RE: How to Measure Someone's Intellectual Competency In Respect To Yours
How to Measure Someone's Intellectual Competency In Respect To Yours
That's easy, everyone is inferior! ;)
Seriously, though I've come to the conclusion that there are different types of intelligence. Yes, "Emotional Intelligence" was popularized a while back but I think it's really more fine grained.
For instance, I'm pretty smart in general but mostly I'm really good at programming. Back in college I actually ended up tutoring and helping most of my classmates, and repeatedly saw them struggle with concepts that were extremely simple to me. Some of them had even done some coding before college, which I had not.
The thing is, none of these classmates came off as dumb. In fact, their grades in all their other classes were good and they all switched majors and were successful afterward.
I defy such expectations too though, and not in a good way. Good programmers are supposed to be good at math, but I've pretty much always sucked at math.
This experience, along with paying attention to people, it becomes clear that generalized intelligence is perhaps a bit lacking in terms of describing people. A person might suck at logic, but be great at painting. Or have a terrible memory, but be great at persuasion.
Or have great writing/speaking ability but not have a great intellect under the pedantic definition.
Which, I think, brings us to people like Berwick or, dare I say, Trump. You can criticize him all day long for his inability to understand economics but he does understand people.
I don't think there is a special trade to understand people. Any conman knows the basic tricks and they can be taught in less than an hour. The recipe is almost always the same. Political talk doesn't take smarts. It just takes lying and deception which are traits of an actor or a coward. I don't see them really as a form of intelligence
So you've never known a terrible liar? A skill being teachable doesn't disprove it as an aspect of intelligence.
Being intellectual just requires learning to be objective and how to reason, both of which can also be taught.
I 've known plenty of pathological liars but just like in a game of poker, they have a tell. One lie only forces the next lie to be harder.
Most kids begin by being bad liars and then they learn to become better. Most people lie most of the time so they get extra points on the skill.
Those who are terrible liars are actually the most honest people.
Everything can be taught in regards to intelligence. Research has shown that one can improve their IQ by as much as 20% which would even invalidate the spectrum between genius and stupid
Right, that's kinda what I'm saying... But I think while any given aspect can be learned, we have natural predispositions that make us better at learning certain aspects.
And while increasing IQ by 20% might remove the genius/stupid gap the genius could likely just do the same thing.