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[personal profile] cybermule
I don't mind that someone is forgetful.

I mind mildly that they cultivate it as some sort of sign of their unique and mighty genius. (*)

I mind a lot when they forget to pass on an important telephone message (**)


(*)Personally I think that it makes you a bit of a waste of space if you're so clever that you continually lose any means of communicating your brilliant ideas to the rest of the world (or at least, that's the kindest explanantion I can think of). But we don't always know what will be useful in the future, and we can afford to support extra people, so it's OK.

(**)If you constantly brag about how smart you are, yet how quixotically and amusingly forgetful, for goodness sake put some sort of compensatory mechanism in place. All you have to do is write down the message straight away, dammit! I'm mildly forgetful, so that's what I do, and I don't constantly imply that I'm a genius.

Date: 2004-02-13 08:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fyatuk.livejournal.com
Heh, then just to annoy you... Most people consider me to be a genius, although the only time I took an IQ test I was 2 points shy (and 15 shy of my brother who dropped out of high school dammit!), I continually forget anything of importance. I never forget anything frivolous though!

If its important I tend to send emails to myself to remind me, or schedule alarms on my computer, etc...

Re:

Date: 2004-02-13 08:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cybermule.livejournal.com
Most people consider me to be a genius, although the only time I took an IQ test I was 2 points shy

Yeah yeah - you and me both. Difference is, neither of us seem to think that it's big and/or clever to be forgetful, and try to compensate for the disability by setting up a system of reminders. Whereas this guy implies that he's way too clever to remember trivial things, and his idea of trivial is definitely somewhat screwy :(

Re:

Date: 2004-02-13 08:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fyatuk.livejournal.com
Heh, but my system is full of huge holes i never consider until I fall through one... (like what if I'm not near the computer I set the alarm on, etc).

The big difference about me is I accept that I am a forgetful little idiot, and am perfectly willing to accept any consequences that arise from my forgetfulness since after all, it would be my fault.

Nearly gotten me fired a few times as well...

Date: 2004-02-13 08:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] toxicpixie.livejournal.com
Bad day at the office?

*nads [livejournal.com profile] cybermule a baseball bat*

Nathan, The Toxic Pixie

Re:

Date: 2004-02-13 08:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cybermule.livejournal.com
Heheh - yes indeedy. Bloody elitist lot, some of them are. And it's always the most pointless ones, too.

*shakes head*

Re:

Date: 2004-02-13 12:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] unsane1.livejournal.com
Reminds me of an interesting article. Tried to find it but for once I couldn't coax google into doing my bidding.

Anyway, it was a scientific study about how people who are dumb generally are convinced they are smart. And people who are smart usually know their intelligence has limitations.

Re:

Date: 2004-02-13 12:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] unsane1.livejournal.com
Dear god, being unable to find that article was driving me crazy. I pride myself in my skills at always being able to re-locate something I've read long ago, using google.

I'm happy to announce, after far too much searching, that I finally found it: Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.

Date: 2004-02-13 04:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quercus.livejournal.com
Thanks - that was a really interesting read.

16th percentile thinking they're 66th percentile isn't the quirkily average thinking they're lovable Einsteins though, that's idiots just managing to drool in the right place on a few of the answer boxes. I loved the invisible lemon juice story (too much invisible ink making as a kid ?).

Re:

Date: 2004-02-14 11:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cybermule.livejournal.com
Yeah - the lemon juice story was so funny, and it's a good article all round. Statistically I guess it's inevitable that even random drooling should occasionally hit good results!

Re:

Date: 2004-02-14 11:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cybermule.livejournal.com
Yes - thanks for tracking that down. It was excellent. And yeah, to me, being smart is partly defined by knowing that you're not perfect in intellect - if you think you know it all, then you've severely hampered yourself.

Meh.

But then, so does thinking you're dumb or incapable. Reminds me of some Buddhist tenet about not comparing yourself to anyone, better, worse or equal. The exact words elude me :)

Re:

Date: 2004-02-13 01:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] apel.livejournal.com
Ah, the divas! Don't you just love them? We had a guy with a PhD coding javascript. He was bloody good at it but completely useless at pretty much everything else.

Re:

Date: 2004-02-14 12:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cybermule.livejournal.com
Ah, the divas! Don't you just love them

Yeah - we just live in two completely different realities, and I can't begin to work out how to deal with them. We have a political science graduate who's reckons he's an informal programmer. Convinced he can code VB just because he managed to record a Word macro once *rolls eyes*

Re:

Date: 2004-02-14 07:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] toxicpixie.livejournal.com
Wow, that's synchronicty - I was using the same point on elitism elsewhere that day!

Nathan, The Toxic Pixie

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