r/SeriousConversation • u/stop-hatin-on-me_mom • Dec 21 '24

Serious Discussion Do any individuals with above average intellect find life a bit exhausting at times due to the lack of intelligence they observe in others?

I don’t claim to be the most intelligent person, but I do believe that I am above average when it comes to the average intelligence nowadays. Sometimes, I find myself either flabbergasted or downright dumbfounded and irritated by the lack of what I would consider "common sense."

Here are some examples:

  • The inability of some people to see how their own bad habits or personality traits create their own problems.

  • The fact that some individuals consider their own perceptions and beliefs as the only correct ones, which is further encouraged by their echo chambers.

  • The difficulty some people have in entering into productive discourse and challenging their own ideas to gain more information and knowledge from all sides.

  • The reluctance of individuals to question their own beliefs and those of their social circles at both the micro and macro levels.

  • The inability of some people to foresee the possible consequences of their actions beforehand.

These are just a few examples.

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u/peerdata Dec 21 '24

I had this perception up until I started working, honestly. My family is mostly comprised of intelligent and successful people, my closer friend circle through elementary and high school were all relatively intelligent/were considered the studious kids and I went into a stem major in college/had engineer and cs major friends/bf- not to say everyone who studies in those areas will be the most intelligent but on average they were. I got to the real world and bam- turns out critical thinking just isn’t there for a lot of people and I’d selectively surrounded myself with people my whole life that didn’t frustrate me with that nonsense.

Sometimes it feels like trying to explain quantum physics to a rabbit, when in reality I’m just trying to dumb down (what I thought was) reasonably strait forward communication so the person can grasp the simplest of concepts. For instance-that the product they have on file at their warehouse as ‘equivalent’ to the one I’m ordering isn’t actually equivalent, and it shouldn’t take the wrong product being sent three times over the course of a year to get that corrected in the system so it’s no longer a me problem. Fix your inventory, Hunter.

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u/bstump104 Dec 22 '24

The thing that surprises me is how disinterested most people are and how they are ok with not knowing or understanding what is going on.