The sad fact is that humans can never be happy for any length of time.
It is how our brains are wired and a result of evolution. Even if a person lived in a paradise and had all their needs and wants provided; one of two things will occur - Either that person becomes bored or they wonder 'hmmm, I wonder if x,y or z could be better in some way?' and then trying to improve on perfection.
Actually, money can buy happiness, or at least, the lack of worry. A study [1] found, "the ideal income point is $95,000 for life evaluation and $60,000 to $75,000 for emotional well-being... this amount is for individuals and would likely be higher for families."
[1] Jebb, A.T., Tay, L., Diener, E. et al. Happiness, income satiation and turning points around the world. Nat Hum Behav 2, 33–38 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0277-0
If you assume happiness is a feedback mechanism rewarding you for doing the right thing, then it makes sense. The reward needs to be modulated to be effective, constant reward would stop us from improving
There are a few prerequisites (proper sleep, nutrition, exercise) and many ways (social connections, meaningful activities, grateful attitude) to being happy.
We as society shouldn't focus so much on being „happy“. Happiness by itself is not worthwhile. What are you going to tell on your deathbed and how will your relatives remember you? Oh, he never did anything, but he seemed happy all the time!
Hmm, living life for its own simple satisfaction seems like a worthwhile option and no small legacy. Being happy and lifting up the spirits of those around you is no small contribution - and is certainly not exclusive with “doing something”.
I wonder about optimizing your life around your deathbed, obituary, or your contribution to society…if it makes you happy I guess;)
Given how complicated life is, „living life for it's own simple satisfaction“ frequently involves freeriding on people around you.
Being happy, possible with substances involved, is not exactly inspiring to people around. And, usually, people try to keep away other people from such... inspiration.
Of course, you can be „simply happy“ and a productive member of a community. But usually happiness comes as a byproduct then. And there're lots of other emotions aside from „being happy“.
Maybe it's worth to optimise around reducing misery around or being a net-positive on society where the life satisfaction will eventually come. But happiness may be out of reach due to stuff you can't unknow.
Those who achieve a lot professionally/outwardly are more often than not lacking seriously in some personal aspect. Most often messed up childhood with wrong/missing father figure, unhealthy competitive. I am sure everybody knows them - never staying at one place too long, never happy with anything they have/achieve, always chasing next challenge... no, thank you. Life ending in regrets later on is practically guaranteed.
Long term happiness is an art these days, being too smart is definitely not a prerequisite (more like the opposite of it). Also, I think we lack proper definition for it so people take it as some sort of nirvana levitating a meter above the ground type.
For me personally, living life that I will judge positively and without regrets on the proverbial death bed is form of long term happiness.
I used to say simply having common sense, but wisdom is fine too: plenty of smart, intelligent people lack the most common of common sense (I have no idea why it's called "common" when it's anything but — in Serbian, we say "zdrav razum" or "healthy sense/reason" which is slightly better).
I found it particularly funny when my University math professors displayed a complete inability to reason about the simplest of things.
"Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it." — René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode (1637) (Or in French: "Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée, car chacun pense en être bien pourvu.") In some philosophies, what stands opposite of wisdom is not folly, but common sense. However, it might be possible that neither common sense, nor wisdom will bring you happiness: the former is unable to provide it, the latter is unable to be attained (philo-sophia, an asymptotical wanting of wisdom).
I don't know if wisdom really helps. Or, maybe I just feel that way, because I lack it. How would wisdom help with happiness, when you see a likely worsening climate, rampant inequality for really no good reason, which together with the former is bound to cause significant sivil unrest and wars in the coming decades?
In my limited version of it, is to strive to be humble, and the happiness for those around you. Find joy in helping the communities (whichever that be in the connected world) you care about. But... That still doesn't truly make me happy. And relies on willfully ignoring everything mention earlier.
The only thing to hope for is a miracle in both energy production, and a sudden increase in empathy. I fear that human nature is stil stuck in a the ape mindset of "I got mine", and will never get out of.
Wisdom, I think, wants us to focus on our abilities and what we can do.
Things that are outside our control will always make us unhappy.
So if we do our part I think we eventually find happiness in whatever change we were able to bring in this world. And when enough people do that we fix all the problems mentioned at beginning of your comment.
> You want to change world? Go home and love your family. - Mother Teresa
I don't want to sound like a contrarian, because, I sort of agree. Or, rather, I would like to be able to agree.
Perhaps presumptuous, but I don't think wisdom goes together with either inaction, complacency, or otherwise willful ignorance. Which, seems to be the gist of the replies my previous comment received.
I still think that not worrying/complaining about things we cannot control or affect holds true for many things, and many aspects. However, I disagree with the premise. We can all do something, some more than others.
I've categorically refused jobs in the oil and gas sector, and increasingly become picky about what to devote my professional life to. I very consciously try not to be a consumerist, though I'm probably in the global top 10%, given statistics for my country. I eat meat, even though it doesn't help. I have traveled the world for my own amusement, though I've come to see it as an absolutely ridiculous thing to have done.
I could definitely do more. I could actively devote my life to it. I could decide not to have kids. Etc.
Is it wisdom to ignore these problems? Or to find happiness as a state of mind, in spite of it? I would assume it's the latter. I just don't know if wisdom is the right word for it. But maybe it is.
> when you see a likely worsening climate, rampant inequality for really no good reason
What are you, as an individual able to do about any of that?
Think about it the other way, if you wanted to make it worse could you meaningfully? Could you make the seas rise by even a single millimeter? Probably not.
Now say you wanted to make it better, a single private jet trip for a CEO to visit his mistress will wipe out any gains you have made.
What does your worrying do? Great you aren't "willfully ignorant" but since your ideal future requires a miracle anyway, and you aren't God, it's out of your hands.
You are probably like almost every other person who has ever lived, you don't matter at all. Nothing you do will meaningfully echo throughout history. Once you are gone, nobody will ever say your name again.
What's true about you is probably also true about the human race. The sun will consume the earth eventually, we will either leave this rock, or die on it. Why not enjoy your brief time here?
Not everyone finds comfort in nihilism; it can be pretty off-putting to read something like "you don't matter at all, and will be quickly forgotten" and than be told "so, enjoy!".
Is it nihilism? A plage could evolve and wipe out the human race at any time, a asteroid could end all life here in a instant. Most people are engaging in "nihilism" on those topics, and many others, but if they instead made the choice to dwell on them it wouldn't make them any less likely. I suggest simply you engage in "nihilism" on a few more things you have no control over.
>You are probably like almost every other person who has ever lived, you don't matter at all. Nothing you do will meaningfully echo throughout history.
That sentence is basically the definition of nihilism. I don't see any possible interpretation of it which isn't categorically nihilistic.
>I suggest simply you engage in "nihilism" on a few more things you have no control over.
I get what you are saying, and broadly agree with it, but that wasn't the point of my comment.
I wasn't commenting on whether or not your take on the subject is helpful or not, just that the delivery of "you don't matter [...] enjoy it" is off-putting to the many people who don't take such a nihilistic viewpoint, and probably does no favors in convincing them such a view would be beneficial.
The relationship between wisdom and intelligence is complicated in practice. But the benefit of wisdom is often that it allows you to accept the bad that you can't fix or affect and move on.
You can't single handedly fix any of the problems you highlight. The most you can do is alter your own behavior but let go of the consequences of other peoples behavior. You can't do anything about it.
The balancing act of wisdom is that:
* You can care about and advocate for solutions.
* But you can't own the success or failure because it's not realistic for you to do so.
I do have hope for the former. I expect it to come at a high cost, since we are already a bit too late. We did manage to do well with the ozone layer. Prediction models still put as at a likely unparalleled humanitarian crisis, even if we act more and faster than we will.
As for human empathy, much more unlikely. Humans are born flawed, selfish and amoral. It has to be taught away. To reach the point of a world society that can reliably "fix" this, for a large enough percentage, would be a more impressive feat IMO than solving the coming food and energy crisis. If only we had evolved from the bonobos instead of the chimps.
There is still room for hope, I agree. It's just that the rational part thinks the hopeful one is being naive.
Yes and even more because "intelligence" alone doesn't even help you climb to the highest positions.
People, especially on forums like HN, tend to mistake being 'intellectual' to actually 'intelligent'. There are various ways of being "smart" and being good at math and code is only one of them (Emotional intelligence, relationship intelligence, intelligence in career) etc...
People who say 'Iam so smart' are usually not so intelligent in the end
The article covers this as well: the author claims that studies show that all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually.
The thing that is a main driver to "climbing to higher positions" is usually desire and motivation, which is a cultural trait. Intelligence has a high correlation because there are plenty of motivated people across all levels of intelligence, so highly intelligent are better at succeeding at such well-defined problems.
Smartness is sometimes about well-educated or simply experienced and knowledgable. Eg. even if I was more intelligent, I'd trust a medical doctor because they have a vast knowledge and experience that I lack.
Still, the article makes a nice distinction between well- and poorly-defined problems. It's definitely going in the right direction, so go and have a read!
> all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually
Maybe it's not useful for the sake of discussion to list them individually, but it's definitely useful to measure them individually. Or you'll mistake someone who's a master of rotating abstract shapes in their head for someone who manage to get things done in a complex environments. The full-scale IQ tests (WAIS?) do actually test many different manifestations of intelligence.
This is a bit on the side of the point, but it's an important distinction when you're discussing and trying to measure people's real-life abilities.
I am not making this claim, the article is based on a number of studies measuring different types of intelligence.
It actually does say that they are all almost exactly the same (sure, highly intelligent individuals will score better on one set of problems than on another, but they will score highly on most of them; similar for average or lower intelligence folks — their scores on each of them correlate but are not in a strict linear relationship). That suggests that they are ultimately one and the same (as per those studies).
> The article covers this as well: the author claims that studies show that all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually.
I would strongly doubt that they correlate tbh.. where would the "virgin math genius" cliché would come from ?
I have been versed into various socio evonomic and hobby environement over my life, and have met natural geniuses in several unrelated fields (sport, math, chess, boxing, military, art, entrepreneurs /investors, emotional connections and / or sex). I can assure you i didnt not observe such correlation.
At best what ive noticed is how some of them would be clueless about their gift, and pretty average on the rest.
I mean I understand and welcome you enthusiasm about science and research papers, unfortunately it's largely misguided in my opinion.
Even in actual scientific fields like computer science (In particular machine learning and reinforcement learning academic environement in which I work and hold a PhD) 'doubting' is necessary, since a large percentage of papers are unreproducible and largely biaised for publication... [0]
Regarding social sciences papers, I give 0 credit to any of them and that won't change soon.
First it's literally impossible define rigorously any term to differentiate (I mean seriously how are you going to "measure" emotional intelligence or entrepreneurship skills). Secondly there a large fraction of the field which is just pretending to do science and circlejkerking each other by accepting their own papers without rigorous due diligence, to the point they can't even detect hoax and fraud [1]
At the end of the day I am not here to fight you. If you don't believe me then be it but I stand by my assessment that various kind of intelligence are at best losely related. Some math genius are 100% clueless in emotional or business intelligence, some genius entrepreneurs are 100% clueless with math or girls, some really good artists completely clueless in business or academic stuff. Some athletes too... Of course some will have all but imo it's a lucky minority.
I am fine with doubting any particular study, and I certainly have my reservations about social science studies in particular (most of them try to categorise "poorly-defined problems").
But we can either doubt the entire scientific process and throw our hands in the air, or we can work to improve it and look at it critically. At the moment, it's the best thing we've got.
Thus, I dislike the generic "I don't believe results of any study disagreeing with my anecdotal evidence", which is exactly what our scientific process is set up to dispell with. Proper argumentation is about misinterpretation of data, misapplication of statistical methods, insufficient sample size, outright data fabrication or anything along those lines.
Eg. in all your anecdotal examples, you are misinterpreting what "correlates" means. In particular, all intelligences correlating does NOT mean that "some will have all" (a famous statistics observation that there is no representative ever matching your average/median result in any complex measurement: eg you can have an average height of a group of people being 170cm and nobody being exactly 170cm — yet you can still claim how people in the group are 170cm tall on average, and then we can debate if that makes sense depending on the distributiin, sample size etc).
> in all your anecdotal examples, you are misinterpreting what "correlates" means. In particular, all intelligences correlating does NOT mean that "some will have all"
No, i'm saying exceptional intelligence in a field didn't lead to a discernable increase of intelligence in other aspect of life in general, which would actually be the definition of "correlate", in a large sample of people and fields I have seen.
Now you may disagree, or make another generic authority argument which invoke 'scientific studies' that I have yet to see the existence, but respectfully, I'm not here to debate and I'm also quite sure my point of view will not change by reading such 'study'. I was just here sharing my point of view of someone who have seem various exceptional people in various fields and expressing my doubts the whole "intelligence correlate" thing..
Get to know your bosses. Like really get to know them.
Mine have told me stories about how their wives left them because they made less than a million one year. Or how their kids are strung out on drugs beacuse they failed to be around them often enough growing up. When they have a conversation, 90% of the time it's about how many widgets the widget factory is going to pump out next month. Old friends come out of the woodwork to ask for money. They are hungry ghosts[0].
Advertising has been effective in putting people on a treadmill. They compete with neighbors for who has the more expensive car, the most attractive wife, the biggest house, who went to the most expensive school. Their days are full of jealous resentment. People who are among the wealthiest to ever live on this planet, feel poor, not beacuse they lack the ability to provide for themselves or their children, but beacuse don't have everything they see on Instagram.
I'm not a religious man, but religion can offer wisdom if you are willing to read beyond the claims of magic.
Christianity prohibited the coveting of your neighbor not because it would make God angry, but because it makes your life worse.
