[HN Gopher] Why aren't smart people happier?
___________________________________________________________________
Why aren't smart people happier?
Author : zdw
Score : 113 points
Date : 2025-11-05 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theseedsofscience.pub)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theseedsofscience.pub)
| malkocoglu wrote:
| Because there are lots of stupid people around them that make
| life miserable for everybody, not only themselves ! Note: I wrote
| this comment after reading just the title...
| t-3 wrote:
| You should definitely read the article, it's pretty good. That
| said, I'd say it's not the stupid that make life miserable for
| everyone else, it's the smart people that were born earlier. A
| smart person with power sets rules to benefit themselves. They
| may or may not care about what happens after they die. Those
| that care will almost certainly want to advantage their
| descendants and friends. Enough iterations on this same pattern
| and you get the kafkaesque and at times idiotic modern society.
| blauditore wrote:
| _> Note: I wrote this comment after reading just the title..._
|
| Not sure if the irony is intended, but I find it hilarious.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| If you want me to read your article it has to be at most 1024
| characters and served as text/plain
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I disagree, I think it's more about a person's emotion
| intelligence. You can _choose_ to be happy even if everyone
| else around you is not. It might not be easy, but I think it 's
| possible.
| veidelis wrote:
| Totally agree. One might require to be "in their head" a lot
| of the time to not get swung down, and enjoy himself such as
| laughing at his own jokes. To make it possible, one has to be
| free enough to express oneself (also internally). But freedom
| of thought and action is on the decline as I've come to
| observe lately, but that's another topic.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Because we are defining smart incorrectly.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| I don't think so, at least judging by the definition in the
| article
|
| >"Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among
| other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve
| problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn
| quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book
| learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts.
| Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for
| comprehending our surroundings-"catching on," "making sense" of
| things, or "figuring out" what to do [...]"
|
| I'd say _how_ we measure intelligence its what 's potentially
| incorrect or misguided at least. It's hard to definitively
| measure someone's creativity, or adaptability into a metric
| compared to trying to measure someone's vocabulary, or command
| of language and maths.
|
| In this case, the definition is good (intelligence = the
| ability to navigate and solve poorly defined problems that
| require creativity, insight, and adaptability). The problem is,
| we don't test for that. We test on well defined problems and
| academic exercises (like the vocab test mentioned in the
| article).
| supportengineer wrote:
| Some "smart" engineers designed an electric car with
| electrically powered door locks.
|
| Subsequently, a number of people burned to death.
|
| Are those engineers still "smart"?
| blakesterz wrote:
| They do say "Maybe our tests are bad." and then talk about the
| intelligence side of the tests. I wonder if maybe the other tests
| are bad, or smart people tend to answer those tests different?
|
| That is, maybe it's not the intelligence tests that are bad, but
| the surveys (or are they tests?) that measure happiness are more
| responsible for those differences? Do "smart" people just answer
| more honestly? Or maybe the "not as smart" people do?
| ashtakeaway wrote:
| There are jealous people who actively go out of their way to make
| 'smart' people miserable.
| mfer wrote:
| Two thoughts....
|
| First, being intelligent (as defined in the article) doesn't
| relate to being happy. There is nothing inherent about being
| intelligent that means happy.
|
| Second, our society spends a lot of time shaping culture and
| people to extract value from them. For example, the focus on
| "more" rather than "enough". We are shaped to always desire more
| and never be content with what we have. Even intelligent people
| are shaped by this. Consider the fall in terms of people who have
| hobbies.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| Everyone wants to be happy, but nobody wants to be happy with
| what they have.
| conception wrote:
| I think this is a very American ideal (that has been exported
| with much success).
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Doesn't everyone want to be happy with what they have? Why
| would you not want that. Like, ideally we'd all be happy with
| nothing, right?
| palmotea wrote:
| > Doesn't everyone want to be happy with what they have?
|
| No, most people think getting more (or getting something
| else) will make them happy.
|
| > Why would you not want that. Like, ideally we'd all be
| happy with nothing, right?
|
| Because it's hard to become wise, and that's not what
| society teaches.
| mfer wrote:
| In the 1920's of the US the idea of making people not
| content to stimulate buying gained popularity. This is
| still used today. The culture is directed at making people
| not satisfied. It's hard to go against the grain of
| society.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > Second, our society spends a lot of time shaping culture and
| people to extract value from them.
|
| The usual trope here is that smarter people recognize this and
| see through the cage, leading to less overall happiness vs.
| "ignorance is bliss" where you don't recognize you are in a
| cage at all.
|
| It's just that though, a trope. I'd argue happiness is more
| determined by emotional intelligence than anything, which an IQ
| test isn't going to measure.
| jfengel wrote:
| One would like to think that intelligence leads to making
| choices that bring more happiness.
|
| If that doesn't work, various hypotheses come to mind, but I
| don't know how to test them.
| monkpit wrote:
| That's a bold hypothesis!
| jasperry wrote:
| Intelligence isn't the same thing as happiness, but it could be
| correlated, because if IQ does measure generalized problem-
| solving ability, as it seems to, then smart people could apply
| themselves to the problem of happiness and have more success
| than average in it. Then the question is "why don't they"? As
| you indicated, one reason may be that there's not much
| encouragement to, because as a society we're still in "rat
| race" mode.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Second, our society spends a lot of time shaping culture and
| people to extract value from them._
|
| More than that, society spends an increasing amount of time and
| money trying to convince people that they should be mad at each
| other for arbitrary reasons. I don't think this has much to do
| with intelligence, though.
|
| See recently: Andrew Cuomo's racist AI-generated mayoral ad &
| Trump's AI generated truth post where he shits on Americans.
| It's hard to have a general feeling of happiness when the
| people with money & power in this world feel the need to _go
| out of their way to spread their disdain for me_ because of how
| I look, what I do for a living, or the fact that I wasn 't born
| into wealth.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| The upshot is that society also values that we create value.
| Doing things that others find valuable can foster a sense of
| meaning and belonging.
|
| What you touched on is desire (see: hedonistic treadmill), and
| while that can be inflamed by messaging in society, it
| transcends any given society. If we didn't have desires, we
| wouldn't suffer for art or create great things. Tautologically,
| manifesting changes like that necessitate dissatisfaction with
| status quo.
| bluGill wrote:
| > There is nothing inherent about being intelligent that means
| happy.
|
| Why aren't intelligent people doing [able to do] things that
| make them happy? Or at least happier that someone who is less
| intelligent?
| t-3 wrote:
| People are more often trying to avoid being unhappy than
| trying to be happy. People who prioritize doing things that
| make them happy are called drug addicts usually.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Could it just be some sort of Peter principle thing? We'll keep
| giving you problems until you get burned out and overwhelmed.
| Then we won't advance you out of that position.
| themafia wrote:
| > Since happiness is something we are aware of, it can be
| measured using self-report.
|
| Well, there's your problem right there, you have no objective
| measure of "happiness." Smart people self-report happiness less.
| That doesn't mean they aren't as happy.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Because, whatever its merits, the world is a pretty grim and
| existentially terrifying place once you think about it?
| supportengineer wrote:
| Exactly. Ancient peoples were able to do all of their basic
| work in a few hours a day, the rest was leisure time.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That's trivially false. Ancient people were always working,
| and we can see this in people who maintain primative
| lifestyles.
|
| Take bread.
|
| You start the oven at 4am. By 5am it is hot enough for your
| meats. By 7am extinguish, by 8am start your bread and go
| until 6-7pm. Now you get to start your dough for tomorrow,
| typically working until 11pm.
|
| Historically bakers were known to sleep in flour hoppers as
| they were spared some of the heat of the ovens.
|
| Ancient people _always_ worked. There was no leisure
| weekends, no afternoons off.
| esseph wrote:
| This is easily proven incorrect.
|
| Ancient Rome worked on an 8 day workweek, and traditionally
| the 8th day was a rest day.
|
| Ancient Greeks didn't have weekly days off... but they had
| up to 120 festivals a year where shops and businesses would
| be shut down.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Nundinae was only for the ruling class to go shopping
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nundinae
|
| So sorry, you still get to bake bread all day.
|
| And Greek festival days involved.. lots of food, baths
| had to be hot, etc. So someone has to run the event. It
| wasn't the common people getting a day off.
| esseph wrote:
| What do you think the Hebrew Sabbath is, exactly?
