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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Notes -
Watching college football yesterday a friend was texting me about one of the better players being super quick. So the question I posed was would you trade your intelligence for getting to run like that? I have never wanted to be a pro sports player after I reached the age of like 7, but I do watch highlights of athletes getting to jump or basically fly and it looks like it would be a lot of fun. Most people here I assume do not have this skillset. To my question my friend replied depends how much money he gets.
So my question is would you trade your intelligence for getting to have that athletic ability. Basically you can do anything you want on a football field but the entire world outside the football field is complete confusion to you. I would say Antonio Brown is the leading brand of having no understanding of anything off the football field.
The reverse of AB I think would be someone like Leopold Aschenbrenner. Very high IQ. Like AB most of human society is something he does not get to be a part of. My gut says like 98% of humans would find him annoying but he’s fine when he stays in EA/AI type places. I am closer to this spectrum.
I’ve also been thinking of kinds of intelligence that I lack. I literally can not clean. And it’s not just laziness. My mind is just very bad at organizing things and I’m very messy. I feel like this is kind of common with people who are good at math. I remember in college math professors had the messiest offices. I noticed this when my cleaning ladies show up. My place can be a complete mess and in 2.5 hours the place is perfect after they arrive. To me this is absolute magic.
Thinking about different types of intelligence I feel it makes me more empathetic. I know I have some abilities that are absolute magic to other people. I know I have some weaknesses that no matter how hard I work I can’t do the tasks.
My answer to my original question is I would not give up intelligence for being a marvelous athlete. Getting to read Plato or the US Constitution and understand their arguments and reasoning is not something I would give up. But I would pay a lot of money to get to be a marvelous athlete for 1-day just to experience dunking over someone or being the best player in a college football game.
As for QOL being someone like Cam Heyward (I’m a Steelers fan) who seems like a functional human being is likely the highest QOL. He’s possibly too dumb to understand an index fund but smart enough to not get robbed by advisors and just pay a 1% tax to Goldman Sachs. Being someone like AB probably sucks because I am fairly certain everything off the field is magic to him.
If you read my rant I appreciate it.
I remember a friend once made a reasonable argument that if he had his choice he we would be 'really rich and really stupid'. He had a caveat that his money would be managed by someone else. Then he would spend his money on stupid and simple things that made him happy.
I remember some rednecks in a youtube once that were rich 'from the lottery?' and they built a monster truck track on their property and just threw parties and did stupid stuff all the time.
Edit: I should say he explained that a lot of it was chasing happiness and he figured the easiest way to do it was through an 'ignorance is bliss' approach to the world. He wouldn't know what he was missing out on and he wouldn't have the anxiety that often pairs with intelligence.
Reasonable. I did a cliche where you get to be a great athlete but you have to be really dumb as a trade-off, but most pro-athletes my gut says are above average intelligence. Something like 11 out of the last 14 Super Bowl winning QB scored above a 25 wonderlich, that’s a position that does require more intelligence.
Nobody here wants to bite the bullet and say they would take 20m a year and get to crazy athletic stuff with the downside that the outside world makes no sense to you.
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