Intelligence and Internet browsers

[Curt]

It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers • The Register

It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers - DonationCoder.com

I was reading the test, and was thinking this is a classic example of poor thinking. I don't question the test result, but the criteria for "intelligence". We need as humans to remind each others that intelligence is not just academic intelligence (if you can solve some mathematical or advanced logical questions), but that intelligence is so much more.

Academic intelligence was all the test was able to refer to. The users of Internet Explorer may actually be the group with the higher intelligence, if it was about genuine intelligence, because the users of Opera (etcetera) are more likely to be without connection to Real Life = non-academically unintelligent.

Intelligence is first and foremost if you at all time know how to help the one next to you. "Love thy neighbor/neighbour", as the Bible puts it. Intelligence is also if you can make piece, raise a family, feed the hungry, make fair decisions, strengthen the weak, protect the vulnerable, etcetera, etcetera. All this is genuine intelligence, because it is the form for intelligence that is necessary for life! Lack of this kind of intelligence will literally lead to death, and that is by itself a fatal lack of intelligence.


The guy who sits behind his desk all time, browsing the Net, loosing his head to unimportant pseudo matters and virtual situations, is really not intelligent, no matter what browser he is using  and no matter how high his academic intelligence may be. In Real Life he is unintelligent (And I should know...). His IQ may be 200, but he is a fool. Do we call fools  clever people?

There are several forms of intelligence. I don't care to go into how many forms or what they are, but I do want to stop the academics from lying! Academics are far too often trying to make (themselves and) non-academics think that academic intelligence is the only intelligence that matters, that academic intelligence must be superior. Well, it isn't, it is inferior!

It is time to dismiss the use of the phrase intelligence, without referring to what kind of intelligence is in mention. Academic intelligence is actually one of the minor and more unimportant intelligences in Real Life!

[Stoic Joker]

Me thinks ^that^ needed said ... Good man!

[J-Mac]

Also well stated here:

Jim

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?
Isaac Asimov

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

[kyrathaba]

+1 to what you said, Curt, though I think it can more accurately be called "wisdom".  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Many of the things you said allude to this:

helping your neighbor
making fair decisions
etc. 

Good thoughts!

[kyrathaba]

There is also emotional-intelligence which, as a licensed psychotherapist, I feel qualified to mention.  Women, as you might guess, tend to score higher than men against those measures of said type of intelligence that has thus far been devised.

[Stoic Joker]

Asimov was a wise man.

[kyrathaba]

Anyone here ever read Asimov's "Robots" trilogy?  Great reads!

[mahesh2k]

Judging intelligence based on browser is too much. But most of the staunch computer users are judging each other based on OS, applications and the gadgets all the time. If you're not using apple then you're cheapo blah and blah etc. By not using linux you're not geek, or by not using windows you're not getting things done for tasks that can't be done on other os etc. These type of things are all around us and if you're using PC for more than decade then you hardly pay attention to this type of teenager stuff.

As for the point of guy sitting behind behind computers screen or watching tv learning about all these things -you're missing one point here that we're animals with both introvert and extrovert behavior and learn things by observing and to large extent by copying from our own species.Large number of introverts who are FAIL in social life lurks on the web. There are extroverts who FAIL in tech stuff get kicks. There is always conflict between social and less social folks and they judge each other based on their REAL/Virtual life stuff. Web is the medium where often street smarts and book worms have conflicting debates. There are both good and bad examples of people following habits from each other. If you're saying X type of crowd which learns stuff by watching computers/tvs and makes foolish judgment then you're on another side of fence which judges folks based on some other criteria (offline social life success+ other stuff)which may also appear foolish. You're just passing your judgment just like these folks who claim IE users are dumb only in manner in which the tribe around you thinks right.

Not getting into religious rant but when someone puts word in my mouth for religious argument, by calling me un-intelligent we have similar argument on our sides to test their depth of intelligence. Same is the case of political arguments or side picking arguments.

Intelligence sometimes is about standing up to correct something(or someone) and sometimes it is about letting things go no matter how worst things are. There is no easy way to define intelligence. We usually put people into thought boxes or tribes and then judge them based on limits of the box or tribe and when two different thought boxes or tribes come into conflict we have such odd copy-writing titles with some random test results that catch attention.

Back to coffee 

[Renegade]

Intelliwhat?

Ummm...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crz2ohAOWYk

PUDDING~!

[eleman]

Curt, I honestly mean no offense, but for purposes of full disclosure I should ask:

You use IE, don't you?

[Curt]

-no, I am too dumb for IE; I can't figure out how make it work the way I want a browser to work, so I use Firefox.

