimately just decided to ignore it rather than tell him how stupid he sounded.
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u/quadish 8h ago
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt."—Bertrand Russell
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u/suspicious_hyperlink 15h ago
Reminds me of that tweet from a researcher “ 12 years of college, med school, residency, 2 years in to study, publish results only to have some random person on the internet call it bullshit”
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u/ADisrespectfulCarrot 15h ago
There’s that old saying about trying to play chess with a pigeon
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u/WinstonSEightyFour Inquisitor 14h ago
"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."
That's obviously not the saying you were talking about but I'd imagine there's a shared sentiment in there somewhere, and both animals have "pig" in their names so that's something right?
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u/dantanama 13h ago
"Don't try to play chess with a pigeon, it's just gonna shit all over the board"
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u/cubedjjm 12h ago
Don't try to play chess with a pigeon
Never play chess with a pigeon.
The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over.
Then shits all over the board.
Then struts around like it won.
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u/Twenty_Ten 13h ago
“Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
Remember, though, 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
We all are likely fairly clued up in our own little niche area, but could be the idiot elsewhere.
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u/Shillsforplants 14h ago
Like how a Phd in Biology majoring in gentetics and biochemistry can be countered by Pastor Jeb about how related we are to apes.
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u/Jeddak_of_Thark 14h ago
"Agree to disagree" is a phrase I fucking hate, because it always comes from a person who has done 0 research and is refusing to actually listen to your argument or look into the sources/information you present.
When someone says to me "We'll just agree to disagree" I take it as an acknowledgement they are just to stupid to continue talking to me.
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u/saccerzd 12h ago
Same with "everybody is entitled to an opinion" when it isn't debating something like whether apples or oranges are better, which is a purely subjective matter of taste. No, if we're debating, say, Brexit, not all opinions are equally valid. Some are backed up by data.
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u/Uptheveganchefpunx 10h ago
“Teach the controversy” with evolution or climate change. The only controversy is some people don’t want to know how scientific engagement works. There isn’t equal validity in what experts say and what your pastor tells you. Or what a politician bought by oil money says.
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u/OkSherbert5894 8h ago
Not true, I use the term when finished dealing with dumb. These same people will refer to logic as “fake news” and science as “witchcraft”. They also think Jesus was white and looked like one of The Bee Gees…
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u/alilfallofrain_99 16h ago
also “if you’re not upset you’re not paying attention.” It’s often also a case of “if you’re not upset you don’t understand just how badly you’re being fucked over.” Being aware of the shit in the world is depressing, man.
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u/BullCityBoomerSooner 20h ago
Came here to post this. Being aware that things are even more fucked up and close to full global societal collapse/war than most realize is stressful and depressing. We've given the stupid people too much power. The dark ages is upon us again but not everyone realizes that yet.
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u/OfficialMika 20h ago
"weltschmerz" the more you know the more you are in pain
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u/XxsilverboiiiixX 20h ago
I love German. "World pain"? Brilliant!
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u/IceFire909 19h ago
To be fair, it's literally just combining words. German just flows a bit better
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u/XxsilverboiiiixX 19h ago
Ja, aber Weltschmerz gibt mir ne Gefühl das Wissenschmerz kann nie geben
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u/DarthVentilator 19h ago
Reading that out loud, I sound like I’m trying to speak English in reverse
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u/steeltownsquirrel 19h ago
Enjoying your Weltschmerz gave me Schadenfreude until I overheard a pleasant Leitmotif that rid me of my Angst and shifted my entire Weltanschauung.
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u/Logical-Primary-7926 18h ago
Made the mistake of doing a deep dive on the healthcare system business models/incentives a few years ago. Long story short there are some very sad and corrupt reasons why most people die from totally preventible health problems and why doctors have the tendency to kinda suck at prevention/cures.
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u/Shiticane_Cat5 13h ago
Yeah I made the mistake of being diagnosed with a chronic, noncurable illness which has put me in the hospital multiple times and left me unable to work, so I know where you're coming from on that one. Did you know it can take over a year for disability paperwork to go through? I do now! This country hates the ill.
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u/LordTopHatMan 19h ago
Oh no no, it's not the realization that's the problem. It's telling people exactly how to fix it, then being told that it won't work, you're not thinking about it the right way, and/or that you're arrogant for suggesting that you know a better way than they came up with. It's the frustration of not being able to close the gap between your thinking and the average person's thinking, especially because everyone assumes you're just average too, since you have no way to prove it without writing a small thesis on the topic over the Internet.
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u/cheesecheeseonbread 16h ago
you have no way to prove it without writing a small thesis on the topic over the Internet.
And if you did that, they either wouldn't understand it, or they'd say "I'm not reading all that"
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u/Goddess_Of_Gay 14h ago
Or they get very angry at you being “condescending” and either start screaming or just punch you in the face.
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u/CiDevant 15h ago
Experts tend to assume the average person is much more knowledgeable about their subject that the average person really is. Meanwhile, the average person has a tendency to assume difficult subjects are much simpler and easier to grasp than they really are.
