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From: fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.social
Subject: Showing Off (Athletics VS Intelligence)
Message-ID: <542@unc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Jul-85 16:18:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.542
Posted: Thu Jul  4 16:18:53 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Jul-85 06:26:28 EDT
References: <1476@utah-gr.UUCP> 
Reply-To: fsks@unc.UUCP (Frank Silbermann)
Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill
Lines: 57
Xref: watmath net.singles:7671 net.social:799
Summary: 


With respect to the question, "Why is it OK to show off athletic or musical
talents, but not intellectual talent?"

I don't believe society discourages showing-off intelligence.
The discouragement some of you have experienced may in fact be
for showing-off in inconsiderate and insensitive ways.

For instance, most high schoolers admire a student who plays basketball well.
But, if he shows off by hogging the ball as if he were playing one-on-one,
the the others will resent him.  Likewise for a talented shortstop who
persists in hurling the ball to first base with all his might, even though
he knows the first baseman is not good enough to catch such fast throws.

Athletes don't usually make such mistakes without intention.  Athletic success
requires intense focus on the here-and-now, rather than the what-might-be.
With this focus, they are usually well aware of the impressions they make
on other people with their behavior.  That is not to say that a high school
athlete won't intentionally try to embarass you, if you are not his friend.
After all, what are you gonna do about it, you little wimp?

Ahem.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  What is the proper way to show off intelligence?
Suppose a lesser mind asks you a difficult question.  A considerate approach
would be to:

	1)  Find out how much the person already understands.
	2)  Find out how sophisticated and answer he needs.
	3)  Figure out how to go from what the person knows to what
		he needs to know.

If he doesn't realize how complicated the subject is, you can say
something like, "That's a very good question.  It's very complicated.
I'm sure you could understand it, but it would take me a half hour to
explain it.  Are you sure you want to know?"  More likely he doesn't
want to understand in as much depth as you do.  So give an answer
that is appropriate to his situation.

The above approach requires intelligence -- much more intelligence than
is required merely to understand the answer in your own mind.  But, if
you can explain your ideas to people in their own language, they will
be grateful and appreciative.  In fact, people with this skill often
rise to leadership positions of great power.

As an example of the way NOT to show off, I remember sitting at a dinner,
where sitting across from me was a humanities professor, and to my right,
an computer-science senior.  The professor asked a simple question,
"Why are there so many computer languages?"  The CS student immediately
began core-dumping his brain, vomiting up gibberish about the difference
between Basic and Fortran, and throwing up words such as link, pointer,
queue, pop, push, subroutine.  The professor, an intelligent man, was
lost from the very first sentence.  Clearly, if anyone was ever deserving
of a bloody nose, it was this student.

I guess what it comes down to is this:  Understanding things and ideas
will not get you very far unless you also understand people.

	Frank Silbermann