"Christianity prohibited the coveting of your neighbor not because it would make God angry, but because it makes your life worse."
Citation needed. It's one of the commandments: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17 (NASB). A book of magical thinking, created out of bronze age mythology, around a hateful, spiteful, capricious god is no basis for a system of philosophical world-view.
You would be better served studying philosophy directly, rather than a book filled with misogyny, slavery, thought-crime and magic.
Which famous philosophers incorporated magical thinking, thought-crime, misogyny and slavery into their philosophy? What is the wisdom imparted by officially sanctioned chattel slavery, wherein beating your slave to death is perfectly acceptable [as] long as they live a few days after the beating: "And if someone strikes his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for the slave is his property." Exodus 21:20-21 (NASB)
Yes, if you go back several thousand years, you can find such trash. I suppose I should have limited it to modern philosophers that are more relevant and less influenced by magical thinking to discourage lazy answers. You have not bothered to address the question of the VALUE of incorporating slavery, thought-crime, misogyny and magical thought into one's philosophy. Are you incapable of addressing the problem or do you realize you cannot justify it?
Aristotle invented the logic that was encoded in the software you used to respond to my comment. He was also a racist. Do you cast your laptop into a lake?
Jefferson argued that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", he also owned slaves. Do you argue that men are not equal?
Take the good parts, leave the bad. Like it or not Christ was one of the great moral philosophers. His surmon on the mount was revolutionary for it's time[0]. You can read it without believing in the magic, in the same way you can read the Tao Te Ching or Art of War while not being a Taoist or a general.
True leaders (in the abstract, idealised sense), maybe, but actual people we have in real-life leadership positions definitely not. They need to be super-smart to handle the corporate game of thrones without getting stabbed in the back too quickly.
I think the answer is that intelligent people tend to suffer from depression more than “simpler” people. Insecure over-achievers, “introverts”, and the like.
the intelligence of someone is foolishness in other eyes. Simpler people, as you call them, have often solutions for problems with which well educated people struggle with.
So not looking down on someone is a good beginning for be more happy. :)
Because happiness isn't a mental skill. What makes you happy is try to have and keep peace with everyone and do good things, make presents to others, give and don't expect to get something back (you will but don't expect it). (it's the opposite you see nowadays in movies or series ;-)
It's about social connections and inter-human things ... not some skills you learn on universities but from loving and well raised parents.
>What makes you happy is try to have and keep peace with everyone and do good things, make presents to others, give and don't expect to get something back
Some worse-if-wiser part of me suspects this piece of advice is given out of altruism to the community as a whole, not the person receiving it. Doing this has never made me happy. I'm more willing to do it when I'm already happy though, so maybe there's a corellation.
People, especially on forums like HN, tend to mistake being 'intellectual' to actually 'intelligent'. There are various ways of being "smart" and being good at math and code is only one of them (Emotional intelligence, relationship intelligence, intelligence in career) etc...
It's generally a mix of them who lead to happiness, if that even exists
> Naturally, people with more of this mental horsepower must live happier lives. When they encounter a problem, they should use their superior problem-solving ability to solve it.
That's not all. Smart people are also more perceptive to problems, they identify more of them, and solving one problem is never enough. Ergo they can't ever be happy as in "content" (which is what all those 'happiness' self-report studies measure), in fact as time goes by they should get increasingly depressed by identifying more problems. Ignorance is often a bliss.
Also, at least for sustainable, healthy activities, there may also be some difference in the kind of life that a person in the bottom 10th percentile and a person in the top 10th percentile of the scale will find gratifying.
I've never much enjoyed "intelligence" as a way to box groups of people. Everybody knows something I don't, can do things I cannot, solves problems in ways I would not think to. I would not call a math professor who does not know how to fix a car dumb. For me, the line between a lack of skill and a supposed lack of intelligence is too blurry. Of course all of this may be some sort of cognitive dissonance about myself probably not falling particularly high on an intelligence curve.
Either way, if joy and happiness is the goal, than a lot of adults are morons measured against trying to do that. We isolate ourselves, allow stigma and bias to push our choices, and ultimately worry so much about happiness that we do a poor job being happy.
I'm not especially smart, or happy, but, personally, I don't know how to be it, or what it feels like. I know pleasure, but being in a constant pleasurable state is not what is meant by happiness as far as I know.
Slavoj Žižek (someone who does seem to be especially smart):
“Happiness was never important. The problem is that we don't know what we really want. What makes us happy is not to get what we want. But to dream about it. Happiness is for opportunists. So I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life of eternal struggle, especially struggle with oneself. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Authentic masters are never happy; happiness is a category of slaves.”
How long are you going to be unhappy about that? It’s passes even quicker than a cold and everybody gets it once in a while. Happiness is not to cry over spilled milk.
There’s a point in getting the best with what you’ve got. But I know, sometimes we are served really crappy cards so unless that’s the case there’s no reason not to be happy. Comparing ourselves with others is quite often a major reason for unhappiness for many. Avoiding that is key
What a great quote. I fully agree with the part that we don't actually know what we want most of the time. I have begun to ask myself exactly this question if I feel unhappy about something vague. Often I cannot really answer my own question.. or lose myself in if-then scenarios or plain uncertainty.
I guess my own realization is that there usually are many satisfying goals or outcomes and those change more often than you'd like. That's why "the path is the goal" is also a great quote.
For one thing, after your children have grown up and moved out, most people are really glad they've gone through parenting, have an adult child they are in relation with, potentially grandchildren to enrich their lives with etc.
To claim that having kids makes you happier in the long-term requires comparing against the control group of childless adults. Last I checked, there was no appreciable difference in happiness between these groups in middle age.
From the data I've seen, the strongest predictors of happiness are maintaining strong social ties. Children are only one way to do that. I've seen no data suggesting having children specifically is associated with more happiness at any stage of life.
Having kids is insanely stressful in the beginning. Your entire life shifts to revolve around them and its utterly exhausting. I could not manage having kids and maintaining friendships at the same time and lost most of my friends due to inaction on my part. As kids get older though for me ~10 years old, they begin to have a lot of autonomy. You see the results of all of your efforts and you realize that everything you have done has contributed to create these small awesome little people with their own thoughts and goals. I have not cried since I was a small child, even when close family died I just shrugged and trudged on. I am for the most part relatively unemotional. My kid came into my room the other day, just smiling and telling me about something and it was suddenly the proudest I have ever been, I almost cried in happiness. It was one of the most surreal things I have ever experienced. I am really looking forward to see what he does next in life and am actually happy about getting to find out.
And that's my fear when I get older (without kids). That the happiness of being single now and not dealing with kids and having more disposable income, etc. etc. will only go so far but that I'll be depressed about being lonely in the future when I am a senior.
I can definitely see how my siblings with kids will be way happier as grandparents.
But yeah, I'm content now without kids cause I get to sleep whenever and my disposable income is enough. lol
Also though, I'm never arrogant in making proclamations that people with kids are miserable.
They might have tough times in the beginning, but the older I get the more at peace they seem as parents.
I'm just saying that comment I replied to makes this sound as universal truth. Wanting children and being happy about having children are subjective things. There are people who don't have children and are happy about it, people who have children but are unhappy about it and everything inbetween.
People who want to have children should have them, and people who don't want to have children shoudln't have them =)
Its not a mathematical problem that you just compare the curves, some problems are hard and cannot be generalized.
And you are adding other factors if you think people who do not want kids are somehow the outliers. Same as if people wanted kids might be if you actually looked closely, for most people its not a very well thought out choice.
I'm with you wrt everything you wrote, except this part:
> People who want to have children should have them, and people who don't want to have children shoudln't have them =)
I think it's fine either way! People who want to have children are often disappointed when it's not all roses as they imagined. Conversely, people who don't want to have children are often surprised at the little joys they bring...
Naval has a great definition which I agree with. Happiness Is Peace in Motion
Peace is happiness at rest https://nav.al/peace-motion
Another less liked person, haha is that Andrew Tate knob, and while for a knob, he does have some good ideas, one of them is something along the lines of, I dont need to be happy, I dont even think about it, as long as there are no problems, I am happy, if there are problems I am unhappy, unless I am unhappy, then I would say that I am happy.
Appreciating and creating beauty isn't contingent on peace. Often art comes from a place of passion. I think freedom from emotional turmoil in the general sense would be enjoyed by everyone, I can agree in that capacity. However, that list of synonyms is rather ambiguous and to me elicits an imperative for impassivity, antithetical to striving towards anything. I guess it's a valid path if that suits your nature, but I'm getting more out of the human experience by evoking passions.
> Pleasure is not the right goal. Homeostasis, balance, equanimity, peace are much better.
Along with these, sustainability. Imagine finding balance and peace, but seeing clearly that the tools and techniques used to get and stay there are temporary. Pretty unsettling. We have to get there in ways that are long lasting and unlikely to change radically.
There's a beautiful poem by Giovanni Pascoli, "Aléxandros" in which Alexander the Great gets to the Indus river with his army after having conquered half of Asia; he knows it's the end of his conquest and thinks - it was better when I was dreaming of it, I was happier when more challenges, road, destiny where ahead than behind.
James Clear talks about this in his book Atomic Habits. Basically people are happier during the _process_ of trying to accomplish some goal than when they actually accomplish that goal.
I can guarantee, that trying to make someone else happy, will never ever fail to make you happy :). Even in the unlikely event you fail to make that person happy, the effort of trying is fulfilling. Now the problem is, most of us , myself included, forget to direct our efforts to making others happy. I imagine God up there like an exasperated parent : "If only you guys would actually listen to what I suggested, you know, loving each other and stuff, you would actually be happier. You know that? but instead you insist on being out for yourselves"
> I can guarantee, that trying to make someone else happy, will never ever fail to make you happy :
I can guarantee that there exist several data points that refute this.
Definitely can guarantee many cases where doing this to excess for some people is a net negative.
Can certainly show cases which led to divorce (i.e. always trying to make spouse happy was unstable, and the marriage would have been much better off with randomly ignoring spouse).
Helping others can make you happy. Just don't do it at the expense of self care.
I agree 100% with your last line ;). OK, my statement "trying to make someone else happy, will never ever fail to make you happy", perhaps needs a footnote such as "in moderation, obviously. does not include sacrificing your entire life for someone determined to remain unhappy or suffering from severe depression". Then again, its surprising even someone with depression who doesn't give a lot back, you can still go around thinking "well I tried" and your friends respect you, perhaps they emulate you. Good begets good, and all that. That's the idea of the pay it forward movement etc
The 'eternal struggle' is such an interesting concept and I've thought about it a lot. It really does seem like, while true happiness may not solely come from overcoming challenges, if those challenges aren't present you definitely won't be happy. I think this aligns better than the top post's idea of "smart people see the awful things that can't be changed", it's moreso that smart people aren't finding satisfying challenges in the first place. I remember when I went wild downloading ROMs for games when I found out that was thing; once I ended up with all the games I wanted to play, I lost most of my interest to play any of them.
My headcanon is that it's tied to the fact that our life spans are limited and we've evolved to derive the most satisfaction when we're working on a task that is difficult for us individually or has vague success criteria, which seems to match up in part with the article's takeaway. It's also how I reason that not only fucking things up, but also complaining about it and trying to fix it are all required for people to feel happy. I see this ethos in a lot of old religions as well - humans striving towards the same qualities as a godhead but never quite getting there no matter how awesome their abilities become, or how our 'perfect' state was when we were ignorant of the consequences of our actions.
I can’t stand Zizek’s verbose nonsense. In this one paragraph he makes like 5 absurd statements one after the other, with such confidence and certainty that they look smart.
The closing sentiment takes the cake for me. A neat little shanty of the mindset of the communist smart men.
Not to mention that Zizek talking sounds like someone slurping ramen.
I understand the quotation (and only partially agree), but only because I've seen the same thing expressed much better, and without the absurd parts, in... the Unabomber manifesto. Basically, people need sensible difficulties to overcome.
I am biased against Slavoj Žižek because I'm not very fond of him.
I disagree with happiness not being important. It is important, but it is not something that you can have all of the time, because human mood, emotional state and the experience itself is always a wave, going up and down, constant fluctuation. A person needs to learn to identify where in the curve they are and not allow the curve to rule their life. Once your able to be aware of the curve you can start taking steps to decrease the down trend of the curve so that you can spend more time in the up trend.
Humans notice change - diff, if you will. Meaning if you were to be in absolute happiness for extended period of time, your frame of reference would slowly fade and you would no longer know what is happiness for you.
That's why, it is my personal opinion, that you should just sit down, drink a hot beverage of choice, acknowledge the Yin-Yang nature of reality and choose happiness.
No curve goes up or down for ever. I'm not a financial adviser.
When I used to battle my depression I came across an article/paper that stated that smart people are more prone to depression. Same with "creative" people.
I have overcome depression and I am "satisfied" with my life (I prefer the word "satisfied" to the overinflated one: happiness). And now that depression is in my past I think that was a puff-piece article, and so is this.
One could say that more intelligent people tend to overthink things; then again someone even more intelligent would know better and not overthink things.
I liked the big about granny.
I also like Navals take on this, he asks a similar questions 'if you're so smart, why aren't you happy?'.
I think Navals conclusion is that smart people take to things differently, they try to use the same tools that they've used in their lives such as logic and math to try get to happiness but its not physics, its more like philosophy.
Shouldn’t the real question be “why aren’t more people happy”.
Lack of happiness isn’t relegated only to “smart people”.
My observation: managing stress related to ever growing amount of responsibilities (as comes with age), finances, and spouse can have a disproportionate impact on one’s happiness. None of which are tied to intelligence.
I don't think our society has any focus on happiness, it's not easily measured or produced and there's little proof that it'd benefit the economy..
I mean..
