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> What Taleb calls the Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) - someone who has the mannerisms and interests of a superficially intelligent person but who nonetheless is

> What Taleb calls the Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) - someone who has the mannerisms and interests of a superficially intelligent person but who nonetheless is unable to self-reflect or deal with nuance, such as the Harvard-educated Ben Shapiro. I worked in Harvard Square for 5 years (dead center, across the street from Curious George, between the Greenhouse and the Coop), and it was always my assertion that Harvard is full of Well-Educated Idiots.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I had an art teacher that had a poster on his wall: "An education is no substitute for intelligence." Some of the smartest people that I've ever met, had little to no education.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  [waves to say hi] I never studied computer science, I can't code a graph path-finding algorithm out of memory and yet I've been told by many former colleagues that I am one of the best programmers they ever met. Which is quite hilarious because I still think I am quite bad, to this day, after 22 years of career. And no this is not humble-bragging, more like to outline how different our perspectives on ourselves can be from the perception of everyone else. But this approach, I think, is what is keeping me intellectually honest. I am self-indulgent for like 2-3 days a year and the rest of the time I always think I have to learn yet another thing, and to practice it well.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    I'm a high-school dropout. GED. I have a couple of friends that are quite rich, and run a successful company. Both dropouts. I think that she never even got her GED.
boxed 3y ago
Funny.. but that sounds like Taleb.
twic 3y ago
My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'. -- Arthur C. Clarke
CuriouslyC 3y ago
The problem is that we select for high fidelity parrots and virtue signaling monkeys in admissions, rather than providing a support structure for people who want to create or discover things.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  Well, that's because the previous generation are high fidelity parrots and virtue signalling monkeys so they perpetuate the cycle.
CyberDildonics 3y ago
Hacker News: The Harvard of the internet.
myth_drannon 3y ago
Taleb's modus operandi is to be condescending towards others, read his Twitter account.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  Sam Harris isn't impressed with him: > I know many of you love this guy, and think he's a genius. I can assure you, none among you, are as impressed with his intelligence as he is. This guy is just insufferable. I've actually never witnessed a marriage of incompetence and confidence so fully and grotesquely consummated in the mind of a person with a public platform. > This is the most arrogant person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. When you meet him you quickly discover that he radiates a sense of grievance from his pores in a way that few people do. It's kind of like a preternatural force of negative charisma. > He is a child in a man's body. And the mismatch between his estimation of himself and the quality of his utterances is so complete and so mortifying to witness in person that you just find you're jumping out of your skin.
  - angiosperm 3y ago
    Sam Harris, you say.
    - nemo44x 3y ago
      Well yeah, there is that. I love Taleb's writing (Black Swan was an important book) and observations (Power law distributions are the world globalization trends towards) but truth be told he does come off as a bit of an ass. I mean, he really just had the key observation and then somehow wrote a few thousand pages around it and more or less got lucky with a trade once.
      - angiosperm 3y ago
        I take wisdom where I can find it, and leave the rest. I wouldn't want as much attention on my flaws as his get.
NickC25 3y ago
>and it was always my assertion that Harvard is full of Well-Educated Idiots. I grew up surrounded by Ivy leaguers. You could tell who came from money, and who made it on their own merit. Some of the wealthiest people I've ever met growing up were lower/middle class kids with tremendous academic intelligence AND street-smarts who made it to the ivies on their own merit and excelled from there. Some of the dumbest of that Ivy cohort were kids of exorbitantly wealthy, and due to their social class and connections, were pretty much promised a spot at one of the top schools. They aren't dumb in the sense that they are truly brainless...quite the opposite - they were good academically and often quite book-smart, but lacked every real-world marker of human intelligence; and would be the last person you'd want to hire or work with. Harvard, Penn, Yale, etc... are places where the smart poor or smart middle class go to rub elbows with (and get jobs working for the parents of) wealthy idiots.
- angiosperm 3y ago
  It is often very hard to identify the best course of action. But in any large enough group, you can in short order identify the Oracle of Wrong, who has a complementary skill. For the most difficult choices, where you honestly cannot decide, you may simply look to the local Oracle of Wrong, and do the opposite of what they advocate. This yields well above average results. Oracles of Wrong will have above-average intelligence, but estimate it higher than that. Some decades of observation suggest they most usually come from a life of privilege, where no personal choice has caused them substantial difficulty or distress. Do not neglect that you may be the Oracle of Wrong in the group.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