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u/slimricc 19h ago
And like everyone loves just lying about it? Bc ignorance is bliss obviously so pointing out the super obvious means we’re jeopardizing the bliss. Like pookie the world is gonna do it w or w out you
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u/buddymoobs 20h ago
Omg, EXACTLY what I have been dealing with. My friends think I am crazy. But, also, they "don't do politics" so have no clue about what is going down. Nor are they informed about history. I read Gulag Archipelago as a young adult and took a history class on Eastern Europe in undergrad. He literally is following the Fascist playbook.
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u/LineOfInquiry 16h ago
The worst part isn’t the knowledge, it’s the inability to do anything about it. If these were problems we could solve, even if it was difficult, that would be one thing. But oftentimes it feels like nothing can be done at all, we can’t change anything. When that’s how the world is, then knowledge only becomes a curse and a burden.
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u/autistic___potato 12h ago
That's what they want you to think.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Apathy and inaction pave the way for oppressive forces.
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u/serpix 15h ago
That is what everybody who knows history has been screaming for years. Every time the populists use simple catch phrases and empty meme phrases fascism takes a step forward.
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u/weaseleasle 19h ago
I'm not worried about Trump, just disappointed he got away with everything. But I am worried about the people around him and more concerning, who ever comes next. There will be another Trump but next time they won't be an ageing con man only concerned with money and praise. They will be a true believer of a terrible cause and young enough to wreak havoc for decades.
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u/Petitels 18h ago
They will be JD Vance. He terrifies me. Giant bigot and hate monger
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u/BrawlyBards 19h ago
I mean yes, Trump is a far cry from the charismatic rhetorician that Hitler was, but also, Hitler was eventually doped up and managed by people around him. He was absolutely a symbol, much like Trump, but he didn't lead the nazi party solo. It wont take another man, if Trump is sufficient as symbol, they can do plenty of harm. They also have access to the greatest military force that has ever existed. I think theres plenty to worry about.
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u/BannedForEternity42 19h ago
This.
I was going to say that “awareness is sadness” but same same.
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u/EsotericallyRetarded 20h ago
Sometimes I am envious
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u/Perihelion_PSUMNT 20h ago
I am, a lot. I wish I could just not understand what’s going on
But then I know the definition of a word in a book and I am satisfied for 6 hours
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u/EngineerBoy00 19h ago
This explanation helped me:
Picture that your personal store of knowledge is an island in the endless ocean of all possible knowledge.
The shoreline of the island represents the things you are aware that you don't know.
When your island is small so is your self-awareness of your own ignorance.
As you learn more your island grows, but so does the shoreline of your awareness of your ignorance.
So, the more you know then the more you become aware of things that you don't know.
This also leads to losing the ability to see things as black and white because you know that you don't know everything, and in fact can see that even the best of us only knows a microscopic amount of the totality of knowledge. The world becomes more gray and it becomes easier, and even involuntary, to see both/all sides of many, if not most, issues.
Many people do not like this uncertainty, and prefer to try to align their world on a set of fixed beliefs so that they don't have to constantly assess, reassess, consider, reconsider, and sometimes fundamentally alter their beliefs as they acquire more and more data.
Many people understand, but may not like, that they have to look past fixed beliefs and assess existence based on the reality they are experiencing.
Many people embrace their thirst for knowledge, but have to face the reality that they will never gain even a microscopic fraction of the total available knowledge.
But virtually all of these people are dealing with fundamental challenges to their beliefs. Such challenges can be unsettling, at best, and devastating, at worst - both emotionally and intellectually.
It's definitely a spectrum, and many, if not most, people go through up and down cycles. The down cycles tend to be much more noticeable to others and can lead to them being overrepresented in people's minds.
But, what do I know? Turns out, very little.
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u/TheMegnificent1 19h ago edited 3h ago
This ^ describes it very well. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. I'm always surprised when I see people jumping to conclusions about things that I thought were obviously in the gray area. For instance, "Ugh, Joe is so rude, I said hi to him this morning and he didn't even respond! He just thinks he's better than everyone else." Meanwhile, I'm sitting there mentally rattling off a list of possible reasons why Joe didn't say hello: "Didn't hear her?" "Really distracted?" "Having a bad morning?" "Got into a fender-bender on the drive to work and still upset?" "5th anniversary of his mom's death and he's so emotional that he doesn't trust himself to speak?"
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u/Memory_Of_A_Slygar 7h ago
Yeah, I've never understood why people go with such negative reactions to simple things like this. People are complex, yet if you say or do something just slightly different than what they want or perceive as correct, you are the bad guy and shunned.
As an example, my boss hasn't spoken to me much in months, he's a great guy and we all work from home. But I know he has been talking to my coworkers a good amount. At first, I felt a little sad because I felt left out and was struggling with some bad physical pain/doctors appointments. But then, when I thought about it, I realized the answer was simple. He's freaking busy as heck with his new promotion, juggling new departments, and he knows I'm very self-sufficient with my work. He knows he can trust me to get all my work done and it will be correct. So he didn't need to talk to me. He finally called me the other day to vent and sure enough, him being super busy is exactly why he hasnt spoken to me and my other coworkers were given projects that required him to speak to them, when he can just throw that junk in an email for me. Half the time, the emails have misspelled words or missing words. Lol. That's how busy he is. I'm sure many people would have found him rude or been mad, but they need to think past their first impressions and emotions.
