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Be Like (Insert mentally or physically challenged person's name here)

Daily affirmations that hail stengths of people who have to deal with impacted abilities.
 
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Be it a popup on your calendar, an email sent in the morning, a fortune cookie or whatever, messages telling stories about somebody that isn't as lucky as you who overcomes their misfortune by doing a specific thing.

"David was born with cognitive impairment, so to take care of himself he has to be very organized. Every morning he makes a list of what he has to do. He can't spell very well so sometimes he draws pictures, but being organized like this gets him through his day. Be like David."

"Mark lost use of his legs in a mountain climbing accident so he became a motivational speaker after being the first paraplegic to climb Halfdome. Be like Mark."

The first example is a fictionalized example of a dear family friend who always works, owns a house, has a nice car and travels the country to visit people who love her very much. She has kids who are successful and generally has a good life but doesn't have a very high IQ. I realized how she did it when we were at dinner and she opened her wallet (I told her I was treating so she put it away) but before she did, I realized I had never seen an example of such neatness, order and logical arrangement in my life. It then occurred to me how she does it and came up with the concept of latent IQ vs tangible IQ using the engine / transmission analogy.

Everybody knows you can have a high IQ and be worthless if you don't apply it properly, but you can also have a low IQ and be effective if you apply what you have efficiently. This is like an engine and transmission in a car. You have have a 200 horsepower engine, but if your transmission is lousy, you're just sitting there making noise, but if you have a very effective transmission, you can take a much smaller engine and move very effectively. In this analogy, the engine is raw intelligence, the transmission is discipline, order, structure and sticktoitiveness.

The second is actually a friend of mine that I grew up with and that story is true.

doctorremulac3, Jun 18 2022

Ray's "old age suits". https://www.youtube...watch?v=CEDF9ut7iCc
Very cool. [doctorremulac3, Jun 18 2022]

Smart guy https://en.wikipedi...saac_Newton#Alchemy
But wrong about some things... [neutrinos_shadow, Jun 19 2022]


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Annotation:







       A disability is not a virtue, and I find this idea patronizing. Aside from disabilities that effect emotions, the disabled and the fully able are capable of equal levels of good and bad personality traits. An intelligent and hard-working person is no less to be applauded than an unintelligent but hard-working person.   

       If I have a disability I hope to be treated like everyone else: applauded no more or less for my actual virtues and denigrated no more or less for my vices. [-]
Voice, Jun 18 2022
  

       A disability is not a virtue, but empathy is.   

       I was hoping for some sort of virtual reality experience or something beyond an inbox item.   

       At Ford we had 'old age suits' in the interior design group that simulated the experience of trying to work car controls while encumbered by restricted motion, cataracts, tunnel vision, etc. They were interesting.
RayfordSteele, Jun 18 2022
  

       //An intelligent and hard-working person is no less to be applauded than an unintelligent but hard- working person.//   

       That's like saying "A person born with no hands that adapts, improvises and overcomes to be just as successful as the person born with hands is no better than the person born with hands."   

       No, the person who overcomes a disability had to show more strength and determination than the person without that disability.   

       So it's fine to ignore people who overcome disabilities for whatever reason, I'm studying them. I think they're awesome. Having respect for somebody isn't patronizing, patronizing is fake respect.   

       A blind person who rises to the same level of success as me with my two working eyes is better than me.   

       Ray, that's pretty cool. Old age suits. (see link)
doctorremulac3, Jun 18 2022
  

       I wonder whether you're missing my point deliberately or accidentally. Either way I will not restate it.
Voice, Jun 18 2022
  

       I think your point was people who overcome adversity are no better then those who don’t. If not, sorry to have angered you, wasn’t my intention.   

       The flip side of this is my fascination with smart people who are wrong all the time. Often this seems to be a result of what I call “brain farming” where a group of leaders endeavor to control a group of followers. The methods of doing this are too numerous to mention. My obvious question to myself is “If they’re smart but wrong all the time, can I be wrong all the time without knowing it?”.   