What if people suddenly discovered that enough food and shelter is available, that they could do maybe a days work a month and just walk around to smell the flowers the rest of the time?
There are many people for whom that is true (chiefly the retired). The ones who are physically able generally choose to do something marginally “productive” than continuously smelling flowers. (Perhaps that’s related to what got them to a position to retire, whether a work ethic, other personal mindset, or programming.)
If you use your smarts to conclude that having a spouse will negatively affect your happiness, don't have one.
A very intelligent person should be able to figure out a way to improve their finances.
The article makes the distinction between well-defined problems (eg. increase my monthly income) and poorly defined problems (eg. find a spouse that matches you for life), and clearly suggests that intelligence helps with one but not the other.
> If you use your smarts to conclude that having a spouse will negatively affect your happiness, don't have one.
You're assuming the negative. Your spouse can be a huge overall help in achieving happiness.
> A very intelligent person should be able to figure out a way to improve their finances.
It's not that simple.
You could be exceedingly smart but medically handicapped, which leads to lower paying jobs. Or could have been a high earner and then come down with an unfortunate disease which greatly impacts you ability to work and medically bankrupts you.
> You're assuming the negative. Your spouse can be a huge overall help in achieving happiness
I am not assuming anything, but explaining that, in theory, one could decide to have or not to have a spouse to increase their happiness — if they could reasonably deduce what the outcome would be, which they can't.
I was mostly tongue-in-cheek in relation to a spouse: that's a "poorly defined problem" that, according to the article, intelligence does not help with.
> It's not that simple
Oh, agreed. But we are talking about averages, and there is a known correlation between intelligence and financials.
Statistics, unfortunately, never says anything special about any single case.
The smarter people see the truth of the world and the universe. If the truth was good, that we lived in a wonderful society with wonderful people in a universe that cares about us, smart people would be so happy.
But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread. Congrats, you have learned the history of humanity and how our society functions, and your reward is you get to be angry at the vast amount of injustice.
This is why acceptance is such a key value. Acceptance is both an obstacle to progress and a prerequisite for continued existence. It's the line between Yin and Yang, where the duality of wrong and right is forced to blur.
Serious question - how old are you? Anecdotally I’ve noticed smart people tend to have this attitude until their late 20s when it starts mellowing out.
Now I’m a bit older I see my smarter friends happier than anyone and the less smart just about the same as always
Unsolicited advice from some random guy on the internet:
Don't start down that road. Material success will always be just over the next hill, regardless of how much you already have. Happiness and satisfaction can't come from accomplishment or material gain.
Compared to what it was like when I was working at Walmart...?
Yeah, material gain has certainly made me a thousand times happier. I haven't had to worry about an Electric bill in years. I used to have to navigate and memorize the electric company shutoff routine so I could pay as late as possible while selectively mitigating late fees and disconnect fees in relation to payday.
I can afford to go on vacations now. Take PTO when I want to. When my AC dies I don't have to just suffer until my landlord decides to do something; I can just pay the repair guy $700 to fix it and have AC in a couple hours. Eating healthier is easier; I don't have to stress in social situations about how run down or holey my clothes are. I have the luxury of being able to eat and survive if I am fired allowing me to be more confident in how I carry myself at work. (Meaning I don't have to kiss-ass when I am being mistreated). I have the money to travel if god-forbid my wife needs an abortion, or I can move away from bad neighborhoods very quickly.
The pursuit of wealth in and of itself as a measure of personal worth will not bring happiness, but let's not all pretend that money doesn't bring happiness insofar as it provides individual autonomy over their lives.
I agree with the OPs point that some older people may have just reached a level of material success that grants them the luxury of 1. Processing their existential dread through things like therapy; and 2. Live a less stressful life that comes with a certain level of wealth
Whether you like my definition or not, I would argue that you are describing the difference between poverty and sufficiency. This is not wealth or achievement, but our system makes it easy to assume that.
The churn at the bottom is intended to motivate your continued activity and striving.
You are perhaps still too close to the stress of poverty to see that what you are describing is not happiness either, but something more like the removal of capitalism’s sharp rocks from your shoes.
Jordan Peterson (I know, I know...) made an interesting remark in one of his lectures recorded long before he became famous:
"Once you make about $60,000 a year for your family, but let's say for you personally, additional income makes zero has zero impact on your quality of life."
Ding! At a certain point constant existential dread becomes tiring. You spend years mulling on it and the answer continues to be there’s nothing you can do, so what’s the point in worrying? Might as well go do something else and enjoy yourself.
Precisely! In the end, life will kill all of us at some point. Until then we have two choices: We either do what we can with what we have, or we don't.
That’s exactly my strategy for shutting down the existential dread mill. Whenever it bothers me too much I’m pointing my attention to how it all eventually turns to dust. The effect of that enables me to try to enjoy the now.
To me it is mostly that life is boring. At some point you have seen everything interesting and anything you see hence are just fitting into the same basic patterns. Discussions, tv shows, books etc. Living is still better than not living, but every time you experience something new the things left to experience becomes smaller. A few romance movies and you have seen all of them, a few action movies etc, or even psychology papers or math papers etc.
You haven't seen all of them, but the more you see the less value you get from seeing another. So we can conclude that living for an eternity wouldn't be particularly more interesting than living for 100 years, as 100 years is more than enough to see many things in each category. You might not become a world expert in everything, but experiencing the things worth experiencing in the categories doesn't take particularly long to do and after that life is just padding.
The main reason to live now is that there are new interesting things coming out still, since computers are still young. That adds new things over the years. But interesting progress isn't really the norm, it isn't like physics or math has gotten any more interesting over my lifetime and I expect computers to get there before I die and then there isn't much left.
Edit: For example, everything we produce today is based on the same math and physics my grandfather learned in college. There has been no practical progress since then there. Main thing since is new tools enabled by computers that are more precise or automate things, that is interesting but the discoveries enabled by more automation/precise tools will run out at some point.
I think you need bias for the things you create for that to work. For me, if I create something then it isn't more interesting than if someone else created it, and creating something that is really interesting is really hard, people who can do that get rich.
You're focusing on how socially valued your creative work is (and how it ranks relative to others), which is an external factor. I tend to find that if you justify doing creative work on whether it'll be better/more interesting than others or you think it'll increase your status somehow (popularity/wealth), it's not as fulfilling and you'll probably never create anything.
What I find more fulfilling is creating for its own sake and for myself. Completely abandoning the thought of whether what I'm making will have utility for the whole world and I'll be lauded for it. Creating things that I find interesting, and also abandoning the view whether others will find it as interesting or high quality. For me, I've realized that I feel more fulfilled if I'm doing/creating more and consuming less. The mere act of doing/creating something in of itself is the end I try to seek.
But I don't find the things I create to be interesting, that was my point. To me things aren't interesting just because I create them, but that seems to be the case for you, you think that the things you create are interesting somehow, I don't understand that.
Do you mean you find it interesting to learn how to create things? I can agree with that, but once I've learned to create something then I don't see why it would be interesting anymore. That feeling ends very quickly once you've created a few things and understand how to create most related things. If you have programmed games, web, low level and ML at a professional level there isn't much more fun things to learn in programming, and so on. And you get there very quickly if your goal is to learn those things and not to make the most money you can. And even learning more domains and more things gets boring after a while, as the process isn't that different between learning different things.
I think there a few aspects to whether something can be 'interesting' to me with regards to creation (i'm probably missing some):
1. Is the broader topic/activity interesting to me? (interesting in of itself, not for the other reasons listed below)
2. The act of doing is interesting to me in of itself (as opposed to consuming)
3. The act of growth/learning/getting better is interesting to me
4. How good the output of my creation can/will be
5. How will the output be socially valued in a way beneficial to me (whether status/wealth/whatever)
I will say as I've gotten older, I've started to really decrease focus on #5, as I've found it to be the most empty for me (not to say I haven't achieved success there, but it's just a never-ending treadmill when you compare with others).
I try to really focus on #'s 1-3, as they give me the most joy.
Not sure. I've done original contributions to math, physics and did some significant work as a software engineer. It was fun, but then the void hit where you look back and realize the end result wasn't really interesting. And then you go look for that feeling again, but it gets harder to find every time, just like everything else. Not sure how art would make a difference here, it isn't like art is more interesting than those things, will likely just meet a void again.
As another commentator pointed out you seem entirely focused on consuming. Yes, I can see where this gets boring. I am less apt to visit Reddit because I've seen the same posts dozens of times. I am not apt to watch many movies or shows for the same reason.
But life boring because consumption becomes boring? Nothing could be further from my experience! Instead of a focus on consumption, or even a focus on creation, I find a focus on skill-building to be where it is at. This summer I have taken up beekeeping, keeping chickens, and learning to fish. (We also got a second puppy which is also an adventure in getting to know this dog's way-of-being and how we can train her to be one of us even as she changes us by her inclusion.) Even though I've put hours and hours into all of my projects I am a novice and I recognize that. I have more questions and ambitions now than when I began. With fishing I've caught 9 different species so far this summer. Now I want to catch another set (pike, walleye, perch, catfish), try new lures and learn how to use them, explore new places to fish, and learn how to clean and cook them. (Catch and release solely so far.) I haven't harvested honey yet from my hives nor dealt with mite infestations. With my chickens I'm still learning their patterns and waiting for the first eggs. The chickens also forced me to upskill my building abilities so I could make them a coop and run.
I also have in my wheelhouse of fun-to-me (ie not work) skills house repair (remodeled a bathroom last year), my own car repairs, woodworking, reading and writing, baking, sourdough, kombucha, beer-making, yogurt making, gardening etc. I am no where near a master in any of them and I don't do them all all the time. There is so much fun in learning a new skill, and seeing over time how I become better at it. I am a master of none of those, but I keep growing in all of them. There's always someone else better than me at an aspect of each of those. There is always a new thing to learn to do, something to be better at, feedback to receive. Any one of these could keep me extremely busy for several years trying to master them.
And there are definitely more skills than anyone could learn in a lifetime. Off the top of my head I have on my to-learn list leatherworking, blacksmithing, circuitry, furniture building, 3dprinting, basic microbiology and chemistry, cnc machining, publishing a book, photography, guitar, piano, singing, hunting, target shooting, skeet shooting, and on and on. This is my list, I'm sure other people have their own list with really cool things I've never thought of. (And once I do they get added to my list!)
I think the difference is the mindset. It isn't about whether or not someone else cares about the end product. It isn't even about whether the end product is really any good. It is about me being able to do it adequately. It is about growth and change in myself. If I judged myself by Hollywood, YouTube, or Instagram portrayals of any of my hobbies I would despair. I'm not as good a fisherman as Richard Gene. I'm nowhere near as capable with hand tools as Paul Sellers. My sourdough is pathetic compared to Maurizio of The Perfect Loaf. I don't have the teaching/communication skills of someone like Feynman. But that isn't the point. The point is I'm better at something today than I was yesterday. The point is I did something successfully, even if it isn't perfect. After enjoying that success I can always find more areas to improve which is a new challenge to accept.
Boring? Only if I gave up my personal drive to improve and find things to do.
edit: I focused entirely on skill here. There are also interpersonal relationships that take time and effort and can be richly rewarding. Even without all of the above my life would never be boring because of the people in it.
But isn't it boring knowing roughly where you will be in a year or two? It isn't like fishing or cooking are unknown territory, the skill curve is very easy to look up so you know roughly what you will be able to cook or what kind of things you will do when you go fishing. When I learned physics or programming that altered my worldview, many other things I've learned like play tennis didn't give me anything like that at all. Its just a list of things to practice, and then you have built the skills to execute them and that is it you can now serve properly or whatever you practiced, doesn't give any satisfaction since you knew the outcome even before you began.
So at least to me there aren't many things left worth learning. Maybe chemical engineering could be interesting to learn, as it isn't entirely clear to me how people work with chemistry, I have no idea what I'd be able to do with a few years learning chemical engineering.
It seems like you are hyper-focused on ends/outcomes. And if an end/outcome of a pursuit isn't completely novel, unpredictable, or result in you being the best at the pursuit, then what's the point? Is that an accurate summary?
I wonder whether there's a higher level view that really prioritizes status seeking, and that a life should be valued based on outcomes/production. And if you can't produce things at the level of the best, what's the point?
If that is the case, I've certainly had those thoughts when I was younger, and I would offer to consider giving yourself a break. Release yourself of expectations of being the best/most novel/etc. Give yourself permission to be a flawed human. Focus on enjoying the little things, focus on the present. Focus on the journey, not the end. We're the self-aware universe, we're so lucky we get to experience things as we do, let's enjoy the ride while we can. And contrary to what you're hinting at, there are an infinite number of possibilities/knowledge to gain. To think us humans have answered all of the questions of conscious experience and the universe (and what may lay beyond) is incredibly naive.
I can see the argument. I hope I'm not mischaracterizing is by saying your position is something like: because I can look up the best and what that looks like it is boring to strive for it.
The difference for me is I haven't experienced what it is like to be good. You know how an olympic gymnast makes insane feats of body control appear easy? I have no idea what that feels like. (and I never will, in my upper 30s I am beginning to lose flexibility needed, not to mention I have no desire to put in the effort in that area.) I don't know what it feels like to fight a 70lb halibut in the north pacific. Sure I can watch someone do it, but to have the skill to do it, to have the experience of catching a massive fish is entirely different than watching someone else do it.
yeah, someone else does it better. (In fact I'm watching Richard Gene the Fishing Machine on Youtube as I write this. I'll never be a fisherman like him. ) The difference is doing as opposed to watching. I have all sorts of second-hand fun watching youtube. But I have so much more fun when I make my own accomplishment. My fish may be smaller and objectively less interesting than the one I saw caught on YT. But the experience of doing is radically different than the experience of watching. I find doing much more engaging.
