John, are you trying to be as socially inept and lacking in proper etiquette as you seem, or is it just your handicapped ability to learn peeking through? (This is an extremely sarcastic, non-confrontational, and offensive question as reinforced by the rhetoric. I could certainly phrase it in a much less abrasive manner if I truly had any interest whatsoever in the answer.) John, I've noticed that many people on the boards have been taking issue with the way you confront them. Do you feel it would be fair to say that you need to work a little on your social grace? (This question achieves a much different goal by remaining confrontational in a passive or even friendly manner.) As I have just displayed, it is possible to make clear (or disguise) your true intentions through the use of words alone, regardless of inflection. It can be difficult at times for anyone to actually sit back and think, "How am I portraying myself (or, when running games or writing stories, "this character") by saying this in this way, and how could I best get across the points I would like to get across while expressing myself (or the character) in the way I would like (them) to be perceived?"
Education means nothing to how intelligent you are. Take the four of you, drop all of you onto a tropical island. Who lives the longest? That's intellect. Their educations wouldn't do them a lick of good there.
Actually, I know a lot of people of ordinary intelligence who would survive quite well in that situation. I was reminded of it yesterday, because I saw a recruiter campaign and wondered, why did I ever do that? And I realized that I was a Boy Scout and a Scout leader for all those years in part because it was the only place I could learn things like what to eat in the wilderness, what things are necessary for survival and how do you get them, and how do you go about making yourself reasonably comfortable absent the amenities of civilization.
That's all education. In fact, don't step in the droppings is also education, whether it comes from your mother telling you repeatedly or from the experience of having done it.
Sure, you can have a great deal of education that doesn't cover how to survive stranded in the wilderness, and as between equally educated individuals intelligence is going to make a big difference in survival in that case. But as between a genius video gamer who rarely leaves his mother's basement and a Ph.D. in genetic engineering of ordinary intelligence, the geneticist probably has the advantage up in figuring out what he can eat in the wild. You need data from which to reason, no matter how good your reasoning abilities are.
That said, if we all had hit the dessert island together, I would have been the best choice for leader.
From what I hear, Brock, Adam, and I would be in front at the dessert island--isn't that the one at the far end of the buffet?
(For what it's worth, I had a lot of trouble distinguishing desert from dessert, even after I knew that the latter was from the French.)
I'm of the belief that I can ask you anything I want. However, you are under no obligation to answer. If you don't like the question, don't answer. Simple as that.
So, have the police ever questioned you about the missing children in your area? Where do you get the money to support your drug habit? Have you considered being a guest on Hoarders?
I mean, some questions are like, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" You can't ask them without implying something negative about the person you're asking.
Have you ever been diagnosed with a learning disability? I'm just asking because you seem like the kind of person who might have been thought to have a learning disability. I don't mean to imply that you're stupid, only that I can see where people might get that impression about you. Hey, it's all right--people thought I was pretty stupid, too, when I was young, and my teachers all suspected I had a learning disability. They thought that about Albert Einstein, so really, you can be extremely smart and still look like you're stupid. And having a learning disability doesn't mean you're stupid, only that people think you are.
You really can't ask that without creating that entire set of Samsonite.* You could, possibly, ask such intensely personal questions of people who are your close friends. I would ask David, because David is one of the few people in my life with whom I would share my closest thoughts and feelings. As to people on this board, well, I might ask John Mastick; I don't think I'd ask John Walker. He's lived in my home, eaten and gamed at my table, worked closely with me in the company, been nearly a father to my children and a support for my wife, and embraced me affectionately (but only when he was really drunk), but I do not know that our relationship is close enough to ask such questions.
And let's face it, John Cross: your relationship with Adam does not fall into the category of your nearest and dearest friends.
Just be grateful he did not take offense.
--M. J. Young
*For those not culturally American, Samsonite makes luggage, and it is an expression that certain things come with "baggage" or "luggage", meaning that there are less obvious aspects attached to them that you would rather avoid.
Ah, and your ability to explain things in an especially concise way shines again, MJ.
I tend to think the vast majority of what we call Intelligence is skills of some kind or another. So when the Ladyfaire in a college class smokes everyone else in a class where the prof is not doing a good job teaching, and the prof holds her up as proof that he is a good teacher...its not neccessarily intelligence. Its that she had enough perception to realize after test one...not learning anything valuable from this guy, and enough gumption and imagination to go with Plan B....go out to the library and pick up a bunch of books on the topic and read them herself.
Basically, she had superior Research skills.
So when I say 'I'd have been a good leader on the DESERT island', I'm saying I have the skills to manage a small team, and the mental outlook needed, and the understanding of how to focus on what's truly important instead of going up rabbit trails, and the lack of ego to be willing to take another's good idea.
