Intelligence: Is it over rated?? How would I know.

This post is way way way too long. Sorry.

There was a great episode of House on last night. I'll try not to spoil anything important here just in case some of you are going to watch it on Hulu later.

Dr. House's patient was a former genius (for some reason he is no longer as smart in the hospital) who was making the argument that life is better when he's not so smart, and that he's much happier stupid. He claimed it was nice to not have so much on his mind all the time.
When the man starts to get smarter again, he looks at Dr. House, who is also somewhat of a genius, and says something like, "It's hard isn't it? It's kind of lonely." Dr. House replied, "It's not that hard." And the patient said, "Then you're not that smart."

So the first question is, are intelligence and happiness mutually exclusive? In other words, if you get smarter and smarter, is it harder (or to be accurate, impossible) to be as happy?
I don't think they are completely linked. But it's possible that if you get to a certain intelligence level it would be hard not to think everyone was slow and stupid. It would be like driving on a 55MPH highway when everyone else was driving 20 mph. Yeah, you can pretend it wouldn't upset you.
So maybe if you add patience and kindness into the equation, then you can be happy and freaking smart at the same time. Good thing that's oh so easy to do.

Then, the second question is whether or not you'd trade some of your smarts in for more happiness. If you had to drop your IQ by a substantial amount, say 20 percentile points (so if you were smarter than 60% of people, you'd now be smarter than only 40%), but it would make your average daily happiness 20% higher, would you do it?

I used to use surveys to meet cute girls, and then use the results on my marketing assignments. One time, I did an unscientific survey that read like this:

"Would you take an IQ increase of 30 points (that's a TON), if it meant your average lifetime weight would be 50 lbs higher?"
Of the girls I surveyed, the vast majority of them said no. The most common reasoning was "I'm already smart enough." Yeah, right.
Just for information, the men surveyed overwhelmingly said yes.

I find this information to be extremely interesting. Like I said, it was completely unscientific, because I only asked thin and attractive girls, and my sample size was rather small (around 40 girls).
Look at it from the opposite point of view. I'm 50 pounds overweight, and there's no way I would trade 30 IQ points in to be 50 lbs lighter. But I don't have that much to spare. Maybe if I had a genius IQ I would be more willing to give some of it up.

I assume that most people would probably choose to be smart, and a little less happy. And I think most women, at least, would give up an intelligence bonus in order to stay thin and beautiful. So does that mean that our priorities as a society go in this order: Beauty first, Intelligence Second, Happiness third.
I assume most smart and beautiful people would say they are happier because they are smart and beautiful, but I think happiness is more independent than that.

STOP READING HERE IF YOU ARE IN A HURRY.


One time I got kicked out of class for being a jackass. There was a period of my life where girls didn't like me (well, that's more than a period of my life) and I didn't have a lot of friends, and my hormones were being screwed up by Acutane (magical anti-acne pills). I was trying to learn how to be funny, and it made me less nice.
So I was in Mrs. Oberhansly's 11th Grade English class. (Bless her heart) We were watching a movie about how kids with various levels of intelligence should be in classes together, rather than separating people by intelligence or aptitude. When the teacher paused the movie to give commentary I raised my hand and said, "Professor, aren't we in an honors english class?" She was mad, but not mad enough to kick me out yet.
The movie continued with a psychologist suggesting that everyone is smart in some way. The psychologist said, "The question isn't 'are you smart?' The question is 'how are you smart?'"
I muttered under my breath (not quiet enough) It's not "are you stupid?" it's "how are you so stupid?"
"GET OUT NOW!!!"
So I went outside. Not to the principal...oh no. She didn't tell me where to go, so I just sat outside. But I forgot to get my book inside, so I had to wait and go back in for it. Awkward. I was a decent student in the easiest highschool in the world, and so I had a 3.8 at the time, but I got a C- in her class.