If I were you I'd look for something that you like to do. Doesn't have to be fishing, that's me. Maybe you like to crochet or program, cook or build. Whatever it is, find something that makes you say "hey, I did that. cool." and go with it. That's where living is!
People have treated me like a genius wherever I go. I got invited to do research in my freshman year in college. To me being among the best at something isn't very interesting, its just going through the motions, have gone through it many times. It gets boring quick, instead of focusing on one area I just went into new ones because it isn't fun to be among the best. But that gets tiring as well. Made lots of money working for Google, so now I don't even have a good reason to work so quit and spent time just learning whatever and now I don't have anything left I care to learn really.
Not sure what to do, maybe people who learn faster run out of things to learn faster and therefore aren't as happy? I can see life being much more interesting if you learn much slower, since then there are more interesting stuff left to explore. Basically, the better you are at predicting stories the more boring movies and books will be, etc.
Seems you’ve resigned yourself to “default boring”. That’s your prerogative, but it’s no different from the “existential dread attitude shift” which spurred the conversation.
You have the means to meaningfully improve the lives of others and are focusing on how to entertain yourself. Do something for another, like teaching them your skills or donating your money. Heck, start a non-profit which does both! It’s not as easy to be the best when your success depends on the outcome and performance of others.
Have you ever tried getting an addict in a bad place to straighten their life? Frustration is the opposite of boring. There is no formula for that problem or a myriad of other societal issues. There is no right answer for you to arrive at and be objectively the best. In the off-chance that you do crack it, you would have revolutionised at least one field, solved some of humanity’s problems, and gotten a challenge for a while.
In Buddhism, they advise against spending time pondering "unanswerable questions." [1]
If you know a question is unanswerable, and mulling it over makes you unhappy, then it's foolish to continue thinking about it. You can just leave it be and move on with your life. I think most people eventually figure this out on their own some time in their late 20s.
I'm not too familiar with Zen, but questions like these are often meant to be nonsense questions with no answer. They push you to think harder and harder until you realize the futility of doing so, at which point you've found the "real" answer.
Previous poster either got this subtly wrong, or phrased it badly, or belongs to a tradition that I'm not familiar with, but a good story on this is the parable of the poisoned arrow: Someone gets shot by an arrow and his friend tells him they have to get to a hospital - the person shot starts worrying about what kind of poison it is, who shot him and why, if the hospital they are going to is any good, etc, etc - really he needs to go and get it treated RIGHT NOW and nothing else matters - he can answer all those questions after he's treated.
And I wouldn't say the zen koans are unanswerable, you can think of them like riddles that force you to think a different way than you normally do.
Yeah this - it just takes time, and some don't reach that point, but it's a natural progression after you get your first glimpse at how things are. I often forget how dark it can get when you first face that dread.
I'm much happier in my 30s, having enough experience that I've learned to let go and accept existential dread for the useless bother that it is, than I was in my 20s. Truly realizing that nobody's that special also was a qualitative leap.
Not that I'd call myself « smart » with a straight face, but I certainly used to care a lot about things outside of my control.
Same, but part of that is I realized how much I didn't know about things which I was originally quite certain about. Epistemology is a field which is sadly usually confined to religious schools. It's pretty eye-opening when you start applying it to things you think you knew.
It was more than a little disturbing when I started reading the methodology sections of scientific papers that make the headlines and I realized at LEAST 90% of them were absolute bullshit.
You have the life experience to know what will and won't affect you, and you've found an equilibrium of control and impact that apparently makes you happy.
That's very you specific, not really related to your age, other than that it took you until your 30s to find that equilibrium.
There's nothing at all written down anywhere that ensures such an equilibrium for everyone, however. Especially for folks who represent a minority in their society, life is a lot more threatening and a lot less controllable for them, typically.
For some, that equilibrium may never come, and while that doesn't invalidate your experience, it certainly doesn't support the idea that "you'll calm down when you're older".
> You have the life experience to know what will and won't affect you, and you've found an equilibrium of control and impact that apparently makes you happy.
I think some people have too much empathy to ever reach that point.
I have a few friends that literally broke out in tears when Russia began the invasion of Ukraine. They don't know a single person in Ukraine. Nothing about the war truly has an effect on their day-to-day lives. They don't even have investments that got clobbered.
Yet they shed tears over innocent civilian lives being lost.
These people have been on the verge of nervous breakdown ever since COVID hit.
Seeing people on such an extreme end makes me feel like I might be slightly sociopathic because I read the news and just think "Well that sucks" and then move on with my day, knowing it makes no difference to me and my life.
What you're feeling is selfishness, not sociopathy, for what it's worth! I don't think a sociopath would wonder what you're wondering here, but I'm no expert.
I think of selfishness and I think of taking deliberate actions to serve ones self at the detriment of others. Things like hoarding limited resources or taking a second slice of cake before everyone has had their first.
I will never forgive you, John. You denied me cake.
A possible explanation is that the mellowing is due to the loss of acuity with age. The more likely explanation is that it's an evolutionary adaption in response to how ones function in society changes with age.
I think it's just increased wisdom and maturity. Some people need a certain number of years (their twenties) before you start noticing how pointless and bad for you it is to be angry at the world.
I think it is more you start out trying to fix the worlds problems, and then after some years you give up and become happier. I don't think it is wisdom or maturity, many people give up as a kid and just go through the motions from the start, I wouldn't call those wise or mature.
Speaking as someone not totally young, and (hopefully) not totally un-smart, I think its true one mellows out with age, also you can "be the change you want to see". That to me is the only thing we can do. If we all do our bit we can make things a bit better. Some people can make a disproportionately large positive difference. Its never too late to do that.
> I think it is more you start out trying to fix the worlds problems,
I can't think of that many young twenty-somethings who want to fix the worlds problems. If anything, younger people are more focused on themselves [1] that people after the 30-35 yo mark.
[1] That's not an accusation or anything. It's natural that, when you're young, you need to figure out who you are and what you want out of life, and that requires a lot of focusing on oneself. Not to mention just growing into being an actual adult is also not easy and requires a lot of trial, error and introspection - something that is not as required when one is older and more formed already.
I think both generalizations are off the mark a bit. A lot of young folks are very idealistic and think they can have a larger impact (i.e. fix the world's problems). You also have those that are self-focused. Some of that is combined - focused on self means you may have an over-inflated sense of what you can accomplish and how your contributions will be received.
A lot of that is why some young entrepreneurs do go on to actually change the world (and we definitely need those people, although it isn't always for the best). But most that think that's what they are going to do fail a few times, and become more realistic in their views of what they can accomplish.
Sometimes the smarter someone is, the more quickly they can think through the possible results and come to those conclusions that they probably aren't going to be one of the few that does succeed to change the world, and that can (to the overall point here) lead to a sense of sadness and loss, maybe without having gone through the effort and failure, even. Which is a bit sad for everyone, because some percentage of those people probably could succeed if they just got out of their own way and stopped over thinking things, also.
I've definitely gotten better at consciously adding things the list of shit I try not to to think about. Which is pretty long at this point.
I finally tried weed well into my 30s and discovered it's great at making sure I don't think about those things when I'm trying to go to sleep, which is really nice.
In general I'm pretty sure I've got a fair amount of derealization going on all the time now, which... helps?
I suppose that all adds up to some kind of mellowing out.
Yeah, I find that looking at anything space-related helps me remember that our entire species and history are completely and utterly insignificant in the grander scheme of things. All this day-to-day drama just really isn’t that important.
well i mean it's also completely valid to say everything else in the universe is completely and utterly insignificant compared to my decision on what to have for lunch.
just because the universe is big and old doesn't mean it has any special meaning or significance.
It sounds like you're confusing intelligence with depressive realism and cynicism. :)
Sure, the universe itself is indifferent at best, but that doesn't mean you can't find meaning in life, or that you can't experience happiness. On the contrary, admitting that most things are completely outside one's control seems to be a key to being happy with life.
Realism is seeing an issue and recognizing that it is a problem.
Intelligence is seeing an issue and recognizing that it is a problem and recognizing the root issues to how it became a problem.
Proper action is seeing both of the above and addressing the immediate issues and the longer term ones so the problem does not happen again.
Cynicism comes from when you are not allowed any sort of action and actively denied the ability to fix cause root issues. Then gaslighted into thinking you are wrong for wanting the change or forced into fixing the wrong things.
I was expecting the OP to say that smarter people were less likely to be happy, because that is the sense a lot of us who believe ourselves to be "smart" have.
But that's not what OP is about, and it suggests that's not really what the research says either, there's maybe a bit of hint of a small negative correlation like that, but mostly it says: no correlation.
Rather than making the argument you are making, which I have heard before, I found the OP argument to be novel to me, and find really thought-provoking:
The model of "well-defined" vs "poorly-defined" problems, and that what we call "smart" is skill at solving "well-defined" problems, but that happiness actually depends on skill at solving "poorly-defined" problems. Which is probably not correlated to skill at solving well-defined problems at all, that being "smart" at solving well-defined problems doesn't help or hurt happiness, it just doesn't matter.
This rings really true to me, and isn't quite as depressing as the oft-heard theory that you're saying here, that smart people are more likely to be miserable because they see the awful. Not what OP is saying, OP is even disagreeing, really.
> Wisdom comes the closest, but it suggests a certain fustiness and grandeur, and poorly defined problems aren’t just dramatic questions like “how do you live a good life”; they're also everyday questions like “how do you host a good party” and “how do you figure out what to do today."
Part of the problem IMHO is that we make out wisdom to be this grand thing, rather than simple and effective thinking (that cannot be put into a short list of rules).
“How do you host a good party” might be ill-defined to OP, but I’m sure this is a well defined question with a good answer for a lot of people. (Let’s call that “social quotient”)
Good points, and I would even go one step further and cast doubt on the notion that "dumb" people don't see the awful. That is not my experience at all.
I think we have different experiences then. Or, maybe, your interpretation of 'seeing the awful' is different.
I see 'dumb' people fall for pyramid schemes/MLM which seem obvious to me. They will only see the awful after they've lost money. We both see it, but there's a period where they don't, while I do.
I see people fall for sales tactics and which are transparent to me. Getting a €400 discount on an €800 delivery package for a second hand car that has €150 in actual value, does not seem like a deal to me. Others are very happy and are happy the sales person gave them the fake discount.
When other people are happy that the government reduces taxes on gas due to rising prices, I see rising corporate profits that were paid for with public funding.
When some people get angry about the conspiracy they read on Facebook, I get angry about the manipulation going on that caused that conspiracy to spread.
In the end, in my experience, the 'dumb' people see awful more on the micro level, while I see it more on the macro level. That probably probably makes us just about as unhappy about the stuff that happens around us, just from completely different perspectives.
The only real difference I see, is that I seem to have a harder time finding people to discuss things with than the average person seems to. Where 'dumb people' just seem to be able to repeat talking points and opinions they've heard somewhere, I often prefer more in depth discussions and conversations on the why and how, causing me to be an outsider (sometimes).
The isolation is horrible. All I can see is bickering between interest group/partisant politics when the solutions require neither or in fact require the best of both. Any sane person would agree with both sides but get rid of all the rent seeking. Hence you are now stuck in this position where you hate everyone for their horrible, pointless and counterproductive actions and love them for all the good ideas they have.
Because you aren't picking sides, you will be accused by every side to be siding with the "enemy".
It's less about making an argument for the "correct" definition of "smart"; and more about saying that the way psychologists measure "intelligence" (eg when trying to study things like "are smarter people more or less happy") is measuring success at solving well-defined problems. That things like IQ tests as well as academic success are about solving well-defined problems.
You can think "smart people" are whatever you want, it's not about any "true" definition of what "smart" means, it's just a word that means different things to different people -- often probably not very rigorously defined or consistently applied. The OP is in fact about investigating what some of these different meanings may be with relevance to correlation to happiness.
I don't think academic success only involves well-defined problems even if your work doesn't involve research and just teaching. Being able to convey properly ideas, concepts and information to students is not a well defined problem...
Oh, I think OP is talking about success in school as a student, particularly children in "lower" education (K-12), not adults in post-graduate academic careers.
Problem is there is no real evidence provide to back the assertion. Is the ability to solve well-defined problems really different from the ability to solve poorly-defined problems?
"One way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives" seems like a circular definition. So people that feel good do so because they are better at solving poorly defined problems? How do we know?
Well at least I didn't see any evidence that says a good accountant would make a worse physicist than a bad accountant. So the assertion that people that are good at solving well-defined problems are not as good at (or at least has no correlation with) solving poorly-defined problems is not well supported.
Seems to indicate that the threshold hypothesis (IQ helps creativity/divergent thinking up to a point, then levels out in correlation) is largely correct
I'm positive it is a different skill and I even think that those two skills can be at odds at times.
Poorly defined problems often come down to things like creativity and your ability to handle emotions. Sometimes you have to follow a seemingly senseless curiosity to find the right path forward. Sometimes it is about finding beauty where it isn't expected. Also these problems have multiple valid and fundamentally different solutions and can be highly subjective. Think art.
Well defined problems are about juggling multiple things in your head, high concentration, relying on fundamental knowledge, heuristics etc. All of that possibly under pressure. There might be multiple solutions but they are typically on a scale (good enough vs perfect etc.) or are choices between measurable tradeoffs. Think engineering.
Intuitively sure, but would be nice to have some data to back it up; my intuition could say otherwise. Also, even if they're different how do we know how the correlation works? The article claims there is either no correlation or negative correlation. How do we know that?
There's even less evidence for the idea that smart people see how bad reality really is... Even dumb people know there are "kids starving in Africa", and people beat their wife and kids in their home town.
