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Being smart isn't enough, you have to be wise. Intelligence can help you climb to the highest positions in business and academia, wisdom allows you to understa

Being smart isn't enough, you have to be wise. Intelligence can help you climb to the highest positions in business and academia, wisdom allows you to understand that it isn't really worth it.

necovek 4y ago
I used to say simply having common sense, but wisdom is fine too: plenty of smart, intelligent people lack the most common of common sense (I have no idea why it's called "common" when it's anything but — in Serbian, we say "zdrav razum" or "healthy sense/reason" which is slightly better). I found it particularly funny when my University math professors displayed a complete inability to reason about the simplest of things.
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  "Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it." — René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode (1637) (Or in French: "Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée, car chacun pense en être bien pourvu.") In some philosophies, what stands opposite of wisdom is not folly, but common sense. However, it might be possible that neither common sense, nor wisdom will bring you happiness: the former is unable to provide it, the latter is unable to be attained (philo-sophia, an asymptotical wanting of wisdom).
okamiueru 4y ago
I don't know if wisdom really helps. Or, maybe I just feel that way, because I lack it. How would wisdom help with happiness, when you see a likely worsening climate, rampant inequality for really no good reason, which together with the former is bound to cause significant sivil unrest and wars in the coming decades? In my limited version of it, is to strive to be humble, and the happiness for those around you. Find joy in helping the communities (whichever that be in the connected world) you care about. But... That still doesn't truly make me happy. And relies on willfully ignoring everything mention earlier. The only thing to hope for is a miracle in both energy production, and a sudden increase in empathy. I fear that human nature is stil stuck in a the ape mindset of "I got mine", and will never get out of.
- anthropodie 4y ago
  Wisdom, I think, wants us to focus on our abilities and what we can do. Things that are outside our control will always make us unhappy. So if we do our part I think we eventually find happiness in whatever change we were able to bring in this world. And when enough people do that we fix all the problems mentioned at beginning of your comment. > You want to change world? Go home and love your family. - Mother Teresa
  - okamiueru 4y ago
    I don't want to sound like a contrarian, because, I sort of agree. Or, rather, I would like to be able to agree. Perhaps presumptuous, but I don't think wisdom goes together with either inaction, complacency, or otherwise willful ignorance. Which, seems to be the gist of the replies my previous comment received. I still think that not worrying/complaining about things we cannot control or affect holds true for many things, and many aspects. However, I disagree with the premise. We can all do something, some more than others. I've categorically refused jobs in the oil and gas sector, and increasingly become picky about what to devote my professional life to. I very consciously try not to be a consumerist, though I'm probably in the global top 10%, given statistics for my country. I eat meat, even though it doesn't help. I have traveled the world for my own amusement, though I've come to see it as an absolutely ridiculous thing to have done. I could definitely do more. I could actively devote my life to it. I could decide not to have kids. Etc. Is it wisdom to ignore these problems? Or to find happiness as a state of mind, in spite of it? I would assume it's the latter. I just don't know if wisdom is the right word for it. But maybe it is.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  > when you see a likely worsening climate, rampant inequality for really no good reason What are you, as an individual able to do about any of that? Think about it the other way, if you wanted to make it worse could you meaningfully? Could you make the seas rise by even a single millimeter? Probably not. Now say you wanted to make it better, a single private jet trip for a CEO to visit his mistress will wipe out any gains you have made. What does your worrying do? Great you aren't "willfully ignorant" but since your ideal future requires a miracle anyway, and you aren't God, it's out of your hands. You are probably like almost every other person who has ever lived, you don't matter at all. Nothing you do will meaningfully echo throughout history. Once you are gone, nobody will ever say your name again. What's true about you is probably also true about the human race. The sun will consume the earth eventually, we will either leave this rock, or die on it. Why not enjoy your brief time here?
davidguetta 4y ago