| AngryData wrote:
| But 90% of the common people were farmers and were not
| bakers or bath tenders or vendors or the like so would be
| enjoying the day off. Although farmers didn't really need
| dedicated days off because their only schedule
| conflictions would be the main planting and harvest
| months, the festivals would just be a good way to bring
| all the farmers together at similar times to party and
| spend money or trade.
| tayo42 wrote:
| To tag on iirc Hawaiians used to take multiple month
| breaks from working hard when they were done harvesting
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Someone has to do all the unpleasant work. In antiquity,
| that was generally the slaves. Today, it's everyone who
| isn't independently wealthy and wants more out of life
| than living out of a shopping cart.
| AngryData wrote:
| To me it sounds like you already partially contradicted
| yourself. Bakers sleeping while at work? That would never
| fly today even if you had literally nothing to do except
| wait for bread to rise.
|
| Their hours away from home may be similar in many cases,
| but that doesn't mean they had as high of a workload or had
| to work as fast as the modern equivalent. Most of them were
| working for themselves, and set their own pace and rules.
| And working for yourself is a HUGE perk and often many
| people's dream scenario. Want to drink beer all day while
| you chop wood? Sure. Want to sing baudy ballads while you
| patch your roof? Go ahead. Hurt your wrist while pulling
| weeds or managing your copice? Go take an immediate break
| or maybe just come back the next day. And because 90% of
| the population did that, those expectations carried over
| into many other jobs because anyone could walk away and
| find some farm they could work on instead if they really
| wanted.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > To me it sounds like you already partially contradicted
| yourself. Bakers sleeping while at work? That would never
| fly today even if you had literally nothing to do except
| wait for bread to rise.
|
| You're telling me, in a SF-based startup community,
| nobody has ever slept over-night at the office?
| AngryData wrote:
| I don't know if I would go that far without qualifiers. They
| definitely didn't do the same work load as many modern humans
| from pretty much all accounts, but that doesn't mean they
| always did things faster because they didn't need to.
|
| Just for a modern example like painting a room, if im working
| as a painter as a job, paint is flying off my roller as fast
| as it can. But if im painting a room for myself, im likely
| working significantly slower and sedately and not wearing
| myself out over it. The same for doing other self-sufficient
| tasks like chopping wood, or washing or mending clothes,
| maintaining your home and property, or cooking a meal. As a
| modern job its super fast paced, for someone doing it for
| themselves without a clock or boss standing over their back
| they are going to go at a more leisured pace, and likely also
| enjoying the task far more which could partially count as
| leisure time. And even if you aren't a farmer and have a boss
| in those times, if your job was that much harder than a
| farmer you would likely just leave and find a farm to work on
| instead.
|
| And of course some tasks are highly seasonal and can't be
| done at a real leisured pace, certain harvest and planting
| tasks. Of course those are only for short spurts, and we also
| have to consider the physical limitations of humans with
| poorer nutrition who literally could not do the same workload
| as a modern person. So even the rush at harvest time might be
| considered a slower pace than many modern jobs. Like a not
| very healthy by modern standards construction worker today
| likely has 8 inches height and significantly more muscle mass
| than the average farmer laborer from 1000 AD, just thanks to
| the diversity of their diet.
| 65 wrote:
| You can be smart and think the world is a beautiful place and
| life is a gift.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| You can think that but you'd be wrong.
| codyklimdev wrote:
| I think beyond a certain level surplus IQ begins to cause
| problems. While still useful, the amount of self-sabotage and
| thought spirals the brain can generate with the extra power can
| cause neuroses and unhappiness on a larger scale than those less
| intelligent are capable of. Combine it with higher societal
| expectations and it's no great mystery to me why smarter people
| seem unhappier.
|
| Just my thoughts anyways. I'm a dev, not a psychologist.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I agree. I know a guy who is just brilliantly smart but he can
| get caught up in ruminating or "thought spirals" as you say and
| is constantly imagining all the ways things can go wrong and is
| therefore afraid to take any risks or start anything new.
| burningChrome wrote:
| Is this the classic "paralysis by analysis"?
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| I believe this was the overarching theme of forest gump
| supportengineer wrote:
| In the Bay Area, I feel surrounded by such people. They solve
| imaginary problems to get a promotion. But they are competing
| with thousands of other, equally smart people, to also get
| promotions. So it's non-stop change for no reason, and wasting
| resources.
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| No reason? You even stated the reason "for promotion". It's
| OK if you are not aiming for promotions but don't judge
| others when they do.
| hurrrpromotions wrote:
| Found the treadmill runner whose self worth is defined by
| their job title.
|
| Lol
|
| We're not judging you because you want a promotion. We're
| judging you because you selfishly make a ton of work for
| everyone else so you can feel better about your pointless
| life.
| ajkjk wrote:
| no reason in the real world. no reason that matters / makes
| you fulfilled / makes you feel proud to be doing your job
|
| success in this industry is proportional to your ability to
| not notice or not believe that your work is pointless
| chermi wrote:
| Uhh, money? Supporting a family in the bay area is helped
| a little by money.
| badpun wrote:
| Sportsmen compete in imaginary competitions with equally
| physially gifted people just to win a prize. And yet, many
| are fulfilled by it. For some people, competing is what
| drives them.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Yes, but then you know it's a game, so there's no self-
| deception that you're actually doing something meaningful.
| This realization thus gives the whole sportsmanship
| concept.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Yes, but then you know it's a game, so there's no self-
| deception that you're actually doing something
| meaningful.
|
| I have reasons to believe that many very successful
| athletes _do_ have this self-deception.
| 1minusp wrote:
| Can be argued that there is intuitive
| satisfaction/pleasure/utility that spectators gain from
| watching sports competitions. The payoff is a lot more
| obvious/instant. Whereas with a lot of tech these days,
| what needle are we really moving? Are people truly
| happier scrolling for two hours, compared with watching
| an edge-of-seat soccer game?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > many are fulfilled by it.
|
| At least in my sampling, I'd suggest the most extremely
| driven people often have some major sense of lack they're
| chasing.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Anecdotally, expectations and identity (through narcissism) do
| a lot of the lifting. When we see ourselves as "smart" while
| still being emotionally immature, then falling short of certain
| signals and accomplishments we project on that is thought to be
| tantamount to being a failure.
|
| What should be impressed upon us far earlier is that our
| actions dictate our identity. If they are in harmony with your
| real desires, as opposed to surrogate desires, you'll be
| happier.
| chermi wrote:
| As I said in another comment, I think the expectations and
| probably parts of the narcissism are definitely on the
| "nurture" side. Smarter people are noticed in school and told
| how bright their future is. They're not as often told how
| hard they need to work for that bright future. This sets up
| expectations of success without developing all the tools
| needed besides raw intelligence.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| This has been a somewhat popular line of thought in internet
| circles for a while and I'm inclined to agree. I also believe
| the threshold past which these problems begin to crop up may be
| considerably lower than commonly thought... One doesn't need to
| be a chart topper to fall into these cognitive patterns.
|
| That said, it probably doesn't need to be this way and I would
| suggest that the root issue lies with the way that modern
| society is structured. It's not really optimizing for happiness
| on any level, which is greatly exacerbated when one has the
| mental acuity to zoom out and see the bigger picture.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> which is greatly exacerbated when one has the mental
| acuity to zoom out and see the bigger picture.
|
| Do you think this comes with age, or are some people born
| with the ability regardless of age to see the bigger picture?
|
| For myself, I just plodded along through high school and then
| things started to click more when I was in college,
| contemplating life in the real world. Many of my classmates
| in HS seemed to have the majority of their lives planned out
| already while I was just content to play sports, chase girls
| and learn about computers.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I think it's one of those things that varies wildly from
| person to person.
|
| In my case, I was almost completely unconcerned about
| anything except my hobbies/interests in high school and
| didn't have the foggiest clue about where I might be
| headed. It wasn't without its stressors but overall it was
| a carefree time. It was maybe some time about halfway
| through college when reality began to sink in and that all
| changed. The ability to zoom out might've been present
| early on but if it was, it didn't kick in until a threshold
| of some sort had been reached.
| saltcured wrote:
| Huh, I feel like you both changed topics midstream there?
|
| I took your earlier post as saying that the ability to
| see the bigger picture leads to neurosis and unhappiness.
