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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3163 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 8, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I'd like to hear more stories about encounters with people who are really intelligent.

Where did you meet them?

And how long did it take you to realise that they were intellectually gifted?

The best indication of extremely outsized intelligence is noticeably-above-normal predictive ability. This is because prediction is pattern-matching and pattern matching is, essentially, intelligence.

So I’d say I’ve met a handful of people in my life who, if not always then certainly to an unusual extent, seem to be able to synthesize information and understand what is going to happen or what needs to be done to get something to happen much more easily and with less information and less prompting than even ‘normal’ very smart people.

Any stories? I feel like I have an intelligence fetish.

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