Thread by @hhesterm

I fear it is time for some thoughts on intellectual brilliance and its role (particularly in the UK). It will have references to Musk, the PM… so bear with me… (thread)

It is no secret that pop culture pretty much anywhere is obsessed with the idea of the supersmart. People with abilities ‘normal’ humans cannot fathom. Think Good Will Hunting or look at Einstein or Hawkins in pop culture. /2

There is something comforting in the thought: I cannot solve global warming, but hey - those supergeniuses will. The government seems a mess - but they are so smart, so the mess is part of a plan (the latter has broken down a bit, I fear) /3

The image of the supersmart keeps reappearing. Take this guardian article about Musk as the smartest person in any room anywhere /4 theguardian.com/technology/202…

I fear, though, that this very much misconceives what the IQ or indeed brilliance means. An academic idea gives you the benefit of meeting many, many supersmart people. They are not superhuman, though. /5

Smart people can and do tackle difficult problems. But they also regularly fail to do so. You can have a superhigh iq and be good at chess. And that’s it. Or you can be supersmart and let your talents go to waste. /6

Some are good at coming up with abstract ideas and that’s it. Others are good at selling ideas others had (and becoming so associated with the, we forget the innovators). /7

Which brings me to the PM. But not the PM as a person (I have never met him), but the description of him by @OborneTweets : he writes of him as the most brilliant journalist of his generation - and as someone who invented the EU news he wrote. For me, that is wrong. /8

A journalist who regularly makes up stories is not - and for me cannot be - one of the most brilliant journalists of a generation. It is a bad journalist. Period. Maybe a clever writer. But a bad journalist. /9

Instead of hunting for some elusive and sadly pointless abstract notion of brilliance, we should focus on what people do and whether they are good at it. The fact that superhumans do not exist means WE have to take responsibility.

But taking responsibility doesn’t mean ‘I have read 50 pages on vaccines or trade, now I am an expert’. It means hard work. And identifying the people who did and do the hard work in other fields and trusting them because, well, you cannot do everything.