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I think people mistake a higher educational degree, and jobs with fancy titles as being intellectual. There is such a thing as street smarts. There's people like that here, but I don't think it's very measurable, you can't get a degree in it, you either have it or you don't.
There was an article last month about the Harvard debate team getting beaten by a debate team from a maximum security prison in New York. Chances are, they didn't have an expensive degree, or any degree. On paper, DC is pretty smart, but I don't think that makes the city the most intellectual or the smartest.
I think people mistake a higher educational degree, and jobs with fancy titles as being intellectual. There is such a thing as street smarts. There's people like that here, but I don't think it's very measurable, you can't get a degree in it, you either have it or you don't.
There was an article last month about the Harvard debate team getting beaten by a debate team from a maximum security prison in New York. Chances are, they didn't have an expensive degree, or any degree. On paper, DC is pretty smart, but I don't think that makes the city the most intellectual or the smartest.
Intellect is just the gathering of information. You get your degree, everyone is on the same level. Everyone is qualified. It's to the point where points are used as placement codes to determine who will get hired because essentially, everyone is on the same level- same technical experience. Intellect limits you to your specific knowledge in which everyone has the same. Two IT gurus need to have the same certs, same experience, same basic and advance fundamentals in networks.
What sets you apart is your ability to function outside of this "information" you learned. How do you connect with life? How do you see the world beyond your inner space. Are you only limited to reading your flow charts at the job then taking it home? Are you limited to taxis, buses, and trains, that limit you to a 10 mile radius while living next to some of the greatest cities in the entire world? Are you seeking more than what lies between you and your inner space?
This is why so many psychologists today are failing to meet current standards. They simply read books and expect to understand the experiences of a new world that never existed 20 years ago and that is rapidly changing everyday as the world progresses... You can't be a real world psychologist today if you simply went from college to internship. Pandora's box has been open and people are exposed to a lot more than they have before EVER.
The harvard kids lost because they went against experience- the prisoners, some of the most successful within their own right, have the ability to channel their intellect with real world.
"The latest debate, about whether public schools should have the ability to deny enrollment to undocumented students, was described by the Journal as “fast-moving.” In the end, the inmates presented an elaborate argument with which they personally disagreed, essentially telling judges that if the children were denied admission, then nonprofits and wealthier schools would pick up the slack, according to the Journal".
Prime example- the nursing vs IT work. You all go to the same program or college and learn the same principles and techniques at clinicals.
What sets up apart is not your technical intellect. Everyone is capable of learning the same material. Scenarios are giving to you to see how well you can APPLY your learned knowledge to various situations under greater stress- both mental and physical. We can all do the same job but who can do it the best and at standard while hungry, sleep deprived, and during an emergency crisis?
People need to stop confusing education with intellectualism. Its not the same thing. Any moron can get an education. Learning to THINK and having real intelligence is what intellectualism is. It has nothing to do with how many colleges or schools are in an area.
This.
That being said, DC can not be called extremely intellectual just because the District has a high number of people with college degrees. Many people in the DC area have degrees that are a joke. Plenty of government workers have degrees in underwater basketweaving and Gender studies. The real most popular college major in America is advanced alcoholism. Millions of college students have gone to college solely for the right to party. I'd even argue that college often makes people dumber and more entitled. For millions of Americans, college is nothing but a four to five year vacation where they binge drink three nights a week to daily and pretend to learn valuable life skills like beer pong, beer bongs, hookah, frat parties and classes with comic books as textbooks and watching indie movies as classwork.
College is often associated with partying and slackerish behavior is encouraged because, well, America is an anti-intellectual society where football players and cheerleaders are deified while math nerds are shoved in lockers. Many so-called "educated" people are hardly intellectual. Many of these so-called educated people have never read a book in full in their entire life and don't even keep up with current events or news outside of the mainstream media. A huge percentage of people in DC twiddle their thumbs all day at what they call work and drink themselves retarded at bars every other night. DC also ranks as one the drunkest big cities in America. And no, I am not a believer in that alcoholism and intelligence are in any way correlated. Literally millions of people without connections who have a so-called college education are often left underemployed and unemployed which shows just how much an American college education is truly worth.
But one of the biggest reasons I don't think DC is the most intellectual city is because DC, as a whole, doesn't create anything of true value for the rest of the world through intellectualism. The Bay Area is the headquarters of Apple, Craigslist, Facebook, Google etc. There is a reason for that. Many people in DC get paid to push paper. The only reason the cost of living is so high in the DC area is because of the above average salaries for federal gov't jobs. Let's be honest here. At least Baltimore supplies suburbanites with precious drugs. The main product DC creates is redtape. Before the expansion of the federal government, DC was just another depressing forbidding ghetto city like Detroit or Baltimore without a real core industry. DC still doesn't have an industry on par with NYC's finance or the Bay Area's tech world.