Yes, but dumb people think those problems can be easily solved, and smart people think about the second and third order effects. A dumb person will think sending free food will solve the problem, and a smart person will realize that will negatively effect food production as local farmers cannot compete with free
I came here to make the same points that you made so eloquently. The only thing I’ll add is that I wonder if there is some correlation between the traits that make someone so good at solving “well defined” problems and mental illnesses. You can’t be “happy” if you’re paranoid (as one of the OP examples- a 9/11 conspiracy where his own theory- Cognitive Theoretical Model of the Universe, or CTMU- is under attack.
I forget where, but I read somewhere that people are good at recognizing patterns are susceptible to conspiratorial thinking because they see patterns everywhere.
And one of the components of intelligence is pattern recognition.
Basically they fall for the social version of pareidolia.
I'm not sure if they're actually better at seeing the truth, than building a more complex mental model of the world and its processes. If anything such ad-hoc modeling tends to be an obstacle that obscures the truth, rather something that reveals it.
A lot of very smart people call themselves skeptics and are very keen at questioning what other people believe when it is not what they believe, but are incredibly blind to the fact that they make assumptions on their own that they have very little basis for.
> But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things.
You don't need to be very smart to get existential dread from "climate change will kill us all and I can't influence much", "the upper class can still fully rule our lives" or "at some point, someone will create an AI that might kill us and there's not much anyone can do about it". Even someone hardly qualified to work at McDonalds can think that, usually in addition to "I can never handle a job to get a living wage", which I'd actually consider to be more serious downers on ones happiness.
If someone is convinced that climate change will kill us all then I'd say they're not exceptionally smart to begin with, and are misattributing to cynial high intelligence that which is the much more common phenomenon of media-induced blind hysteria.
I very much disagree with this, just look at politics; everyone sees / imagines the "awful reality of things". Whenever the other side is in power the out of power side thinks everything is terrible and the world is ending. Even though objectively everything is pretty much the same. Objectively the world is only getting better over time. Generally the loudest people on each side screaming that its the end of all things are not the pinnacle of intelligence. I like the authors theory that happiness involves "skill at solving poorly defined problems". Think about how many smart people on this board complain about being lonely and unable to find friends. The ability to feel satisfied with one's lot in life is probably much more of a driver for happiness than being able to get a 1600 on the SAT. I consider myself relatively intelligent but was heavily involved in politics when I was younger and worrying about things. As I got older I realized I was wasting my time. I cant change anything and my life is slipping past. It really clicked for me when I went to the parkland anti gun rally in DC because my wife wanted to go. There were hundreds of thousands of people there and at the end of the day, nothing changed and politicians just closed their blinds or left work early to avoid the gridlock. The only way to affect change on a large scale is with very large amounts of money. Short of that, I just focus on my family and myself and things are much better. Took my kid to baseball tryouts the other day after practicing with him all week and it was awesome. Still cant figure out how to get IRL friends though :)
i am not sure if this makes sense, but when i read your comment i wondered if part of the difficulty of finding friends is that smart people find it difficult to associate with people who are not as smart as them or do not have the same interests as them, and thus the problem becomes one of selection.
Maybe, and I could see this for top 1% people but I'm not that smart :)
For me its a time management thing, I am unable to figure out how to manage time for my own activities between looking after kids, working remote and just sitting around wasting time.
Smart people are unhappy because they have a whole identity constructed around being smart and in order to be happy they would have to shatter this construction.
The article says that incredibly stupid people and people who scored high on a vocab test were slightly less happy. Being intelligent also doesn't mean you are a cynic who laments over history, I would generally attribute that to pseudo-intellectualism and people with shallow understandings of how reality works when the tires touch the road.
Smart enough to see the bad, but not smart enough to look away.
The world is in roughly the same spot as it was when I was 20, and my body is certainly worse off, but I'm much happier now simply because I don't steep myself in the shittier parts of the universe.
> But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread.
I think the truly smart, or perhaps wise people accept their understanding of reality as it is and don't attribute subjective human concepts like "injustice" to it.
Note that there is no such thing as 'optimistic nihilism', though. People at Kurzgesagt probably thought of it as a novel thing, yet it is not. There is already a name for it, that is, existentialism.
Smart people are very often terrible people. Being smart exists ok a different axis to being wonderful/awful, well-adjusted, fulfilled or even being successful.
I agree. Intelligence and wisdom are two very different things. Many intelligent people I know are unwise, and act terrible to those they disagree with. It is best to have a healthy dose of intelligence with the wisdom to be able to handle it.
How people see is just a reflection of their minds. If one sees world as awful - that only tells about that person mind. It has nothing to do with the world. And talking about seeing truth is just inflated ego, nothing more. Some of the wisest and most impactful people in history talked about truth being the ultimate ecstasy. That is a smart way to live, I would say.
I used to have this worldview then I realized “smarter” people self select lives that tend to be more neurotic and tend to overthink things to the point of anxiety
Do you really need to worry over all the things you do? Or have all the years of being schooled and trained and under pressure to constantly juggle multiple things made your brain’s default state anxiety?
Even worse is that smart people see the patterns and can predict the outcome with a reasonable degree of accuracy, however, they can not do anything about it because speaking up usual results in being labelled negative and being shunned.
This is very much like knowing the train is going to fall off the bridge but not being able to stop people from boarding.
Eh no, "speaking up" has varying outcomes in varying environments, this is not a universal constant.
I've chosen the job I have now specifically because I wanted to be able to do something about things I see that could be going wrong. Anyone can do this, but especially smart people.
Happy because they apply stoic philosophies to their life and making the lives of their immediate surroundings better instead
Yeah, things look bleak. However you need to realize that there ARE things you can do. Maybe not on the world stage, but in your own community. Sign up for a soup kitchen, clean up a street that is full of garbage, etc. Anything is better than being terminally online and doomscrolling. You will be happier for doing so, I guarantee you.
On the other hand, I don't think it's "smart" for a person to ruminate and dwell on problems they can't change, especially not to the point that it has negative effects on their life.
The way I see it, we're all going to be dead in 100 years, and life will go on without us. It's not my place to solve every problem in the world, and in the grand scheme of things, my life is very unimportant, so I might as well relax and enjoy it.
There are problems that are due to others. And they wreck your life. Being known as a pedophile when you’re not, it’s a problem worth solving. Because you can’t really live your life.
Those who dwell, think that people can change.
Those who don’t dwell on it, just accept the various other accusations, he stole this and that you know because he’s a pedo etc.
I wager that those who believe they don’t dwell on things, have never had real problems.
On the contrary, the more you learn about history of humanity, the more you appreciate the modern world for being uniquely wonderful in historical perspective.
The other side of this is that happiness is available to you as someone intelligent and aware of societies shortcomings when you use that intelligence at any opportunity to help the life around you. And that's an ongoing journey that requires maintenance not a one time event or goal.
I honestly can't tell if I'm smart or stupid any more... It seems that the absolute dumbest schemes are paying their creators out in millions as I struggle to find success in the normally iron clad business methods... I tweet about things that matter to me and often things I think that are of solid comedic value, but it doesn't connect with many others due to it's lack of conformity with what others are posting online... Which constantly tells me there's something I don't know or may be missing. Success tips online are totally generated to make money, and it floods out what once used to mostly be useful and meaningful advice from smart and experienced (intelligent) people.
I also have been working harder than ever on creative things, and they literally seem to only be valued online for 5 seconds until they go completely dead. I know I'm being manipulated and twisted, but my morality makes me not want to hack my way into public consciousness for money and popularity.... I might by citing that, and citing that many others are hacking their way in, be quite stupid.
Are the people that make and hack manipulative schemes smart? Are the people that break the law and get away with it smart? I don't do those things, so maybe I'm stupid.. At least I can admit it I guess.
I think we're living in a time where an entire generation of people born into inherited wealth are buying their way into popularity (which is painting a very weird and false picture of what success and intelligence really means), and when combined with all the smart people trying to climb life's ladders, the ability to succeed is under threat now more than ever.
Intelligence to me has always been based more on overall life survival skills and growth success rather than human engineered IQ tests... I know actual critically acclaimed surgeons and engineers that literally couldn't tell you where a spare tire is on a car when they get a flat, and if no one else is there to help them.
When one has the financial augmentation of being born into vast amounts of wealth, social status, and connection (which often the individuals most deemed as "smart" are) the very ideal of intelligence is turned upon it's head... The lucky ones can literally fail their way into success without anyone knowing the difference.
To me, the most simplified definition of intelligence for an individual is living life fully and well, with ethics and reputation in balance, being free from the control and influence of others, accomplishing notable things, and skillfully overcoming obstacles as they present themselves... I can't really say I'm smart at this point because many of those things mentioned prior are under threat for everyone right now, and it seems like I'm pitted against others for a limited pool of success resources more and more every day. I'm not happy about that at all.
>Congrats, you have learned the history of humanity and how our society functions, and your reward is you get to be angry at the vast amount of injustice.
I think you're imbuing your own value judgements into this. Many of us don't share the same urge to fix everything that's "wrong" with the world or society, and simply learn to accept it and roll with punches. But that still doesn't mean we're happier in life.
I think it is harder to convince smart people that their illusion of control is just an illusion. When you’re a dope you get smacked in the face by your limitations and you give up, or at least you’re easier to manage by the people around you.
I think there are also a lot of smart people that aren’t pegged as smart because they’ve let go of controlling everything, and we mistake lack of engagement for lack of capacity.
We have a friend who has a very aw shucks personality. A mutual friend and I have twice had a conversation about how she might actually be the smartest person we know, and I say that as someone who has a fondness for thinking they are the smartest person in the room. She is scary intuitive, the person people talk to about problems, she is a terrible movie companion because she guesses the ending ten minutes before I do, which is usually ten minutes before anyone else does. But she never made a career out of being clever, which feels like such a waste. I worry that it was beaten out of her at a young age. Girls aren’t supposed to be smart. You should be pleasant instead. If not that then I get some subtle ADHD vibes and it’s a common pathology to desire anonymity, a coping mechanism for passing as normal.
I'm not sure theres such a thing as smart people to begin with. Plenty of people know their own domain very well, but it seems only a few domains are arbitrarily chosen as intelligent ones. Seeing as we're still struggling to define what intelligence even is, I don't see how we can start labelling people as intelligent or not.
At that point, the question is just "why aren't people happier". I doubt theres any one answer, but a lot of the responses in this thread seem to point to some of the possible reasons.
There is a widely accepted definition of intelligence in there, and the article attempts to delineate between problems intelligent people are good at and not-so-good at (at least not better than everybody else).
Everyone seems to have missed one subtlety: the article only states (with references) that smart people are not happier.
At no point does it say that smart people are less happy (it does mention two studies where in one "lowest scoring" were a tiny bit unhappier, and in another "highest scoring" were happier): the overall tone is that they are equally happy regardless of their intelligence.
And then it wonders why the familiar trait of intelligence does not translate to those people setting their lives up for happiness?
Yes! And the main theory of the article is barely discussed in current comments thread, but to me novel and very thought-provoking: The model of "well-defined problems" vs "poorly-defined problems" and the hypothesis that what we call "smart" is usually being good at solving well-defined problems, but it's being good at solving poorly-defined problems that might correlate with happiness, and being good at solving well-behaved vs poorly-behaved problems does not correlate.
This rings true to me, in that in that model I recognize I'm pretty good at solving well-defined problems, but pretty terrible at solving poorly-defined problems (and currently not especially happy).
That was all new to me as a way of thinking about it! Most of the comments here are about "why are smarter people less happy", which is not what the OP is about, and is more well-trodden.
On the other hand, my experience is that the smartest people I know are very effective at simplifying / formalizing poorly defined problems and then solving the resultant well-defined problems.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 318 ms ] threadIt is how our brains are wired and a result of evolution. Even if a person lived in a paradise and had all their needs and wants provided; one of two things will occur - Either that person becomes bored or they wonder 'hmmm, I wonder if x,y or z could be better in some way?' and then trying to improve on perfection.
[1] Jebb, A.T., Tay, L., Diener, E. et al. Happiness, income satiation and turning points around the world. Nat Hum Behav 2, 33–38 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0277-0
A more recent study was done on the "ideal salary point" and concluded that there really isn't one: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2016976118
If humans could ever reach a state that would guarantee happiness we’d still be living in caves and having 10 children so 5 make it to adults.
Progress requires dissatisfaction with the status quo.
From: Going Through An Existential Crisis? https://moviewise.substack.com/p/going-through-an-existentia...
We as society shouldn't focus so much on being „happy“. Happiness by itself is not worthwhile. What are you going to tell on your deathbed and how will your relatives remember you? Oh, he never did anything, but he seemed happy all the time!
I wonder about optimizing your life around your deathbed, obituary, or your contribution to society…if it makes you happy I guess;)
Being happy, possible with substances involved, is not exactly inspiring to people around. And, usually, people try to keep away other people from such... inspiration.
Of course, you can be „simply happy“ and a productive member of a community. But usually happiness comes as a byproduct then. And there're lots of other emotions aside from „being happy“.
Maybe it's worth to optimise around reducing misery around or being a net-positive on society where the life satisfaction will eventually come. But happiness may be out of reach due to stuff you can't unknow.
Long term happiness is an art these days, being too smart is definitely not a prerequisite (more like the opposite of it). Also, I think we lack proper definition for it so people take it as some sort of nirvana levitating a meter above the ground type.
For me personally, living life that I will judge positively and without regrets on the proverbial death bed is form of long term happiness.
Intelligence can help you climb to the highest positions in business and academia, wisdom allows you to understand that it isn't really worth it.
I found it particularly funny when my University math professors displayed a complete inability to reason about the simplest of things.
In my limited version of it, is to strive to be humble, and the happiness for those around you. Find joy in helping the communities (whichever that be in the connected world) you care about. But... That still doesn't truly make me happy. And relies on willfully ignoring everything mention earlier.