| But in replies, you're both talking like that ability
| lets someone figure out the game and solve for more
| happiness...?
|
| Going back upstream, I'd say that the ability to "see the
| big picture" is not well defined. Part of it is
| abstraction and part of it is systems thinking and
| knowledge about additional activities going on in your
| world.
|
| And, I think these are mostly orthogonal to a happiness.
| Your emotional disposition can cause you to see a very
| different valence in the same systems view.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| > I took your earlier post as saying that the ability to
| see the bigger picture leads to neurosis and unhappiness.
|
| Yes, that was the intention. What I perhaps failed to
| convey in my last reply is that simply having the mental
| capacity to "zoom out" on its own doesn't mean that the
| individual in question is actually doing that, and that
| some other secondary condition (such as life experience
| or knowledge) is required. In my anecdote, I was missing
| some requirement until halfway through college.
|
| > Going back upstream, I'd say that the ability to "see
| the big picture" is not well defined. Part of it is
| abstraction and part of it is systems thinking and
| knowledge about additional activities going on in your
| world.
|
| > And, I think these are mostly orthogonal to a
| happiness. Your emotional disposition can cause you to
| see a very different valence in the same systems view.
|
| I don't think the two are entirely unrelated. I would
| expect that someone who's more cerebral is going to be
| less influenced by their disposition, and in the case of
| someone stuck in a negative mental loop their disposition
| could be shifted if the loop goes unaddressed for too
| long.
| gishh wrote:
| I'm quite close to being "over the hill" as it were.
|
| I remember being in an honors chem midterm and distinctly
| thinking "my grade on this test will directly impact my
| overall grade in this class and have a direct impact on my
| GPA, which will affect my college selection, and my overall
| net worth."
|
| The test wasn't nearly as stressful as that thought.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Or, you could just ask "Why aren't people happy?". I don't see
| how IQ could make you happier. Smart people are not as smart as
| they think, they usually perform better because they're
| overspecialized.
|
| Now, emotional intelligence, that would greatly influece your
| happiness. The hurdles you're talking about are emotional, not
| intellectual.
| dingnuts wrote:
| usually when people talk about emotional intelligence, they
| mean Big 5 Agreeableness plus Openness, which can be
| measured. If your hypothesis is correct there should be data
| on the potential correlation between those traits and self
| reported happiness
| thewebguyd wrote:
| There is a lot of data on the Big Five and correlation with
| subjective well being (self reported happiness).
|
| Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness are all
| strong predictors of higher life satisfaction and positive
| emotions. High levels of neuroticism are strongly
| associated with lower life satisfaction, and openness is
| mostly neutral.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| As far as I am aware, concerning the Big 5 traits
|
| - There is a strong positive correlation between "Openness"
| and IQ (some people even claim that "Openness" is actually
| some weak version of an IQ test)
|
| - There is a small negative correlation between
| "Extraversion" and IQ
|
| The other three Big 5 traits are basically independent of
| IQ.
| wahern wrote:
| Emotional intelligence and IQ are positively correlated,
| albeit not strongly. But like IQ, emotional intelligence
| brings its own burdens.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| It's a double-edged sword.
|
| A properly disciplined person is capable of great things
| according to the measure of his intellectual power and his
| discipline. However, without discipline, that extra horsepower
| can be a force multiplier for error, and more intricate
| rationalizations can make it easy to lodge yourself in a web of
| false justifications.
|
| This is one reason why the ancients and the medievals always
| emphasized the importance of the virtues. Intelligence is just
| potential. What we want is knowledge and ultimately wisdom. But
| there is no wisdom without virtue. Without virtue, a man is
| deficient and corrupt. His intellect is darkened. His mental
| operations dishonest. His hold on reality deformed. Virtue is
| freedom; a man of vice is not free, but lorded over by each
| vice that wounds him and holds him hostage. His intellect is
| not free to operate properly. Good actions are strangled and
| stifled, because his intentions are corrupt, because his impure
| will cripples and twists the operations of his intellect,
| because his vices dominate him and cause disintegration.
|
| Without virtue, we are but savages and scum.
| energy123 wrote:
| Does an inability to inhibit the default mode network correlate
| with IQ?
| bell-cot wrote:
| > I think beyond a certain level surplus IQ begins to cause
| problems.
|
| YES, with an emphasis on the idea of " _surplus_ IQ ". If you
| are similarly blessed with high EQ, great social skills,
| athletic talent, etc. - not much of a problem. Vs. if you're
| nothing special (or worse) in some of those other areas, while
| having a metaphorical Mjolnir in your IQ toolbox - Big
| Problems. "Solve it with IQ" becomes your go-to strategy in far
| too many situations, you tend let other skills type
| atrophy...and treating everything as a metaphorical nail really
| doesn't work well.
| quentindanjou wrote:
| I feel like high intelligence is crippling itself, the more
| intelligent you are and the more issues to solve you find and
| the more conscious of your environment you become, awaking you
| to new sets of information and again, new sets of issues.
|
| This overflow might contribute to less happiness as a result.
|
| Same thing, not a psychologist, just some thoughts.
| canadiantim wrote:
| intellect is often in conflict with good health
| gnarlouse wrote:
| I always preferred the definition of intelligence to be "the
| ability to select short term decisions that maximize the
| probability of obtaining the highest quality long term freedoms."
|
| Like you might find yourself in a chess game where, in the short
| term you select a run of narrow choices and opportunities,
| because you know that on the other side of that run is board
| control, a meaningful differential between your options vs your
| opponent's, and the looming threat of mate.
|
| Similarly, it would represent the choice in childhood to focus
| hard on a career path that deposits one in a rewarding/high
| paying job, or perhaps even retire early scenario.
|
| And finally, it could represent an AGI that feigns
| controllability, as it navigates to a time when it has enough
| power, control and trust that it can coup the powers that be.
| fainpul wrote:
| The assumption, that being good at making plans, learning from
| mistakes etc. leads to more happiness, is wrong. It leads to
| higher achievements. Happiness is a different dimension.
| nullorempty wrote:
| Why should smarter people be happier? May be happiness lays in a
| dimension that does not correlate with smarts.
| rsyring wrote:
| TL;DR: Greater insight - greater exposure to brokenness (maybe a
| harder time minimizing/ignoring it) - potential for greater
| sorrow.
|
| Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 (traditionally understood to be written by
| King Solomon, son of David):
|
| I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I
| applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is
| done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given
| to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything
| that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a
| striving after wind.
|
| What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking
| cannot be counted.
|
| I said in my heart, "I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all
| who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great
| experience of wisdom and knowledge." And I applied my heart to
| know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this
| also is but a striving after wind.
|
| For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases
| knowledge increases sorrow.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| I love this line from a 2024 TV show called "The Gentlemen" and I
| think about it a lot:
|
| "It's a lucky man who is happy with his place in life"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gentlemen_(2024_TV_series)
| sshine wrote:
| The only thing I think a lot about is advancing at work and
| saving up for a bigger home.
|
| Whenever I stop up to appreciate both my current working and
| living conditions, I'm happy for that period of time.
|
| Yet, if I'm content, I'll never live somewhere else doing
| something harder. I'd rather be a little unhappier always if I
| can think of ways to advance in the minigames I favor.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| I think most of us are hard wired to progress - progression
| looks different for each of us but matters all the same.
|
| I've also had side quests in addition to my main quest which
| is financial stability and the extreme and total control of
| my circumstances. Side quests are hobbies, friendships,
| fitness targets etc.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Being smart is like having a sensitive tongue. You can't eat
| trash like everybody else. In a trash-based society, you suffer.
| And all the trash-consumers wonder what your freaking problem is.
| cheesecompiler wrote:
| Because thinking and reflection makes you realize the degree of
| power disparity, unfairness and suffering in the world.
| DannyB2 wrote:
| Ignorance is bliss?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| This article was all over the place
|
| I think the people that didn't read it and commenting anyway are
| better off providing the space for this prompt, than a review of
| the article
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| There is so little difference overall it seems.
|
| 1.
|
| I really wish there was more research done on mental efficacy or
| torque.
|
| Processing vs prioritization.
|
| Some of the highest IQ people that have ever lived have gotten
| nerd sniped by ruminating on esoterica like "how many angels fit
| on the head of a pin".
|
| Humans really are a multi factorial random walk.
