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Cowgold
Bullshit


Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 12,486
Loc: .
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710255 - 12/03/07 10:50 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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It was just a suggestion for why intelligent people aren't always successful or happy. Maybe they're just above all that.
I'm just playing devil's advocate.
I agree with you. Intelligent people are probably in every level of society.
I find it interesting how the first post seems to suggest that intelligent people are entitled to a higher quality of life. Having more success, happiness and whatever else is associated with a higher quality of life.
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Shroomism
Space Travellin



Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 66,015
Loc: 9th Dimension
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Cowgold]
#7710284 - 12/03/07 11:00 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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I think there are many different levels of "intelligence", but certainly many people do see the the many paradoxes of modern society and choose not to buy into the accepted standard of life. As a whole, I don't think our society is very geared towards intelligence, on the contrary.. I think our society (especially western society) discourages it a great deal. Watch TV, do what you are told, be a good consumer, don't question authority, think what we tell you to think. Those in power don't want an enlightened populace, they want mindless sheep. In this system, having more success is *usually* a result of playing the games and jumping through the hoops it has set up and not necessarily a measure of ones intelligence.
Happiness doesn't have to come with success either. And success is probably highly subjective. I think one of the biggest fallacies of our society is that in order to be happy you must make a lot of money in order to be secure and have a high standard of living. And you certainly don't have to be intelligent to make a lot of money. Just know what games to play and how to play them.
But yeah, I would agree that society hates smart people. Especially in materialistic America, I'm not sure how it is in the rest of the world. Public education is a complete joke and in order to pursue a higher education you usually must spend an arm and a leg, thus it isn't easily available to those who don't play the games. You can learn more by yourself, through the internet .. and experiencing life.
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slackophage
Misanthropist



Registered: 11/16/06
Posts: 1,112
Loc: Seattleish
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710326 - 12/03/07 11:12 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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"Only idiots need success to be happy." --Some Idiot
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Cowgold
Bullshit


Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 12,486
Loc: .
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710341 - 12/03/07 11:18 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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I just think the whole topic is suspect. Society hates smart people because they don't always have the best job and don't lead as happy lives. HUH? 
Concerning supposed image of what society expects???
The only time we come in contact with what most of you have suggested is expected by society is when we turn on the T.V.. I know for me the people that i'm in contact with tend to have opposite oppinions than 'society'. Still, Somehow... Society is always the 'them' that emobodies all the qualities that we would never admit finding in 'us'.
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d33p
Welcome to Violence

Registered: 07/12/03
Posts: 5,381
Loc: the shores of Tripoli
Last seen: 10 years, 8 months
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Seuss]
#7710348 - 12/03/07 11:20 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people claim to have memories prior to age three.
The house we lived in burned down when I was two and a half years old. I have a handful of memories from before the fire and certainly of the fire. They aren't super clear memories; I don't remember what I was thinking or feeling, but I remember doing certain things.
Your family has talked about it quite a bit I assume. Hearing stories for years of such an important event could have easily led to implanted memmories.
-------------------- I'm a nihilist. Lets be friends. bang bang
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Shroomism
Space Travellin



Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 66,015
Loc: 9th Dimension
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Cowgold]
#7710371 - 12/03/07 11:26 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Well you do make a good point. A wise man once said you see the bad qualities in others as a mere reflection of that which you dislike most in yourself... or something to that extent.
I just don't think it's completely cut and dry.. there are many factors that determine one's own 'happiness' and what makes one person happy may not make the next person happy. When I refer to society I am mostly referring to the 'general consensus', or general avenue of thought programmed in most people. Yes, programmed. And yeah, TV is the epitome of what "society" thinks. That's why they call it TV programming, hyuk hyuk.
But yeah generally I find that happiness comes from within, and one does not need the best job or lots of money to be happy. I have been extremely happy in the most shitty situations, it's all about perspective and how you choose to see things. Life is either good or it really sucks. Or it's just meh. Society wants you to be beautiful and rich, which you don't need either of to be happy.
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Shroomism
Space Travellin



Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 66,015
Loc: 9th Dimension
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: d33p]
#7710377 - 12/03/07 11:28 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
d33p said:
Quote:
Seuss said: > It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people claim to have memories prior to age three.
The house we lived in burned down when I was two and a half years old. I have a handful of memories from before the fire and certainly of the fire. They aren't super clear memories; I don't remember what I was thinking or feeling, but I remember doing certain things.
Your family has talked about it quite a bit I assume. Hearing stories for years of such an important event could have easily led to implanted memmories.
I don't know where this is from because I didn't read the whole thread, but I most definitely have memories prior to age 3. Very vague ones, but memories nonetheless.. and they weren't implanted.
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Apollyphelion
Dungeon Master/Princess(1009)


Registered: 03/15/07
Posts: 16,757
Loc: Festival of Deaths
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710465 - 12/03/07 11:48 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Most comedians I've met are pretty smart lads and lasses (all local comics, no one famous,and some who don't "perform", but I'd still consider comedians) I've always appreciated the comic mind; I think that type of intelligence is kind of indefinable: I think it has to do a lot with the connections you make, using timing. I'm retarted, though.
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"I'm looking at you looking at it" SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL PLEASE! www.youtube.com/apollyphelion Creator of the World's Worst Comic Book
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Shroomism
Space Travellin



Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 66,015
Loc: 9th Dimension
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Yeah because when you're smart you tend to see all the bullshit and it's either let it drive you crazy or laugh about it.
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kriminalelement
"jesus wept."



