this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Anecdotally, I've met almost two dozen people with high level engineering degrees who were about as sharp as a bowling ball when it came to literally everything besides their coursework. Each one of them with whom I shared my perspective that "critical thinking skills are all that matter for measuring intelligence, not the ability to memorize data; chimpanzees can do that better than we can anyway" reacted very negatively, which I've always thought was interesting.
I don't want to imply that everyone with an advanced STEM degree is a dullard and a weiner, a drone who can only produce results if he memorizes reams of other peoples' work. It's just an overrepresentation peculiar to that kind of field, just like how the humanities have an eternal plague of arrogant dicks who got philosophy all figured out at age 14.
As someone who is good at memorization (although not as much post COVID) but has been historically poor at critical thinking, I agree. People kept telling me I was "smart" and that there was no way I could fail X or should fail X, but life experience and slow but steady analysis showed me that no, everyone (including my parents and teachers) were wrong. I was dumb as bricks, I'm just good at memorizing things.
I'm aware that my critical thinking skills aren't great. I'm also aware that I had no business going to college (and failing of course) studying what I did (computer science) and that it's actually very good and liberating to admit how fallible you are, and how bad you are at things, because it gives you the freedom and insight to know what you can do instead of what you can't.
I've lived long enough to see stupid people succeed at what "smart" people fail at, just because they're honest enough and humble enough to admit when they can't do something, and also when they're wrong. I saw that doing something right imperfectly (but effectively) is more useful than doing something wrong with perfect execution. It's the difference between going forward at a walk, and going backwards with a rocket thruster.
It's pretty ironic* that you wrote multiple clear, detailed paragraphs explaining why you think you're unintelligent, demonstrating analysis and critical thinking skills as you elucidate your point. You even followed one of the Socratic models. You also undermined your own argument. You're not stupid, you have a low opinion of yourself and I'd bet cash money you're neurodivergent and got fuck all help for it in your entire youth. Not that I'm qualified to armchair diagnose you, but I really think I can tell.
*I know this isn't what irony means