Comment by Zambyte
5 days ago
As I am sure many HN type people are familiar with, growing up and into my adulthood, people have often commented on me being "the smart one". It confused me, because I honestly have never felt particularly smart. I have always felt like I have been playing catch up.
I have been a member of a local makerspace for the past couple of years, and one thing that being a member has crystallized for me is that pretty much everyone is smart in their own way. It feels obvious to say, but being a member there really made that click for me. People just think I'm smart because I have interests often associated with smart people, not because my capacity for learning or the size of the set of things that I know are all that different from other people.
The other big thing that I think makes people think I'm smart is that I have absolutely no issue saying "I don't know", or just asking questions about something, like the article says. I think people don't really weigh statements or questions like that into their understanding of the knowledge you actually have nearly as much as if you do something like guess incorrectly. I have a habit of shutting up and letting people talk, and people just assume that I know more than I do :P
There is not really that much deviation in intelligence among most adults. People just have different experiences, and therefore different knowledge sets. The way those sets intersect, and the way that non-overlapping sections are treated during interactions seem far more influential for how "smart" someone is perceived, than the actual size of those sets, or even the rate at which one can change that set (how fast they can learn).
> There is not really that much deviation in intelligence among most adults.
I cannot think that you have a lot of experience with all social classes if you think this. I have extremely disordered family members with mental disabilities and I regularly come into contact with their friends and service-industry coworkers. A lot of adults struggle with memory, comprehension, logic, speed, and reasoning, which I would call "large deviations in intelligence".
It's one of those luxury and insular beliefs that could only possibly arise from a sheltered existence. Just for example, anyone who both went to a decent university and grew up in a not-decent public school could not possibly have this opinion.
> I cannot think that you have a lot of experience with all social classes if you think this.
Yeah I really can't take this share by OP seriously and can't help but wonder if the post is on some level clickbait. I keep my circle pretty diverse and have had a few jobs where I interact with people outside of my norm... I've met some people that truly lack in areas that are clearly identifiers of "intelligence": critical thinking, problem solving, memory, communication and social skills... Intelligence can be defined as a lot and yet I still have met some people who are clearly an idiot - and I don't really consider myself to be super intelligent either. After getting into the workforce, I would maybe describe myself as above average but that's only because of the people I've met bringing down the average to below my level.
They wrote "I have been a member of a local makerspace for the past couple of years, and one thing that being a member has crystallized for me is that pretty much everyone is smart in their own way." which is tipping their hand. That's an incredibly selective environment where curiosity and getting into things and figuring it out are almost prerequisites.
> There is not really that much deviation in intelligence among most adults.
Have you ever spent any time with anyone that makes less than $100,000 a year or didn’t graduate college?
I’ve spent time (both by choice and not by choice) talking to homeless people, mentally ill people, addicts and alcoholics, recipients of Section 8 housing vouchers, adults that aren’t fully literate, low-income service industry workers, immigrant laborers, and other marginalized groups. Some of the issues these groups face are due to mental health or impulse control problems (my own problems with that is why I spent a lot of time talking to addicts and alcoholics) but there is a wide range of intelligence in adult humans.