I don't know why I felt the need to respond to this film with sarcasm, but I did. I guess I just rejected the idea that alternate forms of intelligence, like working with your hands, or "street smarts", should have any bearing on who gets to be in what classes. At the time, I felt like that was choosing people for the basketball team based on their ability to play tennis, or snow ski. Although those skills are admirable, they aren't sufficiently related to base so much on.

However, I do feel like that movie makes a great point. The education system only really rewards a few different kinds of intelligence, and overlooks the others. Is there a solution to this? Probably not a practical one. And unfortunately, many employers hire based on academic achievement thereby not fully considering the other types of intelligence.
So what are the different forms of intelligence? There are probably thousands of subcategories. And I'm not even talking about talents. I don't think the ability to crochet is broad enough to be considered a form of intelligence.

I want to focus on the more broad forms. I looked all over the internet and found basically the same 9 types of intelligence. For more information click here

The 9 types are:
Naturalist
Musical
Logical
Existential
Interpersonal (people smart)
Bodily (hands on)
Intrapersonal (self smart)
Spatial (picture smart)

I did a quick search in many of these sources and I never found the word memory. So I'm going to reject these 9 types and go with my own. I'm not saying mine are better, but my list just includes what I want to focus on.

John's suggested types of intelligence:

1: Reading Comprehension
2: Ability to memorize
3: Ability to retain information
4: Analytical, logical abilities
5: Focus
6: Charisma (ability to impress, and lead)
7: Street Smarts (Including the ability to figure stuff out on your own, or by watching)
8: Hands on smarts
9: Athletic Ability (Yes I think this is intelligence. Your brain controls your body.)
10: Empathy
11: Ability to Communicate
12: Ability to be a visionary (i.e., Steve Jobs)

I'm sure I left some things off.

So going back to that video in 11th grade. . . Is everyone smart in some area? What if you limit it to my 12. Let's define smart as "in the top 25% of the population (for your age) in that category."

I've got no shot at 1,2,3, or 5. I'd say I'm clearly in the bottom quarter of 3 and 5.
6,7,8, 9 and 12 are almost certainly no-goes as well for me.
So it's possible I'd make it in for 4, 10, and 11, but those are toss-ups.

Now I really don't want to be arrogant. I don't think I'm naturally that special at all. But I'm a graduate student, I went to good schools, I have loving and involved parents, and I've made it through life with out too many major problems. And I STILL only have a shot at 3 out of 12.
Statistically, (if there were an even distribution-- but there's not) most or all people would be in the top 25% of 4 of the 12 categories.

So what do you think. Do you think that every mentally-healthy person on earth is "smart" in one of the 12 categories? If so, then the question should be "how are you smart?" As a result, it would make sense for people to identify their strengths and weaknesses early on.

So here are my questions for you:
1: Do you think the more intelligent you get the harder it is to be happy?
If so, then what kinds of intelligence are most likely to make you unhappy? I am pretty good at looking at systems and finding problems, and then fixing those problems. That makes me unhappy every time I go to a business.

2: Would you sacrifice 20 percentile points in each type of intelligence in order to be 20% happier?
I wouldn't, but that answer makes me feel stupid . . .

3: Would you take an intelligence bonus in each category of 20% if it meant your average lifetime weight had to be 50 lbs heavier?
This is hard for me, because I'm already fat. However, I'd say Yes.

4: Are all mentally-healthy people smart (top 25%) in at least one of the 12 categories?

5: Which types of intelligence would you most like to be "smart" in? If you could choose three types, what would they be?
I'd love to have me some memory smarts, and that visionary thing could make me some big money.

Interviews

I applied for several jobs this fall. Some employers wanted to interview me, some didn't. I recently received a rejection letter from one employer thanking me for the great interview we had. Trouble is, they never gave me an interview. Good times.
I think the whole interview process is kind of a joke. I mean no disrespect to anyone that interviewed me. They were all professional and very nice. It's just that I really think that interviews are just a big BSing contest.

In the absolute best episode of "The Office" ever (Season 3's "the Return") Dwight is being interviewed: "How would I describe myself? Three words: Hardworking, alpha male, jackhammer (pause) merciless, insatiable."

