Shoo, Man, You CRAZY!

[Greg]

You have to be able to speak to people in the language they can understand.

157 Riverside Avenue

I've always considered an intelligent individual to be more intelligent if they can "dumb down" their level so the less intelligent and/or ignorant can understand it.

Or alter your terminology when trying to explain something to people who are just as intelligent as you, but just not experienced in that field, for example.

[evan price]

I hang out with a lot of people who think lottery tickets are a viable retirement plan. Business acquaintances mostly.

Anyway, just discussing the idea of investing in a retirement plan through work- a simple 401(k)- is rocket science to them. The idea that I would voluntarily leave some of my paycheck behind every month- even though my company is matching it dollar for dollar- and I can't touch it until I am old...it's unthinkable to them.

These are the same guys that I knew would
1. spend their check on beer, liquor, or some form of illegal narcotics
2. due to their intoxication level, do something stupid and then get arrested, wreck their car, or both
3. have to pawn the tools they use to make a living in order to get enough money for bail, rent, or groceries
4. spend the next couple weeks doing half-assed work via borrowing whatever tools they could and ditching as much work as possible, plus whinging to all their co-workers and buddies how broke they were and trying to get free lunches and pizza and gas money-
5. in order to make it to the next payday, where they would get out some of their tools from pawn, buy more beer/drugs, and the cycle would repeat.

They would want to borrow somebody elses' tools to do an under the table weekend job, break half of them, screw over the job, and then complain how unfair it was and how it isn't possible to get ahead...all while smoking two packs a day and drinking a twelve pack every night.

[Netpackrat]

Dang. Fortunately, the need to obtain an FAA license and usually maintain some sort of security credential, seems to weed most of those types out of aircraft maintenance. A pretty rough bunch otherwise, but at least I can know that the likelihood of encountering any out and out criminals at work, is extremely low. You get the occasional guy failing a piss test, but that's about it.

Edit to add:

The one part of your post that I can find fault with, is declining to participate in the 401K (or equivalent) plan is not necessarily an irrational/stupid decision. Not being able to withdraw (without penalty) until you reach some minimum age is a huge disadvantage, and a lot of people frankly don't make it that long. Neither of my parents did, so every cent that they saved for retirement was essentially money wasted, at least as far as them actually benefiting went. Further, there is a non-zero chance that the government is going to make a grab for all of that money tied up in IRAs at some point, and the more desperate the financial situation gets with regard to the various entitlement programs, the more likely that will get. Frankly, I will be surprised if they don't make an attempt at it, at some point.

[Erik]

Without the illegal drugs and pawning the tools, that's pretty close to a lot of people I've known here. They constantly make bad economic decisions and then complain that they are broke and have no money and that it's not their fault, it's just bad luck, and if they just got a little help everything would work out for them.

I used to actually help them out, thinking that they would learn from their experience and would make better decisions in the future ("teach a man to fish" and all that), but I learned that:
1. They wont learn anything, they are convinced whatever didn't work the last times will work next time.
2. They will consider you obligated to help them out next time, because you helped them the last times, and they'll get upset if you don't.
3. They will despise you for having a better financial situation than they do.

Nowadays I stay away from people like that as much as possible, and I never offer them any advice or help, I just listen to them complain about that bad luck of theirs...

One good thing with the shooting community here is that the laws and jumping through hoops to get a gun license tends to weed out a lot of those people.

[MarkD]

Yup.

Actually, in my case a lot of people underestimate my intelligence. For one thing, I'm pretty quiet/shy in person. For another, I'm in a similar situation to Dubya, I don't come across as articulate in person (part of the reason for my quietness). I can tell you exactly why it happens to me, my brain works FAST, as in you ask me a question, I've already figured out the answer before you've finished the question, but manners require that I wait for you to finish talking (and probably explaining your question un-necessarily), during which time my brain has gone off to other things, so when you're ready for your answer I now have to remember it, but again my brain gets the answer back so fast that I can't talk fast enough to get it out at the speed my brain provides, so I stammer, pause, and otherwise look like a doofus. So some people think I'm below average intelligence when I'm actually quite a bit above average (not as high as Chris, but high enough to make Mensa with a comfortable margin).

I've never been officially tested, but a number of online tests have shown evidence of a mild case of Asperger's.

:jacked:

Speaking of Mensa, I used to work with a guy who was a member, along with his wife. I tagged along on a couple of their parties, but never joined (I'm not much of a joiner really). Good food, good beer, and if you can't get laid at a Mensa party you can't get laid at a legal brothel in Nevada with ten thousand dollars cash spending money you're not allowed to take from the premises.

[Netpackrat]

if you can't get laid at a Mensa party you can't get laid at a legal brothel in Nevada with ten thousand dollars cash spending money you're not allowed to take from the premises.

Interesting. I never would have guessed that. Or is it a case of the odds being good, but the goods being odd?

[Netpackrat]

I have to assume that once again, this all goes back to having done college wrong.

[MarkD]

if you can't get laid at a Mensa party you can't get laid at a legal brothel in Nevada with ten thousand dollars cash spending money you're not allowed to take from the premises.

Interesting. I never would have guessed that. Or is it a case of the odds being good, but the goods being odd?

Well, a couple suspicions:

1) Mensans tend to be, well, odd, socially awkward (that's why they join Mensa, birds of a feather flock together). Including the women. So rather than do the whole flirting thing, if a woman takes a shine to you she'll just grab your arm as you walk by and inform you that you're spending the night with her (don't ask me how I know that).

2) A lot of Mensans think it's a good idea to ignore social conventions. For instance, a group that was there consisted of a man and wife with their daughter, who was probably in her mid 20's (about my age at the time). I was sitting with the parents having breakfast (they were friends of my friends), the daughter arrived, said good morning, sat down and announced "I love these parties, I always find someone to have sex with." Her parents didn't bat an eye.

3) Combining 1 and 2, these are people who really could strike out an a nymphomaniacs convention. Their most certain form of birth control is their personalities, so where ELSE are they going to score?

A big part of the reason I didn't join was that the whole patting-yourself-on-the-back-because-you're-so-smart thing gets old, as does being around people who tell jokes INTENDING you not to understand them (like a guy who told a pun based on a Medieval musical instrument).

[Aesop]

Meh.

Nature doesn't necessarily favor the book-smart. This is why Mensa members don't breed well in captivity nor produce a thriving tribe-race of ubermen, and why Beechcrafts rather ruthlessly weed arrogant doctors and lawyers out of the gene pool.

[Netpackrat]

Nature doesn't necessarily favor the book-smart. This is why Mensa members don't breed well in captivity nor produce a thriving tribe-race of ubermen, and why Beechcrafts rather ruthlessly weed arrogant doctors and lawyers out of the gene pool.

Aviation tends to weed arrogance out of the gene pool, period. Had a nice long conversation at the gun shop with a neurosurgeon last week, which eventually turned to aviation. He's actually in much the same boat as I am... has his ticket, but doesn't fly because he wouldn't do it enough to be safe.