All of the above.
In some areas, I’m very smart. Others I am a massive idiot. I think I probably average out to a solid average intelligence.
I think this is the correct answer. I am very smart in a few things. Average at a bunch of things and dumb regarding tons of things.
I‘m a certified smart dumbass. I have areas where I‘m way above average and still am baffled at how unable I am at communicating at times. It would be a lot less frustrating if I was less smart.
I’m a programmer. Sometimes I solve a really hard programming problem in a clever way with very few lines of code, and I feel like I’m the smartest person in the world. Other times I can’t solve a really simple problem and I realize that I’m actually a moron that gets lucky sometimes.
That’s programming for you, hah.
Sidenote: For what it’s worth, I think you’re pretty smart to solve things like that. I’m probably not as experienced as you, but it’s kind of telling that I’ve never had that feeling of an elegant solution.
Smart enough to get into a phd program but dumb enough to think doing a phd was a good idea.
I was thinking of working on a PhD, but enough people with a PhD have told me not to that I’ve decided maybe I should listen to the smart people and not do it. Best wishes to you, you tortured soul!
I agree with those people, don’t do it. Not unless you have a very specific reason for doing so like wanting to be an academic (you’d have about as much success with this as trying to be a professional athlete) or a phd level industry position.
Was gifted kid, always the smartest, highest test scores. Then I got older. I know I’m above average intelligence in lot of things. But smart enough to know how stupid I can be, that I have lots of faults, limitations. There are many kinds of intelligence, and always more to learn
Same boat. Got used to (and still ocasionally) being praised for practical applications. Limitations and faults aplenty.
According to the (probably fallacious) contrapositive of the Dunning–Kruger effect, this means you’re both pretty smart. Congrats (?)!
Username checks out.
(For those angry at the old place–ism, here, I’ll translate: I can’t help pointing out that your username matches what you said so well.)
I’m smart enough to know that there’s a lot I don’t know, and I took enough psychology classes to know that IQ tests are basically made-up nonsense. Comparing your intelligence to others is a losing battle and a waste of time.
Could not agree more. I tested high as a kid but never took it to heart. A quick trip to the library (long time ago) showed how deeply flawed they are.
I am objectively quicker at some things than many people but I’m often humbled as soon as I step outside the areas I have specific knowledge in.
I don’t have grounds to reach any reasonable conclusion about my own capabilities, since I have access to different info about myself vs. about other people.
Sounds like something a smart person would say.
That’s what they want you to think.
If they come out and say “I am very smart” everyone will make fun of them.
Eh. That probably means you’re right.
That’s because I’m asking myself “what would Socrates answer?”, and answering like I think that he would. And Socrates was smart.
I think Socrates would say “Why are you asking the question in the first place?”
Or maybe “dunno lol”.
I would say overall I’m below average. Fairly dumb. Bottom 30% of society.
I don’t mind it too much. I know a lot about cinema and film history so I’m happy with that.
Same here lol. Don’t know that much about movies either though. I’m fairly slow too especially socially but somehow I tricked a woman into loving me… so that’s nice.
I don’t know anything about you other than this but from this your life sounds so sweet and minimalistic. I want to be happy like I perceive you to be.
I got very good grades at a top university in a stem subject. Most people regard me as smart. My professor who supervised my masters thesis regarded me as smart. I guess I can consider myself smart.
My brain power helps me with my job, otherwise I do the same things as everybody else.
My best life decisions came from equanimity, introspection and honesty with myself, not from being smart.
me too, AND I went to med school. I consider myself to be very slightly above average, and still hugely capable of being an utter moron in many instances.
My doctor friend almost lit our shared apartment on fire after lighting a candle near the curtains. The smartest people can do the dumbest shit.
If he hadn’t seen the curtains light up that would for sure have been a house fire.
I can easily believe that lol
Smart enough to:
See the gaps in my knowledge
Know there are gaps I haven’t even found yet
That I have and will continue to do dumb shit
I’m a complete idiot. So probs 30% to 40% smarter than the average American Republican.
Yeah, very smart. External validation for years since being tested at like 6 and being told my options were staying in public school and skipping to 5th grade or going to private school where my needs could be met within an age appropriate setting.
Then there were all the tests since where I would score in the 98th percentile or higher.
The most impactful was my professional experience where my coworkers were a decade older than me and I found myself being brought in as an expert on stuff for Fortune 500 CEOs, US cabinet nominees, etc.