Registered: 09/26/07
Posts: 1,201
Loc: Ay! los popos estan aqui!
Last seen: 13 years, 6 months
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710479 - 12/03/07 11:50 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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I don't think society hates "smart" people.
I think that "smart" people may be more aware when people don't like them, or have confidence problems when it comes to people because they were late developing emotionally. Also, if you have a high IQ, you're more likely to realize that something is going to waste.
As far as the educational system goes, I think it rewards hard work and booksmarts. I never felt discriminated against in an educational sense as a kid, I felt I had a leg up on everyone. I was always told I was gifted as a child, and since I had the IQ scores to back it up I got into whatever classes I wanted, gifted programs at school and in the summer, better colleges, honor programs, etc. I entered college as a sophomore because of all the AP classes available to me.
I will admit that I was raised in an upper-middle class family, probably more to the upper than middle side. My parents valued education over everything else in my life, and consequently I saw that I was rewarded for being intelligent in virtually everything I did. When other kids were making ice cream cones, I got a job through the debate team at a law office. When people were worried about getting into college, I was only turned down from Yale.
If you grow up in a middle class or poor white background, I don't think the emphasis is on education as much, particularly in the schools, which is a shame. But I never felt like being smart made me hated by people. Some of them may have been a little jealous, but they eventually realized that they had other things going for them.
At this point, it's not so much that I think other people hate me for being smart, it's that I hate them for being morons. Misanthropy is visible and invites distaste.... i think this is a huge problem.
On the whole, our society values entertainment, and smart people may appear to be underpaid compared to athletes. But so-called "gifted" children are more likely to be happy in their lives, make much more money, and have fulfilling careers. They're also less likely to divorce.
There is the problem of displaced sensibility, in which an artist feels isolated from society due to their insights. This is probably true, but it really is a different kind of "smart" altogether.
-------------------- While there is a lower class, I am in it While there is a criminal element, I am of it While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V Debs
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Shroomism
Space Travellin



Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 66,015
Loc: 9th Dimension
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Well, can I say you are also female.. and that just MAYBE might have something to do with it?
I was a so-called 'gifted' child, except I was raised in a low-income divorced family. And male. Was taking advanced physics and reading at a college level in the 7th grade. But then I saw through the bullshit of public education and dropped out in the 10th grade, it wasn't for me. I wasn't going to play their stupid games and be their little sock puppet. Where I come from, the education system rewards the brainwashed kids that don't ask too many questions. Kids that think for themselves get sent to the "special" school regardless of IQ. Booksmarts don't mean anything if they are just memorized regurgitated facts with no experience to back them up and forgotten in two weeks. I could have gotten into a prestigious college if I had wanted to, and worked really hard at it. But I said fuck that jazz.
I guess it depends where you want to go in life. But being raised poor certainly doesn't help your desire for higher education. At least not for me. I learned far more outside of school anyway. You know, about reality. There's some shit they just don't teach in school and never will, like how to be a decent person.
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wps
Well-PaidScientist


Registered: 09/22/07
Posts: 579
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710707 - 12/03/07 12:26 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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80% of people will administer a fatal electric shock to another human being if ordered to by an authority figure. (for real, based on research)
If you are smart enough to be in the 20% that refuses, then mainstream society has no place for you. fuck off and die.
Shroomism's right: its not ability or intelligence that are pre-requisites for success, but obedience. If some big company is going to entrust you with a $100k a year piece of the American economy, they want to know above all that you will be loyal to mainstream corporate interests. Ability and intelligence are distant seconds to obedience when it comes to the factors that help or hinder an individual's climb up the economic ladder.
This applies to school, too. Any monkey can get a 4.0 as long as they are good at following orders. Getting good grades isn't about being smart, its about showing authority figures your willingness to jump through hoops. Sure, you need some basic intelligence to know how to jump through a hoop, but beyond that its all just a test of obedience.
smart people tend to be less obedient, so smart people get shittier jobs and have less power. It really is that simple. The monied powers that run the world aren't going to hand over a large chunks of resources to people who are smart enough to oppose their will. They would rather give those resources to idiots who will go out and spend all the fruits of their labor on consumer products and entertainment that keeps them distracted from what a horrible mess this world has become.
not to worry: stupidity outbreeds intelligence so badly, there is already a majority of stupidity, and right now the intelligent minority is suffering. But, as more and more intelligent people decide not to have kids, and more and more trailer trash breed ad infinitum, soon there will be no more intelligence to be oppressed, and the idiot population of this dismal planet will wither and fail without intelligence to guide it. If that makes you feel any better.
-------------------- "America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve." - Tom Morello
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OneMoreRobot3021



Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,024
Loc: the sky
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The real question is - do smart people hate society?
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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Shroomism
Space Travellin



Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 66,015
Loc: 9th Dimension
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I think most probably have a love/hate relationship with it.
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kriminalelement
"jesus wept."



