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A comment on How to be like Steve Ballmer. Parent comment

Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by philwelch on Thursday December 03, 2015 @06:54PM (#10673643)
Intelligence and nuttery/crackpottery are two separate things. In fact, intelligence can even enable nuttery because an intelligent nut is better at rationalizing his own nuttery than an unintelligent nut. Someone can be literally a world-class brain surgeon and still believe that the pyramids were constructed to store grain, for instance.
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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by cat-dev-null on Thursday December 03, 2015 @10:54PM (#10674495)
Four factors:

0. Intelligence is hard to "measure;" and even informally, there are mostly inferred attribute from a subject's performance filtered through the viewer's (fallible/biased) perception.

1. There's many domains of intelligence:

- critical thinking (i.e., lawyers) - fact memory - abstract thinking - spatial - problem solving - social - political - emotional

... and far too many others to list.

2. Biases - upbringing, environment, experiences and so on tend to influence a person's preferences and beliefs, and they may be expressing what it is their social group expects or how they view themselves.

3. I'm sure there is at least one belief each of us clings to that others find wacky. Sometimes person don't pick up that a certain view is social unacceptable. Examples:

- The guy in Starbucks with backpack supporting "the missile men of gaza"... de-facto endorsement of terrorism. - I happen to be vegetarian (not driving around with "meat is murder" and slaughterhouse shame pictures)... a lot of people are offended by that and heap on certain biases. - People struggling to survive, yet don't support unions, basic income or higher taxes on large trusts and estates, and are still libertarian "completely unregulated market" types.

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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by frenchy on Thursday December 03, 2015 @10:07PM (#10674348)
> still believe that the pyramids were constructed to store grain, for instance.

But, in civ 2, the pyramids gave you a granary in every city, so obviously they were for storing grain!

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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by rtpg on Friday December 04, 2015 @04:15AM (#10675358)
I really like the idea that Carson played Civ and thus holds this tidbit of knowledge
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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by fab13n on Friday December 04, 2015 @05:16AM (#10675522)
> a world-class brain surgeon can believe that the pyramids were constructed to store grain

Carson is a world-class surgeon trying to convince whatever subset of the Republicans (a) can decide the outcome of the primary and (b) aren't already secured by Trump.

He probably says whatever nonsense he thinks will please rednecks with a 90 IQ and an sinking feeling that "their" country and its core values are being pulled from under their feet.

And I can understand if he's a hard time empathising with people who think that >6k years ago, when pyramids where built, the Earth didn't even exist.

TL;DR: I think/hope he's failing at understanding plebeians, not Life. It might be wishful thinking because I don't want to live in a world where someone could be both so smart and so dumb.

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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by gnoway on Friday December 04, 2015 @08:23AM (#10676137)
This isn't a new position for him, unfortunately. Here's a link to a video[0] of him in 1998 explaining it at a commencement speech.

I guess this could be taken out of context, and he's actually just being sarcastic, but I don't think so.

[0] http://www.buzzfeed.com/natemcdermott/ben-carson-egyptian-py...

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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by dhimes on Friday December 04, 2015 @08:48AM (#10676252)
And I can understand if he's a hard time empathising with people who think that >6k years ago, when pyramids where built, the Earth didn't even exist.

I think he's one of those people, actually. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ben-c...

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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by cookiecaper on Friday December 04, 2015 @01:29PM (#10678075)
The problem is that you assume people who feel their country and its core values are being pulled are necessarily 90 IQ rednecks. There are a lot of intelligent socially conservative people. One who can't admit that is brainwashed.
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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by fab13n on Sunday December 06, 2015 @05:07AM (#10684846)
> you assume [conservative] people are necessarily 90 IQ rednecks.

I don't; I assume that the "90 IQ redneck" subset of conservative voters are the ones worth trying to seduce, according to GOP candidates. Because that's whom their political speeches and positions seem targeted towards.

I guess that's because there are many of them, and until recently they've been easier to influence. I must admit there's a bit of shadenfreude in seeing Trump out-rednecking the GOP elite at the game they invented for themselves.

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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by fleitz on Thursday December 03, 2015 @07:48PM (#10673885)
Smart people are outliers, hence their ideas are also outliers. Also, never underestimate the intelligence required to tailor a message to its audience.
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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by colordrops on Friday December 04, 2015 @02:09AM (#10675093)
The comments in this thread are exceptionally ironic.
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Re:How to be like Steve Ballmer by spinchange on Thursday December 03, 2015 @07:27PM (#10673797)
His example is poignant because it falls out of even normative doctrine in the cultural/religious context it's referencing. It's like a double-inconsistency and yet...the guy can separate conjoined twins at the head. (Shaking mine.)
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