And yet there are times I’m straight up an idiot. Like not thinking that I can move the silverware off the napkin and lift it up to my face instead of bringing my face to the napkin. Sometimes my SO will do something simple like adding sugar to cereal I find too bland so I don’t eat it, and my brain breaks with the realization that was always an option.
Brains come in a variety, and while I was lucky to get one that aligned in where it excelled with what society measures and values, I’ve generally found that many people are gifted in some aspect of their brains - it’s just unevenly valued by the world around them.
I always felt I was “smarter than the average bear” (I think I just dated myself), but I had no solid evidence growing up, besides my mother insisting that I was very smart for my age. I almost skipped 2 grades in elementary school because I was reading adult books before I even started school, and I could write just as well. But my math knowledge was just average, so they didn’t want me to get behind if I missed a couple grades.
Despite this, I was a solidly C+/B- student for most of my schooling. I aced the tests placed in front of me, but I hated homework, so I just didn’t do it most of the time. I understood the material the first time it was presented to me; I didn’t understand why I needed to continually go over it in my free time. It felt like a waste of time. Plus, I had a hard time learning from the teachers. I did much better if I just read the textbook on my own, rather than sitting through a lecture.
In high school, I was failing a few classes. My mother thought I considered myself stupid and was afraid it was wrecking my confidence. Apparently, when she was a kid, she also thought she was stupid. She was failing a bunch of classes, while her eldest sister was getting straight-A’s. She got her IQ tested and found out she was actually the smartest of all her siblings - her eldest sister actually had the lowest IQ in their family!
So my mother made it her personal mission to prove I was smart. After all, you’re supposed to inherit your intellect from your mother, and my mom had a genius IQ. She hired a psychologist to give me an official IQ test, and to no one’s surprise, I tested in the genius range too. So I finally received validation that I was smart.
It didn’t fix my grades, though. It turns out, I was getting poor grades because A.) I refused to do homework, which lost me half my grade points alone, and B.) I was bored in class and didn’t really pay attention. I would find out 20 years later that I have ADHD, which is why I couldn’t pay attention in class. I have very poor auditory learning skills; when people talk to me, my brain shuts off. So lectures were the absolute death of me.
I joined the US Air Force right after high school, and unfortunately, the military requires you to blindly obey orders and not think too hard about things. Everything is dumbed down so the mission can be accomplished, even in the most stressful of scenarios. The Air Force has the strictest tests to qualify for service, and we tend to have the highest intelligent people in the armed services, but it was still a drag. I spent too many years trying to argue logic and reason with my superiors and coworkers, which fell on deaf ears. So I eventually got complacent and started doing the bare minimum to accomplish the mission and get through my days. By the end of my 2 decades of service, I feel like my brain has been through the blender and I feel much dumber than I used to be. Could also be some added PTSD, too.
Now I’m retired at a young age and living a quiet, relaxing life out in the countryside. I’m not too concerned anymore about being smart or dumb, just as long as I can live in peace.
Are you trying to make you home servers accessible to the wider public, or just accessible to yourself/family/friends?
If it’s the later, running a wireguard VPN server on a publically accessible, cheap VPS with your home servers and connecting devices as “clients” works well. I’m in a similar situation as you and did so to access my home automation and media servers from “the outside”.
I thought I was smart. And I took a class in college called Critical Theory Since Plato. It was philosophy, although I was dumb enough not to know that. Every class there would be lively discussion on the reading material where everyone was involved. Except me. I had read the material, but it was beyond my understanding. I dare not open my mouth. I just listened to people who were obviously a number of levels more intelligent than I was discuss the assignments.
It was then that I realized that there were people in the world who had a quality of intelligence so much higher than mine that we might not even seem like the same species.
Just like a tall person can see above the heads of everyone in a crowd, they could see things that were impossible for me to see. And those were the “ordinary” smart people.
It gave me a new respect for not only intelligent people, who were very kind to me, but also for those who are on the other end of this spectrum, who through no choice of theirs struggle with daily tasks. And for myself, slightly above average, and happy.
Maybe you just needed to be getting more sleep?
Please please please, read “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, either the long or short version (preferably the long one).
Don’t care. I’ll notice if there is a big difference between me and a person in front of me.
And sometimes one person is ignorant when it comes to one topic and super experienced and knowledgeable with another topic. And I’m the same things with different topics. So I can’t even answer if I’m smarter than another person without you giving me a topic. Apart from that, it’s just a number. And the benchmarks suck.
How did I come to that conclusion? I don’t remember. Guess I have good reasoning skills and a bad memory.
I am very smart in a single field of study and very dumb in normal life. Yay neurodivergence…