The only thing to hope for is a miracle in both energy production, and a sudden increase in empathy. I fear that human nature is stil stuck in a the ape mindset of "I got mine", and will never get out of.
Things that are outside our control will always make us unhappy.
So if we do our part I think we eventually find happiness in whatever change we were able to bring in this world. And when enough people do that we fix all the problems mentioned at beginning of your comment.
> You want to change world? Go home and love your family. - Mother Teresa
Perhaps presumptuous, but I don't think wisdom goes together with either inaction, complacency, or otherwise willful ignorance. Which, seems to be the gist of the replies my previous comment received.
I still think that not worrying/complaining about things we cannot control or affect holds true for many things, and many aspects. However, I disagree with the premise. We can all do something, some more than others.
I've categorically refused jobs in the oil and gas sector, and increasingly become picky about what to devote my professional life to. I very consciously try not to be a consumerist, though I'm probably in the global top 10%, given statistics for my country. I eat meat, even though it doesn't help. I have traveled the world for my own amusement, though I've come to see it as an absolutely ridiculous thing to have done.
I could definitely do more. I could actively devote my life to it. I could decide not to have kids. Etc.
Is it wisdom to ignore these problems? Or to find happiness as a state of mind, in spite of it? I would assume it's the latter. I just don't know if wisdom is the right word for it. But maybe it is.
What are you, as an individual able to do about any of that?
Think about it the other way, if you wanted to make it worse could you meaningfully? Could you make the seas rise by even a single millimeter? Probably not.
Now say you wanted to make it better, a single private jet trip for a CEO to visit his mistress will wipe out any gains you have made.
What does your worrying do? Great you aren't "willfully ignorant" but since your ideal future requires a miracle anyway, and you aren't God, it's out of your hands.
You are probably like almost every other person who has ever lived, you don't matter at all. Nothing you do will meaningfully echo throughout history. Once you are gone, nobody will ever say your name again.
What's true about you is probably also true about the human race. The sun will consume the earth eventually, we will either leave this rock, or die on it. Why not enjoy your brief time here?
Yes.
>You are probably like almost every other person who has ever lived, you don't matter at all. Nothing you do will meaningfully echo throughout history.
That sentence is basically the definition of nihilism. I don't see any possible interpretation of it which isn't categorically nihilistic.
>I suggest simply you engage in "nihilism" on a few more things you have no control over.
I get what you are saying, and broadly agree with it, but that wasn't the point of my comment.
I wasn't commenting on whether or not your take on the subject is helpful or not, just that the delivery of "you don't matter [...] enjoy it" is off-putting to the many people who don't take such a nihilistic viewpoint, and probably does no favors in convincing them such a view would be beneficial.
You can't single handedly fix any of the problems you highlight. The most you can do is alter your own behavior but let go of the consequences of other peoples behavior. You can't do anything about it.
The balancing act of wisdom is that:
* You can care about and advocate for solutions.
* But you can't own the success or failure because it's not realistic for you to do so.
Humans can work miracles sometimes. We came up with microprocessors, I'm sure we'll think of a good way to increase energy production and empathy. :)
> I fear that human nature is stil stuck in a the ape mindset of "I got mine", and will never get out of.
Maybe it will. No reason not to hope.
As for human empathy, much more unlikely. Humans are born flawed, selfish and amoral. It has to be taught away. To reach the point of a world society that can reliably "fix" this, for a large enough percentage, would be a more impressive feat IMO than solving the coming food and energy crisis. If only we had evolved from the bonobos instead of the chimps.
There is still room for hope, I agree. It's just that the rational part thinks the hopeful one is being naive.
People, especially on forums like HN, tend to mistake being 'intellectual' to actually 'intelligent'. There are various ways of being "smart" and being good at math and code is only one of them (Emotional intelligence, relationship intelligence, intelligence in career) etc...
People who say 'Iam so smart' are usually not so intelligent in the end
The thing that is a main driver to "climbing to higher positions" is usually desire and motivation, which is a cultural trait. Intelligence has a high correlation because there are plenty of motivated people across all levels of intelligence, so highly intelligent are better at succeeding at such well-defined problems.
Smartness is sometimes about well-educated or simply experienced and knowledgable. Eg. even if I was more intelligent, I'd trust a medical doctor because they have a vast knowledge and experience that I lack.
Still, the article makes a nice distinction between well- and poorly-defined problems. It's definitely going in the right direction, so go and have a read!
Maybe it's not useful for the sake of discussion to list them individually, but it's definitely useful to measure them individually. Or you'll mistake someone who's a master of rotating abstract shapes in their head for someone who manage to get things done in a complex environments. The full-scale IQ tests (WAIS?) do actually test many different manifestations of intelligence.
This is a bit on the side of the point, but it's an important distinction when you're discussing and trying to measure people's real-life abilities.
It actually does say that they are all almost exactly the same (sure, highly intelligent individuals will score better on one set of problems than on another, but they will score highly on most of them; similar for average or lower intelligence folks — their scores on each of them correlate but are not in a strict linear relationship). That suggests that they are ultimately one and the same (as per those studies).
I would strongly doubt that they correlate tbh.. where would the "virgin math genius" cliché would come from ?
I have been versed into various socio evonomic and hobby environement over my life, and have met natural geniuses in several unrelated fields (sport, math, chess, boxing, military, art, entrepreneurs /investors, emotional connections and / or sex). I can assure you i didnt not observe such correlation.
At best what ive noticed is how some of them would be clueless about their gift, and pretty average on the rest.
Article talks of scientific studies supporting that claim: you doubting it and sharing your anecdotal experience does not change what the stats say.
I do welcome you to challenge those studies (that's what science is all about), but that's not done with "doubting" them on HackerNews.
(Oh, and cliches are just that, cliches: they were never universally true, which is why we don't use words like "facts" for them)
Even in actual scientific fields like computer science (In particular machine learning and reinforcement learning academic environement in which I work and hold a PhD) 'doubting' is necessary, since a large percentage of papers are unreproducible and largely biaised for publication... [0]
Regarding social sciences papers, I give 0 credit to any of them and that won't change soon.
First it's literally impossible define rigorously any term to differentiate (I mean seriously how are you going to "measure" emotional intelligence or entrepreneurship skills). Secondly there a large fraction of the field which is just pretending to do science and circlejkerking each other by accepting their own papers without rigorous due diligence, to the point they can't even detect hoax and fraud [1]
At the end of the day I am not here to fight you. If you don't believe me then be it but I stand by my assessment that various kind of intelligence are at best losely related. Some math genius are 100% clueless in emotional or business intelligence, some genius entrepreneurs are 100% clueless with math or girls, some really good artists completely clueless in business or academic stuff. Some athletes too... Of course some will have all but imo it's a lucky minority.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
But we can either doubt the entire scientific process and throw our hands in the air, or we can work to improve it and look at it critically. At the moment, it's the best thing we've got.
Thus, I dislike the generic "I don't believe results of any study disagreeing with my anecdotal evidence", which is exactly what our scientific process is set up to dispell with. Proper argumentation is about misinterpretation of data, misapplication of statistical methods, insufficient sample size, outright data fabrication or anything along those lines.
Eg. in all your anecdotal examples, you are misinterpreting what "correlates" means. In particular, all intelligences correlating does NOT mean that "some will have all" (a famous statistics observation that there is no representative ever matching your average/median result in any complex measurement: eg you can have an average height of a group of people being 170cm and nobody being exactly 170cm — yet you can still claim how people in the group are 170cm tall on average, and then we can debate if that makes sense depending on the distributiin, sample size etc).
No, i'm saying exceptional intelligence in a field didn't lead to a discernable increase of intelligence in other aspect of life in general, which would actually be the definition of "correlate", in a large sample of people and fields I have seen.
Now you may disagree, or make another generic authority argument which invoke 'scientific studies' that I have yet to see the existence, but respectfully, I'm not here to debate and I'm also quite sure my point of view will not change by reading such 'study'. I was just here sharing my point of view of someone who have seem various exceptional people in various fields and expressing my doubts the whole "intelligence correlate" thing..
Ah, what a relief. Phew!
(I'll choose to believe you, short of understanding this, but this is probably enough to be happy)
Mine have told me stories about how their wives left them because they made less than a million one year. Or how their kids are strung out on drugs beacuse they failed to be around them often enough growing up. When they have a conversation, 90% of the time it's about how many widgets the widget factory is going to pump out next month. Old friends come out of the woodwork to ask for money. They are hungry ghosts[0].
Advertising has been effective in putting people on a treadmill. They compete with neighbors for who has the more expensive car, the most attractive wife, the biggest house, who went to the most expensive school. Their days are full of jealous resentment. People who are among the wealthiest to ever live on this planet, feel poor, not beacuse they lack the ability to provide for themselves or their children, but beacuse don't have everything they see on Instagram.
I'm not a religious man, but religion can offer wisdom if you are willing to read beyond the claims of magic.
Christianity prohibited the coveting of your neighbor not because it would make God angry, but because it makes your life worse.
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost
Citation needed. It's one of the commandments: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17 (NASB). A book of magical thinking, created out of bronze age mythology, around a hateful, spiteful, capricious god is no basis for a system of philosophical world-view.
You would be better served studying philosophy directly, rather than a book filled with misogyny, slavery, thought-crime and magic.
Quite a hot take. Most famous philosophers lived in similar environments. I don't know how your environment precludes you from wisdom.
-edited for typo.
Plato, father of most modern philosophy. You have a lot of reading to do my friend.
I'm not sure how you can say the father of modern philosophy is a lazy answer.
I think that you can find wisdom even in the presence of flaws. You can always gain something by studying the imperfect.
Jefferson argued that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", he also owned slaves. Do you argue that men are not equal?
Take the good parts, leave the bad. Like it or not Christ was one of the great moral philosophers. His surmon on the mount was revolutionary for it's time[0]. You can read it without believing in the magic, in the same way you can read the Tao Te Ching or Art of War while not being a Taoist or a general.
[0]if you aren't familiar check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3nN9-C1yKU
I don't really think that's true. Some of the smartest people I know are nowhere near the highest positions of business and academia.
It's about social connections and inter-human things ... not some skills you learn on universities but from loving and well raised parents.
Some worse-if-wiser part of me suspects this piece of advice is given out of altruism to the community as a whole, not the person receiving it. Doing this has never made me happy. I'm more willing to do it when I'm already happy though, so maybe there's a corellation.
It's generally a mix of them who lead to happiness, if that even exists
- Ecclesiastes, somewhere between 450-180 BCE.
That's not all. Smart people are also more perceptive to problems, they identify more of them, and solving one problem is never enough. Ergo they can't ever be happy as in "content" (which is what all those 'happiness' self-report studies measure), in fact as time goes by they should get increasingly depressed by identifying more problems. Ignorance is often a bliss.
Also, at least for sustainable, healthy activities, there may also be some difference in the kind of life that a person in the bottom 10th percentile and a person in the top 10th percentile of the scale will find gratifying.
Either way, if joy and happiness is the goal, than a lot of adults are morons measured against trying to do that. We isolate ourselves, allow stigma and bias to push our choices, and ultimately worry so much about happiness that we do a poor job being happy.
Slavoj Žižek (someone who does seem to be especially smart):
“Happiness was never important. The problem is that we don't know what we really want. What makes us happy is not to get what we want. But to dream about it. Happiness is for opportunists. So I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life of eternal struggle, especially struggle with oneself. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Authentic masters are never happy; happiness is a category of slaves.”
A great example of focusing on the positive in any and all situations!
I guess my own realization is that there usually are many satisfying goals or outcomes and those change more often than you'd like. That's why "the path is the goal" is also a great quote.
Long term life satisfaction is the correct goal.
For example, having children decreases the former yet increases the latter.
How?
And that's my fear when I get older (without kids). That the happiness of being single now and not dealing with kids and having more disposable income, etc. etc. will only go so far but that I'll be depressed about being lonely in the future when I am a senior.
I can definitely see how my siblings with kids will be way happier as grandparents.
But yeah, I'm content now without kids cause I get to sleep whenever and my disposable income is enough. lol
Also though, I'm never arrogant in making proclamations that people with kids are miserable.
They might have tough times in the beginning, but the older I get the more at peace they seem as parents.
For you, maybe. This is not true for everbody.
(fwiw, I'm not saying you're wrong)
People who want to have children should have them, and people who don't want to have children shoudln't have them =)
Simply compare the two curves. Those with children vs those without.
Your comment stands if you look at outliers, GP stands if you take the curves.
Would that be bad? How?
And you are adding other factors if you think people who do not want kids are somehow the outliers. Same as if people wanted kids might be if you actually looked closely, for most people its not a very well thought out choice.
> People who want to have children should have them, and people who don't want to have children shoudln't have them =)
I think it's fine either way! People who want to have children are often disappointed when it's not all roses as they imagined. Conversely, people who don't want to have children are often surprised at the little joys they bring...
Learn to appreciate beauty. Learn to create beauty. Learn how to get better at both.
Along with these, sustainability. Imagine finding balance and peace, but seeing clearly that the tools and techniques used to get and stay there are temporary. Pretty unsettling. We have to get there in ways that are long lasting and unlikely to change radically.
The ecological kind, misery path for sure.. Until entropy can be reversed at least.
Thanks for stating it so clearly
I can guarantee that there exist several data points that refute this.
Definitely can guarantee many cases where doing this to excess for some people is a net negative.
Can certainly show cases which led to divorce (i.e. always trying to make spouse happy was unstable, and the marriage would have been much better off with randomly ignoring spouse).
Helping others can make you happy. Just don't do it at the expense of self care.
Don't try to be happy, try to be free.