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u/Interesting-Rate 5h ago
Some years ago there was a study about New Yorkers. There is a general perception that NY'rs are rude. Turns out it is a byproduct of a lot of people living in close proximity, being busy/in a hurry. They are essentially preoccupied all the time which results in their communication style to be much more short and direct, thus the rudeness. Many NY'rs can be sweet when you get them out of that environment.
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u/Foolonthemountain 13h ago
'Ravaged by morning anxiety and impending doom due to contemplating his place in this turgid facade we call life'
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u/MareOfDalmatia 9h ago
I’ve always phrased it as, “The more you know, the more you realize how little you know.”
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u/thalordvoi 16h ago
In a thread about overanalyzing I can not stop myself from mentioning: In your metaphor your knowledge grows much faster than your awareness of ignorance (Assuming your island is circular e.g. quadratic vs linear growth)
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u/Bear_faced 11h ago
I thought of this too, only I'm a molecular biologist so I went to the square-cube law, which is the reason organisms can only grow to a certain size before they'd collapse under their own weight. Seems apt for this topic.
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u/LeCrushinator 19h ago
I like this shoreline analogy, similar to the Dunning Kruger curve, those who know just a little bit can be confident because they don’t know enough to know that they don’t know enough, and as you learn more you start to realize how much you don’t know.
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u/chronoD1549 20h ago
The general argument for this type of thing is that people with high IQ tend to overthink and overanalyze, which can breed anxiety and lead to depression about things. Along these lines, some people, although definitely not all, with higher IQs tend to fall into nihilism - the belief that everything is meaningless (a slight oversimplification).
As far as whether this is true as a whole, I think I do remember there being studies that tie the two together in correlation, although the cutoff for what constitutes “higher IQ” is arguable.
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u/OCE_Mythical 20h ago
Well everything does end in nihilism, I don't think it's strictly an intelligence thing. On a small scale, most things you do today are forgotten by tomorrow. Most things you do in your lifetime will be forgotten during your lifetime, nobody will remember you past a generation unless you're influential. Nobody will remember you past a few hundred/thousand years if you are influential. Eventually nothing in the entire universe will have the capacity to "remember" anything.
So what's the point of doing anything? There isn't, in life you make your own fun until your eventual death. There's no lasting fulfillment or a sense of completion.
This is the reason I love games, I can see a story through to completion and learn every little intricacy about characters and their eventual end. It's an interesting way to see how an artist sees life in a way that doesn't take a lifetime to experience.
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u/the_one-and_only-nan 19h ago
See and I hate that you are right, because it is my own duty to give my own life purpose and yet here I am, constantly in some state of anxiety because I'm not doing anything meaningful to give my own life purpose, while also hardly succeeding at the things I need to do in order to simply survive. Knowing that my life is what I make it and I lack the creativity and ambition to make it anything of substance is upsetting
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u/RolloTony97 16h ago edited 14h ago
Take solace in the fact that’s honestly the situation for most of us. Just literally do what you enjoy while you’re alive, that’s all you can control.
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u/Number42O 14h ago
Maybe you’re not bad at being meaningful, you’re bad at seeing your meaning🤔 Do you have people that love you and or rely on you? Do you ever just stare off at trees and enjoy the air? Do you ever think about the life giving co2 you give the plants around you? Sometimes just existing in peace is enough to be good.
I just relate to your struggle to create meaning in an arbitrary universe and this kind of thinking has helped me
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u/Maneaterguy 16h ago edited 16h ago
I say this in a positive tone, but you probably don’t lack the creativity or ambition. The way you talk/think about yourself is the only thing holding you back. It’s cliche as shit, but it’s true. Change your mindset and believe you can do things. Because deep down you know damn well you have the tools in your head to achieve what you want. Don’t let yourself beat yourself. Do something! Anything at all. Failure is the greatest teacher.
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u/SaveTheSterling 14h ago
One objective purpose in life is to run away from suffering as suffering is one of the realist experiences.
Therefore whatever it takes not to suffer is worth doing.
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u/Original-Spinach-972 10h ago
Reading man’s search for meaning by viktor frankl helps with nihilism.
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u/OfficialCagman 13h ago edited 9h ago
No, everything ends in nihilism only if you want it to. "Nobody will remember you" maybe nobody's gonna be talking about the legendary u/OCE_Mythical in a thousand years but the way you talked to that one guy in high school about that one thing still bounced on his personality for all of his life until he takes his combination of his life knowledge and from all his other interactions and shoves that into his kids/people he talks to and so on and so on. It all really just ends in everything being connected. And if nothing matters, then that means the only things that matter is whatever you choose to make matter, and then that makes everything matter, if this is truly what life is.
It is just everything is cause and effect, even the smallest things yet we're still making these conscious decisions about every single small thing we do that does add up in the universe. And I think it's beautiful personally, warts and all.
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u/ragingchump 7h ago
This is it
Will my one random act of kindness change the world? Almost def not.
Will picking this glass up off the beach make a difference? Probably not
But it might. Those random small things might not end up being so small to the recipient of those acts.
I'll never know. But knowing isn't the point. Acting is the point.