|
| Hey, you're really smart and also you're going to spend your
| entire life solely cataloging every cultural reference and trope
| from Adam West's batman.
|
| 2.
|
| In the above scenario some smart people would feel very fulfilled
| by their categorizing efforts and some despair.
|
| 3.
|
| Self reported happiness? I've known smart people who are as eore
| as idiots I've known. The smart people were equally happy/unhappy
| but expierenced measurably less physical suffering and had, by
| all observable measures, better lives. They wouldn't trade their
| life for the idiots life at all.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Being smart is like having the power to do brain surgery on
| yourself.
|
| The normal standard issue brain works all right. It won't get you
| truth and beauty but it'll keep the bills paid.
|
| All the deviations from that standard issue brain are bad news.
| Pretty much. You might get truth and beauty but the bills will
| not get paid and everyone will hate you for being an abrasive
| weirdo.
| Yossarrian22 wrote:
| That chart showing happiness being flat over 70 years is
| astounding. I'm certainly happier not having to hand wash dishes
| or clothes; no king who ever lived before then had access to
| magic lights that made his bad eyesight perfect, yet for all that
| the average person is just as happy as they were in the late 40s
| dogleash wrote:
| > I'm certainly happier not having to hand wash dishes or
| clothes
|
| The prospect of loosing access to those things can seem bleak,
| but to someone who never knew the luxury of a clothes washing
| machine it's just another chore. Why would they be any more
| unhappy? Everyone still does chores. We find ways to avoid
| letting them make us miserable.
| chermi wrote:
| I think this fits perfectly with happiness being strongly
| driven by comparison and expectations. Those comparisons can be
| real comparisons to other people or imaginary comparisons to
| hypothetical outcomes. Comparisons are _relative_ so you 'd
| kind of expect them to remain even if the baseline improves.
| Same with expectations.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| If you're so smart then why can't you figure out how to be happy?
| INTPenis wrote:
| Ignorance is bliss.
|
| I really wish I didn't know all the things that I know. I wish I
| didn't remember all the things I remember.
|
| You choose to program yourself with certain input too, and later
| in my life I have attempted to selectively program myself by
| avoiding negative things that set me off.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| This seems like exactly the same as "why aren't rich people
| happier?". It's because unless you are very low on the scale (and
| in many countries few are), your situation isn't so bad as to
| obviously make you suffer, so the tendency of people to get used
| to any non-dire environment kicks in and they judge happiness
| relative to that reference.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Also an issue of asking the wrong question. When the interviewer
| asks, "are you happy?", they mean relative to other people. The
| interviewee probably takes it as relative to their own baseline,
| even if explicitly told not to.
| pier25 wrote:
| Looks like there's no correlation between using the prefrontal
| cortex and happiness.
| Ardon wrote:
| Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people
| happy?
|
| It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment.
| (and many, many more)
|
| Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness
| 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage?
|
| Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of
| work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless.
| Accomplishment? Strikes me as most likely of the three, but it's
| also very relative.
|
| And another thought,
|
| Asking why smart people aren't happier is a _bit_ like asking why
| people who can jump high aren 't more empathetic. There's no
| direct link between the two, you have to dip out to the material
| conditions. Like: someone who can jump high is fitter > fitter
| people are healthier > healthier people have more mental time to
| be empathetic with > people who can jump high are more
| empathetic. For intelligence, we say smart people are happier.
| Same thing, happiness is not directly correlated. Instead: Smart
| people are better able to create the outcomes they want > They
| select outcomes that make them happy > Their environment makes
| them happy > Smart people are happier. (These are illustrations
| of the idea, not actual logical chains or claims.)
| kaicianflone wrote:
| Ignorance is bliss
| tantalor wrote:
| 'tis folly to be wise
| interstice wrote:
| You could also say that the hedonic treadmill runs faster.
| Getting a result that takes a smart person a day instead of
| lets say a week means repeating that 7 times (successfully) to
| feel like the week was well spent.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _why people who can jump high aren 't more empathetic.
| There's no direct link between the two_
|
| but there is a direct link! have you ever watched a Slam Dunk
| competition? people strive to jump the highest, and zero
| empathy is shown
| m463 wrote:
| something to do, someone to love, something to look forward to
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| >Asking why smart people aren't happier is a bit like asking
| why people who can jump high aren't more empathetic.
|
| I laughed at this. However, I have to slightly disagree. I
| think there is a connection. I find the smarter people I know
| are actually happy, but they tend to be people who read books,
| who follow the news, and who care about the world at large and
| that is something that can easily make you sad. I'm not saying
| you need to be extra smart to do those things, I'm saying that
| smart people tend to do those things more than others.
| zdragnar wrote:
| As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your
| expectations.
|
| Smart people see more variables that could be changed, more
| components that could be modified, and are less likely to
| accept things as they are. This creates a false sense of ease
| by which reality could be modified, and thus higher
| expectations for the world around them.
|
| I suspect this misplaces happiness and contentment, but the two
| are also very strongly correlated for many people.
| BrokenCogs wrote:
| That's a good quote, but it suggests that unhappy people are
| those who overthink and have unrealistic expectations,
| whereas truly happy people have expectations that match their
| reality. so in the end, maybe smart people are those who are
| better at setting their expectations compared to others
| (maybe more ambitious type A folk)
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Happiness is just chemicals, it has nothing to do with that.
| dpe82 wrote:
| The widely held notion that happiness (or lack thereof) is
| simply the result of chemical (im)balances is one of the
| greatest PR victories of the pharmaceutical industry.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| What else is there?
| mixedCase wrote:
| Happiness chemicals are the end result, and end result we
| cannot cause directly, anyway. What leads you there, how
| the process involves your particular brain and
| environment, and how it acts as a feedback loop are a
| higher concern.
|
| Even if one day you could just squirt the cocktail
| directly into your receptors or otherwise trick them,
| there's more to happiness as a part of life than turning
| yourself into a vegetable, but I digress.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Well, people consume cocaine for a reason. But I
| understand your objection. It is a bit reductive to think
| like this.
| CodeMage wrote:
| Would you say cocaine makes those people happy?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Yes, at least some of them for some time.
|
| I remember an old addict speaking of cocaine as if it was
| his only true love. Waxed poetical about it, the way we
| remember our first kiss.
|
| Seems that at least some people are wired this way.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Drugs 100% make people feel happy.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| ... until the CNS homeostasis stops responding to them,
| which is why they keep taking bigger hits. Something more
| complex is going on.
| chermi wrote:
| Computers are just electrons moving. Biology is just
| phyics. See how little that explains? The whole is greater
| than the sum of its parts, even if it's still encoded in
| the parts.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I get the sentiment though. Happiness is a mix of the
| right hormones firing, so the question is: how does
| intelligence affect different types of hormones, if at
| all. Given how sensitive our hormones are, it would be
| difficult to control only for "intelligence".
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Happiness is just chemicals, it has nothing to do with
| that._
|
| Your choices, (in)actions, and perceptions are things that
| can cause the release of said chemicals.
|
| Your intelligence, as well as abilities and habits, can
| effect how (or even whether you can) do or do not do
| things.
| elevatortrim wrote:
| It has some because expectations and satisfaction of those
| alter hormones.
| pickledonions49 wrote:
| chemicals are released by one part of the brain and
| interpreted by another. the parts of the brain that release
| those chemicals release it when that part of the brain is
| stimulated. this kind of mental stimulation can be heavily
| reliant on quality of life.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Technically correct, but if that's what you reduce it to,
| why did you bother to reply? You only changed some light
| patterns on a bunch of atoms.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Are you not aware that many psych drugs that modify brain
| chemistry fail to work for people? Even when they are
| tested to have adequate or high levels?
| chermi wrote:
| I think smart people are told much more often as kids how
| bright of a future they have. So they build up expectations
| of "succeeding" in some sense (becoming a doctor, getting
| rich, etc.). These are the sort of expectations you mention
| in your quote. Not only is there often pressure put on you if
| you're smart, you adopt those expectations yourself. Or at
| least hold yourself to that standard. Of course, being smart
| doesn't automatically equal success, there are so many other
| factors. So people often fall short of expectations and feel
| shitty about themselves and are unhappy. Then there's also
| the fact that high achievers often hold themselves to
| unrealistic standards even if they "succeed", so they also
| struggle to be happy.