Meaning that you should not focus on the ending, you should focus on the process. And try to get it so you get the most options
My headcanon is that it's tied to the fact that our life spans are limited and we've evolved to derive the most satisfaction when we're working on a task that is difficult for us individually or has vague success criteria, which seems to match up in part with the article's takeaway. It's also how I reason that not only fucking things up, but also complaining about it and trying to fix it are all required for people to feel happy. I see this ethos in a lot of old religions as well - humans striving towards the same qualities as a godhead but never quite getting there no matter how awesome their abilities become, or how our 'perfect' state was when we were ignorant of the consequences of our actions.
The closing sentiment takes the cake for me. A neat little shanty of the mindset of the communist smart men.
I understand the quotation (and only partially agree), but only because I've seen the same thing expressed much better, and without the absurd parts, in... the Unabomber manifesto. Basically, people need sensible difficulties to overcome.
I disagree with happiness not being important. It is important, but it is not something that you can have all of the time, because human mood, emotional state and the experience itself is always a wave, going up and down, constant fluctuation. A person needs to learn to identify where in the curve they are and not allow the curve to rule their life. Once your able to be aware of the curve you can start taking steps to decrease the down trend of the curve so that you can spend more time in the up trend.
Humans notice change - diff, if you will. Meaning if you were to be in absolute happiness for extended period of time, your frame of reference would slowly fade and you would no longer know what is happiness for you.
That's why, it is my personal opinion, that you should just sit down, drink a hot beverage of choice, acknowledge the Yin-Yang nature of reality and choose happiness.
No curve goes up or down for ever. I'm not a financial adviser.
I have overcome depression and I am "satisfied" with my life (I prefer the word "satisfied" to the overinflated one: happiness). And now that depression is in my past I think that was a puff-piece article, and so is this.
One could say that more intelligent people tend to overthink things; then again someone even more intelligent would know better and not overthink things.
Mindfulness is a big component of my new Life.
And brings out questions about free will, agency, self-control, volition... and more.
These days I am fond of 2 books that actually touch on this very topic: "Grit" and "Ego is the enemy".
Lack of happiness isn’t relegated only to “smart people”.
My observation: managing stress related to ever growing amount of responsibilities (as comes with age), finances, and spouse can have a disproportionate impact on one’s happiness. None of which are tied to intelligence.
I mean.. What if people suddenly discovered that enough food and shelter is available, that they could do maybe a days work a month and just walk around to smell the flowers the rest of the time?
If you use your smarts to conclude that having a spouse will negatively affect your happiness, don't have one.
A very intelligent person should be able to figure out a way to improve their finances.
The article makes the distinction between well-defined problems (eg. increase my monthly income) and poorly defined problems (eg. find a spouse that matches you for life), and clearly suggests that intelligence helps with one but not the other.
You're assuming the negative. Your spouse can be a huge overall help in achieving happiness.
> A very intelligent person should be able to figure out a way to improve their finances.
It's not that simple.
You could be exceedingly smart but medically handicapped, which leads to lower paying jobs. Or could have been a high earner and then come down with an unfortunate disease which greatly impacts you ability to work and medically bankrupts you.
I am not assuming anything, but explaining that, in theory, one could decide to have or not to have a spouse to increase their happiness — if they could reasonably deduce what the outcome would be, which they can't.
I was mostly tongue-in-cheek in relation to a spouse: that's a "poorly defined problem" that, according to the article, intelligence does not help with.
> It's not that simple
Oh, agreed. But we are talking about averages, and there is a known correlation between intelligence and financials.
Statistics, unfortunately, never says anything special about any single case.
But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread. Congrats, you have learned the history of humanity and how our society functions, and your reward is you get to be angry at the vast amount of injustice.
Now I’m a bit older I see my smarter friends happier than anyone and the less smart just about the same as always
Don't start down that road. Material success will always be just over the next hill, regardless of how much you already have. Happiness and satisfaction can't come from accomplishment or material gain.
Yeah, material gain has certainly made me a thousand times happier. I haven't had to worry about an Electric bill in years. I used to have to navigate and memorize the electric company shutoff routine so I could pay as late as possible while selectively mitigating late fees and disconnect fees in relation to payday.
I can afford to go on vacations now. Take PTO when I want to. When my AC dies I don't have to just suffer until my landlord decides to do something; I can just pay the repair guy $700 to fix it and have AC in a couple hours. Eating healthier is easier; I don't have to stress in social situations about how run down or holey my clothes are. I have the luxury of being able to eat and survive if I am fired allowing me to be more confident in how I carry myself at work. (Meaning I don't have to kiss-ass when I am being mistreated). I have the money to travel if god-forbid my wife needs an abortion, or I can move away from bad neighborhoods very quickly.
The pursuit of wealth in and of itself as a measure of personal worth will not bring happiness, but let's not all pretend that money doesn't bring happiness insofar as it provides individual autonomy over their lives.
I agree with the OPs point that some older people may have just reached a level of material success that grants them the luxury of 1. Processing their existential dread through things like therapy; and 2. Live a less stressful life that comes with a certain level of wealth
The churn at the bottom is intended to motivate your continued activity and striving.
You are perhaps still too close to the stress of poverty to see that what you are describing is not happiness either, but something more like the removal of capitalism’s sharp rocks from your shoes.
"Once you make about $60,000 a year for your family, but let's say for you personally, additional income makes zero has zero impact on your quality of life."
https://youtu.be/NV2yvI4Id9Q?t=63
No kidding. I wonder how many tech workers have had a job outside the industry. Money solved a whole shitload of my problems.
You haven't seen all of them, but the more you see the less value you get from seeing another. So we can conclude that living for an eternity wouldn't be particularly more interesting than living for 100 years, as 100 years is more than enough to see many things in each category. You might not become a world expert in everything, but experiencing the things worth experiencing in the categories doesn't take particularly long to do and after that life is just padding.
The main reason to live now is that there are new interesting things coming out still, since computers are still young. That adds new things over the years. But interesting progress isn't really the norm, it isn't like physics or math has gotten any more interesting over my lifetime and I expect computers to get there before I die and then there isn't much left.
Edit: For example, everything we produce today is based on the same math and physics my grandfather learned in college. There has been no practical progress since then there. Main thing since is new tools enabled by computers that are more precise or automate things, that is interesting but the discoveries enabled by more automation/precise tools will run out at some point.
Turn to creating (art, science, a better mousetrap), and there’s no end in sight.
What I find more fulfilling is creating for its own sake and for myself. Completely abandoning the thought of whether what I'm making will have utility for the whole world and I'll be lauded for it. Creating things that I find interesting, and also abandoning the view whether others will find it as interesting or high quality. For me, I've realized that I feel more fulfilled if I'm doing/creating more and consuming less. The mere act of doing/creating something in of itself is the end I try to seek.
But I don't find the things I create to be interesting, that was my point. To me things aren't interesting just because I create them, but that seems to be the case for you, you think that the things you create are interesting somehow, I don't understand that.
Do you mean you find it interesting to learn how to create things? I can agree with that, but once I've learned to create something then I don't see why it would be interesting anymore. That feeling ends very quickly once you've created a few things and understand how to create most related things. If you have programmed games, web, low level and ML at a professional level there isn't much more fun things to learn in programming, and so on. And you get there very quickly if your goal is to learn those things and not to make the most money you can. And even learning more domains and more things gets boring after a while, as the process isn't that different between learning different things.
1. Is the broader topic/activity interesting to me? (interesting in of itself, not for the other reasons listed below)
2. The act of doing is interesting to me in of itself (as opposed to consuming)
3. The act of growth/learning/getting better is interesting to me
4. How good the output of my creation can/will be
5. How will the output be socially valued in a way beneficial to me (whether status/wealth/whatever)
I will say as I've gotten older, I've started to really decrease focus on #5, as I've found it to be the most empty for me (not to say I haven't achieved success there, but it's just a never-ending treadmill when you compare with others).
I try to really focus on #'s 1-3, as they give me the most joy.
Spider Robinson, Melancholy Elephants:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm
I'd agree that at some point being "creative" feels like just another kind of killing time with minesweeper or crossword puzzles or whatever.
It should be. As you get to see the heat death of the Universe. Or at least experience its beginnings; or at experience an ice-age or something.
But life boring because consumption becomes boring? Nothing could be further from my experience! Instead of a focus on consumption, or even a focus on creation, I find a focus on skill-building to be where it is at. This summer I have taken up beekeeping, keeping chickens, and learning to fish. (We also got a second puppy which is also an adventure in getting to know this dog's way-of-being and how we can train her to be one of us even as she changes us by her inclusion.) Even though I've put hours and hours into all of my projects I am a novice and I recognize that. I have more questions and ambitions now than when I began. With fishing I've caught 9 different species so far this summer. Now I want to catch another set (pike, walleye, perch, catfish), try new lures and learn how to use them, explore new places to fish, and learn how to clean and cook them. (Catch and release solely so far.) I haven't harvested honey yet from my hives nor dealt with mite infestations. With my chickens I'm still learning their patterns and waiting for the first eggs. The chickens also forced me to upskill my building abilities so I could make them a coop and run.
I also have in my wheelhouse of fun-to-me (ie not work) skills house repair (remodeled a bathroom last year), my own car repairs, woodworking, reading and writing, baking, sourdough, kombucha, beer-making, yogurt making, gardening etc. I am no where near a master in any of them and I don't do them all all the time. There is so much fun in learning a new skill, and seeing over time how I become better at it. I am a master of none of those, but I keep growing in all of them. There's always someone else better than me at an aspect of each of those. There is always a new thing to learn to do, something to be better at, feedback to receive. Any one of these could keep me extremely busy for several years trying to master them.
And there are definitely more skills than anyone could learn in a lifetime. Off the top of my head I have on my to-learn list leatherworking, blacksmithing, circuitry, furniture building, 3dprinting, basic microbiology and chemistry, cnc machining, publishing a book, photography, guitar, piano, singing, hunting, target shooting, skeet shooting, and on and on. This is my list, I'm sure other people have their own list with really cool things I've never thought of. (And once I do they get added to my list!)
I think the difference is the mindset. It isn't about whether or not someone else cares about the end product. It isn't even about whether the end product is really any good. It is about me being able to do it adequately. It is about growth and change in myself. If I judged myself by Hollywood, YouTube, or Instagram portrayals of any of my hobbies I would despair. I'm not as good a fisherman as Richard Gene. I'm nowhere near as capable with hand tools as Paul Sellers. My sourdough is pathetic compared to Maurizio of The Perfect Loaf. I don't have the teaching/communication skills of someone like Feynman. But that isn't the point. The point is I'm better at something today than I was yesterday. The point is I did something successfully, even if it isn't perfect. After enjoying that success I can always find more areas to improve which is a new challenge to accept.
Boring? Only if I gave up my personal drive to improve and find things to do.
edit: I focused entirely on skill here. There are also interpersonal relationships that take time and effort and can be richly rewarding. Even without all of the above my life would never be boring because of the people in it.
So at least to me there aren't many things left worth learning. Maybe chemical engineering could be interesting to learn, as it isn't entirely clear to me how people work with chemistry, I have no idea what I'd be able to do with a few years learning chemical engineering.
It seems like you are hyper-focused on ends/outcomes. And if an end/outcome of a pursuit isn't completely novel, unpredictable, or result in you being the best at the pursuit, then what's the point? Is that an accurate summary?
I wonder whether there's a higher level view that really prioritizes status seeking, and that a life should be valued based on outcomes/production. And if you can't produce things at the level of the best, what's the point?
If that is the case, I've certainly had those thoughts when I was younger, and I would offer to consider giving yourself a break. Release yourself of expectations of being the best/most novel/etc. Give yourself permission to be a flawed human. Focus on enjoying the little things, focus on the present. Focus on the journey, not the end. We're the self-aware universe, we're so lucky we get to experience things as we do, let's enjoy the ride while we can. And contrary to what you're hinting at, there are an infinite number of possibilities/knowledge to gain. To think us humans have answered all of the questions of conscious experience and the universe (and what may lay beyond) is incredibly naive.
The difference for me is I haven't experienced what it is like to be good. You know how an olympic gymnast makes insane feats of body control appear easy? I have no idea what that feels like. (and I never will, in my upper 30s I am beginning to lose flexibility needed, not to mention I have no desire to put in the effort in that area.) I don't know what it feels like to fight a 70lb halibut in the north pacific. Sure I can watch someone do it, but to have the skill to do it, to have the experience of catching a massive fish is entirely different than watching someone else do it.
yeah, someone else does it better. (In fact I'm watching Richard Gene the Fishing Machine on Youtube as I write this. I'll never be a fisherman like him. ) The difference is doing as opposed to watching. I have all sorts of second-hand fun watching youtube. But I have so much more fun when I make my own accomplishment. My fish may be smaller and objectively less interesting than the one I saw caught on YT. But the experience of doing is radically different than the experience of watching. I find doing much more engaging.
If I were you I'd look for something that you like to do. Doesn't have to be fishing, that's me. Maybe you like to crochet or program, cook or build. Whatever it is, find something that makes you say "hey, I did that. cool." and go with it. That's where living is!
Not sure what to do, maybe people who learn faster run out of things to learn faster and therefore aren't as happy? I can see life being much more interesting if you learn much slower, since then there are more interesting stuff left to explore. Basically, the better you are at predicting stories the more boring movies and books will be, etc.
You have the means to meaningfully improve the lives of others and are focusing on how to entertain yourself. Do something for another, like teaching them your skills or donating your money. Heck, start a non-profit which does both! It’s not as easy to be the best when your success depends on the outcome and performance of others.
