You can agree with the way people use words and disagree with the thought processes spawned from said words; for example, I can go along with people's views of success, but that doesn't mean I define success as $$ And I use language to communicate to myself and my imaginary friends; just because I have a different definitions that others doesn't make the definition useless, I'd shoot myself if I used UTG and +EV the way other poker players use in self dialogue, but I understand what they're conveying when they say it.

omg...im not completely crazy?

One of my points is also that we are never able to make proper conclusions and I think its because the definitions are messed...I don't know how to say it very well but if we had a more accurate and correct definition we could expect to find correlations that are hard to argue etc. Not sure if I got that out right at all, but I think this stems from terrible definitions.

This is why people say Hitler was a genius. This may be true under the accepted definitions but its creates a messed up society to talk about intelligence, success, wealth, motivation and Hitler. And this has nothing to do with him, or true evil or something like that, people just say that about certain people like Hitler for some reason like its the smart thing to say....its the kind of statement that makes me not able to finish a semester of University...

To me, this paragraph is just your conditioning of democracy. We kinda of intuit that the accepted norm is the correct one, but that's because democracy rules....its not even true in politics I don't think...

I think I generally agree with what you are saying and how you are saying it...and its not even about the content...just that you can argue it so much that I think has no bearing....no starting point...nobody is right, you can generally chase the definition into falsehood.

I think they are simply saying for more intelligent/intellectual types they may major in things that aren't as financially rewarding as others. A finance or engineering degree probably trounces an art or literature degree in terms of salaries on average. Many people go to college for the sole purpose of raising their income potential, not for the rewarding experience of learning different things. The people who go simply for the increase tend to get into well compensated majors.

I never said you were crazy. If it was simply your opinion that success is accomplishing what you personally deem important, then you can very well consider yourself successful. The issue is different people have different opinions of what actually is success, and the general feelings towards it in our society is financial.

I think if you looked at the attitudes in, say, Asian cultures, you'd see some different results. While a teacher may not do very well financially, I'm sure many Asian cultures would consider a teacher as a very honorable, noble, successful career choice no matter the pay.

In fact the very definition of the word would lean towards your argument :
suc·cess
noun
1.the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
2.the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.

Yeah words do tend to "break" if they're pushed too far, not sure how this relates to everything you've said

I think they're misusing information so horribly in order to rationalize something obvious, but for them requires deep thought(that they obviously suck at) because it goes against what their precious society preaches.

The obvious conclusion is that far too many people go to college.

What else do you expect when people who cant compete for the jobs requiring significant intelligence pay through the nose for the priviledge of not earning money/experience for several important years in return for some fairly worthless piece of paper.

By what magic do you expect them to bridge the gap with people of equal or somewhat lower intelligence who start work years earlier and dont have a huge debt to pay off (and dont have unrealistic expectations).

Not many unintelligent people are completing engineering degrees.

And many many people choose a major based on what they think will be easiest.

Not buying for one second that smart people choose less practical majors, I'd bet math, science, engineering, and finance majors are significantly smarter on average than humanities majors.

that is easy...

intelligent is anyone that can understand/solve hard logic problems. this is 100% a domain of pattern recognition, outlier detection and correlation analysis.

Anyone with a "bigger score" can adapt faster to the changing environment and this is a behavioral trait of a more intelligent person. There are different types of intelligence but they all fall into this category.

You could use 4 for 3. In practical it is mostly some kind of conclusion from pattern detection that makes sense and needs to be tested. Since Earth is a closed system (mostly) there are always several rules that can be applied - not talking on pure abstract concepts here.

Disagree wholeheartedly with your post, in every aspect. I've touched on this sentiment a few times on these boards, and I'll say it again - it's incorrect. The value of a college degree is, indeed, very high. The problem is the degree isn't the magic ticket to financial success. Worthless? Not even close. It's worth a ton - if you use it correctly.

I think you are missing the point. The article is hypothesizing that very intelligent people may not be solely driven by the compensation of a particular major. There are numerous studies that support this, although it's very hard to tell how much.

All people aren't driven by the same incentives. Not everyone is driven by the salary, if that were true the science and engineering and business majors would be by far the most studied subjects and we know that they are absolutely not.

The prevalence of the idea of "being happy" leads to (in my opinion) most students choosing a field they can picture themselves enjoying as a profession. Unfortunately, many of these fields aren't the ones that are the highest paid.

We've all heard the sayings. Do something you love, and you never work a day in your life. Choose a job that you want to do. Pick something you have passion about. Blah blah blah. Why do you think so many people want to be teachers? Teachers are paid jack ****, but so many people want to be one. Why?

How many kids really want to be a scientist, or a nuclear engineer, or an accountant? Not nearly as many who want to be a teacher, a psychologist, or a criminal justice major, or a sports agent. Not even close.

maybe worthless is an exaggeration. Worth the time and expense, for many clearly not and not close.

Its a very sad con being perpetrated on people.

the point of this thread was if solving logic is the end all be all for determining intelligence, then before the creation of logic, we are unable to define an intelligent person....so by its own definition its self-proclaimed.


now you are repeating there is a correlation between a bigger score and adapting to your environment...I might agree that this person has more of an ability to adapt, but I doubt that means they will (again little or false correlation I think). Also certain savant for example could destroy these logic problems yet often cannot adapt enough to function in our society.

And back to the monk thing.... perhaps doing nothing is intelligence...I really think if you think about your response you'll see its fully conditioned by our culture ....your response suggests how to succeed and get ahead in our society...and your suggesting thats correct because succeeding is the most important thing...which is only what school taught you.

I understand but the laws of physic existed before we invented them. I'm pretty sure logic isn't our creation (even with all of the axioms floating around).

if you want to define intelligence differently from the one in my post you are welcome to do so. As for the argument you are arguing about a term naming and not a problem = waste of time. Someone said logic/problem solving = let's name it intelligence. Now everyone wants to define intelligence differently as the word itself has any meaning.

oh yea:
I'm suggesting staying alive is the most important thing for a living entity...

Nobody is solely driven by the compensation of a particular major. I don't see how that isn't obvious.

We also hear things like "you can be anything you want to be," smart people realize pretty fast that it's all bull****.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a super hero. Sports agent, come on, kids want to be pro athletes. Hell, so do most adults, adults just realize that what they want has to be tempered by reality.

Answering out of order due to a slightly tired mouse finger.

Only someone who didn't look at the graph would use the mean. You'd look at the median since income is not parametric.