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I'm not arguing that intellect doesn't vary. I'm arguing against "smart" being the sole measure of who you should spend your time with, and against the act of a

• pdimitar 8y ago
  But what would you do? Carry with you a book that has 100 definitions of "smart" and point people at the one you find apt for the current situation? Not trolling, I am genuinely wondering what would you do. It's not always appropriate to go on huge tangents explaining nuances, especially in casual conversational settings. You seem to be bothered by the fact that people use shortcut words which carry their own subjective context with them. But that's what natural language is, most of the time -- namely a dictionary compression where the dictionaries of the separate people vary.
  • aerovistae 8y ago
    It's not really about describing people as "smart." It's about using the argument from authority, and separately it's about the questionable notion that you should only spend time around people who are "smarter" than you.
    • pdimitar 8y ago
      > it's about the questionable notion that you should only spend time around people who are "smarter" than you Oh, that I fully agree with. It's a very copy-paste, generic and bland advice that doesn't tell you anything. It's further made worse by the very obvious observation that everybody is smart in one way and dumb in another. That's what makes communication between humans fun and interesting in the first place. So yeah, fully agreed.