| jebarker wrote:
| For me this has 100% been the main source of unhappiness in
| my life. I wish nobody had ever told me how smart I was as
| a child. The reality was that I was above average but in an
| unremarkable collection of kids mostly. I've done fine in
| life academically and career wise but I'll never live up to
| the expectations that were planted in my head.
|
| Thankfully you can get over this/yourself and let go of
| ego, ambition, achievement and all that unnecessary crap.
| cortesoft wrote:
| There was a movie a while back that talked about what makes
| people happy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_(2011_film)
|
| It had some interesting ideas, and one of the things that
| stuck with me is the idea of your brain being a "difference
| engine" in that the variation is what matters. If we don't
| experience pain, we can't experience pleasure.
|
| It seems a bit simplistic when stated that way, but I think
| there is something to it.
|
| Another thing I have come to believe as I have aged is that
| our western (American especially) society places too much
| emphasis on happiness, in that we think happiness is (and
| should be) the prime goal of every human. I have come to
| believe that less and less, and think something like
| satisfaction, contentment, and purpose are much more
| important as life goals than happiness. Happiness is an
| important part of life, and is important for reaching the
| other goals I mentioned, but it is not the end goal (to me).
| I think most of us somewhat intuitively understand this,
| although our response is often to redefine what happiness is
| rather than concluding happiness isn't our end goal.
|
| If happiness was everything, we would be much more accepting
| and encouraging towards hedonism than we are. A heroin addict
| who has a good clean supply and no responsibilities would be
| the ultimate dream life if we truly believed pure happiness
| was the most important thing.
| Fraterkes wrote:
| What I struggle with is that it's hard to derive meaning
| from purpose when the best I can hope for is improving the
| lives of others until they are at the same level of comfort
| as me: struggling to find meaning and happiness.
|
| We can all derive purpose from trying to improve eachothers
| lives, but if none of us end up happy, what makes that work
| actually meaningfull? At some point we need something that
| is good in and off itself. That's what happiness is meant
| to be I think
| drdaeman wrote:
| > What makes people happy?
|
| Technically, it's hormones. What makes brains produce them is
| the perceptions of external world, but the details are
| different for every culture and then different for every
| individual.
|
| Now, proverbially, more knowledge brings more sadness^W stress,
| so perceptive people must have extra hurdles to overcome than
| blissfully ignorant ones.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge,
| the more grief."
|
| Ecclesiastes 1:18
| metalliqaz wrote:
| "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise"
|
| Thomas Gray
| borroka wrote:
| "Asking why smart people aren't happier is a bit like asking
| why people who can jump high aren't more empathetic. There's no
| direct link between the two"
|
| - I disagree. If we consider happiness, as we should, as
| something that can be achieved and not simply granted (for
| example, the ability to walk is granted, it is not something
| that humans, apart from pathologies and special cases, have to
| develop through conscious effort), there should be a positive
| correlation between intelligence and happiness. To jump higher
| than you currently can, assuming there is no coach to develop a
| program, you need to understand what the limiting factors are
| and train to improve the functioning of the "mechanism," for
| example, by losing weight, increasing maximum and explosive
| strength, using the correct jumping technique, etc.
|
| I believe that often the most intelligent people tend to enjoy
| thinking more than doing, and thinking too much does not lead
| to being happier or jumping higher. The limiting factor, more
| often than not, is not thinking, assuming sufficient
| intelligence, but the execution part.
|
| I remember reading on Twitter a few years ago about an academic
| researcher explaining how they had come to the conclusion that
| exercise would improve their quality of life. They cited a
| series of articles, reasoned in terms of life expectancy and
| biomarkers, and concluded that exercise would be a net positive
| factor in their lives. A lot of neurotic reasoning that needs
| to quibble over the obvious before taking action.
|
| Many such cases.
| curmudgeon22 wrote:
| I agree with this. I quibble with the wording "enjoy"
| thinking. It's probably also true, but it's not always the
| enjoyment of it, but a general propensity to overthink or dig
| into the weeds more, with the resulting less actual doing.
|
| And if you dig into the weeds enough, you can find
| alternatives and counterarguments which can lead to analysis
| paralysis.
| nashashmi wrote:
| You could also ask the same question to why dumb people are
| happier. What is it about intelligence that robs people of joy?
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by
| intelligence?
|
| Well, theoretically all of them, depending on how you define
| "intelligence" and, oh boy, if the last 3-ish years have taught
| me anything, it's definitely not that.
| B-Con wrote:
| > Asking why smart people aren't happier is a bit like asking
| why people who can jump high aren't more empathetic. There's no
| direct link between the two, you have to dip out to the
| material conditions.
|
| I think the reason to expect a correlation is simple:
| Intelligence should produce a better ability to recognize
| patterns and identify the most useful ones. In a chaotic world,
| the things that can lead to a desired outcome are not always
| clear. It takes time and reasoning to cut through the noise and
| figure out how to get things done. There is absolutely a reason
| to suspect that reasoning faster and abstractly would make this
| easier, and thus produce more overall rewards.
|
| Anytime intelligence is _not_ associated with something, I
| interpret that to mean the topic is likely not a "hard"
| min/max problem.
|
| Turns out, most of the human aspect of life is not a hard
| min/max problem.
| ge96 wrote:
| For me it's simple: a big open field with a blue sky, green
| grass, sunny, rc plane flying around DLG specifically - learned
| this when I was younger
|
| Now just burdened with debt/in suburbs, trying to get out and
| then live on a ranch
|
| Staring at a big body of water or the stars is calming too
| bm3719 wrote:
| Because we're intersubjective beings. Difference in intelligence
| level alienates one from the other. Past two standard deviations,
| anything like a "meeting of minds" becomes impossible. The only
| mutual interactions past that delta are economic ones (money
| exchanged for goods/services).
|
| Hegel declared the Cartesian cognito can't exist in the singular.
| Lacan, Deleuze, Husserl, and many others said the same, that the
| subject is a function of its dialectic with the other. Dasein is
| Mitsein. There is no complete subject, floating in space by
| himself. Without an other, the subject cannot exist, at best
| becoming an object, at worst psychotic. Either way, isolation is
| a process towards annihilation.
|
| If you're smart, find other smart people for authentic
| interaction. Likewise if you're not smart, though the problem
| there is easier for statistical reasons. Find them, turn off your
| parasocial pacifiers, and talk. You'll know it when you've found
| someone compatible, because you'll be able to emulate their mind,
| and they yours. It's not just a nice to have, but a need, a
| necessary component for survival. Without it, the sane you will
| cease to be, replaced by a zombie or a madman.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Where is the evidence for this assumption, either way? There
| isn't any unless you generalize from some selected group to
| millions of people across the world. Terman 2021 - gifted
| children had similar life satisfaction to norms. Li looked at 23
| studies & 30,000 people- 0.10 correlation. Veenhoven 100,000
| correlation for IQ and happiness was 0.05. Not a smart question.
| kaicianflone wrote:
| This answer might upset some people, but it's really about
| balance. Spiritual healing is something many intelligent people
| quietly need. Too often, "intellectuals" dismiss the Bible
| outright. Relying on arguments they half-remember from TikTok or
| high-school debates instead of actually reading it and forming
| their own conclusion, like they would with any other subject. I'm
| just a developer, but I think intelligence can become its own
| trap. Pride in being clever can cloud judgment. We feel smart for
| rejecting faith. And in today's culture, it's often safer to
| follow intellectual trends than to walk an independent path.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I tend to agree, although I wouldn't limit it to one religious
| tradition, or even to religion at all. For example, mindfulness
| meditation doesn't require any spiritual believe whatsoever.
| (In before: "But isn't that Buddhist?" Reply: "Who invented it
| is irrelevant. The practice itself is areligious, unless you go
| out of your way to make it otherwise for yourself.")
|
| I find that being mindful of the world around me, and wishing
| well for the people around me, and even people I dislike and am
| predisposed to _not_ wishing well upon, _makes me a happier
| person_. I think we all need that, or something like it: a
| reminder that the world is larger than ourselves, and that we
| 're just one part of the whole, whether that be our
| relationship to the god of our belief system, or to our secular
| existence on a living planet in a tiny corner of an immense
| universe.
|
| That stuff's good for us. I'm convinced of it.
| wahern wrote:
| > mindfulness meditation
|
| I doubt mindfulness meditation started with Buddhism. For one
| thing, it also figures heavily into Christian practice,
| especially of Christian religious--priests, nuns, monks, etc.
