I think I found this more interesting than the original biography review by Scott. There is a lot of distilled wisdom in these posts.
However, there is one area that always rubs me the wrong way. It is smart people who don't know dumb people talking about intelligence.
Where I am now in life I interact almost exclusively with smart people. Not just high IQ wiz kids with no experience. But people that have both the raw brain power, and the life experience to be sharp and wicked smaht. I'm in a rich neighborhood, and wealth has a noticeable correlation with IQ. I currently work for an institution that employs academics who must explain their work to the media (so they can't just sit in an ivory tower and write illegible crap). I use to work at a tech company that for quite a few years basically gave people an IQ test before they could join, and they were willing to fire people who didn't work out (the selection effects weren't perfect but they were certainly noticeable). My college friends were mostly from an "honors" section that got scholarships and accolades for academic achievements.
This was not always the case.
I went to highschool in a nice-ish area. The highschool was pretty decent for where I lived, but it still had noticeable rates of teenage pregnancy, drunk driving fatalities, minor gang fights (no more than temporary hospitalizations), about a fifth of the school below the poverty line, and a racial mix that actually came pretty close to matching America's general racial mix.
This highschool had dumb-dumbs. Probably something close to an average amount of dumb-dumbs. But at the time it was painful how many of them there were. I am smart for the general population, but a bit of a dumb-dumb when I get into smart people circles. 95th percentile on SATs. 1 in 20 seems only ok, but in a random class of ~30 kids I was likely to be the smartest or 2nd smartest. And its not the academic under performance that ever bothered me. I wasn't in any position to judge, I did well on standardized tests, but I was solidly a B student at best. Most of the material seemed dumb and stupid. We were all often doing equally bad at it. It was the everything else that bothered me about interacting with chronically stupid people.
I often heard people brag growing up that they were "street smart" while some academic achiever was "book-smart". This gave me the false impression that there were two kinds of people out there and there was just a trade off between the two. That was badly wrong. Some people are just dumb. They can fail to learn how to read, and fail at not walking into oncoming traffic, and fail at not picking a fight with a group of kids that will kick their ass. There are people that just seem to make repeatedly bad decisions in all areas of their life. I grew to hate these people, because loving and caring about them was too painful. To watch them make terrible decisions again and again, no matter how you advise them, no matter how much you try its like they seem determined to make their own lives a living hell by refusing to understand the world around them.
Bringing this back around to Elon Musk:
Yes he is smart. He is very smart. If he doesn't seem that smart compared to the people around you, then congratulations you live in a smart person bubble. I live in one too, its great! No one is ever making terrible decisions that might casually endanger me. No one is starting physical fights, because words hurt their brain too much. They know all the latest social norms, and when to violate the silly ones to make a joke. I can have deep conversations with them about nearly any topic, they might not know the details, but if I make it interesting they will pick it up and participate. The people around me know how to manage their money, so they aren't ever begging me for handouts, or trying to nickle and dime me on shared expenses.
The phrase "check your privilege" comes to mind, but the tone that people normally use feels very wrong. Just imagine me saying it in the same way a surfer says "kowabunga dude!" while offering a high five.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've always been a good test taker, so I'm kind of on the outside but there are different kinds of intelligence. I think we all know the person who tried really hard in class. Went to office hours, did all the readings and assignments, tutors, study groups, etc. They didn't 'see' the concepts in the same way that I did but they played the social game soo much better. I did much better on my GREs but they got into a much better grad program. Anyway...
Consider the street smart person; They know rules of their environment and can play that social game really well... They just know how to live in a nasty environment. They don't look like an easy victim, knows gang areas and signs, they know how to interact with junkies or dealers, when to get aggresive and when to run, etc.
Is the studious person really smarter than the street smart person? Or are they both just good at their respective environments? Sure, if you put someone who never learned to study in a school environment, they will struggle... But drop a nerd off in a trailer park or a housing project or skid row, and see if they do better. :marseyshrug:
The street smart person your describe isn’t exactly smarter - they’ve been socialized for those environments.
Think about the black kids in the special program in The Wire who got taken to a fancy restaurant and were nervous and quiet and after said they hated it. They hadn’t been socialized for those environments. They had been socialized for living in the projects.
The smart kid should be able to make it there. They might get bored because they see things no one else does. People like Shkreli or Madoff don’t seem to have had that much trouble in prison - a lot IQ place.
Weren't these guys in relatively cushy prisons for white collar criminals...not a maximum security prison with hardened murderers and gang leaders and shit?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I didn't mean to give the impression that street smarts don't exist. They do. There are smart people that can adapt to their environment.
I only wanted to point out that there are also dumb people out there that don't adapt well to any environment.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link