       That’s why I’ve come up with the idea of looking at intellectual capacity from an engineering angle with hard fast measurable parameters gauged by outcome, not just theoretical capacity abilities.   

       Just Saturday morning coffee thoughts before I go to the beach with the family, not a call to arms one way or another.
doctorremulac3, Jun 18 2022
  

       Prime example: Rand Paul. Bright guy but intellectually dishonest and lacking any sort of humility.   

       My own hypothesis is that being bright, and intellectually curious allows you to find the underdiscovered, undertraveled intellectual paths and make connections in new but not always rational ways, so after awhile you become used to the flora and fauna off the beaten path. A select few of these paths lead to streams of new knowledge to become larger branches over time. But most just wander around into dead ends. And historically the beaten paths are often that way for a reason, and in at least the scientific and physics realms or in anything remotely related to math or logic that's the way it is.
RayfordSteele, Jun 18 2022
  

       I just find that the more I know, seems like the less I know. Every answer brings twenty more questions.
doctorremulac3, Jun 18 2022
  

       It's best to ease into these things so as not to implode.   

       I think the way to be very clever and wrong is to cultivate a detachment from introspection. I think the best way to end up less wrong is to constantly ask yourself "am I wrong? What would happen if I was wrong about this idea? Can I think of any evidence or argument that could prove this idea wrong?"   

       Of course I may have taken this idea too far and end up doubting everything and ending up even stupider.
pocmloc, Jun 19 2022
  

       //people who overcome disabilities for whatever reason, I'm studying them.//
[doctorremulac3], I have a physical disability. If you're serious about this study & want to discuss such things, drop me an e- mail.
neutrinos_shadow, Jun 19 2022
  

       Wow Neut, I already have additional respect for you. I'll drop you a line.
doctorremulac3, Jun 20 2022
  

       //fascination with smart people who are wrong all the time// //undertraveled intellectual paths and make connections in new but not always rational ways,//   

       These are linked. You can be too smart for your own good, able to justify essentially anything to anyone, including yourself. I can argue my way out of doing things I should do. Jurgen Klopp, arguably the best football coach in the world right now, said players should be intelligent, but not "too smart", "they can disassemble a careful plan in a completely rational way and then nobody has anything". Military leadership training warns against being drawn into arguments, those in charge may not be the brightest or most convincing, but you can't allow the group discipline to be questioned at each turn.   

       Another interesting group, is the smart people, who are almost always right, have the right tools and are encouraged to check their work still get things wrong. Example: BMW 5 series (e39) where the rear lights had a wire going to each individual lamp, and a common ground wire. Only the ground wire wasn't large enough to handle the current of many lights on all at once. Professional electrical engineers forgot the absolute basics of circuits. It got signed off in a tediously careful German paper trail, passed to the testing crew, no-one picked it up.   

       //the more I know, seems like the less I know. Every answer brings twenty more questions.//   

       This is wise, and dangerous. It's wonderful to understand your limitations, but in complex systems like the wet & salty sciences, there's a dangerous path. I'm experienced enough in a rigorous enough lab to know that most of the tools I use are being mis-used by 90+% of people in the field, and by extension, industry. That leave you with so few solid data points to constrain your thinking, that you might as well know nothing. Add to that the incentives for arriving at the "correct" results in a high pressure system where your job, health ins, and presence of yourself/family in the country are tied to a single person... It becomes a real mess. I'm now in the situation, where roughly half of what I KNOW to be true is false. The hard thing to do is build clever tests to start shoring up knowledge. The harder thing to do, is to get money for that, when the money givers are not interested in shoring up what we know and instead like "Moon Shots".   

       //the way to be very clever and wrong is to cultivate a detachment from introspection.//   

       Yes, or more formally, a failure of mental discipline/critical thinking. It's mental self-indulgence without the right level of cynicism, if that's the right word. That and the human love of narrative.
bs0u0155, Jun 20 2022
  


 

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