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matz1

Whats the relation of someone complaining and tough in this context ?

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It's tough to be smart, young, and capable. Because people will call you smart arse and not like you.

If you are smart then you are smart enough to ignore that.

If this were true, many many smart people would have much less anxiety and self-doubt.

A lesson which many highly intelligent persons never learn as long as they live is that human beings in general are incorrigibly very different from themselves in thought, action, and desire. Many a reformer has died at the hands of a mob which he was trying to improve. The highly intelligent child must learn to suffer fools gladly--not sneeringly, not angrily, not despairingly, not weepingly--but gladly, if personal development is to proceed successfully in the world as it is. Failure to learn how to tolerate in a reasonable fashion the foolishness of others less gifted leads to bitterness, disillusionment, and misanthropy, which are the ruin of potential leaders.

As a form of failure to suffer fools gladly, negativism may develop. The foolish teacher who hates to be corrected by a child is unsuited to these children. Too many children of IQ 170 are being taught by teachers of IQ 120. Into this important matter of the selection of the teacher we cannot enter, except to illustrate the difficulty from recent conversation with a ten-year-old boy of IQ 165. This boy was referred to us as a school problem: "Not interested in the school work. Very impudent. A liar." The following is a fragment of conversation with this boy:

   What seems to be your *main* problem in school?

   Several of them.

   Name *one*.

   Well, I will name the teachers. Oh, boy! It is bad enough when
   the *pupils* make mistakes, but when the *teachers* make
   mistakes, oh, boy!

   Mention a few mistakes the teachers made.

   For instance I was sitting in 5A and the teacher was teaching
   5B. She was telling those children that the Germans discovered
   printing, that Gutenberg was the first discoverer of it, mind
   you. After a few minutes I couldn't stand it. I am not supposed
   to recite in that class, you see, but I got up. I said, "No; the
   Chinese *invented*, not discovered, printing, before the time
   of Gutenberg--while the Germans were still barbarians."

   Then the teacher said, "Sit down. You are entirely too fresh."
   Later on she gave me a raking-over before the whole class. Oh,
   boy! What teaching!

It seemed to me that one should begin at once in this case the lesson about suffering fools gladly. So I said, "Ned, that teacher is foolish, but one of the very first things to learn in the world is to suffer fools gladly. The child was so filled with resentment that he heard only the word "suffer."

"Yes, that's it. That's what I say! Make 'em suffer. Roll a rock on 'em."

I quote this to suggest how negativistic rebels may seize on the wrong idea. Before we finished the conversation Ned was straightened out on the subject of who was to do the suffering. He agreed to do it himself.

I will cite another conversation, this time with a nine-year-old, of IQ 183.

   What seems to be the *main* trouble with you at school?

   The teacher can't pronounce.

   Can't pronounce *what*?

   Oh, lots of things. The teacher said "Magdalen College"--at
   Oxford, you know. I said, "In England they call it Môdlin
   College." The teacher wrote a note home to say I am rude and
   disorderly. She does not like me.

-- Leta Hollingworth, "Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet"

"To suffer fools gladly" is an interesting way to put it, but it crystalizes what I've observed about the missing piece of understanding in how "smart-ass" children behave.

It's hard to blame the kid for not knowing how to maturely handle actually being right when the adult/teacher is wrong and being punished for it, because we expect the process of growing up to teach that. But when does the kid actually get taught that? By the time they're in middle school (I have one specific kid in mind who I observed as a math coach), everyone else just hates them for being that annoying kid nobody likes.

This serves as a pretty good example of why "smart" kids (or adults) can be annoying. Useless pedantry is not an enjoyable thing for most people. Yes, the Chinese had printing, but it was done by hand. Movable type (which, yes the Chinese also had) plus the mechanical press (which they did not) is what allowed printed material to flourish and change the course of history.

It's like saying "James Watt invented the steam engine" and the kid in the back chiming in with "Well actually, the Romans had an Aeolipile". Sure, they did, and no one cares.

