Poll: Would you rather be lucky or smart?

[Firoth]

I really wanted to pick smart, but, with a total absence of luck, no matter how smart you are, things just won't go your way. Never take a plane? Get hit by a drunk driver or your car breaks down constantly. Amazing resume? It gets lost in the pile or the email never makes it to them. Take care of your body? Genetic illness takes you out.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

I'm gonna go with lucky. You can't capitalize on being smart unless you're also lucky enough to have an opportunity. However, being lucky's useful wther you're smart or not.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'm gonna go with lucky. You can't capitalize on being smart unless you're also lucky enough to have an opportunity. However, being lucky's useful wther you're smart or not.

Yeah that sums it up pretty darn well. Moreover, being cluey doesn't stop you from making bad life choices for which only with a heaping serve of luck can often extricate yourself from a deleterious situation. As a kid I had a decent IQ of 118 before a motorcycle accident left me with a TBI that I basically had to rebuild reality around myself so it stopped frustrating me.

Like repeatedly asking someone what they were actually talking about until I can look at them because I have trouble processing words without additional environmental input... treating stuff I hear and see like a jigsaw puzzle. Like being able to look at them while they're looking at specific things, or interpreting face and body language. For some reason it doesn't click like it used to if I don't, which is probably a combination of residual trauma and lesions across multiple parts of the brain.

Which makes it a nightmare to get through a phonecall when I'm having a really bad episode. So I do things like prepay all my bills in advance, prepay rent in advance by 3-6 months if possible, etc. Everything I need to take indirect or unwritten communication of of the equation. Which to any casual observer is going to look stupid. But that doesn't mean you can't use it to your advantage. I became a really good with interpersonal skills given the necessity of having to look directly at people and learn to interpret facial and body language to sufficient degree of depth that many 'young, smart people' don't seem to want to, or need to, do anymore.

 

[CaitSeith]

Life will be easy for you, but you may not be able to comprehend that fact.

To myself: Don't get political, don't get political...

 

[Lufia Erim]

lucky. no one really cared if you're smart. also there seems to be a correlation between intelligence and depression

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

luck is a question of perspective, i would prefer be smart.

let say a farmer as 10 cows, one is get sick, is that unlucky?
that same cow get 4 other cows sick, is that unlucky?
now that saw cow die before getting any other sick. so is this lucky or not because of the previous possibility?

anyway, I dont think that was the point of the post to debate about that

 

[Drathnoxis]

If I were sufficiently smart could I figure out how to be lucky?

No. It's called 'dumb luck' for a reason.

I'm gonna push my luck and out-smart all of you. I pick BOTH!

Very well, you get to have some luck and some intelligence. You aren't Jimmy Neutron but you aren't Gomer Pyle either. Occasionally you'll win the free game on scratch cards and rarely you'll even win $20. You probably couldn't become the champion on Jeopardy, but you might be able to win second place on Wheel of Fortune.

 

[BaronVonVaderHam]

Smart. Because that just has far more advantages.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

If I were sufficiently smart could I figure out how to be lucky?

No. It's called 'dumb luck' for a reason.

Hmm. Well in that case how lucky are we talking about? Lucky as in 'hey I won ?100 on a scratch card!', or lucky as in 'hey, I'm the Sultan of mother-fuckin Brunei!'?

Also for that reason, how smart? Smart as in Steven Hawking smart or smart as in 'undercooked chicken probably isn't a grea idea' smart?

Basically, I feel like there are a lot of variables that you're not telling us.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Smarts, that lucky life doesn't sound enjoyable being dumb

How would you know that was the case? If you blitz a test by being lucky using your 'gut instinct' you may just lie to yourself that you must have picked up that tidbit of knowledge somewhere.

Moreover even if you knew you were dumb, how exactly would you know what you were missing out on?

Aristotle thought he was pretty bloody clever, even as it turned out he'd have realized he was wrong if he actually took a moment to count on average the number of teeth on people rather than (assumingly) just two randos he met on the street.

Ancient engineers and road builders probably thought they were pretty clever, yet early Romans didn't have 0.

You can be that guy that takes a test for dementia, pretend like it says something about your intelligence, go on Twitter and brag how you 'aced' said dementia test, and somehow still be PotUS due to a mockery of democracy where you lost the popular vote. And apparently that's not proof enough being stupid and lucky can still be enjoyable?

I mean, sure history has had its Woodrow Wilson, Ford, and Reagan (more utterly mad than stupid) ...

Lack of comprehension of things others understand would probably be notable. Which subjects I could engage in. Etc etc etc.

Ancient engineers and road builders didn't have 0 okay. Doesn't make them dumb, knowledge accumulates over time and things we take for granted weren't necessarily intuitive or clear

I enjoy understanding things. Maybe some people don't care, but I do

 

[sanquin]

So, hyper genius levels of intelligence but being extremely unlucky, or basically being Gladstone Gander in terms of luck, but being at the bottom of the barrel in terms of intelligence...

I like my intelligence, and would love to be even smarter. But if it's combined with being very unlucky I'll pick being lucky but dumb. No amount of smarts can help you if you're unlucky all the time, and life would absolutely suck for you. At least being lucky but dumb means you won't understand or notice, let alone be bothered by complicated things. And the rest that would make life suck wouldn't be a problem since you're so lucky.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Happy. Can I be a happy?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Lack of comprehension of things others understand would probably be notable. Which subjects I could engage in. Etc etc etc.