Have you ever tried getting an addict in a bad place to straighten their life? Frustration is the opposite of boring. There is no formula for that problem or a myriad of other societal issues. There is no right answer for you to arrive at and be objectively the best. In the off-chance that you do crack it, you would have revolutionised at least one field, solved some of humanity’s problems, and gotten a challenge for a while.
If you know a question is unanswerable, and mulling it over makes you unhappy, then it's foolish to continue thinking about it. You can just leave it be and move on with your life. I think most people eventually figure this out on their own some time in their late 20s.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions#Sabba...
And I wouldn't say the zen koans are unanswerable, you can think of them like riddles that force you to think a different way than you normally do.
I'm much happier in my 30s, having enough experience that I've learned to let go and accept existential dread for the useless bother that it is, than I was in my 20s. Truly realizing that nobody's that special also was a qualitative leap.
Not that I'd call myself « smart » with a straight face, but I certainly used to care a lot about things outside of my control.
It was more than a little disturbing when I started reading the methodology sections of scientific papers that make the headlines and I realized at LEAST 90% of them were absolute bullshit.
Funny that you're mentioning that, the Epistemology classes I took in university while I was studying History were some of my favourites.
That's very you specific, not really related to your age, other than that it took you until your 30s to find that equilibrium.
There's nothing at all written down anywhere that ensures such an equilibrium for everyone, however. Especially for folks who represent a minority in their society, life is a lot more threatening and a lot less controllable for them, typically.
For some, that equilibrium may never come, and while that doesn't invalidate your experience, it certainly doesn't support the idea that "you'll calm down when you're older".
I think some people have too much empathy to ever reach that point.
I have a few friends that literally broke out in tears when Russia began the invasion of Ukraine. They don't know a single person in Ukraine. Nothing about the war truly has an effect on their day-to-day lives. They don't even have investments that got clobbered.
Yet they shed tears over innocent civilian lives being lost.
These people have been on the verge of nervous breakdown ever since COVID hit.
Seeing people on such an extreme end makes me feel like I might be slightly sociopathic because I read the news and just think "Well that sucks" and then move on with my day, knowing it makes no difference to me and my life.
I will never forgive you, John. You denied me cake.
I can't think of that many young twenty-somethings who want to fix the worlds problems. If anything, younger people are more focused on themselves [1] that people after the 30-35 yo mark.
[1] That's not an accusation or anything. It's natural that, when you're young, you need to figure out who you are and what you want out of life, and that requires a lot of focusing on oneself. Not to mention just growing into being an actual adult is also not easy and requires a lot of trial, error and introspection - something that is not as required when one is older and more formed already.
A lot of that is why some young entrepreneurs do go on to actually change the world (and we definitely need those people, although it isn't always for the best). But most that think that's what they are going to do fail a few times, and become more realistic in their views of what they can accomplish.
Sometimes the smarter someone is, the more quickly they can think through the possible results and come to those conclusions that they probably aren't going to be one of the few that does succeed to change the world, and that can (to the overall point here) lead to a sense of sadness and loss, maybe without having gone through the effort and failure, even. Which is a bit sad for everyone, because some percentage of those people probably could succeed if they just got out of their own way and stopped over thinking things, also.
EDIT: rephrased to not be snarky
I finally tried weed well into my 30s and discovered it's great at making sure I don't think about those things when I'm trying to go to sleep, which is really nice.
In general I'm pretty sure I've got a fair amount of derealization going on all the time now, which... helps?
I suppose that all adds up to some kind of mellowing out.
just because the universe is big and old doesn't mean it has any special meaning or significance.
Sure, the universe itself is indifferent at best, but that doesn't mean you can't find meaning in life, or that you can't experience happiness. On the contrary, admitting that most things are completely outside one's control seems to be a key to being happy with life.
Intelligence is seeing an issue and recognizing that it is a problem and recognizing the root issues to how it became a problem.
Proper action is seeing both of the above and addressing the immediate issues and the longer term ones so the problem does not happen again.
Cynicism comes from when you are not allowed any sort of action and actively denied the ability to fix cause root issues. Then gaslighted into thinking you are wrong for wanting the change or forced into fixing the wrong things.
But that's not what OP is about, and it suggests that's not really what the research says either, there's maybe a bit of hint of a small negative correlation like that, but mostly it says: no correlation.
Rather than making the argument you are making, which I have heard before, I found the OP argument to be novel to me, and find really thought-provoking:
The model of "well-defined" vs "poorly-defined" problems, and that what we call "smart" is skill at solving "well-defined" problems, but that happiness actually depends on skill at solving "poorly-defined" problems. Which is probably not correlated to skill at solving well-defined problems at all, that being "smart" at solving well-defined problems doesn't help or hurt happiness, it just doesn't matter.
This rings really true to me, and isn't quite as depressing as the oft-heard theory that you're saying here, that smart people are more likely to be miserable because they see the awful. Not what OP is saying, OP is even disagreeing, really.
> Wisdom comes the closest, but it suggests a certain fustiness and grandeur, and poorly defined problems aren’t just dramatic questions like “how do you live a good life”; they're also everyday questions like “how do you host a good party” and “how do you figure out what to do today."
“How do you host a good party” might be ill-defined to OP, but I’m sure this is a well defined question with a good answer for a lot of people. (Let’s call that “social quotient”)
I think we have different experiences then. Or, maybe, your interpretation of 'seeing the awful' is different.
I see 'dumb' people fall for pyramid schemes/MLM which seem obvious to me. They will only see the awful after they've lost money. We both see it, but there's a period where they don't, while I do.
I see people fall for sales tactics and which are transparent to me. Getting a €400 discount on an €800 delivery package for a second hand car that has €150 in actual value, does not seem like a deal to me. Others are very happy and are happy the sales person gave them the fake discount.
When other people are happy that the government reduces taxes on gas due to rising prices, I see rising corporate profits that were paid for with public funding.
When some people get angry about the conspiracy they read on Facebook, I get angry about the manipulation going on that caused that conspiracy to spread.
In the end, in my experience, the 'dumb' people see awful more on the micro level, while I see it more on the macro level. That probably probably makes us just about as unhappy about the stuff that happens around us, just from completely different perspectives.
The only real difference I see, is that I seem to have a harder time finding people to discuss things with than the average person seems to. Where 'dumb people' just seem to be able to repeat talking points and opinions they've heard somewhere, I often prefer more in depth discussions and conversations on the why and how, causing me to be an outsider (sometimes).
Because you aren't picking sides, you will be accused by every side to be siding with the "enemy".
It's less about making an argument for the "correct" definition of "smart"; and more about saying that the way psychologists measure "intelligence" (eg when trying to study things like "are smarter people more or less happy") is measuring success at solving well-defined problems. That things like IQ tests as well as academic success are about solving well-defined problems.
You can think "smart people" are whatever you want, it's not about any "true" definition of what "smart" means, it's just a word that means different things to different people -- often probably not very rigorously defined or consistently applied. The OP is in fact about investigating what some of these different meanings may be with relevance to correlation to happiness.
"One way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives" seems like a circular definition. So people that feel good do so because they are better at solving poorly defined problems? How do we know?
It seems plausible. For instance, would a good accountant (well defined problems) necessarily make a good physicist (poorly defined problems)?
Seems to indicate that the threshold hypothesis (IQ helps creativity/divergent thinking up to a point, then levels out in correlation) is largely correct
Poorly defined problems often come down to things like creativity and your ability to handle emotions. Sometimes you have to follow a seemingly senseless curiosity to find the right path forward. Sometimes it is about finding beauty where it isn't expected. Also these problems have multiple valid and fundamentally different solutions and can be highly subjective. Think art.
Well defined problems are about juggling multiple things in your head, high concentration, relying on fundamental knowledge, heuristics etc. All of that possibly under pressure. There might be multiple solutions but they are typically on a scale (good enough vs perfect etc.) or are choices between measurable tradeoffs. Think engineering.
Or it'll be seized and hoarded by corrupt governments or militias.
And one of the components of intelligence is pattern recognition.
Basically they fall for the social version of pareidolia.
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1767679-tfw-too-intelligent-...
A lot of very smart people call themselves skeptics and are very keen at questioning what other people believe when it is not what they believe, but are incredibly blind to the fact that they make assumptions on their own that they have very little basis for.
Relative to 200 years ago, we do. People aren't any happier. That's not how happiness works.
See: Hedonistic adaptation.
You don't need to be very smart to get existential dread from "climate change will kill us all and I can't influence much", "the upper class can still fully rule our lives" or "at some point, someone will create an AI that might kill us and there's not much anyone can do about it". Even someone hardly qualified to work at McDonalds can think that, usually in addition to "I can never handle a job to get a living wage", which I'd actually consider to be more serious downers on ones happiness.
"I don’t have to be at the Grand Canyon to appreciate the way the world works, I can see that in reflections of light in my bathroom." - John Carmack
Which I think balances it out.
Smart people are unhappy because they have a whole identity constructed around being smart and in order to be happy they would have to shatter this construction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIht5-FwZUI
The world is in roughly the same spot as it was when I was 20, and my body is certainly worse off, but I'm much happier now simply because I don't steep myself in the shittier parts of the universe.
Ignorance is bliss.
Call it "optimistic nihilism", if you will.
I used to have this worldview then I realized “smarter” people self select lives that tend to be more neurotic and tend to overthink things to the point of anxiety
Do you really need to worry over all the things you do? Or have all the years of being schooled and trained and under pressure to constantly juggle multiple things made your brain’s default state anxiety?
This is very much like knowing the train is going to fall off the bridge but not being able to stop people from boarding.
I've chosen the job I have now specifically because I wanted to be able to do something about things I see that could be going wrong. Anyone can do this, but especially smart people.
Happy because unaware of world situation
>mid intelligence
Unhappy because aware of world situation
>high intelligence
Happy because they apply stoic philosophies to their life and making the lives of their immediate surroundings better instead
Yeah, things look bleak. However you need to realize that there ARE things you can do. Maybe not on the world stage, but in your own community. Sign up for a soup kitchen, clean up a street that is full of garbage, etc. Anything is better than being terminally online and doomscrolling. You will be happier for doing so, I guarantee you.
The way I see it, we're all going to be dead in 100 years, and life will go on without us. It's not my place to solve every problem in the world, and in the grand scheme of things, my life is very unimportant, so I might as well relax and enjoy it.
Those who dwell, think that people can change.
Those who don’t dwell on it, just accept the various other accusations, he stole this and that you know because he’s a pedo etc.
I wager that those who believe they don’t dwell on things, have never had real problems.
I also have been working harder than ever on creative things, and they literally seem to only be valued online for 5 seconds until they go completely dead. I know I'm being manipulated and twisted, but my morality makes me not want to hack my way into public consciousness for money and popularity.... I might by citing that, and citing that many others are hacking their way in, be quite stupid.
Are the people that make and hack manipulative schemes smart? Are the people that break the law and get away with it smart? I don't do those things, so maybe I'm stupid.. At least I can admit it I guess.
I think we're living in a time where an entire generation of people born into inherited wealth are buying their way into popularity (which is painting a very weird and false picture of what success and intelligence really means), and when combined with all the smart people trying to climb life's ladders, the ability to succeed is under threat now more than ever.
Intelligence to me has always been based more on overall life survival skills and growth success rather than human engineered IQ tests... I know actual critically acclaimed surgeons and engineers that literally couldn't tell you where a spare tire is on a car when they get a flat, and if no one else is there to help them.
When one has the financial augmentation of being born into vast amounts of wealth, social status, and connection (which often the individuals most deemed as "smart" are) the very ideal of intelligence is turned upon it's head... The lucky ones can literally fail their way into success without anyone knowing the difference.
To me, the most simplified definition of intelligence for an individual is living life fully and well, with ethics and reputation in balance, being free from the control and influence of others, accomplishing notable things, and skillfully overcoming obstacles as they present themselves... I can't really say I'm smart at this point because many of those things mentioned prior are under threat for everyone right now, and it seems like I'm pitted against others for a limited pool of success resources more and more every day. I'm not happy about that at all.
I think you're imbuing your own value judgements into this. Many of us don't share the same urge to fix everything that's "wrong" with the world or society, and simply learn to accept it and roll with punches. But that still doesn't mean we're happier in life.
I think there are also a lot of smart people that aren’t pegged as smart because they’ve let go of controlling everything, and we mistake lack of engagement for lack of capacity.
We have a friend who has a very aw shucks personality. A mutual friend and I have twice had a conversation about how she might actually be the smartest person we know, and I say that as someone who has a fondness for thinking they are the smartest person in the room. She is scary intuitive, the person people talk to about problems, she is a terrible movie companion because she guesses the ending ten minutes before I do, which is usually ten minutes before anyone else does. But she never made a career out of being clever, which feels like such a waste. I worry that it was beaten out of her at a young age. Girls aren’t supposed to be smart. You should be pleasant instead. If not that then I get some subtle ADHD vibes and it’s a common pathology to desire anonymity, a coping mechanism for passing as normal.
At that point, the question is just "why aren't people happier". I doubt theres any one answer, but a lot of the responses in this thread seem to point to some of the possible reasons.
There is a widely accepted definition of intelligence in there, and the article attempts to delineate between problems intelligent people are good at and not-so-good at (at least not better than everybody else).
At no point does it say that smart people are less happy (it does mention two studies where in one "lowest scoring" were a tiny bit unhappier, and in another "highest scoring" were happier): the overall tone is that they are equally happy regardless of their intelligence.
And then it wonders why the familiar trait of intelligence does not translate to those people setting their lives up for happiness?
This rings true to me, in that in that model I recognize I'm pretty good at solving well-defined problems, but pretty terrible at solving poorly-defined problems (and currently not especially happy).
That was all new to me as a way of thinking about it! Most of the comments here are about "why are smarter people less happy", which is not what the OP is about, and is more well-trodden.