like the old joke about calling the Rapid Reaction Force. "YES?"
How was I supposed to notice two new threads at once?
The people you work with are probably just sleepy.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't think people would confuse mere alertness with being bright. I'm thinking that maybe your dad was talking about the kind of person who is quick and clever, but not capable of sustained focused thinking. The easy example for me is a chess player that is good at speed chess, but lousy at regular tournament chess, because they can come up with a decent move instantly, but don't have the ability to think harder and come up with a better move.
And now I just realized that this is all Kahneman, right?
It's genuinely shocking how much worse I am at 5 minute chess than 10 minute chess. Around a 400 rating point difference usually.
4: both of those examples are smarter than what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a stranger who you have no reason to believe they're any different from the average bear, but they appear to be clicking with you in conversation. Sometimes that person is actually smart and sometimes not.
Heebie's kind of describing my brother-in-law. I realize I'm on the dullard slope of the bell curve when it comes to Unfogged, but my family and AJ are all pretty smart. BIL has gotten a lot of awe at his smarts from friends and coworkers because he's fast. (Like, reasonably bright people say he is the smartest person they know.) He's very quick and nimble conversationally, and it makes him seem way smarter than he actually is. It was a surprising thing to realize how often he says things confidently and at rapid pace that just aren't correct. And then, he digs in and bludgeons you with rhetoric.
Sounds like Ben Shapiro.
A friend at camp once called me the dumbest smart person he'd ever met.
Sounds like me. I don't think there's anyone geeky who has met me briefly or known me in a shallow way who doesn't think I'm really smart, but I am mostly just hyper focused in conversation and extremely curious and have a good memory. There are lots of people who have worked with me for several years who are, I think, fairly disappointed with my long term intellectual stamina and appetite for rigor. I certainly have fuck all to show for being so supposedly smart, except a collection of very interesting friends that I'm rather attached to.
My best friend and I had to stop playing chess because when we played in person I won 100% of the time, and when we played over email she won 100% of the time, and it got really boring and irritating for whoever was out of their medium. I can't match her aptitude (grit?) for extended analysis, but I'm alert af.
I am hilariously better at really slow chess than at somewhat slow chess. I'm pretty decent in a three-hour game. In a one-hour game, not good at all.
I was just getting back into chess (with my son, who is very good at all speeds) when the pandemic hit. Now he's in college. I wonder if we'll start doing tournaments again.
I find myself rejecting the premise of the OP. I say: People who are responsive, alert and with-it are smart in one of the most important ways you can be.
I did well on my SATs, but I envy their intelligence and want to be like them.
Chess is hard. I always lose to a stupid mistake and if I don't it takes forever because I never learned how to end game.
Have you tried upending the board and scattering the pieces in a dramatic gesture?
If they're really good and start setting up the board again you might have to add a flounce.
That's unseemly outside of Monopoly.
I used to be able to stand up without creaking.
Good lord willing and the creak don't rise.