Persistent vs. Stubborn / Genius vs. Intelligent
I spent a week thinking about why I hate intellectuals so much. Here are 2 tables that helped me navigate it. If you have better terminology for all of this, please share.
| # | Persistent | VS. | Stubborn | | 1 | Irrational about Problem | Irrational about Process | | 2 | Curious & Driven | Devout & Driven | | 3 | Creative | Disciplined | | 4 | Open Personality | Overwhelmed Personality | | 5 | Hard to Keep Going | Easy to Stick to | | 6 | Energetic but Uncertain | Energetic but Certain | | 7 | Independent Minded | Herd Tolerance | | 8 | Offensive | Defensive |
| # | Ingenuous | VS. | Intelligent | | 1 | Novel | Impressive | | 2 | Self Doubtful | Self Assured | | 3 | Universal | Local | | 4 | Weird | Attractive | | 5 | Obsessive | Passionate | | 6 | Independent | Dominant | | 7 | Simplistic | Sophisticated | | 8 | Naive | Shrewd | | 9 | High Altruism | Low Altruism |
Notes: 1. We can't be persistence without being a little bit stubborn, persistence is good for discovering new territories (ideas) but very bad at keeping them. When we fail, that first impulse of stubbornness is what keeps the ship from collapsing from the doubt allowed by the openness of persistent founders. 2. Ingenuous humans have more in common with curious kids than smart professors, which explains why LLMs are not as good at discover vs. productivity. Opposed to what people think, real breakthroughs don't come from intelligent people. Usually, it's an outsider to academia made insider later to boost prestige (Machiavelli, Avicenna, Einstein). Intelligent people don't like it when the rules changes because they spend decades mastering the old rules. 3. Intelligent people are the best ally of ingenuous kids, not because they are similar but because they mistake ingenuous success as genius.