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Originally Posted by Howard Treesong
My own view of internet relationships is that you just can't take them personally, ever. I've taken a fair number of slings and arrows in my online posting history. Like most normal human beings, I've certainly felt my feelings hurt from time to time -- almost certainly by El D a time or two racking hard on some thoughtless point I made. I decided long ago to do my level best to take the personal sting out of the insults but read through them to see whether I might be wrong. It's been a much better approach.
Of course, that changes when an internet acquaintance turns into an IRL acquaintance and then even perhaps a friend.
Oh there's certainly no danger of me taking anything on the thread personally or indeed being upset by it. I've pretty much done what you suggested here throughout my time on TwoPlusTwo, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to gently point out inconsistencies and double-standards here and there, as well as chuckle at people desperately asking the moderators that my low-content posts proving them wrong on issues like cricket be moved to somewhere where they can't be embarrassed by them.
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Originally Posted by Howard Treesong
I think there's plenty of room between "smarter than a 17K low-level office job" and what's been said about you. I don't think anyone around here doubts that you're rather smarter than that.
I'd agree, I think I'm more intelligent than the likes of El D think I am, but less intelligent than he thinks that I think I am.
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Originally Posted by Howard Treesong
But I think the problem isn't so much the disjunction between your actual smarts and your perception of yourself, but rather the extent to which your emotional immaturity handicaps your IQ. One can get into a semantic debate about whether one's ability to maximize the utility of one's IQ is itself a facet of intelligence or not. Boiling this down a little, I'd observe that taking time to think about how smart you are isn't particularly smart: it doesn't achieve anything.
Yeah, this is partly the reason I never really bother with proper IQ tests. They don't measure 'practical intelligence'. If I have an IQ of 158 that's offset by a crippling emotional immaturity, then sure, what really is the point?
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Originally Posted by Howard Treesong
Okay, here's an example. The statement "I'm better than my job" may well be true. But its truth value is beside the point, because it makes you sound cocky, arrogant and insecure all at the same time.
I've never once said that, only reported that people have either said it either to me, or about me.
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Originally Posted by Howard Treesong
I don't think there's really much of a conflict here, but even if there is, so what? There are plenty of conflicts in our outlooks on things. The trick is to not let those conflicts prevent you from achieving stuff. There's no such thing as a perfectly unified life. One example: Christopher Hitchens. He spent a fair amount of time in his autobiography (called Hitch-22, which is brilliantly written, by the way; his command of the English language is absolutely spectacular) on this exact point. Many of his public views were absolutely irreconcilable with one another, but he never let that paralyze him.
I'm a huge fan of Christopher Hitchens and would put him down one of my main inspirations. Reading his work even drove me to help out on a Free Iran protest at the puny little age of 19 because I was so keen to get involved in international politics, especially after the 'green movement' protests in the aftermath of the 2009 elections (that's kind of another story I guess).
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Originally Posted by Howard Treesong
It is immediately and blindingly obvious that they are not. For every person that plays in the Premier League, there are literally thousands of journos/writers/think-tankers/politicians. So your thought here is a) wrong and b) an impediment to doing what you say you want.
I didn't say that the two fields were equally competitive, but just that for some people, they're equally unattainable.
Now according to El Diablo, the ceiling of my ambition should be coming to terms with the fact that I will forever be utterly dependent on my parents, which would render my chances of achieving the Premier League Golden Boot and a permanent position working for a political think tank equally unattainable at 0%.