Yes and even more because "intelligence" alone doesn't even help you climb to the highest positions. People, especially on forums like HN, tend to mistake being 'intellectual' to actually 'intelligent'. There are various ways of being "smart" and being good at math and code is only one of them (Emotional intelligence, relationship intelligence, intelligence in career) etc... People who say 'Iam so smart' are usually not so intelligent in the end
- necovek 4y ago
  The article covers this as well: the author claims that studies show that all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually. The thing that is a main driver to "climbing to higher positions" is usually desire and motivation, which is a cultural trait. Intelligence has a high correlation because there are plenty of motivated people across all levels of intelligence, so highly intelligent are better at succeeding at such well-defined problems. Smartness is sometimes about well-educated or simply experienced and knowledgable. Eg. even if I was more intelligent, I'd trust a medical doctor because they have a vast knowledge and experience that I lack. Still, the article makes a nice distinction between well- and poorly-defined problems. It's definitely going in the right direction, so go and have a read!
  - marvin 4y ago
    > all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually Maybe it's not useful for the sake of discussion to list them individually, but it's definitely useful to measure them individually. Or you'll mistake someone who's a master of rotating abstract shapes in their head for someone who manage to get things done in a complex environments. The full-scale IQ tests (WAIS?) do actually test many different manifestations of intelligence. This is a bit on the side of the point, but it's an important distinction when you're discussing and trying to measure people's real-life abilities.
    - necovek 4y ago
      I am not making this claim, the article is based on a number of studies measuring different types of intelligence. It actually does say that they are all almost exactly the same (sure, highly intelligent individuals will score better on one set of problems than on another, but they will score highly on most of them; similar for average or lower intelligence folks — their scores on each of them correlate but are not in a strict linear relationship). That suggests that they are ultimately one and the same (as per those studies).
roenxi 4y ago
Being smart isn't a factor. You can be perfectly happy with a rice bowl and a robe, what is the intelligence supposed to help with?
- necovek 4y ago
  Getting some rice into that bowl?
jraph 4y ago
> wisdom allows you to understand that it isn't really worth it Ah, what a relief. Phew! (I'll choose to believe you, short of understanding this, but this is probably enough to be happy)
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Get to know your bosses. Like really get to know them. Mine have told me stories about how their wives left them because they made less than a million one year. Or how their kids are strung out on drugs beacuse they failed to be around them often enough growing up. When they have a conversation, 90% of the time it's about how many widgets the widget factory is going to pump out next month. Old friends come out of the woodwork to ask for money. They are hungry ghosts[0]. Advertising has been effective in putting people on a treadmill. They compete with neighbors for who has the more expensive car, the most attractive wife, the biggest house, who went to the most expensive school. Their days are full of jealous resentment. People who are among the wealthiest to ever live on this planet, feel poor, not beacuse they lack the ability to provide for themselves or their children, but beacuse don't have everything they see on Instagram. I'm not a religious man, but religion can offer wisdom if you are willing to read beyond the claims of magic. Christianity prohibited the coveting of your neighbor not because it would make God angry, but because it makes your life worse. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost
  - YeahNO 4y ago
    "Christianity prohibited the coveting of your neighbor not because it would make God angry, but because it makes your life worse." Citation needed. It's one of the commandments: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17 (NASB). A book of magical thinking, created out of bronze age mythology, around a hateful, spiteful, capricious god is no basis for a system of philosophical world-view. You would be better served studying philosophy directly, rather than a book filled with misogyny, slavery, thought-crime and magic.
rr888 4y ago
I was going to say the opposite. Leaders are often wise, experienced and good communicators, they dont need intelligence.
- badpun 4y ago
  True leaders (in the abstract, idealised sense), maybe, but actual people we have in real-life leadership positions definitely not. They need to be super-smart to handle the corporate game of thrones without getting stabbed in the back too quickly.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
bmitc 4y ago
> Intelligence can help you climb to the highest positions in business and academia I don't really think that's true. Some of the smartest people I know are nowhere near the highest positions of business and academia.

