

People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write - shalmanese
http://blog.figuringshitout.com/people-are-twice-as-smart-as-they-talk-three-times-as-smart-as-they-write

======
shalmanese
Text of the article until I can get my blog back online:

I used to think that the point of editing was to eliminate all of the poor
writing from an article so only strong arguments remained. It wasn’t until I
started writing this blog that I began to appreciate how much good content
routinely gets cut from the final product. Ideas will get cut if they detract
from the focus of the piece, if there’s no logical place to put them anymore,
some are even cut because they’re too interesting and merit their own separate
post. I even cut a good line from the end of this paragraph because it wasn’t
the appropriate sentence to close a paragraph with.

Of every post I write, I estimate that I cut two good lines for every one good
line that makes it into the final piece.What this means is that if you’re
reading a piece of writing that you think is pitched at your level, the writer
had to be three times smarter than you to have written it. Similarly, I
noticed that when I was speaking, I would only say about half of the clever
stuff I wanted to say which meant anyone talking to me was probably twice as
smart as I think they are.

This is, perhaps, why the internet is so full of assholes who think they’re
the smartest person in the room. If you have a look at the comment section of
almost any piece of content, at least half the comments tend to be some snide
implication that the commenter is smarter than the author. Next time you read
something, mentally assume that the author is three times as smart as they
appear and think of how you would respond then. All I can say is ever since I
started doing that, I’ve not only been far calmer, I’ve learned much more too.

~~~
dkarl
What made you choose a person's ability to write and say "clever stuff" as
your measure of intelligence? It certainly isn't a good indicator among the
people _I_ know.

------
JacobAldridge
I'm going to have a crack at taking this advice on board in future readings or
discussions, not because of the logic behind it but because when the author
_"started doing that, I’ve not only been far calmer, I’ve learned much more
too."_

The logic seems flawed to me, in that it equates _focused_ with _clever_. You
can be one without the other. Of the two, I'm definitely more clever than
focused. I think the value a person contributes is usually the other way
around. (Which is why my focus for this year is 'be more focused'.)

------
joel_feather
The post is just wrong. People write a lot cleverer than they speak or think,
because they spend a lot of time formulating what they want to convey.

------
lsc
hah. really? when I met my now-girlfriend for the first time, she said "wow,
you are a lot less articulate in person"

~~~
baddox
Did you meet online? If so, that would make sense according to this article,
since she would observe you being a third less smart.

~~~
lsc
yeah, on a mailing list. but if I'm twice as smart as I talk and three times
as smart as I write, then assuming my IQ is constant, I would seem dumber if
you read what I wrote (as it is 1/3rd my actual capacity) than if you listen
to me talk, (as that is 1/2 my capacity.)

But that's just a dumb joke. As for the article, I think it misses the
point... writing and talking are quite different. (and writing in different
mediums is different) - But when you write, you have a chance to strike out
all the really stupid shit you said, before hitting send.

~~~
baddox
The part I don't understand is: twice or thrice as smart as what? What are you
doing if you're not talking or writing? If you're not doing those, then no one
can test your intelligence against when you are.

~~~
lsc
yes, twice is a silly way of quantifying intelligence. 'standard deviations'
is what you'd use if you want to sound, ah, intelligent. I'm just saying,
people perceive me to be less intelligent in person than in writing, which
runs counter to the author's point.

------
bumbledraven
He can't be too smart if he thinks that phrases like "2 times smarter" or "3
times smarter" have any meaning. 2 standard deviations above the mean, yes, "2
times smarter" no.

~~~
shalmanese
It was meant to be somewhat facetious, obviously, there's no such thing as two
times as smart.

Incidentally, one of the parts I cut out of that piece was predictions as to
what nitpicky points _would_ be raised in the comments and this was, indeed
one of them :).

~~~
bumbledraven
Rather than addressing such points in an addendum, you could also have simply
rewritten your piece so it wasn't word salad in the first place. But I suppose
you'd have to have been 4 times smarter to do that.

------
cloudhead
quantity != quality, being smarter isn't about how many smart things you say,
but about how smart each of them are.

~~~
rw
Then there's the problem of the person who only says 1 thing, but it is
brilliant. How about quality*quantity?

~~~
JacobAldridge
That formula may still have a signals v noise issue since it rewards each
equally. How about quantity^quality, which would still factoring in quantity,
but exponentially reward quality?

------
whirlycott1
Words of wisdom from "Figuring Shit Out."

------
philwelch
Weird. I write smarter than I talk.

~~~
thetrumanshow
Talking happens in real time and cannot be faked.

Besides there are multiple intelligences. No way you can determine
intelligence from a single data point like how well you talk.

------
erlanger
After figuring Shit out, let's hope the author figures out how to scale this
website.

~~~
shalmanese
I'm at a loss at this point. The server's been hit with higher loads than this
and survived fine. It's running Wordpress on Apache on a 512MB slice, there's
no reason it should be this slow. Just rebooted it and it's still slow.

If you want to help me debug it, my AIM username is the same as my HN one.

~~~
zepolen

        location /people-are-twice-as-smart-as-they-talk-three-times-as-smart-as-they-write {
            serve static_article.html
        }

~~~
swombat
Wordpress should do that by itself...

Also, I think he mentioned apache rather than nginx...

~~~
zepolen
Wordpress can't do it by itself, it can't configure the webserver, and if you
meant loading and serving the file by itself - it still means using a heavy
php process instead letting the webserver serve a few bytes of disk (which
they are always great at doing).

Yea I saw he was using apache, but I thought I may as well try to lead him to
the dark side :)

