There are many definitions of stupid, but I would not classify speed as one of them. As a dyslexic I'm very slow at reading, but I can use technology to augment that slowness.
I think he's meaning it more in the sense of "brightness" or quickness as in "mental agility". The idea is that some people are able to think and process things to a good conclusion more quickly than others on a consistent basis. It may not be so much that stupid people are slow, but rather intelligent people are fast.
I've heard it referred to as rapid cognition. I'd be very interested to see a study of the benefits of having a more rapid cognition vs. a slower.
In most cases I believe I lean more towards an average speed of cognition, however I have no doubt my brain has multiple speeds (noticeably very rapid in various circumstances). I've been attempting to figure out how to unlock these more rapid moments "manually".
As hinted at by the OP, there appears to be some significant negatives of having an always-rapid cognition. I've noticed this in a few of my friends who seem to operate consistently at that level - they tend to struggle in certain areas of their life, yet have amazing abilities to pick up and process and analyze information. What causes this?
My thoughts:
1. It's lonely in a way (you feel left out). This causes psychological problems.
2. Arrogance is easier when you appear "smarter" than others and perhaps don't question yourself as much as someone who can admit there are smarter people in the world who naturally rethink things much more.
3. The speed could be a result of more efficient brain circuitry in general. Perhaps it's more efficient because it naturally skips "filters"/paths that "slower" thinkers naturally process everything through.
So should more rapid cognition be considered a gift in as many cases as it is? Should we rethink whether there's a direct correlation between unusual rapid cognition (or speed of thought) and what we consider general intelligence? What exactly is missing in our general understanding of intelligence to allow people to slip through who have psychological/emotional issues that prevent them from making proper use of their cognition?
That's a really interesting way of thinking about it. I've recently been thinking about it as people's thinking in terms of Breadth First thinking vs Depth First thinking, though I like your thoughts a lot. From my (albeit limited, this is not a statistical sample) experience, it seems like smarter people are the ones who tend to worry more. Almost as though they can chase through situations quicker and come up with possible (bad) results that give them reason to worry. It kinda plays into that ignorance is bliss mantra, but that's just my experience.
I think rapid cognition is a gift, but the problem is that our gifted programs...or training for people who are like this isn't good enough to teach them how to handle their own brains. I think there should be more work done into helping people unlock AND manage their intellectual assets. Right now I think the situation in the US focuses more on the former and less on the latter. I feel like I'm advocating that smart kids go learn under Professor Xavier or something.
>From my (albeit limited, this is not a statistical sample) experience, it seems like smarter people are the ones who tend to worry more. Almost as though they can chase through situations quicker and come up with possible (bad) results that give them reason to worry. It kinda plays into that ignorance is bliss mantra, but that's just my experience.
My mother is a frantic worrier and pretty intelligent IMO. I have a tendency towards worrying but when my mind dwells on negative situations I try to practice considering what the good outcomes might be or indeed to go overboard and consider the most outrageously impossible worst outcome.
I read about this technique from a link here a couple of years ago I think, it helps a little. One can spirally negatively with thoughts of possible scenarios very readily and when I remember this is a useful check on that.
Freedom from unnecessary (that is, things you have no control over) worry is one of the basic tenets of Stoicism. After learning about that, it seems foolish that things like this aren't common knowledge or taught in schools. The reduction in stress from just this one single realization is huge.
Looks like smart people are the worrying type: Moutafi 2004 found the personality trait of neuroticism (worry), along with extroversion and conscientiousness, to account for about 13% of the variance in general intelligence.
Speed likely follows a normal curve, and "slow" just means the left side of the speed curve. Doesn't really make sense to say that there's no slow, there's only fast.
I'm currently learning to code for the first time, and it is a bit more of challenge than what I imagine it might be fore a non dyslexic person. It took me awhile to find a typeface that agreed with my eyes, and I think Lucida Sans Typewriter is good as it differentiates the vowels very nicely. A strong commenting system also helps. Hacker News is great though, so many smart people to learn from. I mostly try to be quite in the comments and just listen... But I don't see myself ever being an engineer, as I focus more on 'creative' work.
Using Mac OSX's built in text-to-speech function, although I would like it to read faster than its current maximum speed limit. But text-to-speech technology allows dyslexic people to have access to information that was almost previously inaccessible to them. I think every device from here on should be required to have text to speech options built in, just like a new building is required to have elevators/ramps.