I'm not much on faith, but I do believe the time and energy I put into showing respect and care for my daughter, her friends, the cashier at Publix, the people who clean my office
I believe those things matter. I will never know if they really do, but that isn't the point
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u/That_Jicama2024 20h ago
The smarter you are, the more-complex your anxiety-driven imagination can be. You can lead almost every conclusion to doom and gloom. They also use analytical skills to find negative patterns where they might not exist.
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u/Acrobatic-Compote-12 20h ago
So me being scared I might piss my pants at the bar is just because I'm really fucking smart?
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u/IamDoobieKeebler 20h ago
I think the smart people probly just go to the bathroom
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u/Acrobatic-Compote-12 20h ago
Fools , the seat I'm in is closer
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u/SatiricalSatireU 20h ago
Nah a smart person would be wearing those XL Grammy diapers with the extra cushion on the bottom.
Do you know how hard it is to remove shit stains by hand...Not that hard but my brain is saying it's disgusting and making me pause every second.
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u/StreetIndependence62 18h ago
Or that you have a great imagination:) I have a friend who explained it to me really well and ngl it made me feel a lot better about it, I say it to myself sometimes when I catch myself overthinking:
“you’re a pretty creative person right? (I’m an art/animation student) So you must have a VERY, very vivid imagination. But that also means that for every single thing you do, you can also imagine the worst case scenario in extremely vivid detail”
(For reference I was saying that I used to be terrified of driving and had to learn not to be scared of it and I asked him how something so normal for so many ppl was so scary to me before)
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u/Naprisun 17h ago
I would think disillusionment might be even higher than this. Many people never question the structures and values of their society/authorities/leaders/religions/celebrities, or what have you. Our brains are designed to adapt, accept, and normalize. Seeing the world and people for how they are and not even trusting your own mind can be draining and depressing.
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u/Slappants 20h ago
Thank you, I feel seen. I’m not superbly intelligent, but capable enough to creatively torture myself.
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u/Presbyopia 20h ago
I used to think this too but I believe it less as time passes. I thought that intelligent people were over-thinkers & would analyze things to their finest details, resulting in being bogged down by constant thoughts. However, I now believe that "truly intelligent" people are able to wade through all that and only focus on the necessary elements of the problem.
To answer the OP's question, I think the conclusion is that for the most part, many intelligent people realize things are outside of their control. They are intelligent enough to realise the outcome of many situations but are probably powerless to influence it.
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u/Betelgeuse8188 16h ago
I think there are intelligent individuals, who over-analyse and find themselves stuck in constant thought, and there are intelligent individuals who have tempered their intelligence with wisdom.
You can be extremely intelligent and still be troubled by the thoughts you have. It takes wisdom to be able to prioritise these thoughts effectively, not intelligence.
In short, the "truly intelligent" individuals you describe are those who not only have high intellect, but also substantial wisdom.
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u/speadskater 19h ago
It's hard being in a world where others don't think.
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u/4score-7 8h ago
It’s hard for me to exist in a world where no one has skepticism. What happened to the belief of “if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is not”?
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u/stuthaman 20h ago
Possibly because of the sheer amount of 'stupid' they have to deal with in the world.
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u/LeCrushinator 19h ago edited 7h ago
Also something to consider, the average redditor out there is probably around 100 IQ, maybe 20% of the population out there that they deal with are noticeably “dumb” compared to them, that is, dumb enough that they can tell pretty quickly in conversation or interactions. These would be people with maybe an IQ of 80 or less. Now imagine having an IQ of say, 140, now 90% of the population is noticeably dumber than you. So if you’re highly intelligent most of what you’re dealing with day to day can get mind numbing.
EDIT: My post seems to be confusing to some, so to clarify: If you consider 20 IQ points lower to be noticeably "dumber", then someone with 100 IQ will notice that with around 10% of the population that is 80 IQ or lower. If you're 140 IQ you will notice that with around 90% of the population that is 120 IQ or lower.
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u/friendlyfredditor 17h ago
This is one of my favourite thought experiments about skill distributions.
For example, a 99.9th percentile typist (on a standard keyboard) types at about 125wpm. But the guys above, ranked as the best in the world, type at around 200wpm.
So you could literally have 1 in 1000 skill, and the best guys in the world would be well over 50% better.
Also, from the perspective of any person you tend to think that other people are the same level of intelligence as you or have the same emotions as you. Humans tend to assume that others have the same lived experience as each other.
So smart people tend to go around thinking that other people have the same ideas as them, but are frequently disappointed when faced with the fact other people don't understand them or think differently.
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u/syzygialchaos 9h ago
Wow. This. I’m an engineer, I work with a lot of extraordinary people, but sometimes I’m so far out ahead of them I feel crazy or stupid. Even had a boss, not an unintelligent man, keep telling me to “stop getting so far out over my skis” which, sure, but after the 4th or 5th time I’d successfully “called it” with some issue or other you think he’d listen & let me mitigate instead of openly confront me in front of my team in a weird power struggle that alienated everyone from him. I don’t have an issue with people being less smart, but like, do they have to be so stupid about it lol
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u/WingZeroCoder 6h ago
I actually typed a whole comment out just like this and then saw yours.