Now this is funny, because it's Dwight, but what does it tell the interviewer? Nothing. I guess an interviewer could possibly get a "feel" for a person. Maybe some people can decide whether they can work with a person in 15 minutes of Q&A.
I think it's mostly phoney baloney.
One of my favorite co-workers ever was horrible in the interview. This person was a fantastic employee. The only reason we decided to hire this person was that we had an extremely urgent need.

Just for fun, I'm going to provide a realistic hypothetical interview to illustrate its uselessness. Out-loud words are in normal type, thoughts are in italics.


Interviewer: Hi, come on in. Have a seat.
This is the 10th interview of the day. I'm so sick of this crap. If one more person says they love to "help people" it's going to break my brain.

Joe Schmoe: Okay, thank you very much.
Wow, nice office. I hope he didn't notice my palm was sweaty. Who's in that picture? Is that his daughter or his wife? She's Smokin'!

Interviewer: So thanks for coming in. I'm not really a fan of stuffy interviews. I just want to ask you a few questions to get to know you better.
Really I don't know what I'm doing. I just want to make sure you didn't lie on your resume, and that you won't scare the customers.

Joe: Great. Thanks again for the opportunity.
Again? Why did I say again. I haven't thanked him before. Oh well.

Interviewer: So tell me about yourself?
Stupid question. . . but I haven't read his resume yet, so that's all I've got.

Joe: Well, I'm 28 years old, and I'm single. I like to golf and run 5Ks Uh.. um.. yeah, that's about it.
What else am I supposed to say dude. I like video games, and I'd rather be watching Tv. I ran a 5k four years ago... I think. Oh, and I think your daughter's a fox.

Interviewer: Oh you're a runner? That's very impressive.
Well, I can't consider most of that, and the rest is irrelevant. And he's a runner? I hate runners. Always talking about training, and chafing.
So, I see from your resume that you worked as a manager specializing in risk analysis.

Joe: Yes. I spent 5 years there. I worked with all types of people on accounts ranging from small amounts to millions of dollars.
Does he realize that I only sold insurance?

Interviewer: Great... great... I wonder if I'm going to make my tee time? I also see here that you do a lot of volunteer work in the community. Tell me about that.

Joe: Yeah, I just really love to help people, you know.

Interviewer: Oh no. Please. No. Is this what hell feels like? Is Satan just going to make me work in the cliché factory?

Joe: I just like to give back. I think that my experience working for those organizations really helps me to understand the needs of customers.

Interviewer: Oh here we go. Really? Sounds like you just played basketball with middle schoolers.

Joe: Yeah, that was a good answer. Nailed it. Unless he knows I just played Bball with kids.

Interviewer: So tell me your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.
Oh yeah... Awesome question. Silver bullet.

Joe: Um . . . Yeah, well... my greatest strength would be my ability to accomplish anything I'm asked to do.
Phew. Good thing I practiced that after I did research on google. My greatest strength is probably my absolute domination on Call of Duty, or my ability to memorize useless information.

Interviewer: No, no, no, no, no. I'm in hell again.

Joe: And my greatest weaknesses are that I just work too hard... and um... I care too much... Really, I've just been trying to work on being great in a position like this one.
That's a stupid question, so he gets a stupid answer. I don't have a lot of weaknesses.. I mean, I gossip, scheme, procrastinate, and complain constantly... but who doesn't, right?

Interviewer: That was a stupid answer. What does that even mean? Yeah, I care too much... I almost died from caring. I'm practically a friggin care bear.

So, do you have any questions about our company?

Joe: Questions? I just want to get paid man. I don't really care about your company. I really just want to know if I can get away with watching youtube and working on my fantasy football league.

Uh, yeah.. well, I noticed that you went to KU. I love the Jayhawks. Rock hawk! You know, haha. What do you think it is about KU that makes grads like you so qualified for these jobs?
I'm totally getting a callback.

