4 ms·

I think being smart universally trumps being less smart - but the definition of smart needs to be more encompassing. For example take the stereotype of a brill

I think being smart universally trumps being less smart - but the definition of smart needs to be more encompassing. For example take the stereotype of a brilliant man or woman who neglected family for career, and are forever single and childless forever -- while someone less brilliant just "ends up" with a family and ultimately more fulfilled in life. Superficially this is an example of an average person being happier than the really smart one but I don't agree with this. I look at this as the non-brilliant person being smarter in the areas that matter. Or vice versa the "brilliant" person neglected a really important area of life - which isn't that smart. With this expanded definition - where smart isn't just a measurement of raw processing power or a spike in one area, but rather the product of "smart about what's important" * "smart about how to go about it" - that kind of person I think is consistently happier than anyone else. One dimension of this is the (in)ability to stick with tradition and culture rather than "smartly" invent everything yourself. In the scenario above, the average person maybe ended up with a family because they were more able to follow family patterns and advice while the "brilliant" person tries to figure out everything from scratch, not able to benefit from the "well troden paths" that are available.

Nail2680 2mo ago
Right, there is a problem with even defining "smart", a decent number of mathematicians I have known would not call themselves smart, but persistent. I have known a lot of physicists too, some of whom forget simple integrals all the time, but publish like a monster, and some very smart physicists who know almost any fact you could want off the top of their head who don't publish almost at all. One group is more successful than the other.
bittercynic 2mo ago
As a single and childless person, I don't like the implication that those are marks of a less fulfilling life. I know some people married with kids who seem very happy and fulfilled, and some profoundly miserable and trapped. I may be missing out on some good things, but I'm also avoiding some extreme misery, and generally do feel content and fulfilled.
- argee 2mo ago
  Part of being smart is being able to diagnose certain ideas as dogmatic, which is far more than can be expected from most. "Most people would die sooner than think—in fact, they do so" — Bertrand Russell
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  Thanks for sharing that. Obviously respect your choices on the individual level. The contrast you provided between those who are happy with family and those two seem miserable is in line with what I am saying: it's both 'be smart about what you persue' and 'be smart about how you persue it.' So likely the first group was 'smarter' about who they chose as a spouse and how they set up the life with them than the second group. So maybe we can score the miserable group as a -1, the happy group as a +1 and your avoidance strategy as in-between: 0. So you can look at your strategy as good because it avoids the extreme misery but it also denies a shot at extreme happiness. And then if one were to go that potentially high risk/high reward path, their actual outcome (are they happy or miserable) is a function of how smartly they persue that endeavor.
  - dns_snek 2mo ago
    Many people, including myself, just know that we don't want to have children. Our outcomes won't have the same distribution as those of people who always wanted to have children, no matter how "smart" we are about it. Another factor is that when you have children and regret it you can suffer a lot more than just "-1" of misery - I'd say the scale is more like -10 to +1 (centered around 0). Furthermore if you end up regretting it you will also inflict some part of that misery onto your children.
    - FeloniousHam 2mo ago
      I've never met anyone who was sorry they had children, but I've met a lot of people who missed the opportunity (to be fair, I've never met the parents of a violent criminal). Kids can be hard, especially if you're not a natural, and especially when they're young, but-- it's impossible to describe the fulsome love I have for my kids. I'm not a sentimental person, and probably wouldn't have had them without my wife (which is a funny thing to say). Even when they're a pain and a disappointment, even with the ever present guilt, my kids give me some baseline purpose for free. And the wins are great--"all joy and no fun" as I heard once. The conversations as they become real people. It's impossible to describe and totally worth it.
thin_carapace 2mo ago
not that wage is any indicator of inherent goodness but yea electrical engineers get paid average wage in my country while miners earn many multiples of said wage, who's the dumb one now ???
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  Presumably miners get a high wage to offset the negatives of the job and attract people. So to an extent you have a choice which way to go and you try to make a smart one. Personally I wouldn't have a highly hazardous job if it paid any multiple of what I make now and that feels smart to my situation. But for someone else that might be a different calculus.
  - ydat 2mo ago
    > Presumably miners get a high wage to offset the negatives of the job and attract people. A common thread I see when these types of topics come up too is that the high pay in many of these jobs (trades, policing, nursing, etc.) is dependent on working large amounts of overtime.
sublinear 2mo ago
> they were more able to follow family patterns and advice while the "brilliant" person tries to figure out everything from scratch, not able to benefit from the "well trodden paths" that are available You know, sometimes the well-trodden paths are chains worth breaking man. Most families aren't exactly The Brady Bunch. I think we agree that it takes all kinds of people, but you are mischaracterizing what it means to spend a little more time alone before committing to a family. That time will pay dividends when/if they go for it. I gotta invoke Hanlon's Razor on this one and refrain from elaborating on what I think your comment sounds like. It's a sign of the times we live in that even this can become a hot political issue.
