[link] The surprising downsides of being clever

I'm not super intelligent by any means, but I do just barely fall into the top 1%, and I think that among others who do, I'm BY FAR among the happiest. A lot of this is because of all my ugh fields.

If something is unpleasant to think about, I will very briefly think about thinking about it. (If I thought about X unpleasant issue, what are the odds I would actually do something about it?) If the odds are small enough, I go back to not thinking about it. I have a lot of ugh fields.

The fulfillment thing is a really good point too. I've had jobs, but never a "career" because I choose to travel and have fun instead. Until very recently, it was another ugh field for me. I may have thought about it once or twice for a minute or two, decided I probably wouldn't actually go do something ambitious even upon further thought, and stopped thinking about it for very long periods of time. Well, last time I thought about thinking about the ugh field, I decided the odds were sufficiently high that I would actually go do something ambitious, so now I'm in the process of confronting the ugh field itself. I don't think it will make me happier or even proportionately more satisfied, but I think it could fulfill my other terminal value of making the world happier.

My guesses

Common reasons:

• Feel pressure to be smarter and more successful. Could be internal or external.

Less common reasons:

• Poisoned by ambition.
• Trouble finding people smart enough that they could talk to and/or have a real relationship with (could refer to friend or romantic).
• Frustration with other people's stupidity.

Other possibilities:

• Stress that comes with overfocus on self-improvement + more awareness and frustration with flaws.
• Troubled by the suffering and unfairness in the world.
• Troubled by unanswered questions they have.

I would not be surprised if increased intelligence was implicated in a neurophysiological trade off with mental health, but the most obvious handicaps of high intelligence come from being in a social environment of lower general intelligence, optimized for lower intelligence.

Location and age cohort based education is designed for the center of the bell curve at the expense of the tails in about every way imaginable. It's a bad fit socially, because large discrepancies in intelligence makes for difficulty in relating. It's crippling intellectually, because beyond being bored to tears, you're not learning how to control and drive yourself toward goals, which is the fundamental skill to be developed in your youth.

Happily, as in a great many things, a first world youngling smarty pants of today has it so much better. Access to all the world's information, access to online training in all the worlds information, and access to smart people who will interact with you.

You know what I had? An encyclopedia! And I was lucky to have it.

Once you're older, self segregation gets easier to accomplish, both socially and professionally, and it makes a difference. People like people like themselves. Smart people will hire you because you're smart, and not so smart people won't hire you because you're smart.

I think there is a very significant difference between average LWers' and average peoples' happiness, but that very little of it has to do with intelligence directly. We probably spend less time on family, friends, sex, singing, and running around outside (all wonderful things that increase happiness) than average, though we probably do more dancing than average (also happiness-increasing).

Overall, I find this subject and framing tiresome. Go plan how to spend more time with friends and family.

I'm fairly happy but I have Stoicism and Taoism to thank for that. Mental health in my experience depends on having the right psychological toolkit.

One of the reasons I don't really understand how intelligence can mean optimization or goal-seeking is that I too have seen it negatively correlated with happiness. Happiness can mean many things but probably one big chunk of its meaning will be a felt reward for goals achieved so this disassociation does not really go well with it being an optimization or goal-reaching ability.

You have probably heard the Bertrand Russel quote (1951) "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision." if there is any truth in it, the issue is that intelligence causes worrying and thus stress and unhappiness.

I may be a pessimist but often it felt unavoidable to me, the smarter you are, the more ways you can imagine how can things go horribly wrong.

Of course it is possible that it is another factor, let's dub it with a (not very) random variable name D, the D factor making you invest your mind into making up negative outcomes, not positive outcomes. Perhaps very intelligent people with very low D factor exist who can imagine a hundred ways how a plan can work better than expected.

But, alas, it seems smart people worry more than utopianize, come up with more negative outcomes than positive ones.

I wonder if there is a method to force your brain to imagine a potential positive outcome for every imagined negative one.

Reading the sequences, I think I understand the difference between rationality vs. cleverness on the gut level, as I spent a lot of time wondering about the idea of big and small egos, and cleverness is a lot like big IQ with big ego, but if anyone can recommend good articles I may have missed I would be interested.

I also think Gunnar and Eliezer may cleverness differently, I think Gunnar means it as intelligence and Eliezer means it as intelligence (mis)used to "show off".

As far as I can tell, both are correct, the first is the dictionary definition and the second coming from "clever" being such an often used praise, esp. by parents and teachers that at some point it got associated with seeking that praise, and status, hence the showing-off association.

There are longitudinal studies which seem to imply this: Being Labeled as Gifted, Self-appraisal, and Psychological Well-being: A Life Span Developmental Perspective

Does it?

In previous work on the Terman sample, the participants were found to have high levels of subjective well-being, on average in their mid-seventies.

However it says:

Individuals who learned earlier of their participation in the Terman Study were almost 50 percent more likely to say that they have not lived up to their intellectual abilities than those who learned later of their participation in the Study.

Didn't we lately have a discussion about the growth mindset?

unusually high-IQ people

I think it's a combination of a few regulars, the sequences, and a good post here and there that is the ideal way to say it.

Sorry for everyone who bases their self-esteem on their IQ.