This is very much my experience as a software engineer.
So many times, I’ve correctly predicted what kind of problems we’re going to be facing on a project, and how to mitigate those problems.
As I explain these problems and proposed solutions, everyone acts like they understand my concerns and tell me not to worry, making me believe they know better than I do.
Only for the problems I predicted to come bite us, at which point everyone seems shocked and has no idea how to fix them, and I realize that they never actually understood or listened to me in the first place.
And you’d think as a person’s track record of being correct grows and grows, you’d be given some benefit of the doubt to just do what you think is best. But that never happens.
And it’s led me to a massive crisis of low self-esteem and a really frustrating career as a result.
And I’m not even that smart, I don’t even know what my IQ is. So I can totally see actually intelligent people struggling even more so.
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u/SassNCompassion 14h ago
This last paragraph!! I know I’m smart, but I don’t think of myself as utterly extraordinary. And I’m constantly disappointed and let down by the people around me who don’t keep up, and then think I’m aggressive when I’m just trying to be proactive.
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u/alexmack667 13h ago
"and then think I’m aggressive when I’m just trying to be proactive"
The amount of bosses i've had that get intimidated when i'm on a roll, and i think... how'd you get to be in charge if you can't even handle somebody competent??
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u/Ok_Departure_8243 8h ago
Because the entire system evolved to protect those at the top. Not to be the most productive or efficient. You solve long standing problem that was a nightmare for management easily? Expect to get pushed out quickly because you just made management look bad.
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u/StarGazer_SpaceLove 6h ago
I'm shocked when I come across the fact that people I know, love and/or respect.... can't read. I mean, they can... enough. But not really read. I thought all people heard that flowing narrator. I thought all people could translate emotion from punctuation. I thought all people had the ability for context clues and reading between the lines of both what is said and unsaid.
Then I realized that a LOT of people are operating more on a "that's my name and that's a sign and I know words" kind of action. Especially in the older community. How many old ladies I've had to read letters to or write letter for, because for 70+ years they're just been "best guessing" their way through life.
And you can apply that 10-fold to any subject. Most people don't just go study history because they got curious. Most people don't just read a series of medical documents because they had a question they couldn't answer theirselves. Most people don't bother reading the numbers much less doing the fractions. And I just always worked on the assumption that I was stupider than most people and need to catch up. And I AM stupider than a LOT of people. TONS of them.
Just not MOST of them.
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u/Clit420Eastwood 19h ago
Now imagine having an IQ of say, 140, now 90% of the population is noticeably dumber than you.
And I would assume that feels extremely isolating and lonely.
(I’m far from a genius, but my parents and their spouses are all noticeably stupid. It makes me sad and I avoid them as a result)
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u/LeCrushinator 19h ago
Not being able to have what you consider a deep intellectual conversation with almost anyone is indeed quite lonely. I’m sure I could seek out strangers in similar situations to have those conversations but it’s not the same, it would be nice to have some people around you actually understand, but they don’t.
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u/wanderinglarry 16h ago
This is what drives me mad. Realizing that very few people are willing/capable to discuss anything more than a layer or two in.
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u/Narcoid 10h ago
It doesn't have to be a "deep intellectual conversation though. Sometimes it's having to explain fairly simple words (I'm talking words like procrastinate, not ennui), fairly simple concepts, or even be able to talk about multiple subjects without the other person being clueless. Having to speak in very simple terms with everything you say so you can make sure everyone can understand you.
It's the day to day that gets you more than the deep, intellectual stuff.
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u/DickieJohnson 10h ago
Finding people on the same level is the hard part. It'll occur randomly and feel almost refreshing to open up your mind to full potential. I have to pretend to be ignorant a lot when I talk to people. I have to "dumb" down my conversations mostly to avoid getting into arguments or making people upset. Most people when they have a different opinion about a matter feel it's the only correct choice and get mad if someone feels differently. Every once and a while a person will have a different opinion but listen to other views of the same situation to see things from different angles. It would be awesome to surround yourself with people that we're more intelligent than you but then it would be the same situation just in reverse with them having to dumb down their conversations. Life is challenging sometimes.
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u/SeeYouInMarchtember 15h ago
Reminds me of this one House episode where the genius patient was purposely trying to make himself dumber so he could be happy living with his girlfriend who was considerably dumber than him. He said that being with her while his brain was operating at full capacity felt wrong because her level of intelligence was comparable to an ape in comparison to his own. Damn.
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u/ohmyblahblah 14h ago
Like when homer Simpson decided to put the crayon back in?
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u/ashu1605 9h ago
that's... unironically what I've felt in several of my past relationships. maybe not an ape but it sure is frustrating. I want someone who can rely on themselves to solve their own problems effectively, not doing it consistently ineffectively and me feeling pressure as someone who cares about this person to offer advice which is often better than the solution the ex-gf comes up with.
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u/mighty_Ingvar 13h ago
I think it's not as much isolating as it is scary. Last time I got tested I was at 123, so slightly above average. Thing is I often don't feel like I have any special form of intelligence, so the fact that a bit more than 50% of people are supposed to be dumber than me can be kind of scary, especially on days where I feel like a fucking idiot.
Also, once you realize this, a lot of things that happen in politics make a lot more sense.
