You know those people everyone assumes are smart? They’re politicians or big-wig businessmen or even scientists who are always giving their opinions on the news?
Sometimes it turns out they’re not that smart at all – but how can you tell?
One way is to listen to Reddit, who obviously knows everything, and to these 16 people who are willing to tell it like it is.
16. No one can be good at everything.
Programmers. I am a programmer and i spend 10 hours on a misspelled word.
I saw other programmers spending a long time fixing a misspelled word too
15. Real doctors don’t have time for tv.
Any television doctor, but a special shout out to Dr. Oz – who peddles homeopathic bulls*%t weight loss medicine that is legit dangerous for people.
14. Generalists vs. Specialists.
Literally everybody is stupid in some way, because we can’t simultaneously be generalists and experts.
We can either divide our time equally into all life’s various subjects and be a generalist, or we can focus a lot of our time on a small amount of things and become experts.
The generalists will never quite be as good at the specialists when it comes to their specialty, while the specialist is often below average in all of the areas they ignored in order to develop their specialty in the first place.
13. Freud on steroids.
Dr Phil, too. I hate crack psychologists
I remember he had a particularly messed up guest. She was introducing herself and her whole litany of challenges; at the end, she meekly said, “I might be the hardest client you’ve had,” with a nervous chuckle. She was clearly trying to lighten the mood.
Dr Phil proceeded to lay into her. Yelled at her like, “I AM AN EXPERIENCED PSYCHOLOGIST I’VE DEALT WITH WORSE THAN YOU! GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE!!!!”
And then he just lays into each of her problems with zero empathy. Like Freud on steroids.
I’m like, “My guy . . . enough. If this isn’t evidence you’re a quack, I don’t know what is.”
I’m pretty messed up myself at times due to childhood abuse and when I saw a new therapist, I kind of said the same thing. It’s just a nervous response to being put open on the table like that.
Dr Phil is as a$$hole.
12. We’re all faking it.
Parents – you grow up thinking they have it all figured out and know everything. Then you become one and you realize that it’s all a facade you put on for your kids so they feel safe and secure.
And there is something wholesome about that.
11. A way to show off.
People who can solve Rubik’s cubes.
We’re not smart, we just want people to think we are.
People think I’m so smart when I just memorized a process off of a YouTube video. It remains surprisingly hard to convince them otherwise though, since said process is somewhat complicated.
10. That’s the way he likes it.
Kanye West is neither as smart or as dumb as people think.
9. That darling boy.
The neighbor’s child my mother keeps comparing me to.
David? Alison’s son? Oh he is a darling boy, you know he’s captain of the Football team and tutors blind children for college credit right? Always helps his Mom with groceries.
You know you are just as smart as him, if you applied yourself and stopped playing those Halo of Duty games, you could do that.
8. Confidence goes a long way.
Me. I can’t believe the schools, career positions, and opportunities I’ve gotten just because i am very confident, well spoken, and can crush an interview.
Just because i have a large vocabulary and use “big” words, people constantly waayyy over estimate my actual intelligence. I could be the literal poster child for “fake it til ya make it”
7. Teenagers, basically.
When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. -Mark Twain
6. Are we sure he’s smart at all?
Elon musk definitely.
5. Pants, got it.
People who upload small Video Fragments of themselves on Youtube with a extremely simple message ala “You need to be wearing pants to a Job interview” with heroic movie music in the background.
All under the title “life changing, get the job of your Dreams”.
4. It’s all about the parents.
‘Gifted or Smart kids’ I used to be one of these and as things get more challenging, there’s just more pressure from peers and parents.
I remember we did one of those “what do you want to be when you grow up?” kind of projects in like 3rd or 4th grade. I said a chemist. Of course, every kid picks whatever lofty goal sounds cool in their head, and I obviously had no idea what really goes into that or what they actually do in the day-to-day, but my dad latched on to that idea for years.
But, as it turns out, I hate school. It would have been a waste of money for me to go to college where I was at in my teens and 20s. No way I could have handled the pressure. Yet so many people take it as this big insult that I prefer to live a more average, lower-stress lifestyle than some advanced technical job just because I have a good memory and decent reasoning skills.
Being “smart” doesn’t really mean anything on its own in life. Do what makes you happy. Live free. Be an idiot if you want. All that matters in the end is that you’re satisfied.
3. Not-so-sage advice.
Super moms on Facebook.
It’s so funny that my mom is the “advice sage” amongst her friends, and she’ll spend hours on the phone with someone detailing how they can get their lives together and succeed.
Meanwhile, her life is falling apart and she’s more concerned about advising other people’s lives than fixing her own.
I’ve since moved out, and this behavior has only gotten worse.
2. Brilliant but ditzy.
I had an absolutely brilliant roommate in college who was there on a full scholarship and always aced his classes.
However, he was a complete ditz when it came to “real life.”
You’d walk out and find a half-made sandwich with all the condiment containers and lunch meat packages around it. The kid was just long gone because something popped into his mind and he completely forgot about his lunch. Or something similar.
Brilliant. But ditzy.
1. They’re just good at one thing.
Stock Traders or other Investors.
Exactly. Sal the Stockbroker from the Howard Stern Show.
I can’t believe he managed people’s money at one time.
I don’t know about you, but none of these really surprised me as much as maybe they should have.
Who else belongs on this list? Let us know in the comments!