The real problem is that the teachers ought to know what you just said, but they don't. So instead of teaching the smart kid -- and the rest of the class -- about the advantages of the mechanical press, they call him a smart-ass.

Well, at least the kid in the back cares and maybe someone else too.

If you disagree with that kid you can always refute back.

You can say its annoying but the it maybe also annoying to the kids in the back for you to make inaccurate statement (at least according to the kid perspective).

There is little to no correlation between intelligence and social resilience.

It's tough, because you are a pain in the ass, and not even realize it? (especially if coupled by arrogance).

You don't have to please anyone, regardless what you do there are always going to be someone somewhere who think you are pain in the ass.

If I'm smart and capable and someone find me pain in the ass, then well too bad, thats your problem.

If you're smart and capable then you should also have sufficient social skills for people not to think you're a pain in the ass.

Regardless how much social skill you have, there are going to people who think you are pain in the ass.

If they think I'm in pain in the ass they are the one who has problem.

There'll always be someone who doesn't like you, but you can minimize that number by your own actions.

If everyone dislikes you, then they'll make it your problem. You can gripe about it, or you can try to change what you can.

>but you can minimize that number by your own actions

you can but you don't necessarily have to.

>If everyone dislikes you, then they'll make it your problem

its unlikely that everyone hates me, even hitler has people who like him or I don't gripe in the first place and then still depends on what they actually do.

> >If everyone dislikes you, then they'll make it your problem

> its unlikely that everyone hates me, even hitler has people who like him

Maybe I'm too tired to pick up on the satire, but this is just needlessly pedantic and does nothing to contribute to the conversation.

I see a series of people pointing something out to you, and you continually pushing back on why they are wrong. I guess the question to ask is how are you so sure you're right when everyone else is telling you that you're wrong?

Something that has gone a long way for me to better myself throughout my life is to recognize that when everyone is telling me I'm wrong, it's almost certain they are right and I am the one who needs to change. And if I still think I'm right, I should be able to communicate it effectively enough that others will agree with me. If not, then it literally is me against the world and even if I'm right what fucking good is that?

>Something that has gone a long way for me to better myself throughout my life is to recognize that when everyone is telling me I'm wrong, it's almost certain they are right

Maybe but its not always. Isn't there many people who become famous inventor or great discovery made because they goes againts the commonly held idea.

> Isn't there many people who become famous inventor or great discovery made because they goes againts the commonly held idea.

No. There are a few - probably something like 1 in 10,000,000 or so. Which echoes the most important part of my comment - what makes you so sure you're right when you've failed to convince anyone in this comment thread of anything other than you're a difficult individual?

Maybe you're the next Isaac Newton, but I'd literally take 1,000,000:1 odds you suffer from some combination of a superiority complex and delusional thinking.

>No. There are a few - probably something like 1 in 10,000,000 or so

Using your number, there are 7 billion people in the world, then there are 700 such people. For me , it still quite a lot.

>Which echoes the most important part of my comment - what makes you so sure you're right when you've failed to convince anyone in this comment thread of anything other than you're a difficult individual?

I didn't claim I'm right or wrong, I'm questioning and making argument. Whether you are convinced or not is up to you.

That's quite emotionally immature really.

Yes, you can choose to be an asshole, regardless of your intelligence, and others can choose to reciprocate in kind. Worst case you're lynched and gain some sort of martyrdom people might or might not care about. Best case you drive everyone away and end up abandoned and ignored, left to your own bitterness.

Or you could try communicating your genius idea, improving people's lives in the process, if its a worthy one. But that only makes sense if it was about the idea in the first place. If it was about proving everyone else wrong you might want to reconsider your motivations.

Having a different idea can potentially carry risk but it is what it is.

It is about idea in the first place.

You don’t have to please anyone.

You don’t have to make anything, go anywhere, or discover anything, either.

Seems like you’ll be happier in the long run if you do, though.

Perhaps, but if everyone finds you a pain in the ass, it’s your problem — assuming you want to work with people, have friends, engage in intimate relationships, and so on.

yes, assuming I want to work with the specific people/group.

but its unlikely that everyone hates me, even hitler has people who like him

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