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Re:The Curse of Smart People (2014) by jakobegger on Friday February 10, 2017 @07:00PM (#13620020)
To me that doesn't sound like the curse of the "smart" people, it sounds more like the curse of the arrogant people.

Smart people understand that there is a reason that pointless / absurd rules are there. Usually the reason is not that everyone else is too stupid. The problem is usually that people have conflicting interests, and there just isn't a simple solution.

Re:The Curse of Smart People (2014) by dasil003 on Friday February 10, 2017 @07:40PM (#13620207)
1000 times this. Raw brain processing power doesn't have all that much to do with one's disposition to the world. Wise people realize that the smartest human is still hopelessly incapable of really understanding the universe. Smart people can come up with better models of reality, but they are still subject to the chaotic nature of the universe just like the rest of existence.

Forming and dwelling on a belief that society wasn't created for you is something that can happen for a variety of reasons. The healthy thing is to accept the things you can't control and figure out how you can best get along in the environment to which you are subject. For the very smart, there has probably never been a better time to be alive in terms of applying ones gifts.

Re:The Curse of Smart People (2014) by wolfgke on Friday February 10, 2017 @08:52PM (#13620476)
> Wise people realize that the smartest human is still hopelessly incapable of really understanding the universe.

Still the best theories that physics has to offer are the best that humankind has found in recorded history. And they were only found because there were people that did not tolerate this situation (being incapable to understand the universe).

> Smart people can come up with better models of reality, but they are still subject to the chaotic nature of the universe just like the rest of existence.

The moral should rather be: Because of this fact, sit down and develop better mathematics that will lead to us understanding this kind of chaotic situations much better in, say, 50 years.

Re:The Curse of Smart People (2014) by wolfgke on Friday February 10, 2017 @07:10PM (#13620082)
> Smart people understand that there is a reason that pointless / absurd rules are there.

Understanding that there is a reason (which is often that it was made as a political compromise in a distant past) does not imply that one tolerates/accepts it. As I hinted understanding the reason can also mean that one gets a much deeper hate for the rules.

Re:The Curse of Smart People (2014) by mr_luc on Friday February 10, 2017 @07:44PM (#13620224)
And that can be the case just as much even if there is no simple win-win solution to the problem.

One can hate the rules -- for their injustice, ineffectiveness, abstract immorality, etc -- and at the same time realize that the rules are an inevitable result of the complex system we inhabit.

As a student of history and humanity and a free moral agent, you can recognize the reality we live in, acknowledge that it contains many no-win situations, and still hate the status quo even if you don't have a solution for how to fix it, because it deserves to be hated.