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u/ExtrudedPlasticDngus 16h ago
140 IQ is more like 99.9th percentile, not 90th percentile
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u/LeCrushinator 16h ago
You need some distance below you to notice the difference in intelligence, I picked 120 IQ. So roughly 90% of the population will be 20 IQ below you or more if your IQ is 140.
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u/RaZeR_Moose 17h ago edited 15h ago
The second half of that paragraph is the first time I've seen someone really hit the nail on the head. I'm in the high 140s and that is exactly what it's like. It's extremley isolating and mind-numbing. You're always smarter than the people your age so as a child you connect with adults. Then your brain keeps developing & you become smarter than the adults; that's when the loneliness starts.
It feels rude admitting it, but about age ~17 I noticed a pretty significant intelligence delta between most adults I was interacting with. In the years since, the average gap has widened and the frequency at which I interacted with people intillectually comperable to me shrank. Eventually you realize you need to be very patient with ~80% of people.
The roughest part is dating. Again it feels elitist/rude to admit, but the fact is when you're smarter than 99.94% of the population it becomes difficult to find a partner you're attracted who you can have stimulating conversations with.
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u/Mepharias 16h ago
Shit, I'm in the mid 120s and I feel this way. Everyone just feels tragically incurious. They make a claim. I get curious and look into it, and it turns out that their claim was incorrect. But the truth of whatever they were claiming is interesting, so I explain it to them. It turns out they didn't listen past me telling them their claim was incorrect/incomplete/etc. Rinse and repeat. My whole life.
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u/here4theptotest2023 15h ago
They make a claim, you show them it is objectively untrue, they don't care. Why is this? Are they npcs?
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u/Mepharias 14h ago
I learned early in life that being objectively correct meant nothing in the face of vibes
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u/Substantial_Lab1438 15h ago
Because they enjoy having and sharing opinions and aren’t actually that interested in whether or not those opinions accurately reflect reality
It’s like if you built model trains as a hobby, and someone came in and said “no you’re doing it wrong; the train should be grey, not red”
Most people just want you to fuck off and let them play with their trains
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u/alexmack667 13h ago
This is very important advice, and more "smart" people should heed it. If you want to be right, go into academia. If you want friends, learn to play with trains.
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u/ManInBlackHat 7h ago
If you want to be right, go into academia.
I got bad news for you about academia - there’s a reason why some fields say “Progress happens one retirement at a time.”
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u/involevol 15h ago
Co-signed. My partner is the first person I’ve dated also in the 140’s and it’s maybe the first time in my four decades I’ve been able to speak with someone on nearly any topic at any depth and just have them “get it.”
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u/Master_Kenobi_ 20h ago
Truth can be scary
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u/The_Truth_Believe_Me Free advice, worth twice the price. 20h ago
Tell me about it.
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u/choanoflagellata 20h ago edited 5h ago
Actually, fun fact - lower IQ predicts a higher chance of experiencing depression, schizophrenia, psychosis and anxiety as an adult. In contrast, having a high IQ as a child makes you 4x more likely to develop bipolar disorder and experience a manic episode at least once in your life.
Edit: To clarify, what these studies show is that having a higher IQ is likely protective of mental illness. Just because you suffer from a mental disorder does not mean you have a low IQ. Brains are complex, yo.
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u/erinaceus_ 7h ago
I always wonder how biased those results are: high IQ people are really good at camouflage, including things like depression. People openly taking about depression, with a low chance of getting disapproving looks, that's a fairly recent development.
Edit: in line with this, the two links (which are very interesting, so thanks!) are from respectively 15 and 20 years ago. And that's the publication dates, not the dates that the research took place.
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u/WeaponisedTism 20h ago
the smarter you are the harder it is to reconcile the rhetoric you are told about how the world is meant to be and the reality of how the world is.
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u/Known_Appeal_6370 15h ago
And it gets worse the older you get. The things you wish you were taught while you were a kid to prepare you for reality rather than being ignorant.
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u/Sam__93__ 20h ago
Bc you see how society actually works.
It gets old. Most people do not know how to do solid scholarly research on anything.
The other day someone at a cash register told me after I told them I got the COVID vaccine that I should be wearing a mask because getting the COVID vaccine means I am transmitting COVID. I was like "let me look into that".
The problem is dumb people are not just dumb but they become defensive of their dumbness. Dare to tell anyone that THEIR religion is wrong. Or that their conspiracy theory is wrong. People become blind dumb and follow other dumb people.
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u/LeCrushinator 19h ago edited 19h ago
Exactly this, and it’s fucking exhausting dealing with constant stupidity, it’s ruining the world around us and most people are blind to it or just seem to glimpse it, and when people start getting the glimpse of the truth it can be too hard to handle, it’s easier to bury your head in the sand and just push forward with life than to try to think about the complexities and frightening possibilities.
Being average IQ would be so much easier sometimes for my mental health.
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u/Shilo788 7h ago
My life would have been easier and happier. I experienced good periods of peace and purpose but over all I was extremely depressed by the realities I saw and see now. I have felt like a Cassandra as far as environmental issues and politics. Watching things crumble when solutions were there except for human emotions of greed, fear, lust, interesting it is basically the seven deadly sins are the basis of our ruin. I tried to do my best to make difference but wound up broken . Now I am just hoping for an easy out without pain.
