you are assuming that every thinks they are a genious.
i am an average person imo. and clearly there are times when i am talking to someone who has prolly dropped out of high school. who knows, maybe they finished college, but they really seem dumb. I am sure many ppl in this situation have difficulty or ease, communicating. It does not relate to your intelligence imo.

i agree about the academic/social part.

I don't really connect well with anyone because I see you all as potential food sources in the event of an apocalypse.

Edit: I'm too stupid to figure out which option this is in the poll so I'm not voting.

so if you do not have skills @ picking up chicks, you cannot be considered intelligent? intelligence is about understanding, imo. not executing based on your understanding.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with this. Most stupid or smart people are easy to get along with in my experience. A lot of people with average intelligence think they are smarter than they are and are annoying to talk to in a lot of situations.

If you find yourself not enjoying peoples' company because they are less intelligent than you, you're probably not as smart as you think.

lol

Agreed on preferring to interact with the very stupid or the very smart. The average person can be annoying like others have mentioned, but the biggest problem talking to people of avg intelligence is that they're boring. They have no interests beyond their job and what bar they're drinking at tonight.

I used to post in BBV4L all the time.

I clearly have no problem connecting with tards.

There are many people of somewhat average intelligence who are rather interesting. There are also many people of above-average or even superior intelligence who are incredibly boring. It runs the gamut.

There's something to be said for outlook and general attitude. If you are super smart but are either boring or just overly negative then I'm not likely going to have any bond with you. If you are below average in smarts but are genuinely a nice person or, at least, somewhat interesting in some way then I'm likely to be more interested in hanging with you. Just being friendly or welcoming counts for a lot.

Then there are those who probably have above-average intelligence who generally don't show it. I tend to like these people more often then not far more than people who seem to go out of their way to show their smarts all the time.

ding ding

Networking has very little to do with intelligence. It is a valuable skill, which some people possess and others don't, but it isn't related to intelligence.

I'm pretty sure there is no correlation between social skills and intellect.

Edit: I see others have made this point.

It really is how a person can communicate with others, regardless of perceived intellect. Snobs look down because of a lack, in their opinion, of education. If a sports enthusiast could spin circles around someone with a PhD commenting on (fill in the blanks) does that make the PhD unintelligent, or merely ignorant?
How does a parent connect with their child? Big words with even larger concepts, or a simple common rapport? This thread needs a gumpism, Stupid is as stupid does.

i wish

223, 224...whatever it takes.

if you have a hard time connecting with people less intelligent than you, you are likely a poor communicator.

I wouldn't say less intelligent, but people who have an uninformed or clearly misunderstood view about what we're talking about is difficult for me. The times you can call them less intelligent is when they're adamant about those views. In dealing with these people I treat it as a game, where the basic position is the most powerful. This you can see in Judo, or aikido, where you always get underneath the opponent and so he falls over you, if he attacks you. The moment he moves to be aggressive you go either lower than he is or in a smaller circle than he is moving. And you have spin, if you know aikido, you're always spinning, and you know how something rapidly spinning exercises centrifugal force. So if somebody comes into your field of centrifugal force he gets flung out, but by his own bounce. Therefore the other person leaves the conversation feeling good about themselves, and that I am the less intelligent of us. A lot of the time though I will just talk nonsense because the other options are boring.

Pretty cool way of spinning a negative (inability to communicate) into a positive!

Positive as in a positive test result for douchebag.

I find it easier to communciate with people less intelligent than me.

I work in an academic enviroment, and have to say the people clearly more intelligent than me can be the most challenging to deal with. Not because of differences in intellect, but because many people that are super-bright in their field often lack communication, socialization, and interaction skills.

Some of the brighest people I know are basically dysfunctional in any kind of social setting. Many can't speak to any current event issues, because they are consumed with their field of study and/or work. Also, they have no sence of how to nurture relationships in the workplace, or to position themsleves for advancement, and can be totally frustrated by basic operational matters that all of us here would take for granted as normal workplace issues with easy solutions. In short, many have no workplace street-smarts.

I'm not saying all super-bright people are dysfunctional, but many who are significantly smarter than me have some issues, IMO. I guess that is why I have the most respect for leaders and senior managers who are well-rounded generalists, and are equally as stong in dealing with issues requiring high level analytical, etc skills as they are in dealing with people.

looooooool

I voted slightly because while there may be a small difference in the long run if I were to meet 300 averages and 300 smarts, it'd be a very weak correlation imo, and there would be plenty of smart people I disliked and plenty of averages i do like.

and by the way, ability to communicate and connect with people IS indicative of how intelligent you are. Emotional Intelligence. IQ and book smarts are not the only type of intelligence, not by a long shot. People with PhDs who can barely function in everyday life are not really all that 'intelligent' as a whole person.

This PhD / genius who is a complete social idiot keeps being mentioned but I think they are a myth and mostly the product of pop-media. Yes there are smart people with no social skills but the percentage is no different than the number of average and stupid people with no social skills. If the genius with no social skills gets more attention that is the product of them being socially useful while the social ****** stocking shelves at Walmart doesn't register.

Further, there is also the tendency for people who are socially ******ed to overestimate their own intelligence. Almost always they are confusing the ability to excel at school with intelligence -- two very different metrics. Social interaction is not difficult and someone who is intelligent should easily be able to integrate into almost any group.

These people definitely exist. Working with Stat PhDs and Econ PhDs at the same time is more than enough proof for me. It's not every PhD, but if you've worked with a good number of math-related PhDs and haven't seen these types I'd be shocked.

OP,

Did writing this make you feel awesome about yourself?

I didn't say they didn't exist. I said that the prevalence is no different than with other groups. We just notice the PhDs who are socially ******ed because we have a reason to interact with them. It is the same reason that people believe there is a correlation between physical attractiveness and intelligence -- there are just as many stupid ugly people but since they are not hot we never notice them.

I would also argue that using academic performance as the sole criteria of judging intelligence is potentially misleading. Doing well in academics can be explained by intelligence but it can also be explained by just working harder. It has generally been my experience that with a few exceptions the individuals who have busted their ass have outperformed individuals who have greater intelligence. Someone who is socially ******ed will find it easier to work hard -- After all if you are a loser with no friends what else are you going to spend your time on other than video games or school? Eventually academic success becomes part of their identity as a way to compensate for the fact that they don't really fit in. Just because someone is seeking an advanced degree doesn't mean they are actually intelligent only that they work hard. In grad school I would consider less than half of my peers someone I would classify as intelligent and in law school I'd say less than 10% were intelligent and a good 60%+ were just stupid.

I agree with both of these ideas, actually.

'Intelligence' is best described as straight IQ/logic ability + ability to effectively communicate + emotional intelligence (ability to relate, converse, socialize, and empathize with others) + a ton of other things. Anyone measuring straight IQ is missing half the picture.