Interviewer. I wonder what he'd do if I just called him a dumb #%#. Yeah.. It's Rock Chalk you Dumb... dumb.. dumb.. person.

Well, it's a great school.

This guy isn't getting a call back, I'll tell you that much.

Joe: How about that basketball team. Did you see what they did to Pitt State? We are going to kill Missouri and K-state this year. Another national championship is going to be so sweet this year.
I hope he doesn't find out I'm a North Carolina fan.

Interviewer: Oh I know right? I had courtside seats to the game. It was great. A ton of talent.

Joe: Really? That's so awesome. I had to wait in line for hours to get tickets last year. There's nothing better than KU basketball in the Field House.

Interviewer: You've got that right Joe.

Maybe I had this all wrong. Nobody here watches basketball. This guy could totally liven the place up. Interviews don't mean that much anyway do they? Yeah. This guy is a winner... Rock Chalk.

Interviewer: Thanks Joe. It looks like time is up. I'll let you know about the position in the next few days.
All of these people are horrible, but at least I'd have something to talk to with this guy.

Joe: Thanks a lot for the opportunity.
I'm going to get my hands on those courtside seats within a year. Heck yeah.

Large Lardo and the Costco Belly Flop

I've been asked by a couple of people to explain the story of the Large Costco Customer in more detail, so here goes.

Please bear with me as I spend a little more time on the story than I really need to.

Let's start at the beginning (ish).

I met Natalie on a blind date and quickly fell in love with her. After a few weeks of dating, she felt I was ready to be introduced to her family, the Barneys. Now the Barney's are a magical people. I could write an entire blog post on how amazing that family is, but I will save that for another time. Suffice it to say, one of the most incredible groups of people ever assembled was willing to let me join their family. (What were they thinking? I guess I'm just lucky) Ever since then, the Barney family has been incredibly generous. Natalie's Mother and Father bought us a bed as a wedding present. They ordered a very nice bed for us, and had it waiting for us at Costco in Saint George, UT.

It's important to note that, in my wifes eyes, this bed represented more than just a piece of furniture. This bed was a symbol of our a new home and a representation of the new life we were about to start. At this point Natalie and I weren't married yet, but she had already moved into our new apartment while I was still living with my roommate. At the time I was sleeping on a 25 dollar mattress I bought at a yard sale. Despite the oldie's stain-free status, I was pretty excited about the new mattress.

So we set off to Costco (aka Adventureland theme park). Even when we aren't picking up our Serta symbol of unity, going to Costco is an event. Costco is such a big deal that I think I'll start calling it THE Costco. We walked in, and after the long and winding road through The Costco's level-5 security we picked up our bed without a hitch. I was planning on just taking a couple trips and carrying the bed and box springs out to the truck we borrowed, but The Costco provided us with one of those ten-ton-capacity, fill-up-your-suburban orange flat bed carts. Seriously, you could hit one of those carts with a tank and it would still be in good enough shape to move your TV out into the parking lot.

We plopped our bed down onto the cart and started to wheel it squeakily out the door. The mattress was on top of the box o' springs, which hung about a foot off the end of the cart. We had had just made it past the receipt checker (Bouncer) when all of the sudden a massive, fat, sweaty, forty-something Large Lardo dashed out from behind one of the concrete pillars, leapt in the air, stretched to spread eagle, and belly flopped on the symbol of our new life.

I was completely stunned as I watched this red faced king kong slowly roll off my mattress, causing one side to shoot up in the air and dump him onto the sidewalk. I just looked around, dumbfounded... where was the hidden camera? Was Ashton Kutcher or Johnny "Jack A--" Knoxville going to pop out of a bush somewhere? And then the decision hit me: what was I going to do? Well I wasn't going to attack this man. It's true, he barely had the arm strength to pick his mass off the ground, but his eyes, neck, and private parts were well protected by layers of gelatinous bio-armor. Or I could verbally abuse the man, but I doubted the effectiveness of this method, seeing as he'd probably been verbally abused by EVERYONE his entire life... why else would he be leaping onto serta sleepers in the middle of the day. So I hid my ego and with one hand on the cart, and the other 'round my wifes waist, I walked to the truck. I was too confused to know what was going on, but my wife recommended that we check our new equipment for damage. This mattress is incredibly well made, but unfortunately it would have required NASA grade titanium to survive a blow like that, and the one foot hang-off of the cart didn't help either.