I'd be fearful that some of them would engage in passive-aggressive behavior, or wimp out, or do the 'I'm the star...watch me rescue everyone' which are all suboptimal strategies to 'let's get water, food, and shelter in that order. Ideas please, and quickly...' which is my approach.
Another example of this IQ/Data thing. At one time, I could occasionally 'hear' the liberal newscasters in J's voice because since he had dyslexia and a heavy school schedule, he did not have ability to access a wide array of data. So, if the only data you get is fifteen minutes of CNN a day, well, you're going to see the world differently from someone who reads blogs, watches Fox, buys political idea books, and reads political SF, and argues about such at the drop of a hat.
Have you considered being a guest on Hoarders?
True hoarding is a mental illness. It's an Obsessive Compulsive variant if I'm not mistaken. My hoarding is an aspect of my life, I'm thankful to say, NOT controlled by mental illness. It's just practical. People make fun of me for it. That's fine. When they're sitting at home with no money and nothing to feed their kids, we will see who is laughing then.
I tend to think the vast majority of what we call Intelligence is skills of some kind or another.
The line where attributes end and skills begin is very hard to identify, and to some degree in-game attribute checks are covering a lot of difficult-to-identify skills. We can easily distinguish the trained debater from unimpressive dullard, but it is much more difficult to know what part of the debater's ability is from his training and how much was inherent in his character? Then when we turn to the person who seems highly persuasive who never had any training in the area, how much of it is actually learned behavior from experience versus innate character attribute? There really is no way to know; and to some degree, the training and experience have impacted and improved the innate character attribute, making it even more difficult to know what is what.
Everyone thinks his own preschool child is brilliant, but it is established that some preschool children are considerably more intelligent than others. It is very difficult to know to what degree this is genetic and to what degree it is environmental, because most children of highly intelligent parents are raised among those highly intelligent parents and thus exposed to intelligence from a very young age; yet some of it is innate.
My wife graduated from nursing school with a 4.0 average. Part of that is because she transferred in nearly all her non-nursing credits and some of her toughest science courses, and so the grades she got in those at other institutions before she started nursing did not count. Part of it was because despite having one child at home and giving birth to another during her obstetrics rotation (no, they did not give her extra credit for that) she did not have a lot of other obligations to take her away from her studies--no job, for example. But part of it was her reading comprehension and retention rate. She often marveled that so many of her classmates read the same textbooks she did but did not seem to remember what was in them.
I don't know if that's one of my strengths or not. I tend to be a listening learner--to the point that in most of my classes I stopped listening early, because the teacher was repeating him (or more usually her) self for the benefit of those who hadn't yet grasped what was being said. I remember taking the last day before a final exam in college to read as much as I could of a course textbook I'd never previously opened, and doing well enough on the exam for it. I also remember writing law school exam essays in which I drew on a vast array of information in other fields gained from my undergraduate studies and outside readings. I don't know how much of all that I've forgotten, but in some ways it's remarkable how much I remember.
If you want to argue that memory is a skill and reasoning is a skill and comprehension is a skill, I can't say that intellect is more than those plus a few other things that might be termed "skills". If you want to argue that you can be taught to do all these better, and that there are techniques which enhance them all, that's patently true. Yet behind it all there are people--perhaps the lovely Lady Ashley among them--for whom these things come more easily than for others. In short, some people really are more intelligent than others. Some of those more intelligent people then learn skills which enhance their intelligence, and some people who are not as intelligent also learn those kinds of skills and so perform better at tasks requiring intelligence than others whose native intelligence might be higher (someone who actually has studied logic will see through faulty arguments more quickly than someone who is more intelligent but never given the questions of logical argument any serious consideration).
I apologize if I sound defensive here, but I am to some degree. My intelligence is about all I've got, and I've proved to my own satisfaction that it's not worth as much as people imagine (it is not the smartest people who become rich, generally), but it is my best attribute so I will defend it.
--M. J. Young
I apologize if I sound defensive here, but I am to some degree. My intelligence is about all I've got, and I've proved to my own satisfaction that it's not worth as much as people imagine (it is not the smartest people who become rich, generally), but it is my best attribute so I will defend it.
I'm reminded of Forrest Gump. How many millions of words have you written? Somebody writes "$#!+ Happens" on a bumper sticker, and becomes a millionaire.
Two
Have you ever been diagnosed with a learning disability? I'm just asking because you seem like the kind of person who might have been thought to have a learning disability. I don't mean to imply that you're stupid, only that I can see where people might get that impression about you.
