• I recently told my mother that I’m probably the most intelligent person she will ever meet while explaining why her conservative beliefs are dumb as shit and she defensively asked what my IQ is…

    I was no contact for the past eight years or so and it was at a family reunion that we saw one another.

    I don’t know my IQ, I’m actually a pretty slow learner, and I have horrible test anxiety. But as a polyglot physicist with a dash of perpetual autodidactic inclinations, I’m pretty well informed and I don’t know if intelligence can be measured, but I know it when I see it.

    It’s funny that conservatives think quick wit and fast words equate to intelligence without ever stopping to think about the substance.

    • missfrizzle@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      I recently told my mother that I’m probably the most intelligent person she will ever meet

      and so humble, too! seriously though, this is a major red flag. I rarely find smart people to brag about how smart they are.

      also, telling someone that their beliefs are wrong because they’re dumb, and that your beliefs are right because you’re smarter than them, has literally never worked. it will just make them resent you, your beliefs, and anyone they meet in the future who believes what you do. this kind of smugness has been the Achilles heel of Dems for years.

      • I don’t go around saying this to random people and I wouldn’t have to in polite society. It was with respect to her belief that hospitals were paid extra for people who died from COVID.

        You have to understand, my entire family, siblings, parents, nephews, cousins, are all functionally illiterate. I’m literally the most intelligent person they know.

        Place me in an APS conference and I’m probably the dumbest person in the room.

    • lath@piefed.social
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      3 days ago

      Objectively speaking, intelligence is considered to be the ability to reason. Following that line, high intelligence would be the ability to reason well.

      However, we humans do well because we specialize. It was discovered early on that we can’t do everything. One could say it’s our individuality which drives us towards having different proficiencies and the entire chain of schooling would better serve to explore and encourage pursuing such specializations.

      Where the means to cultivate proficiency are lacking, the end result will often be incomplete. That shouldn’t mean there is a lack of intelligence, but that it hasn’t been developed to its potential. I would say… the base intelligence remains the same while expectations rise in concert with each own’s path of development.

      Life is neither easy nor fair. And opportunities aren’t equal. So i often try to remind myself that perspective changes with experience and as such any standard we set ourselves and others to tend to be laced with personal bias.