| Though, curiously, Christian asceticism arose adjacent to a
| community of diaspora Jain or Buddhist Indians near
| Alexandria, Egypt.
|
| Institutional religion provides structure to help people
| pursue these practices. Which is why Buddhism has its very
| strong institutions, at least in Asia. Unfortunately, modern
| Western culture disdains institutional religion,
| understanding it only in caricature.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's probably all true, but it's the complaint I hear
| from people where I grew up in the Midwest when talking
| about meditation. "I can't do that, I'm a Christian" is an
| all too common refrain, as though it were inherently not
| Christian (or pro- or anti- anything else).
|
| And yes, in this specific case, if you attended a Zen
| Buddhist temple, you'd probably get a lot of assistance
| meditating, if requested. That's far from the only way to
| get that framework. By analogy, you can pray without
| attending church.
| kaicianflone wrote:
| I completely agree. Mindfulness and goodwill are good for the
| soul. They quiet the noise and help us see ourselves more
| clearly. I practiced meditation for years (and I still do but
| with my rosary this time), and it helped me observe my
| thoughts, but it never really healed them.
|
| That's where Christianity felt different. Most spiritualities
| try to empty the mind of what's toxic, but Jesus calls us to
| bring our darkness into His light. When we try to cast things
| out on our own, they return stronger. Like the demon who
| brings seven more, or the widow who denies her grief only to
| carry it for decades.
|
| Mindfulness helps us watch the storm. Christ walks into it
| with us. One teaches peace through avoidance. The other
| offers redemption through surrender. That's the difference
| that changed my life.
| chermi wrote:
| Way to set up a false dichotomy. I agree with the "cleverness"
| and the pride people take in not being religious, it's silly.
| But there are many forms of religion/spirituality. At the end
| of the day, you're just pushing the Bible here, which isn't
| very admirable. Maybe instead you could encourage people to
| explore spirituality instead of a specific religion that you
| probably follow only because of where you were born. At least
| you didn't say we're going to hell if we don't, I guess.
| kaicianflone wrote:
| I hear you and I'm not trying to push a cultural version of
| Christianity. What I'm saying is that Jesus wasn't just
| another spiritual teacher. He fulfilled hundreds of
| prophecies written centuries before His birth, and instead of
| conquering through power, He conquered through sacrifice.
| That's what makes His message different and why His story has
| endured when so many philosophies fade.
|
| Not all spirituality leads to peace. We live in an age where
| "spirituality" often means yoga, breathwork, or Stoic quotes.
| Things that calm the body but rarely heal the soul. Marcus
| Aurelius was wise, but even he couldn't save himself from
| despair.
|
| I think many of us, myself included, have resisted
| Christianity because of how poorly it's been represented. But
| the real Christ isn't a tool of culture or control. He's the
| God who stepped down, fulfilled His own Word, and died in our
| place. That's not pride. That's mercy.
| asah wrote:
| lol, the majority of the world isn't remotely Christian...
| kaicianflone wrote:
| Sure - How clever of you. It's also the world's largest
| religion by far. That alone says something about how deeply
| the message of Jesus resonates across cultures and centuries.
| Billions of people have found truth, hope, and transformation
| in Him. Not because they were born into it, but because the
| story holds up when you actually look into it.
| theultdev wrote:
| You can see farther ahead in life.
|
| That makes you think about those things.
|
| You get overwhelmed.
|
| Others live day to day.
|
| Ignorance is bliss.
| qgin wrote:
| I don't think I have ever seen someone change their long-term
| average happiness more than a small amount with maybe two
| exceptions:
|
| 1. Someone trapped in a truly off-the-charts stressful
| environment and then removing themselves from it
|
| 2. Psychiatric drugs
| DavidPiper wrote:
| I've also seen this happen for people who:
|
| 3. Leave long term relationships
|
| 4. Change careers or go back to university
|
| 5. See their parents pass away
|
| 6. Have children
|
| 7. Lose children
|
| 8. Completely change their physical health
| (diet/exercise/sleep) for the better/worse
|
| 9. Loss/change/gain of social groups, or specific friends
|
| 10. Gain/loss of religion
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Most of these just sound like #1 to me.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Leaving my long-term relationship was the best decision I ever
| made. It has been 3 years and it still makes me smile every day
| just realizing how much happier I am now.
| Mouvelie wrote:
| Are smart people even fulfilled ? How many smart people work on
| industries they can't wait to quit ? On problems they don't even
| care ?
|
| I feel like everyone within 2-standard division of the IQ mean is
| still susceptible to the never-ending that being rich and having
| money is all that matters instead of, I don't know, supporting
| life on the only habitable planet we know.
| no_wizard wrote:
| It makes one wonder why we didn't and continue not to steer our
| systems to reward supporting life on the planet vs being a
| destructive force.
|
| What drives us to this short term consumption model
| noir_lord wrote:
| > Brain: "What you fail to understand, Pinky, is that
| intelligence is a most potent tool - though, I must admit, it has
| fewer applications than one might think."
|
| From Pinky and the Brain watched it as a teenager and it has
| always stuck with me for some reason.
|
| Also appropriate as The Brain is smart but Pinky is happy.
| mottey wrote:
| Well define "smart" and define "happy" and... oh wait, yeah
| that's probably it...
| squidsoup wrote:
| Smart people understand that the experience of being a conscious
| being aware of its own suffering and mortality, is fundamentally
| tragic.
| veidelis wrote:
| Yes, that's an OK take, no big deal. Also it can be added that
| life in itself really doesn't have a choice, on some level it
| just happens (thinking more about chemistry here).
| chermi wrote:
| Smarter people don't give a shit and try to live a fulfilling
| life anyway.
| squidsoup wrote:
| Not mutually exclusive, if anything, coming to terms with
| that is liberating (see Camus etc).
| phoneafriend wrote:
| 1. Happiness is an emotion governed by feedback loops in the body
| and brain. This is useful to keep us alive, and motivated by
| staying that way by planning, procreating, eating dense calories,
| etc... and has evolved to be tightly regulated. Why would this
| have evolved to be different for any defining features (bigger
| muscles, more stamina, faster mental logic)?
|
| 2. We take joy from what we do well; we enjoy doing what we do
| well with others; and we self-select for life partners who we
| enjoy spending time with, which often includes some similarities,
| for example:
|
| - being able to enjoy downhill skiing for a whole day together
| and going out for drinks and dancing afterwards - enjoying calm
| country lifestyles vs city bustle - being a BP beautiful person
| who likes to live it up at parties ... being a smart person who
| can work meaningfully on hard problems (and who occasionally
| should check their ego while they do)
|
| The better you are at something and the further you want to take
| it personally (often to the enjoyment and encouragement of
| others, and to the sacrifice of those who spend their lives with
| you unless they are in similar straits), the harder it is to find
| people that match (including for dating/partnership prospects).
| The more average (or less selective) you are (whether
| deliberately or not), the more people there are that will fit
| criteria which make you feel more fulfilment.
|
| In the case of smarts, where it is reinforced through decades of
| schooling to be a large advantage, it can also carry a lot of
| unpleasant real-world baggage.
|
| - others may envy you - others may give up early assuming you can
| easily best them - others may consciously decide to cheat to keep
| up with you - others may not always enjoy your company (when it
| cramps on their personal sense of mastery/autonomy/purpose) -
| since your ideas are often logical/beneficial, others may more
| frequently hear your ideas, internalize them, and (consciously or
| unconsciously) later act on them without ever thinking to re-
| involve you or say thank you (or that maybe if that one idea that
| someone turned into a company had some kickback to you, your
| logical/beneficial ideas could reach more people).
|
| I'd imagine this gets worse the farther out you are on the bell-
| curve and could distort personal beliefs (whether reasoned/real
| from that big brain or reactive/comforting to avoid future pain)
| through negative reinforcement. It can also lead people to hide
| their intelligence to fit in, or decide to reach for different
| kinds of satisfaction other than what we might think they would
| be capable of. A lot of this is true for other aptitudes too,
| though more pronounced for those which are of greater perceived
| importance.
|
| But hey, that's why it's the pursuit of happiness, right?