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  I am genuinely curious as to what you think my comment "sounds like" But I don't disagree with your first paragraph. Some well troden paths maybe bad - the trick is to know which ones. Because if you make that fall wrong you end up in a bad state which is what I was talking about.
  - xquce 2mo ago
    Almost every reply to your comment points out your example "being smart" with a tired one of family vs work. What people in many other comments here point out that for many familie is just one of many areas in life and can have nothing to do with smarts or happiness. Is the man abandoning his wife and child to find a better life happier for it, he can be. Has nothing to do with if he used his smarts to arrive at that solution to his unhappiness or resolution. How many people choose their family based on some calculation where there is a right or wrong answer? Like an comic said, most people choose their life partner while drunk in a bar (obv local example) but no way you would ever choose which toaster to buy while drunk! The toast have to be just right, doesn't it?
kakacik 2mo ago
You reduce massively this complex topic into having kids = more happiness. Divorce rates, marriage counseling intensity and just looking around paints a very different and much more realistic picture. Most marriages either fail or keep it up in semi-miserable fashion (for kids, money, insecurity and so on but never due to actual strength of the bond or any love remaining). That comes from married father of two - the idea that having kids somehow magically makes life better and everybody happier is what got society into pushing everybody into marriages for decades long after pressure from religions waned. Suffice to say it didn't work very well. Works great for some, is a proper mistake for others.
- tsss 2mo ago
  In fact, the data points into the opposite direction: Children and money problems are by far the most destructive things for a happy marriage.
  - joenot443 2mo ago
    Marriages where the couple had children together are considerably less likely to end than marriages without children. A recent Canadian poll showed an effect size of ~60%. [1] Table 1 covers this nicely. I’d be curious what data you’re citing to suggest children are by far the most destructive thing for a happy marriage. It seems like the kind of redditism most popular with people for whom it doesn’t apply :) https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2024001-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2024001...
    - hackerdood 2mo ago
      Chiming in late to say destruction of a happy marriage does not necessarily lead to divorce. Plenty of couples in essentially dead marriages “stay together for the kids” to provide some semblance of a normal family, regardless of whether it’s actually a better outcome. OTOH unhappy marriages with no children have relatively few obstacles standing in the way of divorce.
- xyzelement 2mo ago
stereolambda 2mo ago
I think you are reaching for the word "wisdom" (I heard about smart vs. wise a bunch of times) and are tending to define it in a... narrow way. I'd damn prefer to live the live of Plato, Roger Bacon or Isaac Newton: experience the universe in novel, rich ways, contribute a lot to humanity, give up offspring, than be "below average" smart (whatever it would mean) with 7 children. Of course, by statistics no one of us is Plato or Roger Bacon. I'd agree that a problem with the modern world is an ideology of (objectively) crappy career or climbing some fake institutional hierarchy being a worthy substitute for family. I myself do believe that a family is one of relatively easiest (but still hard and demanding) ways to being happy [1]. I also see a lot of people here overcorrecting and arriving at some strange worldviews. Some people are childless because of objective circumstances: what are they, damned by God via predestination to unhappiness? In the Catholic world, they have been, esp. in the olden days, a lot of childless priests, monks, nuns. If you want to at the same time value tradition and not reinventing (quoting parent) and "evolutionary DNA survival", you either have to somehow condemn Catholicism and Orthodoxy [2], or start adding some epicycles to your philosophy. Oh, and on topic: I believe being happy requires working for it. Maybe for "smarter" people their allotted amount of work is higher. Don't know if it's nice to hear, but sounds true to me. [1] Maybe one lure of career is that people are culturally accepting of life at work being terrible in many ways, while a poorly constructed family (one or more immature people etc.) scares people off pretty fast. Maybe because it's a more total institution and harder to escape. [2] Which would be the OG Protestant way.
watwut 2mo ago
The issue here is that if the smart brilliant man decides that he will prioritize his family and friends, creating happy community around him ... you will just say he was not brilliant. Because he earns less money. As in, your example assumes that if you are brilliant you will neglect family, if you care about family you are not brilliant. You do indeed need to change the definition of "smart" to not be just "earns a lot of money".
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  I think you missed the point of my post. It's not either or but the totality of persuit and outcome. Neglecting family for work is not smart. Neglecting work for family is also not smart (hurts the family) Striking the right balance and achieving enough of each is the smart thing that's hard to pull off but is the prize.
HexPhantom 2mo ago
A lot of culture is basically accumulated trial and error