My wife wasn't going home. She was indignant. The blob just tried to obliterate our love symbol. This is a Woman who won't even honk the car horn when she gets cut off, and she was ready to put this guy on a spit and roast him over a fire pit (The Costco probably had one)

My wife is of angelic beauty. She's got the kind of face that causes men to forget their own names. And even though she doesn't realize she has such a weapon, she often uses it unintentionally.

She stomped back toward costco as I chased after her with our broken bed, and as we passed Large Lardo, still catching his breath, she just gave him a heartbroken look, and I could tell he was done. He would have done anything to make it up to her. I wanted to say some zinger like "did you think you saw a donut?" or "I didn't know they fed people that much in mental hospitals" but all that came out was "Dude... you broke our bed".

We went right through the "Out" doors without protest from the bouncers and up to the service desk. The service rep was a woman, but even she realized that something as gorgeous as my wife should get whatever she wants.

The Costco employees all seemed to get a pretty big kick out of our story, and they all tried to hold back the laughter when they saw Fatty Fatty two-by-four walk through the Costco door to apologize.

We walked back out into the beautiful fall weather with a new bed on our cart. I made like Jack Bauer and stood ready to protect my cargo at any cost. I knew it was wrong, but I wished harm upon Large Lardo... I wanted some sort of revenge above and beyond the ear lowering guilt trip my wife had dealt him. And then I saw his embarrassed and terribly angry wife in their reinforced SUV... She was going to make him pay in more ways than I ever could.

I'll never forget that day, and I'm sure his wife won't let him ever forget it either.

The End.

Baseball, Pavlov, and his dog.

I've been watching Yale Psychology lectures on academicearth.org. Yes, sometimes I don't study when I should . . . and what do I do? Watch university lectures. Awesome.

Anyway, I've been learning about conditioned and unconditioned responses and stimuli.

Mr. Pavlov was studying saliva. He'd give a dog food to get it to salivate, and then for some reason a bell started ringing every time he fed the dog, and then pretty soon the dog would salivate when the bell rang, even when it didn't get food.

Conditioned Stimuli: Food

Conditioned Response: Saliva

Unconditioned Stimuli: Bell

Unconditioned Response: Saliva.

This works for all sorts of things. On The Office, for example, Jim offers Dwight an altoid every time the phone rings (or something like that) and then one time the phone rings and dwight automatically puts his hand out. Jim says "what?" and Dwight just looks at his hand in confusion. Even though the general condition wasn't being met (getting an altoid) Dwight was putting his hand out because he associated the phone ringing with the altoid.

This is where Baseball comes in.

I think it's important for you to know that I love baseball. I love it like an overworked Dad loves his kids. I may not have a lot of time for it, but I'd fight and die for it.

I told my wife today that I don't have a problem with people not liking baseball, I just have a problem when they feel the need to tell me that they don't like baseball. It's probably better if they just keep that to themselves.

Baseball fans love to manipulate people. Baseball fans are snobby... we all like to pretend that the reason people don't like baseball is because they aren't as smart and patient as us. Baseball is a thinking man's game. Yeah, and Manny Ramirez is teaching physics at MIT. We realize that learning baseball takes time and practice rather than intelligence, but we like to make it seem like the only way for a non-fan to be a non-fan is if they are stupid. So if you disagree with us, you are automatically stupid. Awesome.

Anyway, I can't really explain my love for baseball, or sports in general for that matter. I love competition and greatness. I love the green grass and the cracking sound a bat makes when it comes in contact with the ball. I love hot dogs and "take me out to the ballgame." I love the time I spent playing catch with my father and trying to make him proud. I loved hitting the game winning double to beat my team's arch rival. I loved sitting in the basement with Dad, no girls allowed, watching the Braves finally win the world series and listening to my Dad say how stupid Tim McCarver is.