Registered: 09/26/07
Posts: 1,201
Loc: Ay! los popos estan aqui!
Last seen: 13 years, 6 months
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710740 - 12/03/07 12:31 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Well, can I say you are also female.. and that just MAYBE might have something to do with it?
I think my being female has been more of a setback, because I am expected to conform more and act more "feminine"... and I don't, which has drawn more ire than being "smart" ever could. Because I refuse to conform to the stereotype of a southern woman, I literally have no female friends.
And I didn't have a good home life at all, my home SHOULD have been a divorced home, but unfortunately for everyone, it wasn't.
I'd say what had anything to do with feeling advantaged is the excellent public school I went to. I can't believe a school would discourage you to think for yourself. I think that class has more to do with it than anything.
In America people are generally reluctant to think about class, but it plays such a huge role in our educational life. I resisted school a little, but I saw it was a way to have a good life, maybe not a life as plush as the one I grew up in, but certainly something secure. Plus, I really like school. But that's probably because school has been an outlet to creative and unconventional thinking. In my experience, you are sent to the special school if you CANT think out of the box.
Class difference in the quality of education is a huge problem, which is why I will be applying for Teach for America when I get my teaching certificate. Good teachers can make a huge difference, but it's obvious they're all getting attracted to higher-paying schools in better neighborhoods, which is a shame.
-------------------- While there is a lower class, I am in it While there is a criminal element, I am of it While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V Debs
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TheCow
Stranger

Registered: 10/28/02
Posts: 4,790
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710762 - 12/03/07 12:34 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Shroomism said: Was taking advanced physics and reading at a college level in the 7th grade.
Luckily you saw through the advanced physics bullshit and found multi-dimensional beings and a 'photon field' that will accelerate consciousness. You are a believable cat
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kriminalelement
"jesus wept."



Registered: 09/26/07
Posts: 1,201
Loc: Ay! los popos estan aqui!
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Re: Society hates smart people [Re: Shroomism]
#7710769 - 12/03/07 12:35 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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It's kind of weird how the "female" thing works for men....
On the one hand, it makes me irrational and a bitch and not worth a shiny turd
And on the other, it is the reason for any success I achieve in life.
I think I'm successful in my education because I had supportive parents that raised me to be a person and not a woman.
-------------------- While there is a lower class, I am in it While there is a criminal element, I am of it While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V Debs
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kriminalelement
"jesus wept."



Registered: 09/26/07
Posts: 1,201
Loc: Ay! los popos estan aqui!
Last seen: 13 years, 6 months
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Oh and btw scantron grading machines can't tell whether you're a woman, and neither can the SAT or AP graders, they just grade by whatever the hell you bubbled in.
But I guess my test scores are somehow related to a secret feminazi conspiracy to install pro-female programs in all these machines....
yeah, that must be why I did well in school.
Interestingly, the valedictorian of my high school was a gay man.
I don't think his gender helped him one bit, but somehow he still managed to do okay.
-------------------- While there is a lower class, I am in it While there is a criminal element, I am of it While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V Debs
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badchad
Mad Scientist

Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 13,372
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If everyone dropped out of school, did nothing and justified it with "not jumping through hoops" and "being a non-conformist" not much would get done.
I don't think that would be a very "smart" society.
-------------------- ...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge. It is an indellible experience; it is forever known. I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did. Smith, P. Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27. ...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely. Osmond, H. Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436
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Shroomism
Space Travellin



Registered: 02/13/00
Posts: 66,015
Loc: 9th Dimension
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The high school I went to was actually the number one rated public high school in the country for a number of years. In a very prestigious area. So rich people would move there just so their kids could attend this school. This of course made things difficult for kids like me who just happened to live there. And yes, they highly discouraged creative thinking. If you did not fit the "mold" of the school you were most definitely singled out. It had very little to do with intelligence or aptitude.. and everything to do with being an obedient little sheep that did as you were told, when you were told. You may think I'm exaggerating things some, but I'm not, at all. In fact it was far worse and I could go into much greater detail but I'll save you that. But yeah, at my school.. you got sent to the special school if you thought outside of the box.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/education/challenge/2005/challengeindex01.html Number 23 on the list now. But you'll notice the number of schools in the Northern VA area on that list.
Education should be provided free to all those who want it, and creative thought should be encouraged everywhere.
Class roles have a HUGE impact on our society to this very day. We are no different with the class system today than 500 years ago in England, you have the nobles and the peasants. I was a peasant.
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