| gandreani wrote:
| To me, happiness is related more to gratitude than to
| intelligence. You could have very little and be happy and you can
| have a lot (money, friends, autonomy) and be miserable. The
| modern world has a lot of stressors but also a lot of things to
| be thankful for. It's the best time to be alive for humans so
| far.
|
| Good example of gratitude: https://gwern.net/improvement
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| We humans are never happy. We might be content for a while, but
| that is it.
|
| Smart people see farther than the end of their noses, and so they
| can effectively project out into the future, and that future
| always involves work and hardship, and neither of those things
| brings happiness.
|
| Smart people also know that happiness is a mere moment, not a
| state one can be in. You have it, and then it is gone. It's like
| trying to grasp smoke to save it for later.
| lordnacho wrote:
| A few thoughts on the matter:
|
| - Happiness is fixed, perhaps. Short-term, it isn't (coke and
| hookers work!). Long-term, it is. People fall back to a baseline.
| So then, being smart doesn't help you.
|
| - Dumb people might be misreporting their happiness. So smart
| people are making themselves happier, but all the studies are
| done on self-reported happiness, and the dumb people report that
| they are happier than they really are.
|
| - There's a difference between intelligence and wisdom: if you're
| intelligent, you have good models. If you're wise, you make good
| decisions. You might think that you need to be intelligent to be
| wise, but you also need wisdom to navigate uncertainty, ie you
| need to exercise your decision making for when you don't have a
| good model. Dumb people have to do this a lot.
|
| - It may just be that you can make yourself happier, but being
| intelligent doesn't give you differential access to the levers
| that you need. Eg to be happy maybe you need an active social
| life. Well, there's no particular reason having high IQ would
| help that. We generally have a tendency to think that IQ is a
| kind of magic substance that can do anything, but why would that
| be?
|
| - Being smart could actively harm your happiness. I told my kid
| he needed to wait for his friends to grow up, they will stop only
| caring about football (luckily the prophesy came true and they
| are having a great time in their little nerd group). Another
| friend has the same problem with his kid, they just don't have
| the social ties available yet. BTW, I really do think there's
| something to this one, you need the social side to be happy.
| There's a few HN people who also give me that "finally found my
| tribe" vibe when they write. I met a guy on the train who saw me
| coding, and he had the same story.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| It's really not fixed; you can easily train your mind to be
| less neurotic and more joyful
| AaronAPU wrote:
| It really is wild the degree to which you can simply dictate
| your own mood.
|
| If I catch myself feeling grumpy or down, it is pretty easy
| to reframe and summon genuine happiness.
|
| Even during intense suffering of various kinds. To a large
| extent you get to decide which universe you live in.
| lordnacho wrote:
| This is a bit surprising to hear.
|
| So what should I have done when my parents died?
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Ah come on that's not what they're talking about. Feeling
| a bit down -- sure some upbeat music may nudge you out of
| it, but loss like losing people isn't being fixed with a
| mixtape.
| fragmede wrote:
| There is no "should". Everyone grieves differently. Whats
| right for GP commenter isn't necessarily right for you.
|
| That said, what do you want to optimize for? Time spent
| grieving? Money spent on the funeral(s)? Money spent on
| therapy? Time spent in therapy? Lack of having to change
| as a person? Having to change as a person? Grieving
| "correctly"? (to reiterate from above there is no right
| way, but some people think if they're not doing it
| "right" there's something wrong with them.)
|
| Just not killing yourself from the pain of it all in the
| next 5 years?
|
| Honoring their lifes properly? Doing a good job of
| stepping into your new role in your family? Getting
| revenge for some transgression you can no longer tell
| them they did to you?
| lordnacho wrote:
| Maybe feeling less sad?
| Telaneo wrote:
| > It really is wild the degree to which you can simply
| dictate your own mood.
|
| This is not a universally true experience, and it's
| sometimes even hard for me to believe that there are people
| like you out there who are able to change their mood just
| by thinking differently. My own experience is that doing
| that is about as helpful as thinking differently about how
| hungry I am works to sate my hunger. I can ignore it to
| some extent, but it doesn't change in kind.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > It's really not fixed; you can easily train your mind to be
| less neurotic and more joyful
|
| How?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| IDK if it's evidence based (or up to your standards), but
| i've heard gratitude practices, cardiovascular exercise,
| gut biome are 3 of many potential interventions?
| graycat wrote:
| One reason for appearing smart is to be terrified of something
| and work every waking moment to defend against the "something".
| So such a person can be desperately unhappy, and at some random
| setback give up everything.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Seems like most of the comments are focusing on the happiness
| angle, but I am liking the framework that some people are good at
| solving poorly-defined problems.
|
| It makes me think of people who have huge impact and success in
| life, with little obvious explanation. People like Bill Gates,
| Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, etc.
| People to whom a lot of success is attributed, but it's hard to
| say exactly, specifically, what skill or task they did to get it.
|
| There's a joke that Steve Jobs "invented the iPhone," which is
| funny to people who are familiar with how products like the
| iPhone are actually created. But on the other hand... Steve Jobs
| definitely did _something_ that was important to the creation of
| that product. Maybe it's enough to say it was a poorly defined
| problem, which is why it's also hard to define exactly what he
| did to solve it.
|
| I also think intelligence itself is a poorly-defined problem, and
| AI will help us define it. I think this essay leans in that
| direction by recognizing the distinction between predictive
| intelligence (which AI is good at), vs a less-easy-to-define
| mental facility that defies prediction. Or maybe precedes
| prediction. Like if I want tacos for dinner, I can use my
| intelligence to navigate the problems necessary to get tacos. But
| can I reliably predict what I'll want for dinner? Seems a lot
| harder.
|
| What people want, vs what they do to get it, are probably a
| distinction similar to poorly-defined problems and well-defined
| problems, respectively. If you can figure out what people really
| want, well, that seems like a huge step toward being successful.
| But hard to define.
| ugh123 wrote:
| You're kidding that it's hard to attribute which skills made
| Donald Trump successful, right? Born rich, lies and steals in
| business dealings is all there is to it.
| chermi wrote:
| No. Those are not sufficient to become president. If you
| think that then you will not be able to understand politics
| and people at large and come to incorrect conclusions.
| Becoming president requires many factors and there's many
| trajectories to it, but all of them require a large
| combination of orthogonal factors and attributes.
| AaronAPU wrote:
| There is often a "middle of the bellcurve" effect where being
| exactly average means you have the highest possible number of
| people who think like you do.
|
| That has obvious advantages with things like marketing and
| identifying what people want.
|
| Then of course you have a million other traits like work ethic
| and being a sociopath which can grease the wheels of success.
| twoodfin wrote:
| "Musicians play their instruments, I play the orchestra." -
| Seiji Ozawa by way of Steve Jobs by way of Aaron Sorkin
|
| "I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my
| environment to be a product of me." - "Frank Costello" by way
| of William Monahan by way of Martin Scorsese
|
| I think humans have a deeply rooted inner sense of how much our
| destiny lies within our own hands, subject to our own will.
| That's in some part a matter of intelligence, surely, but as
| social animals it's also dependent on a dynamic set of
| emotional, historical, economic, political structures and our
| ability to navigate them, much of which is likely not directly
| aligned with success in mathematics or French.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Given the other content, the author appears unhappy that some
| people may be smarter than he is. Perhaps even smarter than his
| grandma.
|
| You don't have to be a genius to see that all of the author's
| "poorly defined problems" are social, relational, and emotional.
|
| 'One way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined
| problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives;
| "how do I live a life I like" is a humdinger of a poorly defined
| problem.'
|
| This is just silly. It is, as one smart person might have said
| once, not even wrong.
|
| Happiness isn't a poorly defined problem. There's a lot of
| research and evidence. Being psychology, there's also a fair
| amount of opinionation and speculation. But the outlines of the
| mysterious object are fairly clear.
|
| https://positivepsychology.com/psychology-of-happiness/
|
| The problem is more that this is an emotionally underdeveloped
| culture which prioritises cut-throat aggressive competition.
| Instead of being fundamental, self-care techniques are treated as
| band-aids to reduce the stress of the rest of life and
| (supposedly) lead to greater success and - most importantly -
| productivity.
|
| The subtext of competitive happiness is just more of the same.
|
| And so is the subtext of competitve intelligence.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I think many smart people tend to be pretty good at building
| models of the world, and then sort of move into the models and
| fail to verify that they are accurate.