[Curt]

I honestly expected that my post would be ignored, so I want to express my gratitude to the answers. An extra Thank You to J-Mac for the spot-on story about Asimov's mechanic. Also, I agree with kyrathaba about wisdom. Unfortunately the normal Anglo explanation on wisdom is inaccurate, because they forget to differ between knowing what is right,  and also doing what is right. I explain wisdom as both knowing and doing what is right. Just knowing it  without doing it, is not wisdom. The reverse situation is probably called virtue.

On a related side-note about intelligence it can be said that, real intelligence begins with realizing how not-intelligent one is.

Anyway, Thank You for the answers.

[Renegade]

-no, I am too dumb for IE; I can't figure out how make it work the way I want a browser to work, so I use Firefox.

Hahahaha~!

[Eóin]

There are lots of words; wisdom, intelligent, smart, knowledge, etc all of which mean slightly different, sometimes overlapping, things. And possessing only one in isolation isn't going to get you very far in life. Also there are many types of intelligence, many fields of knowledge.

But honestly, simply dismissing the sort of academic intelligence that an IQ test measures as "one of the minor and more unimportant intelligences in Real Life!" is a bit arrogant.

[Curt]

-okay, I am a bit arrogant, then ;-)

But of course I should have said "less important (compared to social intelligence)", rather than just "more unimportant".
With this said, I must clarify that the combination of a high academic intelligence  and a high social intelligence  is admirable.

[tomos]

But honestly, simply dismissing the sort of academic intelligence that an IQ test measures as "one of the minor and more unimportant intelligences in Real Life!" is a bit arrogant.

I dont know if I'd go that far (naming this type of intelligence as "one of the minor and more unimportant intelligences in Real Life!") but I would agree with Curt that it is overrated, to the extent that all other aspects of our selves are commonly considered unimportant, or even "primitive", with all the negative implications that the modern use of that word conveys.

oops, Curt got there ahead of me

edit/ changed the tone a bit

OG post

I dont know if I'd go that far (naming this type of intelligence as "one of the minor and more unimportant intelligences in Real Life!") but I would certainly agree with Curt that it is very overrated, to the extent that other aspects of our intelligence and person are commonly considered unimportant, or "primitive" - with all the implications that the modern use of that word conveys....

[Stoic Joker]

Just look at the economy. The folks that got us to where we are today all graduated with the highest of academic honors - and rather less obviously - Apparently not an ounce of common sense among'em

5 Apples - 100 Apples = A Profit How???

[Renegade]

5 Apples - 100 Apples = A Profit How???

Reminds me of my IQ test for people:

If you have 2i apples, how many apples do you have?

Answer

None. They're imaginary.

[mwb1100]

The folks that got us to where we are today all graduated with the highest of academic honors - and rather less obviously - Apparently not an ounce of common sense among'em

Sorry to drift the thread, but that statement makes an implicit assumption that those folks have the same goals as 'the rest of us'.  The guy who makes a huge mess for everyone else, but ends up with millions (or billions) in his bank account, might not care so much about the mess.

[Eóin]

Just look at the economy. The folks that got us to where we are today all graduated with the highest of academic honors

But did they though? I always thought it was more likely that they were a combination of pretty stupid and very evil.

[Renegade]

Just look at the economy. The folks that got us to where we are today all graduated with the highest of academic honors

But did they though? I always thought it was more likely that they were a combination of pretty stupid and very evil.

Huh? Stupid? What? It takes some serious brains to f**k stuff up that badly. Do you really think that some dumb Joe off the street could muck things up so badly? Hell no! That takes major talent!

On the other hand, you got the evil part right.



(Sorry... I just couldn't resist that opportunity for some nutty political commentary! )

[Stoic Joker]

The folks that got us to where we are today all graduated with the highest of academic honors - and rather less obviously - Apparently not an ounce of common sense among'em

Sorry to drift the thread, but that statement makes an implicit assumption that those folks have the same goals as 'the rest of us'.  The guy who makes a huge mess for everyone else, but ends up with millions (or billions) in his bank account, might not care so much about the mess.

Exactly. The knowledge was power wielded un-wisely.

Which ultimately isn't very intelligent...despite the GPA.

[Eóin]

Huh? Stupid? What? It takes some serious brains to f**k stuff up that badly. Do you really think that some dumb Joe off the street could muck things up so badly? Hell no! That takes major talent!

Honestly? I just don't know, personally I find it very hard to believe these where academically intelligent i.e. the sort of intelligence this thread is largely dissing. However I do imagine they were very socially and emotionally intelligent, the type of intelligence this thread is praising.

But then my musings on it are no more proof than anyone elses, what we need here are more pretty graphs of IQ results, and maybe some EQ results too

[Tuxman]

Intelligence, while most internet users are declared dumb and patronized?
(An example: Google trying to "know" what the user wants instead of just returning search results, all Google users have different search results for the same query, and so on.)

[Eóin]

Seems the original story was faked: BBC - Internet Explorer story was bogus.