High intellect, how not to get annoyed?

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I was a monologuer when I was a kid.

I thought I knew quite a bit---when I really knew nothing at all. At age 8, I thought knowing all the capitals in the world was "knowing a lot."

I had no critical thinking skills until I "got out" of myself, and started considering other people.

Hey My friends call me Snow just asking but what do you think the purpose of getting into arguments is?

I am in High School and To me at least it seems to be kind of useless. Their is a person with Asperger's I wanted to get to know a bit better as he was a smart and insightful individual. However I was argumentative, and he was to a level condescending and emotional. As a result things got nowhere. Not one good thing came out of it seems. I'd rather as a result just ask questions and get to know someone better and with it get to understand why they think that way. Debate seems next to useless.

When I went to high school, I encountered some kids who would, possibly, be Aspergian nowadays. Many of them were condescending; I sensed that the condescension was a way to hide their insecurities. One of them even admitted that to me.

That could well be the case, I do want to get on with this person but I sense it could be too late. We are sort of rivals in class.

There can be friendly rivalries. Perhaps you have common ground in actually being able to use facts and formal logic in debate. In general, people argue when they don't want to see another's point of view, but this causes friction in the material world. If you can get into a discussion where both parties are more interested in getting their understanding of the topic improved, it can be wonderful. Unfortunately, for every sincere truth seeker, there are a dozen poseurs with their ego firmly bonded to an opinion. They can't reason, but they can still rationalize, and use every rhetorical trick in the book to avoid logical conclusions.

I have ran across both types in my career teaching in higher education. The ones who are willing to expand their horizons beyond what they already know are the ones that I tend to be friends with. We can discuss scientific ideas without hostility or judgement. Unfortunately, the first group are far and few between the other group. So many of the second group members have become closed-minded over time that I struggle relating to how they must think about things in their areas. They put restrictions on their minds based off of what was printed in textbooks that they teach from, which is sad to me. (They tend to no longer follow the recent literature in their areas either.) If it was not printed in their referenced books, it somehow does not exist in their world, like they are trapped in one particular place. They fail to see that some information can change with time.

For example, just look at the difference the past years has made in the knowledge of carbon materials. Back in the early 1980s, scientists thought that carbon could only make diamond, graphite and amorphous (ie. coal) structures. We simply did not know about the nanomaterial forms can could be made under the right conditions. It took ground breaking research to unlock that information. Those who only believed in the original concepts were left behind.

I will say that the younger generations tend to be more accepting to new information than the members of my generation (and older). It may be that some people reach a saturation point in their learning abilities and simply avoid wanting to learn past that point, no matter at what level that they are at. Since many of the younger members have not reached that point, they still have a thirst to learn new things that has not been quenched yet. I know that there are exceptions to the above generalization, but it tends to hold true based upon my life experiences.


As for the OP question, I do not have an easy answer on how not to be annoyed by others. It may be a case where you just have to keep communication down to a bare minimum with them. I used to have that problem in my rural hometown, but now they just say "Hi" and go by if I see them on the street.

Guess my conversations were not interesting enough for them (like theirs was to me). I don't know why they would not be interested in learning about how different quarks make up the protons and neutrons within their atoms (just like I was not interested in learning about their newest show that they watched on tv).

Aye, it took a new generation of geologists to get continental drift taught as the winning theory, and engineers remained skeptical of math for decades after each advance in its usefulness.

Yep....there was a big fight even to admit that the Earth wasn't the center of the Universe.

Yeah, but that one was not between scientists. I don't think many people can distinguish reasoning from rationalizing.

But it was, at times, "between scientists." Even people of a scientific disposition believed in Ptolemy's notions. Notions which were based on a sort of scientific reasoning.

Just like "bleeding" as a treatment for many things in the 18th century was arrived at through some sort of scientific inquiry.

There is a culture of conservativism in science. Not politically but as far as accepting new ideas. I believe there are two reasons for this.

1. If one doubts something that later becomes accepted by the scientific community, one's reputation is spared. However if one advocates for something that is ultimately refuted or proven to be incorrect, one's reputation becomes sullied.

2. Rebutting that which is novel provides a way for some scientists to remain visible and relevant. I think this is why some rebuttals or criticisms border on the absurd.

On the subject of intelligence, however, I've only met a handful of people who most would consider actual geniuses. Most of these people seemed to derive sufficient pleasure interacting with general population. However one I do think would not have been sufficiently fulfilled in life without someone similar to him to converse with.

Yep.

It really annoys me that there's always somebody assuming that someone isn't as smart as she thinks she is. Surely there are at least a few people in the world who truly are struggling with being smarter than most people they meet, so why assume this person isn't one of them?

I had a twelve-year-old in my college calculus class. What if he came here and posted about struggling with being smarter than his peers? Some idiot would probably try to shoot him down too...and be dead wrong.

Can you just clarify something for me starkid , because you quoted both posters it appears you agree with Aristophanes by saying 'Yep' but then say something along the same lines of Cat. It could be that I'm just struggling at the moment and not seeing the obvious

I was agreeing with Aristophanes. If you go read CampinCat's entire post (I only quoted part of it), you will see that it's basically the sort of post I'm complaining about and not like mine at all.

If you get annoyed with people with a supposedly lower intellect you may indeed be bright, but you are carrying around a major character flaw.

Being smart isn't a free pass to be a jerk.

There are many different types of "intelligences."