Wait... so what do I love about baseball? Look at that last paragraph. How many of those things are actually baseball, and how many are just things I associate with baseball?

Victory, greatness, sounds, smells, tastes, relationships, family, pride, laughter... I can have all of those things without baseball.

Would anyone watch baseball, if their whole life they had to watch it completely alone, and nobody kept score? Would people watch football if it was just two groups of people chasing each other around all day?

You've heard people say things like "Dude, it ain't baseball if you don't have a hot dog" "March Madness is why College Basketball is better than the NBA"

Any one disagree? What about you BYU football fans out there? Would you rather watch Kansas State beat Iowa State 31-28 in overtime, or watch BYU beat Utah 31-28 in overtime? If you truly only loved football the game, then you wouldn't have a preference. But it's more than a game... it's thousands and thousands of pavlovs bells ringing sweet music to your ears

Some people, many of them wives, mothers, or sisters, may not understand. But it's the same reason why some women don't get why manly men love action movies (because deep down we want to be a hero) and why some Women love romantic comedies (because they want to be swept of their feet)

So why do I love baseball? Because even if I'm alone on my couch, with no food, or grass, or "take me out to the ballgame". . . over a hundred years of tradition and sportsmanship surround me every time I watch a game. I can still feel it. I still have the unconditioned response of happiness. My Dad is there with me playing catch, my friends and teammates are screaming with joy because I hit the game winner.

"but it's just a guy with a stick trying to hit a ball." No, my friend it's much much more... I'm afraid you just don't get it.

What the guidance counselor didn't tell me

Did you ever go to a guidance counselor in highschool? Maybe in college? Usually they were called advisors in my college because they were there to advise about your future rather than counsel you to fix what happened in your past. They were there to make sure you were on the right track (or some other kind of track) to your dreams (or at least getting a paper that says you graduated).

I know one thing for sure: getting a bachelors in business administration from Dixie got me to KU law school . . . other than that, it was basically a waste of time. Yeah, I spent 120 credit hours in classes getting a degree, but it should be called a business recipe rather than a degree. I had a pinch of accounting, a dash of economics, a dollop of statistics and finance, one-half cup of management, and a pint of marketing. Everything else I know about finance and business came from 5 years of working with small business owners. Did my degree help me be a better employee? Maybe. But it wasn't because I learned about business, it was because I learned how to deal with people, particularly snotty people, and I was required (well, sort of) to practice reading, writing, and understanding.

It kind of hurts my ego, or my feelings, to think about how I got duped in to doing a general business degree. Law school doesn't require any prerequisites. I could actually have done something useful. Accounting, web design, database engineering, photography, auto mechanics, electrical engineering, or even music. Yeah, I could have majored in guitar performance (I don't play the guitar at all) and still have gotten into law school. At least I'd be able to play cool songs for my wife and kids. It's not like I can tell my kids bed-time stories about marketing. (I could if I wanted to be lame).

Now now, fellow business majors, I get that business has its uses. The subject is important . . . I'm just saying that my degree was worthless, but the diploma wasn't.

So what should anyone do about it? Well this is what counselors should tell freshmen:

"Hi. I don't know anything. All I can really do is guess about what you should do. Maybe you're cut out for something, maybe your not. Maybe you'd be good at something but you'd hate it. I can tell you what degree would be the easiest, and I can tell you which degree holders make the most money. But I can't tell you whether or not that has anything to do with the degree, or if its more to do with the students who choose that degree. If you don't know what you want to do, then, at this point, you should probably just take classes that you think you can get A grades in. And maybe you should try to take classes where you might have some desire to do the reading. Oh, and heres a checklist of classes we make everyone take. We know you won't retain the information, but it's important to keep up appearances. Feel free to come in any time, but just remember, we make everything up."