Nail2680 2mo ago

Right, there is a problem with even defining "smart", a decent number of mathematicians I have known would not call themselves smart, but persistent. I have known a lot of physicists too, some of whom forget simple integrals all the time, but publish like a monster, and some very smart physicists who know almost any fact you could want off the top of their head who don't publish almost at all. One group is more successful than the other.

bittercynic 2mo ago

As a single and childless person, I don't like the implication that those are marks of a less fulfilling life. I know some people married with kids who seem very happy and fulfilled, and some profoundly miserable and trapped. I may be missing out on some good things, but I'm also avoiding some extreme misery, and generally do feel content and fulfilled.

argee 2mo ago
Part of being smart is being able to diagnose certain ideas as dogmatic, which is far more than can be expected from most. "Most people would die sooner than think—in fact, they do so" — Bertrand Russell
xyzelement 2mo ago
Thanks for sharing that. Obviously respect your choices on the individual level. The contrast you provided between those who are happy with family and those two seem miserable is in line with what I am saying: it's both 'be smart about what you persue' and 'be smart about how you persue it.' So likely the first group was 'smarter' about who they chose as a spouse and how they set up the life with them than the second group. So maybe we can score the miserable group as a -1, the happy group as a +1 and your avoidance strategy as in-between: 0. So you can look at your strategy as good because it avoids the extreme misery but it also denies a shot at extreme happiness. And then if one were to go that potentially high risk/high reward path, their actual outcome (are they happy or miserable) is a function of how smartly they persue that endeavor.
- dns_snek 2mo ago
  Many people, including myself, just know that we don't want to have children. Our outcomes won't have the same distribution as those of people who always wanted to have children, no matter how "smart" we are about it. Another factor is that when you have children and regret it you can suffer a lot more than just "-1" of misery - I'd say the scale is more like -10 to +1 (centered around 0). Furthermore if you end up regretting it you will also inflict some part of that misery onto your children.
  - FeloniousHam 2mo ago
    I've never met anyone who was sorry they had children, but I've met a lot of people who missed the opportunity (to be fair, I've never met the parents of a violent criminal). Kids can be hard, especially if you're not a natural, and especially when they're young, but-- it's impossible to describe the fulsome love I have for my kids. I'm not a sentimental person, and probably wouldn't have had them without my wife (which is a funny thing to say). Even when they're a pain and a disappointment, even with the ever present guilt, my kids give me some baseline purpose for free. And the wins are great--"all joy and no fun" as I heard once. The conversations as they become real people. It's impossible to describe and totally worth it.

thin_carapace 2mo ago

not that wage is any indicator of inherent goodness but yea electrical engineers get paid average wage in my country while miners earn many multiples of said wage, who's the dumb one now ???

xyzelement 2mo ago
Presumably miners get a high wage to offset the negatives of the job and attract people. So to an extent you have a choice which way to go and you try to make a smart one. Personally I wouldn't have a highly hazardous job if it paid any multiple of what I make now and that feels smart to my situation. But for someone else that might be a different calculus.
- ydat 2mo ago
  > Presumably miners get a high wage to offset the negatives of the job and attract people. A common thread I see when these types of topics come up too is that the high pay in many of these jobs (trades, policing, nursing, etc.) is dependent on working large amounts of overtime.

sublinear 2mo ago

> they were more able to follow family patterns and advice while the "brilliant" person tries to figure out everything from scratch, not able to benefit from the "well trodden paths" that are available You know, sometimes the well-trodden paths are chains worth breaking man. Most families aren't exactly The Brady Bunch. I think we agree that it takes all kinds of people, but you are mischaracterizing what it means to spend a little more time alone before committing to a family. That time will pay dividends when/if they go for it. I gotta invoke Hanlon's Razor on this one and refrain from elaborating on what I think your comment sounds like. It's a sign of the times we live in that even this can become a hot political issue.