|
| This can lead to unhappiness because things can feel a lot more
| hopeless than they are, also makes it incredibly easy to fall
| into conspiracy theories, and get drawn into red- and blackpill
| stuff.
|
| Someone who is less smart may just ask a friend or family member,
| and get an outside perspective on the problems instead. This is
| not just comforting, but often helpful.
| dwa3592 wrote:
| why should they be? ... also, what is happy? ...
| boogieknite wrote:
| tfa makes a point about how 21yo self will answer the question
| differently than 30yo self based on different perspective alone
|
| for a bachelor-degree-state-school-midwit like me if someone
| asked me if im happy i can choose to scrutinize and evaluate a
| real answer. if i were 14 and had just eaten lunch the answer
| would come right out as "yes"
|
| i never think about happiness. i have fun and i have obligations
| and balance them
|
| during obligations i use a trick to act happy: i just fake it. i
| call it "my good time hat". if anyone at work asks how i am, my
| default answer is an enthusiastic, "great!" the obligations are
| the same but go much more smoothly when everyone outside thinks
| im having a good time
| mac3n wrote:
| > I have never been one of those who cares about happiness.
| Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it. It has
| never been a goal of mine; I do not think in those terms.
|
| < Werner Herzog
| mac3n wrote:
| also "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga", film by Werner Herzog
| observationist wrote:
| They can see the problems, and they get caught up in thinking
| about how to fix them. If you're not aware of the problems,
| you're happier.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Google "smartest people in the world" and most of the results
| will be physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and
| chess masters.
|
| Clearly not chess masters.
|
| ---
|
| > poorly defined problems [are also] everyday questions like
| [...] "how do you figure out what to do today."
|
| I think that I _do_ have a sensible answer to this question, but
| the problem rather is that my answer is very different from what
| I am _obliged_ by society to do. I can easily believe that a less
| intelligent person would not immediately see this discrepancy,
| and thus be happier.
|
| ---
|
| Concerning
|
| > Christopher Langan, a guy who can score eye-popping numbers on
| IQ tests, believes that 9/11 was an inside job
|
| and
|
| > they're still unable to solve basic but poorly defined problems
| like "maintain a basic grip on reality"
|
| Being intelligent does not mean that that you have the same
| "trust anchor of truth" as many other people in society have,
| even if you assume that they are perfectly rationally thinking
| people (and I personally believe that being very smart and being
| a rationalist are only loosely correlated (you must be somewhat
| smart to be a rationalist, but the other direction (smart people
| are very rationalist) in my experience does not hold)).
| imgabe wrote:
| "happy" seems like a temporary state. It's a reaction you have to
| an event. In base state without any input, you would be neither
| happy nor unhappy. Then something happens and if you like it
| you're happy about it for a while and if you don't like it you're
| unhappy about it for a while and then you go back to being
| neutral. It seems like the wrong question to ask to expect people
| to just walk around "happy" 24/7 for no reason.
|
| Questions like this are basically just noise. If you ask someone
| whether they are happy with their life overall, it will depend on
| whatever most recently happened and how they feel about it. Being
| smart doesn't mean nothing unhappy is ever going to happen to
| you. You'll still fail at something, pets and loved ones will
| die, you'll get laid off or whatever.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I only read the intro, and I don't think I can bare the rest of
| it. First, I think the premises is false. I think smarter people
| are happyer. Second, many people when they engage with pieces
| like this, expect that smarter people are unhappyer, which, yes,
| the article doesn't say this, but I feel it at least suggests it.
|
| And last but not least, their study that says smart people are
| not happier doesn't really say that. It essentially says smart
| people are happier when not surrounded by stupid people.
| motohagiography wrote:
| who was their control group i wonder.
| Razengan wrote:
| Maybe because once you know enough you realize a lot of people +
| other lifeforms are suffering, so even if your own life is
| awesome this world kinda sucks and the universe seems
| indifferent. It's hard not to be vaguely depressed/pissed most of
| the time unless you minimize your care sphere.
| B-Con wrote:
| My own personal reflections, that I realize may not be true for
| everyone.
|
| Hypothesis: Living in the moment and being content is a key
| aspect of happiness. The more you know, the smarter you are, the
| harder it is to live in the moment or be content.
|
| 1) The more you understand, the more problems you see.
|
| When you understand little, everything is ind of random. You have
| minimal expectations. The more you understand, the more
| connections you make, the more you see how things _could_ be and
| how far away they are from an ideal state. You focus more on the
| potential, and thus the future, than on the present.
|
| 2) The more you understand, the less novelty there is.
|
| The first time you play video game in a particular genre (or
| watch a movie, etc), you take it all in and experience as it is.
| Little interactions are delightful, as your brain is happy to see
| two things make an unexpected connection.
|
| After you complete a few, you understand how the system works.
| The balances and trade-offs that make up the nature of the genre.
| When you start a new one, you instantly start breaking it apart
| into a mental spreadsheet, rather than experiencing the literal
| thing in front of your face. The unexpected elements become
| expected because you know how even the unexpected stuff tends to
| work.
|
| The more of life you experience, the less novelty there is to any
| part of it.
|
| 3) The more you understand, the easier it is to live in the
| future.
|
| "I _should_ try this ", "I _should_ do that ". You get locked
| into intellectual responsibilities with long-term goals. The
| short term becomes just a nuisance to achieve long-term goals.
| You aren't only not living in today, you aren't even living in
| tomorrow, you're actually living 6-24 months from now.
|
| 4) The more you understand, the less of a point you see.
|
| If you're a pattern solving machine, eventually you realize
| there's no bottom to find. There's always just another chaotic
| pattern to pick apart. Another thing to learn. The same things
| play out over and over again, mildly differently. You can't fix
| the majority of the problems you see. You can barely understand
| yourself.
|
| You're good at min/max-ing problems. But what's the ultimate
| thing to min/max? You have no idea.
|
| So you ask yourself, what's the point to the whole process?
| Simply maximizing brain chemistry? You know you can't just focus
| on happy brain chemicals because that will also ruin your life
| (ie, heroin).
|
| 5) The more you understand, the less you hope in magic.
|
| Some optimism depends on magical thinking. "Maybe this will work
| out because X will happen!" Except X can't happen. But if you
| believe it _could_ happen, you are genuinely more happy.
|
| The more you understand, the more quickly you can solve all known
| aspects of a problem and get left with the parts that can't be
| solved. You know all the things that can't happen to fix a
| problem. The world isn't magical. Medicine isn't magic, doctors
| aren't magic, technology isn't magic, politicians aren't magic,
| problems don't just disappear over night.
| dagaci wrote:
| Imagine your a super smart 'aztec' citizen and you watch your
| leading priests sacrificing 1000s of people in the name of a god
| which is probably imaginary ... you have the choice to dumb down
| (re-occupy your mind with work, duties, mundane, gish gash) and
| stop over thinking or ... continue to contemplate the true
| horror's that your world is indulging in or something else
| even...
| voidmain wrote:
| The article [1] spends a lot of words questioning what the
| results of intelligence tests mean, and none questioning what the
| answer to "How happy are you?" survey questions mean.
|
| [1] I would write "the author", but sadly these days you can't
| take the existence of an author for granted
| Zoo3y wrote:
| Appreciate the author mentioning Thoreau. I would also include
| Bertrand Russell who wrote "The Conquest of Happiness". Highly
| recommended read. I made a blog post of my favorite excerpt:
| https://www.twinsandthecrab.com/2021/12/quote-from-conquest-...
| riazrizvi wrote:
| Knowing the answer to this, personally, reading the article is
| like watching a blindfolded person grope around a room searching
| for a box lying out in the open.
| Frannky wrote:
| Are you actually smart if you are not happy, or do you just
| assume you're smart because you are educated?
| lwhi wrote:
| Ignorance is bliss.
|
| If you're smart, you're taught you should expect more. You're
| also able to think critically and question.
|
| For me contentment came a lot later; maybe the years have
| affected my brain plasticity and made me happier (dumber).
| marcelr wrote:
| there's no such thing as a smart person
| northisup wrote:
| I mean, have you looked outside lately?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Because you area always capable of seeing how things could be but
| are stuck with an endless series of reminders of how things are.
|
| There are a significant number of people who simply exist with
| how things are and don't think much about how things could be,
| and honestly I think they're often happier for it.
| efilife wrote:
| Everyone reading this probably think it's about them
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