MJ, regarding this. I've been told that it is OK for a stand-up comedian to make fun of a certain group, if he is a member of that group. (IE the blond comedian can make blond jokes, the fat comedian can make fat jokes and the psychotic comedian can pick on crazy people to his heart's content.) Under that line of thinking, myself saying that I was in the LD classes at school instantly nullifies any offense which could be meant or implied. Besides, "Learning Disabled" doesn't mean stupid. It means you have a problem learning. Just like "Ignorant" doesn't mean stupid. It means you don't know something. You are ignorant of the contents of my desk drawer. Doesn't mean you're stupid. People always take words out of context. I'm learning disabled. My problem learning was that I couldn't think clearly half the time.
(Doing Therapy)
You did not sound defensive until the last line, MJ. As to 'that's all you have', please permit me to raise an elegant and skeptical Spockian eyebrow in a polite but extremely skeptical way. Nor do I view what I said (except about J.'s IQ) as any sort of slur on the abilities of someone with high IQ.
Basically you and I agree that IQ is heavily intertwined with all sorts of skills. However, it would be more the sort of thing for you to figure out than me as to how that precisely fits. I've got a few clues as to how it might go that you might not, but the Skill/or the IQ for Rigorous Definitions is something I'm not that good at. That could be a useful thing for you to theorize on.
My approach is more intuitive which has some advantages as I can do some things you can't, and some great disadvantages as well compared to the more intelligence related approach I think you take to a wide array of problems. As one example, I'm not sure I coujld have written the MV rulebook even if I wanted to.
And just to be clear, I have very great respect for your intellectual powers. I thought that was obvious, but perhaps not.
Second post....
I do like ranking people in my head, and perhaps that is rude.
Intelligence is such a difficult question. Try to avoid falling into the trap of assuming your opponents are stupid or evil. OTOH, sometimes your opponents are stupid and evil.
Move on....am I more intelligent than those at my game table because I think I'd be a good desert island leader? Am I kidding myself? Perhaps, but I don't think so.
Is having the right accent needful, or the right verbal ability to having a high IQ? J. is Southern to the point that he has ancestors in the area back to the mid 1700's, and all Northeasterners on blogs seem to agree that a Southern accent is proof positive of imbecility. One other very bright guy I knew was as redneck as they come. Hunting, fishing, and drinking. I tend to regard this 'right accent' idea as proof of intellectual dishonesty, or lack of brains so when someone disses Sarah Palin for her chillbilly ways....well, I know an Alpha Wolf when I see one, and I know a Beta or more properly, a Delta wolf when I see one too.
MJ, I'd say you're brighter than my little bro with his two doctorates, my father with his Math degree and his CS Masters, and my Mom with no degree who's smarter than them both, and since I'm the dumbest one in my family, me too. So cheer up, my friend.
For what it's worth, while I don't rank people's intelligence in my mind, the apparent intelligence was one of the major contributing factors of why I came to the forum. Obviously another factor was the game itself, but I was very impressed at the convention.
Indeed.
I tend to be a listening learner--to the point that in most of my classes I stopped listening early, because the teacher was repeating him (or more usually her) self for the benefit of those who hadn't yet grasped what was being said. I remember taking the last day before a final exam in college to read as much as I could of a course textbook I'd never previously opened, and doing well enough on the exam for it.
You remind me of my mother, and to a lesser extent, myself with this comment. This is something my mom did for her Humanities class (I believe it was a US History class? I'd have to ask again). She also did something similar in her English class that involved never opening the textbook at any point-she plain didn't need it (I hope she wasn't axaggerating or misremembering-after all, I'm telling my friends!). Then again, she is a natural born writer and artist. I haven't been to college as of this point, but I have done similar things throughout my schooling until this point.
I've been told that it is OK for a stand-up comedian to make fun of a certain group, if he is a member of that group.
Some very general guidelines as to what it needs to be:
1)Humorous.
2)People understand that it was supposed to be humorous.
3)The people are willing to set aside any offense for the sake of the humor.
You didn't fulfill 3, and I think you didn't really fulfill 1 either. Therefore, it was just not OK, and therefore rude.
and we strayed an entire page off topic as well. The situation has been established and analyzed. Let us not keep at it like a broken record.
Good point, but I usually only quit once I begin to repeat myself. Once all aspects of my message are across, all it can do is degenerate into a pointless shouting match, and I could do that in private-I have John's email. I don't give up on people just because I haven't succeeded yet; I still harbor hope that he will understand. But then, I am extremely stubborn, if usually polite.
I've been told that it is OK for a stand-up comedian to make fun of a certain group, if he is a member of that group.
You've been told wrong. That is, merely being a member of the group is not a sufficient base to excuse rudeness to the group in the name of humor.