Being smart isn't enough, you have to be wise. Intelligence can help you climb to the highest positions in business and academia, wisdom allows you to understand that it isn't really worth it.

necovek 4y ago

I used to say simply having common sense, but wisdom is fine too: plenty of smart, intelligent people lack the most common of common sense (I have no idea why it's called "common" when it's anything but — in Serbian, we say "zdrav razum" or "healthy sense/reason" which is slightly better). I found it particularly funny when my University math professors displayed a complete inability to reason about the simplest of things.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
"Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it." — René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode (1637) (Or in French: "Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée, car chacun pense en être bien pourvu.") In some philosophies, what stands opposite of wisdom is not folly, but common sense. However, it might be possible that neither common sense, nor wisdom will bring you happiness: the former is unable to provide it, the latter is unable to be attained (philo-sophia, an asymptotical wanting of wisdom).

okamiueru 4y ago

I don't know if wisdom really helps. Or, maybe I just feel that way, because I lack it. How would wisdom help with happiness, when you see a likely worsening climate, rampant inequality for really no good reason, which together with the former is bound to cause significant sivil unrest and wars in the coming decades? In my limited version of it, is to strive to be humble, and the happiness for those around you. Find joy in helping the communities (whichever that be in the connected world) you care about. But... That still doesn't truly make me happy. And relies on willfully ignoring everything mention earlier. The only thing to hope for is a miracle in both energy production, and a sudden increase in empathy. I fear that human nature is stil stuck in a the ape mindset of "I got mine", and will never get out of.

anthropodie 4y ago
Wisdom, I think, wants us to focus on our abilities and what we can do. Things that are outside our control will always make us unhappy. So if we do our part I think we eventually find happiness in whatever change we were able to bring in this world. And when enough people do that we fix all the problems mentioned at beginning of your comment. > You want to change world? Go home and love your family. - Mother Teresa
- okamiueru 4y ago
  I don't want to sound like a contrarian, because, I sort of agree. Or, rather, I would like to be able to agree. Perhaps presumptuous, but I don't think wisdom goes together with either inaction, complacency, or otherwise willful ignorance. Which, seems to be the gist of the replies my previous comment received. I still think that not worrying/complaining about things we cannot control or affect holds true for many things, and many aspects. However, I disagree with the premise. We can all do something, some more than others. I've categorically refused jobs in the oil and gas sector, and increasingly become picky about what to devote my professional life to. I very consciously try not to be a consumerist, though I'm probably in the global top 10%, given statistics for my country. I eat meat, even though it doesn't help. I have traveled the world for my own amusement, though I've come to see it as an absolutely ridiculous thing to have done. I could definitely do more. I could actively devote my life to it. I could decide not to have kids. Etc. Is it wisdom to ignore these problems? Or to find happiness as a state of mind, in spite of it? I would assume it's the latter. I just don't know if wisdom is the right word for it. But maybe it is.
willcipriano 4y ago
> when you see a likely worsening climate, rampant inequality for really no good reason What are you, as an individual able to do about any of that? Think about it the other way, if you wanted to make it worse could you meaningfully? Could you make the seas rise by even a single millimeter? Probably not. Now say you wanted to make it better, a single private jet trip for a CEO to visit his mistress will wipe out any gains you have made. What does your worrying do? Great you aren't "willfully ignorant" but since your ideal future requires a miracle anyway, and you aren't God, it's out of your hands. You are probably like almost every other person who has ever lived, you don't matter at all. Nothing you do will meaningfully echo throughout history. Once you are gone, nobody will ever say your name again. What's true about you is probably also true about the human race. The sun will consume the earth eventually, we will either leave this rock, or die on it. Why not enjoy your brief time here?