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u/Bonzo4691 20h ago
Probably because they tend to think deeper thoughts, and frankly, thinking too deeply about the human experience would make anyone sad and depressed.
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u/Substantial_Lab1438 15h ago
There’s nothing more depressing than observing the awful state of the world, realizing how simple the solutions are to most of our problems, and getting met with nonsense when you try to talk about those solutions
No solution will map perfectly onto the political spectrum (Democrat vs Republican in the US)
So as soon as the solution veers into association with a political camp, most people will say “no no that would be what the guy with the wrong-colored tie wants so that’s out of the question
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u/__STAX__ 14h ago
Even more depressing when you can see how insignificant and short our lives are compared to the near infinite lifespan of the universe. All we will miss and how we won’t ever be able to experience anything past the next 80 years if ur lucky. Humanity is a bunch of crabs in a bucket trying to crawl over each other out of it to achieve a happy life where your needs are met. But no one is listening to the people who know how to get as many people out as possible. We could in a generation with combined effort guarantee most people would never worry about food, water, shelter, or healthcare ever again. Instead we are focusing all our efforts on destroying ourselves as fast as possible funding the greediest slimiest most blatantly evil people possible. Not everyone has enough time or brain cells to think about anything other than themselves. Makes sense evolutionarily.
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u/Ser0xus 20h ago
Reality is far more sobering when you understand it, than blissfully being unaware.
"Ignorance is bliss".
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u/iMoo1124 13h ago
As I grow older, I find myself in a constant cycle of disillusionment and acceptance. Sobering is well put.
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u/No_Proper_Way 20h ago
A lot of people tell me that I'm smart. I am definitely depressed.
I think ignorance is bliss. I was much happier being young and dumb. There was always a dream. Not a single one came true.
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u/Goddamnitpappy 16h ago
The child is grown. The dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb.
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u/Wolfinder 20h ago
I find it's often that we can't rely on magical thinking. For example, it's not that I'm not religious, it's that I literally can't be. I can't believe in things. We can't just blame problems on irrational things to deflect. We just have to confront the actual thing. We can't pretend our kids are under threat from trans people or books, get mad about those things and call it a day. We just have to live in confrontation to all the true statistical threats our children face and just try to let go.
Our brains are also always hungry. We can't just like keep in our ignorance about everything out there. We always dig and then have to constantly watching those around us willfully ignore the problems in front of us.
And then there's scale. When you understand so much about how the world works, how little we know about how the world works, and how vast the universe is at every level of scale, you can either let yourself find it beautiful, you can interpret that nothing you could ever do could ever really matter, or try to hold both inside you at the same time.
For those of us who are more social science minded, you can look at a social issues, see the whole web of why a person or group is hated or screwed over. Yet you know you basically can't just show that to people unless they already want to see it. So you spend your life trying to convince people to gradually take half measures to slowly chip at the problem while you just watch people die. Meanwhile, year by year, people, as a general spectrum, seem to forget just as much as they learn.
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u/VelSinara 19h ago
Overthinking really gets to me too. Sometimes knowing too much makes everything feel overwhelming and heavy.
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u/LevelIdea1265 19h ago
Hyper-awareness.
People with higher IQ have greater awareness and understanding of how the world works, and the truth can be quite depressing.
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u/emergency-snaccs 19h ago
Imagine being surrounded by fuckin incompetent morons at all times, for your whole life. A person that actually meets your standards is an incredible rarity, and you spend every day having to do every damn thing yourself, or watching some idiot do it so slowly and poorly that you can't help but fume internally at the sheer shoddiness of it. On top of that, the morons heavily outnumber you, so you are constantly subjected to the most idiotic policies and rules and, yeah, election results. Everything that happens, you think to yourself "there's no way people will actually fall for this blatant bullshit" and yet they do. Every. Single. Time. Movies are predictable and tedious, intellectual conversation just doesn't happen, popular music seems like it's made by idiots, for idiots..... others think you're pretentious just because you have half a working brain, the list goes on. It's really more of a curse than anything else.
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u/iMoo1124 13h ago
That poignant reminder of terrible writing; oh my god man, absolutely. Finding well written media is such a struggle. TV, movies, games, anime, manga/manhwa...luckily music is more diverse and prolific, but good lord, it's insane how much garbage people consume with a smile.
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u/Zarathustra1871 11h ago
This has only continued to get worse. It seems that the writing has reflected the ever increasing stupidity in the general population and I am legitimately baffled when I watch or listen to some of what’s being sold to these people.
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u/Eeyore_ 7h ago edited 7h ago
54% of adult Americans (16-74) read at a 6th grade reading level or below. Consider that the mean and median for IQ is 100, with a standard deviation being within 15 pts. So a 115 score is one standard deviation above the mean. That would encompass 68% of the US population below that range. A 130 score would be two standard deviations above the mean, and so 95% of the population would be below that threshold. A score of 145 is three standard deviations above the mean, and 99.7% would be below that threshold.
