Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm sorry, but that's inane. Succeeding in getting what you want is surely the confluence of a great many things, some of which are forms of intelligence. To take one public example, Donald Trump was born to wealth. If you think that's what he wants, does that make him smart? If he had had a twin brother whose life differed only in wanting passionately to end malaria, does that make him smarter than his brother?
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It's not inane at all. GGG raised Sarah Palin. She's a perfect example. I'd say she's pretty fucking dumb, because, well... I'd never want to talk to her.
But that's my opinion.
Suppose (and I highly doubt this, but play along) she realized she was badly spoken, not terribly bright, but had just enough intelligence to reach the conclusion,
If I keep talking the way I talk and saying the things I say, unapologetically, I'll leap forward in my career, wouldn't she be "smart"?
Another example would be something I experienced first hand. I tried a case a bunch of years ago against lawyer whose writing was awful, whose vocabulary was terrible, but who (surprise here) connected with juries in a way I simply cannot do. He beat me, like a gong. When we polled the jury, I was advised I looked like a bullshitter and tried to carve around issues, and I looked like someone who didn't believe his client (I didn't - my client was sleazy). The kid who whacked me connected with the jury, but he wasn't and never will be terribly smart in the way I'd measure a person to whom I was speaking socially. But in that room, who was smart? I think I was the dumb guy and he was pretty smart, even if he didn't know it. The jury found his blue collar directness far more honest than my dressed up horseshit.
If most things are becoming automated, and they are, and the value of what's traditionally considered "smart" is losing value, and it is, aren't we moving toward a world where "smart" and "effective" become synonyms, rather than opposed, as they have often been historically?
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