I remember Martin Mull taking the stage immediately after Paul Rodriguez, and very humorously bemoaning the fact that as a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant he himself lacked a minority group he could regale with impunity. After all, he observed, were he to say the things about Mexicans that Rodriguez says, he would be lynched. Rodriguez had not yet left the stage, and Robin Williams drew him back into the spotlight jokingly telling the audience where he lived.
Sure, Rodriguez gets away with insulting his own ethnic group, but he gets away with it partly because he really is very funny and partly because his targets are non-specific. That is, if he were to single out one Hispanic member of the audience and direct ethnic slurs at him, he would cease to be funny and he would lose that cloak of indirectness. When Rodriguez jokes about Mexicans, the Mexicans in the audience are laughing because they can say, "I know people like that; that is so true." The same is so when your previously mentioned black comedian jokes about blacks, or when so many of the Jewish comedians joke about Jews: they are finding stereotypes within their own communities, and as long as they are saying, "Yeah, there are people like that among us" they're funny. When they single out individuals, they cross the line, and if they do that they'd better be very funny and make it obvious that they really don't know this person and are using him for humor. Comedians who pick on members of their audience usually fail, because they aren't all that funny.
Under that line of thinking, myself saying that I was in the LD classes at school instantly nullifies any offense which could be meant or implied.
That would only apply were you saying funny things about learning disabled people generally. It ceases to apply when you focus on an individual and cease to be funny.
Besides, "Learning Disabled" doesn't mean stupid.
True; but "stupid" doesn't mean "stupid" anymore, either. My kids have an insult about being on the short bus. It's very subtle, that, because it conveys the notion that you have some sort of non-specific disability without actually saying so. I have a nephew who is severely autistic, and one of our former houseguests for a time left us in care of his mildly autistic son, and I certainly do understand some of the problems of autism. I don't particularly mind speculating seriously in my own mind and among those with whom I am close as to whether I might be very mildly autistic (or indeed, whether I might be severely autistic and everyone is too polite to mention it). I think, though, that it would be highly offensive for someone who was not part of that inner circle to ask whether I was, and I think it would be offensive for me to ask someone else if he was, even if I were certain that I was autistic, or if I had an autistic child of my own. I mean, even asking someone you don't know well, "Does autism run in your family?" could be taken very badly absent a context of discussing personal medical problems.
And that, really, is the bottom line: you raised a question of personal medical history in a context in which no one was sharing their personal medical history. I think had you asked me, I would have had a gut reaction that you were displaying poor social skills and overstepping the bounds of our public interaction, at least, but I'd have excused you for it and given you an answer. I think to some degree you have a reasonable claim to be reasonably close to me, and asking questions of your friends is one of the best ways to get to know them. One hopes that the questions will be appropriate--don't start asking me about my sex life, because I will shut you down so fast you'll probably get your fingers slammed in the door. But what constitutes an "appropriate question" is tied to the specifics of the relationship you have with the person you're asking, and again, your relationship with Adam lies somewhere between strained and non-existent.
--M. J. Young
Yeah, I don't have very good social skills. I don't talk to very many people. I'm at home alone most of the time. Might spend 20 minutes in a week talking to someone else, either in person or on the phone. I like it that way. When I say that 500 years with a pre-programmed hologram would be Utopia, I mean exactly that. Also, please bear in mind that (Doing Therapy) means I am, at the time of that writing, having a psychotic episode. In other words, not thinking very clearly. An explanation, not an excuse.
(Doing Therapy)
I have a very vivid imagination, so I can imagine a divergent John who is a high society socialite who sells his services teaching etiquette classes.
Well, ya know what? I don't think having a learning disability is a terribly personal thing. That's just me though. At my junior high school, the LD classes were the last two in the hallway. In other words, everyone in the school knew you were in those classes. Kind of hard to keep secret, ya know?
(Doing Therapy)
What DO you find personal?
Not very much.
(Doing Therapy)
That's kind of interesting. Technically speaking, my asking you what you do find personal was a personal question. Any question you might ask someone about their self is a personal question, because it is an attempt to discover more about a person. Most people prefer to exercise a greater degree of privacy over their personal lives. In a sense, Multiverser is the ultimate game of personal questions, since I can put you in a situation with the goal initially being what would you do if; this eventually crosses over to getting so far away from what you would do into being what would your character do (what you would do if you had already done x, y, z, l, m, n, o, p, and q and then found yourself in this situation), but is a very personal sort of game. That doesn't give you a permit to ask people uncomfortable questions, and if you can't tell the difference between an uncomfortable personal question and a safe one no easy task for anyone (indeed, the majority of sexual harrassment claims in the workplace occur because one person has a different sense of boundaries than the other), then just save your questions for the players at your "table."
It takes a great deal to actually offend me. Sometimes I forget not everyone is like that.
(Doing Therapy)