Ancient engineers and road builders didn't have 0 okay. Doesn't make them dumb, knowledge accumulates over time and things we take for granted weren't necessarily intuitive or clear

I enjoy understanding things. Maybe some people don't care, but I do

What, you understand everything you read? I don't. There's some stuff I can understand of sufficient complexity. Then there is somethings I just don't get. Maybe if I read enough of it, sure ... but who has time to actually understand a single thing? Like I could strip my motorcycle and put it back together, but I'm not going to study how the parts were machined, or even how all of it actually works beyond the fact that I know it will if I do all the right things and follow the technical service manual.

I can tell you how parts do work, what they do, but that's not the same as understanding. That's a combination of experience, technical manuals, and talking with people. But I'm pretty sure a mechanical engineer and metallurgist has a one up on me in terms of totally understanding each part.

As much as I love motorbikes, there is a (arbitrary) line between my love of motorbikes and my love of understanding everything about a motorbike.

Even when it comes to operations ... I can tell you how to do countersteering. I can show you how you countersteer. I can even explain the basics of it in terms of physics. But sure as shit a physicist is going to have a one up on me in that as well. They could probably represent it with enough information as a purely mathematical equation... which I'm fairly certain I won't understand.

 

[Cold Shiny]

Wow its almost exactly 50-50, interesting.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Ancient engineers and road builders didn't have 0 okay. Doesn't make them dumb, knowledge accumulates over time and things we take for granted weren't necessarily intuitive or clear

Yeah, James Burke's series Connections is a pretty interesting look at how all our current knowledge and technology is simply the result of everything that came before.

If I were sufficiently smart could I figure out how to be lucky?

No. It's called 'dumb luck' for a reason.

Hmm. Well in that case how lucky are we talking about? Lucky as in 'hey I won ?100 on a scratch card!', or lucky as in 'hey, I'm the Sultan of mother-fuckin Brunei!'?

Also for that reason, how smart? Smart as in Steven Hawking smart or smart as in 'undercooked chicken probably isn't a grea idea' smart?

Basically, I feel like there are a lot of variables that you're not telling us.

Pretty darn lucky. As in 'you'd have a good chance of winning the lottery' lucky. And smart as in impossibly smart. Sherlock Holmes is probably smarter than Steven Hawking.

Happy. Can I be a happy?

Sorry, no. That's not one of the options available at this time.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Pretty darn lucky. As in 'you'd have a good chance of winning the lottery' lucky. And smart as in impossibly smart. Sherlock Holmes is probably smarter than Steven Hawking.

Could you be lucky in that you become a trader and retire at 30 type of lucky? The type of lucky where you meet the best friends you could hypothetically have?

Happy. Can I be a happy?

Sorry, no. That's not one of the options available at this time.

Hence the above, is why I'm asking. Because I feel being lucky should be inseparable from happiness. Nobody really looks at that wealthy, young couple that seem perfect for eachother and thinks to themselves; "Sure, they may be happy ... but are they lucky?"

I think it's safe to say the luck was already part of their happiness.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Sorry, no. That's not one of the options available at this time.

Hence the above, is why I'm asking. Because I feel being lucky should be inseparable from happiness. Nobody really looks at that wealthy, young couple that seem perfect for eachother and thinks to themselves; "Sure, they may be happy ... but are they lucky?"

I think it's safe to say the luck was already part of their happiness.

As suspected. I distinctly remember being mysteriously considered a 'smart' creature in the past and how it did nothing but cause misery, in turning a constant demeanor of a miserably joyless twatface. So it would seem luck can avoid these oppressive pitfalls, and one can always train oneself to grow smarter with enough free time and effort once needed. Can't quite train luck, this ain't Skyrim. Did Skyrim even have luck? Well some rpg had it, and this ain't that!

 

[Drathnoxis]

Pretty darn lucky. As in 'you'd have a good chance of winning the lottery' lucky. And smart as in impossibly smart. Sherlock Holmes is probably smarter than Steven Hawking.

Could you be lucky in that you become a trader and retire at 30 type of lucky? The type of lucky where you meet the best friends you could hypothetically have?

Happy. Can I be a happy?

Sorry, no. That's not one of the options available at this time.

Hence the above, is why I'm asking. Because I feel being lucky should be inseparable from happiness. Nobody really looks at that wealthy, young couple that seem perfect for eachother and thinks to themselves; "Sure, they may be happy ... but are they lucky?"

I think it's safe to say the luck was already part of their happiness.

I was just joking with that response. If you manage to find happiness with either the luck or the smarts that's fine, but it's not covered under the warranty.

 

[Charli]

Lucky. All the smarts in the world can't keep bad luck from bending you over and screwing you for all you're worth.

This. Sometimes life will just take giant shits on you, you may think you're smart, but you can't outsmart every meteor that comes crashing into your life.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I'd rather be smart than lucky because I'd feel like I earned everything I would get, whereas being lucky would leave me feeling terrible that I'm enjoying the charmed life knowing there are folks out there who are getting shit on daily. Plus being smart with the chance to still have misfortune means life is still interesting, but when everything always goes your way not only will that become boring, it will be hell since human minds are at the least slightly paranoid and the more good things that happen, the more a mind will think "when is the other shoe going to drop" which can lead to serious mental issues. And that wouldn't be bad luck, just inevitable self-induced paranoid hell, brought on by too much good fortune. We're not equipped to handle that since a key component to being human is dealing with bad circumstances and overcoming them.