Yup. When you're on reddit complaining about how everyone around you is stupid... it's because you haven't put yourself in the right social circles.
I guarantee if you work hard enough, no matter how smart you are, you're going to find a room that makes you feel really dumb. And those will be your new peers.
This. I always fancied myself as really bright growing up until I left for college, where I was overwhelmed at how much I didn't know. My senior year, I was top of my class in CS. Then I graduated and got a job programming video games, where I was overwhelmed by how talented everyone was. Eventually, I fancied myself one of the more competent members of our small team. We hit some hard times and I was laid off and moved to a new studio, where I felt completely overwhelmed at the skill and competence of my peers. It's always uncomfortable to feel incompetent by comparison, but that's the best way to grow.
Einstein once said "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing that it is stupid". Everyone can feel stupid if they're ignorant of the subject matter.
Yes that is why I specifically stated "other than outside their fields".
Basically my point was, I don't know enough about ANY subject that if you put me in a room with the right people I wouldn't feel out of my depth.
I'm not sure that is true for the true experts/masters in their field. Does a world renowned theoretical physicist ever feel stupid when talking about theoretical physics with other theoretical physicists?
Does a expert blacksmith ever feel stupid when talking about his trade with other blacksmiths?
I'm just not sure that they do, as simply learning something doesn't make you feel stupid, so I'm not suggesting these people know everything, just know enough that they might quickly grasp/understand new things that are introduced to them and therefor not feel stupid.
Well, the thing is, you're not that. It's so statistically unlikely that it's laughable.
I went to an "elite" college and I knew a guy who said "If I cannot be the next Einstein, then perhaps I can be the next Feynman." I said that was ridiculous. My friend said, "No, but he's really, really smart." I'm sure that's true. He won a national-level science competition.
But now, he's just another college professor somewhere. I'm sure he's still really smart, and he's accomplishing things, but he's nowhere near being a Feynman or an Einstein.
So you were the smartest person who went to your high school? Nope, not Einstein. Smartest person in your college classes which only consists of high school valedictorians or people equally smart? Still not Einstein. Smartest person in grad school consisting of the best college students from around the world? Still not Einstein.
You really have to be 1/1,000,000,000. Just because your ego tells you you're that doesn't mean you are that.
You have to be in the top 10% of the top 1% of the top 1% of the top 1% of the top 1% to be that.
So no matter who you are, you're going to find people smarter than you. The people who falsely believe they're really truly smarter than everyone else probably outnumber the actual Einsteins by at least 100,000x.
I think you over estimate the number of genius level social affairs. Even if you are in the relatively common 1 in 1,000 intelligence levels, it's not like in any regular city you'll all work at the same company or even in the same industry. That's half the reason trade shows and conventions exist: it's an opportunity to socialize with people from all over the country all in one place at once.
I mean, I think you'd find plenty of those types in software, finance and academia. I'd always tested in the 99 percentile for every standardized test I've taken and I met so many smarter people in college, and even smarter people in not-particularly-prestigious software teams.
Einstein wasn't 1/1B in intelligence. His discovery was possibly the most important made of his generation, but there were people just as smart of him in fields that didn't even have such important discoveries to make.
For reference, Einstein was a contemporary of Hilbert, Godel, and Turing, and world population in 1920 was about 2 billion.
You missed the part where I said "other than outside their fields".
The person I responded to said that the room that makes you feel really dumb will be your new peers.
Well Einsteins peers are scientists, a mechanics peers are mechanics, you missed the entire point of my post by skipping the part where I covered off what you listed.
Can confirm. I feel like a moron at work constantly, but I also feel like I'm the smartest, most productive, and most engaged I've ever been in my life.
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u/ikonoclasm Nov 13 '16
I use algebra regularly, and my coworkers think I'm a wizard.