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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11608 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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Saying you have street smarts just means you're willing to do things that smart, sensitive people are too decent to do.

That's not really what street smarts is supposed to mean. Street smarts is things like knowing when someone's trying to con you, being able to tell what strangers you should to be civil to and who you shouldn't, knowing how to avoid getting robbed or caught in the middle of a fight, how to project dangerousness without aggressiveness so people will leave you alone, things like that.

That's what it should mean, in reality when I hear people use street smart day-to-day, it's offered as a contrast and salve to a lack of "book smarts." The lack of books smarts is obvious in a lack of education, a low wage job, or simply in speaking to him; the claim of street smarts is treated as unverifiable, there's no standardized testing for speaking to strangers or dodging a con man.

I'm contending that if one doesn't see evidence of competence in how they handle themselves, one should treat claims of street smarts as unverifiable and subject to being rejected without evidence.

That's what it should mean, in reality when I here people use street smart day-to-day, it's offered as a contrast and salve to a lack of "book smarts."

Indeed, like how 'curvy' or 'unconventionally attractive' are used.

I agree that "street smarts" means more than that, traditionally referring to métis in the Seeing Like a State sense (in contrast to we "rationalist" mistake-theorist quokkas who can't quite believe people would go on the internet and tell lies, or try to take advantage of others).

But it's surprising how often the term gets used in a manner indistinguishable from the usage Malcolm outlined above. It sort of reminds me of those people who "discovered this cool life hack", which amounts to them lying and cheating other people and abusing the social contract. "I discovered this cool life hack: if you print off a fake handicapped parking permit, most people won't bother to check and you can park in the handicapped spaces." Hate to break it to you dude, but the reason we aren't doing that isn't because we didn't think of it.

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