davidguetta 4y ago

Yes and even more because "intelligence" alone doesn't even help you climb to the highest positions. People, especially on forums like HN, tend to mistake being 'intellectual' to actually 'intelligent'. There are various ways of being "smart" and being good at math and code is only one of them (Emotional intelligence, relationship intelligence, intelligence in career) etc... People who say 'Iam so smart' are usually not so intelligent in the end

necovek 4y ago
The article covers this as well: the author claims that studies show that all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually. The thing that is a main driver to "climbing to higher positions" is usually desire and motivation, which is a cultural trait. Intelligence has a high correlation because there are plenty of motivated people across all levels of intelligence, so highly intelligent are better at succeeding at such well-defined problems. Smartness is sometimes about well-educated or simply experienced and knowledgable. Eg. even if I was more intelligent, I'd trust a medical doctor because they have a vast knowledge and experience that I lack. Still, the article makes a nice distinction between well- and poorly-defined problems. It's definitely going in the right direction, so go and have a read!
- marvin 4y ago
  > all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually Maybe it's not useful for the sake of discussion to list them individually, but it's definitely useful to measure them individually. Or you'll mistake someone who's a master of rotating abstract shapes in their head for someone who manage to get things done in a complex environments. The full-scale IQ tests (WAIS?) do actually test many different manifestations of intelligence. This is a bit on the side of the point, but it's an important distinction when you're discussing and trying to measure people's real-life abilities.
  - necovek 4y ago
    I am not making this claim, the article is based on a number of studies measuring different types of intelligence. It actually does say that they are all almost exactly the same (sure, highly intelligent individuals will score better on one set of problems than on another, but they will score highly on most of them; similar for average or lower intelligence folks — their scores on each of them correlate but are not in a strict linear relationship). That suggests that they are ultimately one and the same (as per those studies).

roenxi 4y ago

Being smart isn't a factor. You can be perfectly happy with a rice bowl and a robe, what is the intelligence supposed to help with?

necovek 4y ago
Getting some rice into that bowl?

jraph 4y ago

> wisdom allows you to understand that it isn't really worth it Ah, what a relief. Phew! (I'll choose to believe you, short of understanding this, but this is probably enough to be happy)

willcipriano 4y ago
Get to know your bosses. Like really get to know them. Mine have told me stories about how their wives left them because they made less than a million one year. Or how their kids are strung out on drugs beacuse they failed to be around them often enough growing up. When they have a conversation, 90% of the time it's about how many widgets the widget factory is going to pump out next month. Old friends come out of the woodwork to ask for money. They are hungry ghosts[0]. Advertising has been effective in putting people on a treadmill. They compete with neighbors for who has the more expensive car, the most attractive wife, the biggest house, who went to the most expensive school. Their days are full of jealous resentment. People who are among the wealthiest to ever live on this planet, feel poor, not beacuse they lack the ability to provide for themselves or their children, but beacuse don't have everything they see on Instagram. I'm not a religious man, but religion can offer wisdom if you are willing to read beyond the claims of magic. Christianity prohibited the coveting of your neighbor not because it would make God angry, but because it makes your life worse. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost
- YeahNO 4y ago
  "Christianity prohibited the coveting of your neighbor not because it would make God angry, but because it makes your life worse." Citation needed. It's one of the commandments: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17 (NASB). A book of magical thinking, created out of bronze age mythology, around a hateful, spiteful, capricious god is no basis for a system of philosophical world-view. You would be better served studying philosophy directly, rather than a book filled with misogyny, slavery, thought-crime and magic.

rr888 4y ago

I was going to say the opposite. Leaders are often wise, experienced and good communicators, they dont need intelligence.

badpun 4y ago
True leaders (in the abstract, idealised sense), maybe, but actual people we have in real-life leadership positions definitely not. They need to be super-smart to handle the corporate game of thrones without getting stabbed in the back too quickly.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

bmitc 4y ago

> Intelligence can help you climb to the highest positions in business and academia I don't really think that's true. Some of the smartest people I know are nowhere near the highest positions of business and academia.