xyzelement 2mo ago
I am genuinely curious as to what you think my comment "sounds like" But I don't disagree with your first paragraph. Some well troden paths maybe bad - the trick is to know which ones. Because if you make that fall wrong you end up in a bad state which is what I was talking about.
- xquce 2mo ago
  Almost every reply to your comment points out your example "being smart" with a tired one of family vs work. What people in many other comments here point out that for many familie is just one of many areas in life and can have nothing to do with smarts or happiness. Is the man abandoning his wife and child to find a better life happier for it, he can be. Has nothing to do with if he used his smarts to arrive at that solution to his unhappiness or resolution. How many people choose their family based on some calculation where there is a right or wrong answer? Like an comic said, most people choose their life partner while drunk in a bar (obv local example) but no way you would ever choose which toaster to buy while drunk! The toast have to be just right, doesn't it?

kakacik 2mo ago

You reduce massively this complex topic into having kids = more happiness. Divorce rates, marriage counseling intensity and just looking around paints a very different and much more realistic picture. Most marriages either fail or keep it up in semi-miserable fashion (for kids, money, insecurity and so on but never due to actual strength of the bond or any love remaining). That comes from married father of two - the idea that having kids somehow magically makes life better and everybody happier is what got society into pushing everybody into marriages for decades long after pressure from religions waned. Suffice to say it didn't work very well. Works great for some, is a proper mistake for others.

tsss 2mo ago
In fact, the data points into the opposite direction: Children and money problems are by far the most destructive things for a happy marriage.
- joenot443 2mo ago
  Marriages where the couple had children together are considerably less likely to end than marriages without children. A recent Canadian poll showed an effect size of ~60%. [1] Table 1 covers this nicely. I’d be curious what data you’re citing to suggest children are by far the most destructive thing for a happy marriage. It seems like the kind of redditism most popular with people for whom it doesn’t apply :) https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2024001-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-652-x/89-652-x2024001...
  - hackerdood 2mo ago
    Chiming in late to say destruction of a happy marriage does not necessarily lead to divorce. Plenty of couples in essentially dead marriages “stay together for the kids” to provide some semblance of a normal family, regardless of whether it’s actually a better outcome. OTOH unhappy marriages with no children have relatively few obstacles standing in the way of divorce.
xyzelement 2mo ago

stereolambda 2mo ago

I think you are reaching for the word "wisdom" (I heard about smart vs. wise a bunch of times) and are tending to define it in a... narrow way. I'd damn prefer to live the live of Plato, Roger Bacon or Isaac Newton: experience the universe in novel, rich ways, contribute a lot to humanity, give up offspring, than be "below average" smart (whatever it would mean) with 7 children. Of course, by statistics no one of us is Plato or Roger Bacon. I'd agree that a problem with the modern world is an ideology of (objectively) crappy career or climbing some fake institutional hierarchy being a worthy substitute for family. I myself do believe that a family is one of relatively easiest (but still hard and demanding) ways to being happy [1]. I also see a lot of people here overcorrecting and arriving at some strange worldviews. Some people are childless because of objective circumstances: what are they, damned by God via predestination to unhappiness? In the Catholic world, they have been, esp. in the olden days, a lot of childless priests, monks, nuns. If you want to at the same time value tradition and not reinventing (quoting parent) and "evolutionary DNA survival", you either have to somehow condemn Catholicism and Orthodoxy [2], or start adding some epicycles to your philosophy. Oh, and on topic: I believe being happy requires working for it. Maybe for "smarter" people their allotted amount of work is higher. Don't know if it's nice to hear, but sounds true to me. [1] Maybe one lure of career is that people are culturally accepting of life at work being terrible in many ways, while a poorly constructed family (one or more immature people etc.) scares people off pretty fast. Maybe because it's a more total institution and harder to escape. [2] Which would be the OG Protestant way.

watwut 2mo ago

The issue here is that if the smart brilliant man decides that he will prioritize his family and friends, creating happy community around him ... you will just say he was not brilliant. Because he earns less money. As in, your example assumes that if you are brilliant you will neglect family, if you care about family you are not brilliant. You do indeed need to change the definition of "smart" to not be just "earns a lot of money".

xyzelement 2mo ago
I think you missed the point of my post. It's not either or but the totality of persuit and outcome. Neglecting family for work is not smart. Neglecting work for family is also not smart (hurts the family) Striking the right balance and achieving enough of each is the smart thing that's hard to pull off but is the prize.

HexPhantom 2mo ago

A lot of culture is basically accumulated trial and error