Comment by wawjgreen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wawjgreen | Hacker News Reader

My litmus test of someone being intelligent or not--among other such tests--is what they say about Shakespeare. This might anger the Brits, but Shakespeare is garbage--and the guy says: "I read .... most of Shakespeare."

One famous guy lambasting Shakespeare (Tolstoy) was only marginally smarter, because according to his "Confessions", he read it many times over (incl. in English) and STILL could not find any artistic value in it. I could not have put up with that--for me, it was the first few pages that I knew this was a waste of time. You don't need to drink the whole festering junk of a decayed meal to know it is not edible.

He also claims he wants to test the limits of his intelligence by tackling Mathematics once again--implying wrongly, as it were, that math education is fine and it is our brains that are incapable of learning. Not so fast: how am I less intelligent if the bozo teaching me does not know how to teach maths?

Citing Carl Jung does not help either, though he namesdrops to mitigate the shame of not being able to do maths...Jung was not as bright as is commonly believed as well. He once claimed that UFO's were all imaginary-- a sweeping generalization by someone claiming to be scientist-- whereas I for sure know that UFO's are real for I have seen one and to prove that I wasn't seeing things, I had a camcorder ready which recorded the space-ship going vertically up very slowly. I have lost the video though but it certainly happened 20 years ago and I still remember it.

EDIT: I see I have touched quite a few nerves.

>Jung was not as bright as is commonly believed as well. He once claimed that UFO's were all imaginary-- a sweeping generalization by someone claiming to be scientist-- whereas I for sure know that UFO's are real for I have seen one and to prove that I wasn't seeing things, I had a camcorder ready which recorded the space-ship going vertically up very slowly. I have lost the video though but it certainly happened 20 years ago and I still remember it.

Your evidence that Jung was not as smart as believed is that you recorded a UFO 20 years ago (but can't prove it) and he said UFOs don't exist? Forgive me, but that's the opposite of convincing.

"but can't prove it"--- I don't need to prove it to anybody, as long as I have a clear proof of it myself. I am with Descartes when I say my senses did not deceive me, but Jung claims that he can speak for EVERYBODY and EVERYBODY is imagining UFO's...

> EDIT: I see I have touched quite a few nerves.

It reads like a post you made for yourself, not for the benefit of any reader.

Writing is always primarily of benefit to myself--and hence of any benefit to anyone else....would you cook a meal you wouldn't eat yourself but wish others did? Writing that is geared towards explicitly benefiting others (at the cost of not benefiting our own selves) is shallow, useless and fake.

My point is that your posts read like you have a chip on your shoulder and are working that out in your writing, and that comes through so strongly that it overwhelms any other message you may be trying to communicate. The original post, for instance, isn't off-putting because it's contrarian, but because it reads like the contrarianism is mainly in service of presenting yourself as cleverer than three well-regarded historical figures, plus the author of the article—which, even if that's true, who cares? That's what I meant by the post seeming like it was more for you than for anyone else.

You seemed surprised enough at the reaction to your original post that I thought you might like to know what about it probably "touched quite a few nerves", is all.

It certainly only appears like I am "self-promoting" but I was not aware of that until you pointed it out....Which, even so, I don't care whether someone cares or not about it.

There are a number of "well-regarded" figures in history--Columbus is one, the Americans even celebrate a day in his name--who should be condemned in fact...

My comment is of service to the intelligent reader and its main purport is: it's ok to find fault with the seemingly intelligent "well-regarded historical figures" if they do not match your objectively-finetuned assessment of what it means to be intelligent.

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