I had an art teacher that had a poster on his wall: "An education is no substitute for intelligence." Some of the smartest people that I've ever met, had little to no education.

pdimitar 3y ago
[waves to say hi] I never studied computer science, I can't code a graph path-finding algorithm out of memory and yet I've been told by many former colleagues that I am one of the best programmers they ever met. Which is quite hilarious because I still think I am quite bad, to this day, after 22 years of career. And no this is not humble-bragging, more like to outline how different our perspectives on ourselves can be from the perception of everyone else. But this approach, I think, is what is keeping me intellectually honest. I am self-indulgent for like 2-3 days a year and the rest of the time I always think I have to learn yet another thing, and to practice it well.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  I'm a high-school dropout. GED. I have a couple of friends that are quite rich, and run a successful company. Both dropouts. I think that she never even got her GED.

boxed 3y ago

Funny.. but that sounds like Taleb.

twic 3y ago

My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'. -- Arthur C. Clarke

CuriouslyC 3y ago

The problem is that we select for high fidelity parrots and virtue signaling monkeys in admissions, rather than providing a support structure for people who want to create or discover things.

pdimitar 3y ago
Well, that's because the previous generation are high fidelity parrots and virtue signalling monkeys so they perpetuate the cycle.

CyberDildonics 3y ago

Hacker News: The Harvard of the internet.

myth_drannon 3y ago

Taleb's modus operandi is to be condescending towards others, read his Twitter account.

nemo44x 3y ago
Sam Harris isn't impressed with him: > I know many of you love this guy, and think he's a genius. I can assure you, none among you, are as impressed with his intelligence as he is. This guy is just insufferable. I've actually never witnessed a marriage of incompetence and confidence so fully and grotesquely consummated in the mind of a person with a public platform. > This is the most arrogant person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. When you meet him you quickly discover that he radiates a sense of grievance from his pores in a way that few people do. It's kind of like a preternatural force of negative charisma. > He is a child in a man's body. And the mismatch between his estimation of himself and the quality of his utterances is so complete and so mortifying to witness in person that you just find you're jumping out of your skin.
- angiosperm 3y ago
  Sam Harris, you say.
  - nemo44x 3y ago
    Well yeah, there is that. I love Taleb's writing (Black Swan was an important book) and observations (Power law distributions are the world globalization trends towards) but truth be told he does come off as a bit of an ass. I mean, he really just had the key observation and then somehow wrote a few thousand pages around it and more or less got lucky with a trade once.
    - angiosperm 3y ago
      I take wisdom where I can find it, and leave the rest. I wouldn't want as much attention on my flaws as his get.

NickC25 3y ago

>and it was always my assertion that Harvard is full of Well-Educated Idiots. I grew up surrounded by Ivy leaguers. You could tell who came from money, and who made it on their own merit. Some of the wealthiest people I've ever met growing up were lower/middle class kids with tremendous academic intelligence AND street-smarts who made it to the ivies on their own merit and excelled from there. Some of the dumbest of that Ivy cohort were kids of exorbitantly wealthy, and due to their social class and connections, were pretty much promised a spot at one of the top schools. They aren't dumb in the sense that they are truly brainless...quite the opposite - they were good academically and often quite book-smart, but lacked every real-world marker of human intelligence; and would be the last person you'd want to hire or work with. Harvard, Penn, Yale, etc... are places where the smart poor or smart middle class go to rub elbows with (and get jobs working for the parents of) wealthy idiots.

angiosperm 3y ago
It is often very hard to identify the best course of action. But in any large enough group, you can in short order identify the Oracle of Wrong, who has a complementary skill. For the most difficult choices, where you honestly cannot decide, you may simply look to the local Oracle of Wrong, and do the opposite of what they advocate. This yields well above average results. Oracles of Wrong will have above-average intelligence, but estimate it higher than that. Some decades of observation suggest they most usually come from a life of privilege, where no personal choice has caused them substantial difficulty or distress. Do not neglect that you may be the Oracle of Wrong in the group.