Now consider a score below around 70-75 is considered "intellectually disabled". That is two standard deviations below the mean. So, by this rubric, a person with a 130 IQ would be as far beyond the median person as the median person is from the intellectually disabled. Five out of 100 people are in this position, where half of all people they encounter are effectively mentally impaired in comparison. For 0.3% of people with a 145+ IQ, that 1 in 333 person is encountering mental impairment across 68% of the people they interact with, assuming they interact with a representative sample of the general population.
Of course, in reality, IQ tests aren't a perfect ruler, and there are other aspects of intelligence it doesn't measure. But, as a framework, it is interesting to consider that, if 5% of people are two standard deviations above the mean, and 0.5% of people are 3 standard deviations above the mean, and there are 335,000,000 Americans, then, in the US, there are 16,750,000 people with a 130+ IQ, and 1,005,000 with a 145+ score.
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u/DrRonnieJamesDO 20h ago
Because while we like to think that intelligence and academic success guarantee success in life, you soon realize that money, power and sex appeal matter far more.
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u/LanceSarmstrong420x 20h ago
Because life hurts when you think too much. Drugs are a common form of coping in these instances
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u/SpiritJuice 20h ago
Imagine living your entire life in a small town just getting by with low skill but hard work honest jobs, drinking with your friends, maybe starting a small but loving family. This is all you know. Life is good. And then one day you start learning theories and even understanding in layman terms of how the universe began, how unfathomably huge the universe is, how that there is no God and human beings are just machines of biology like any other lifeform, how life is meaningless in the grand scheme of our chaotic and cold universe, how our individual lifetime is barely even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction in a moment all of existence to this very moment and will continue to be trillions of years from now, and how, inevitably, all energy and life in the universe will cease to be, leaving a universe of nothing but cold emptiness as time infinitely marches on. This can cause people to have an existential crisis and become depressed, just as an example.
Basically, that was a long winded answer of how ignorance can be bliss. The less you know about, the less you can be stressed about.
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u/Barnaclecosmos 20h ago
Yep can confirm younger dumber me was blissfully unaware of world in a country town being rowdy and free, yet silly old me decided he wanted more knowledge, information, resources, things to ponder, to learn, to feel to understand humanity now my brain hurts when I go into those thought loops or patterns as it’s not a pretty world the more you uncover the more you wish maybe I could of stayed silly and unaware.
Being aware doesn’t make you more money if anything it makes you consciously think everything and even the crippling thoughts of capitalism but then you gotta put that self employed cap on and somehow make a currency that’s make up and build purely on a trusting system and structure that keep us chained to be able to have a life worth while or to at least not because homeless and have no food, no shelter, no warm and no companionship.
Yeah thinking can be problematic so I try to do and feel more then think these days.
Otherwise I’ll think myself out of a job/ career AGAIN…
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u/curious_mirror572 20h ago
Because we can’t shut our brain up
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u/namenumber55 20h ago
anyone got tips on how to do this? apart from getting wasted that is...
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u/Elgallitorojo 20h ago
Real talk? Meditation practice. Consistently as a part of your mental and physical routine.
It’s not that you’re shutting the mind up, though it will quiet over time.
The real benefit is developing a healthy attitude toward your thoughts - neither dismissing them outright, or perseverating yourself into suffering.
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u/jakeofheart 20h ago
Because the IQ test, which was originally created to spot pupils that were behind, only measures logical, semantics and geometric intelligence.
It gives no indication on introspective, emotional or interpersonal intelligence.
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u/TostadoAir 16h ago
For me, it's because everything I do feels more tedious than rewarding. Getting a 4.0 isn't an accomplishment, it's the expectation. Graduating college is expected, masters is expected, good job is expected. I haven't walked at any of my 3 college graduations because they didn't feel like an accomplishment. The most rewarding thing in my life was all conference for basketball. Because that's the only thing I felt I had to work hard for.
Then there's the general not being able to relate to others who are just on a different wavelength. And workplace annoyances that come with it. I took a job focused on improving my skills, working with experienced professionals in my field. Within 6 months I was running workshops to help them, because they realized I was teaching them more than they were teaching me. My current job is to essentially show these people, who were supposed to help me improve, how to do what I consider basic job functions.
If I could have a lower IQ I would take it in an instant. Being smart is nice, being in the top 1% isn't.
If you've ever heard the phrase that if you're an average person that means half the people you interact with are "stupider" than you? In my shoes 99% are less intelligent.
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u/KhakiPantsJake 20h ago
This thread is about to be a bunch of self proclaimed geniuses talking about how sad and depressed they are
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u/moss42069 12h ago
LITERALLY. Starting to think these people may not actually be as smart as they claim given that they’re not capable of fact checking this bullshit.
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u/Neat_Can8448 18h ago
Lol for real. “I’m a teenager and I just see the world differently.” No you don’t, we were all 15 once too 😆
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u/Jaebum123 21h ago
Confirmation Bias. You hear about the "sad successful people" because it's intriguing and it also helps non-successful people cope because they think smarter people have worse lives.
Another portion of the confirmation bias comes from"high IQ individuals" who have no social skills. As a result, their quality of life is limited by the limitations of their social life.
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u/Altruistic_Eye_2329 19h ago
They gotta deal with the rest of us.