It has been argued that DC produces nothing of economic value for the rest of the world. So yes, DC can be called intellectual. But in the way a burnt-out stoned pony-tail wearing ex-hippie baby boomer professor who teaches classes on ancient Greek philosophy who has never had a real job in the private sector is "intellectual".
Last edited by LunaticVillage; 12-06-2015 at 09:32 AM..
The only contender would be Boston, not NYC or SF. I agree Boston would come out ahead. There really are no other contenders. I actually think Boston wins out a little because it is more of an academy. In terms of education, DC is more educated than Boston, but the focus of DC is more one for praxis, not theory. Basically they are very close, but Boston edges out because it's more focused on the academy and research.
With that being said, because of the high concentration of think tanks, nonprofits, NGOs, and the intellectualism that surrounds policy and governance there is a high degree of intellectualism in DC.
I would not put NYC in this category. This is no knock against NYC, but it really is not the same thing, I would not even say it's a contender. It lacks the needed concentration you find in Boston and DC, and it doesn't get there just from being NYC. The Bay Area is close and there, but there is less of a focus on intellectualism even with it's highly educated population. Most just have a bachelors, and the drive is largely around financial success and product creation, it's more capitalistic than intellectual (the same can be said with regards to NYC). Both areas are more financially driven as well, less bastions of intellectualism than aggressive capitalism. People go to NYC and SF to get rich, people do not go to DC or Boston for that purpose. SF though does have a percentage going to there for scientific innovation for innovations sake.
Again if you look at the two cities with the highest percentage of graduate school attainment, it's just DC and Boston. This is number 1 (DC) and number 2 (Boston), and no other cities area really close. Boston though gets the edge, because intellectualism is it's primary industry, DC, it's something else.
If I were to rank it.
1. Boston
2. DC
3. SF
And the list would end there.
I semi-agree.
1. Boston
2. NYC
3. DMV
NYC and NY area pumps out some seriously intelligent people. And the intelligence in a universally accepted forms, including arts and science.
I think MD does really well, and is very well balanced state with a lot of focus on education. So that's what I think MD should be in that list. And VA along with DC. I just see that as a package deal.
Well the leader of DC and our country wants to let thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States after its been proven that terrorist are hiding among them.
Based on current administration the intellect of DC downgrades to that of low SAT scores.
I think people mistake a higher educational degree, and jobs with fancy titles as being intellectual. There is such a thing as street smarts.
*Very true! But, this is a whole other topic unto itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by frostopsy
I think people mistake a higher educational degree, and jobs with fancy titles as being intellectual. There is such a thing as street smarts. There's people like that here, but I don't think it's very measurable, you can't get a degree in it, you either have it or you don't.
There was an article last month about the Harvard debate team getting beaten by a debate team from a maximum security prison in New York. Chances are, they didn't have an expensive degree, or any degree. On paper, DC is pretty smart, but I don't think that makes the city the most intellectual or the smartest.
That being said, DC can not be called extremely intellectual just because the District has a high number of people with college degrees. Many people in the DC area have degrees that are a joke. Plenty of government workers have degrees in underwater basketweaving and Gender studies. The real most popular college major in America is advanced alcoholism. Millions of college students have gone to college solely for the right to party. I'd even argue that college often makes people dumber and more entitled. For millions of Americans, college is nothing but a four to five year vacation where they binge drink three nights a week to daily and pretend to learn valuable life skills like beer pong, beer bongs, hookah, frat parties and classes with comic books as textbooks and watching indie movies as classwork.
College is often associated with partying and slackerish behavior is encouraged because, well, America is an anti-intellectual society where football players and cheerleaders are deified while math nerds are shoved in lockers. Many so-called "educated" people are hardly intellectual. Many of these so-called educated people have never read a book in full in their entire life and don't even keep up with current events or news outside of the mainstream media. A huge percentage of people in DC twiddle their thumbs all day at what they call work and drink themselves retarded at bars every other night. DC also ranks as one the drunkest big cities in America. And no, I am not a believer in that alcoholism and intelligence are in any way correlated. Literally millions of people without connections who have a so-called college education are often left underemployed and unemployed which shows just how much an American college education is truly worth.
But one of the biggest reasons I don't think DC is the most intellectual city is because DC, as a whole, doesn't create anything of true value for the rest of the world through intellectualism. The Bay Area is the headquarters of Apple, Craigslist, Facebook, Google etc. There is a reason for that. Many people in DC get paid to push paper. The only reason the cost of living is so high in the DC area is because of the above average salaries for federal gov't jobs. Let's be honest here. At least Baltimore supplies suburbanites with precious drugs. The main product DC creates is redtape. Before the expansion of the federal government, DC was just another depressing forbidding ghetto city like Detroit or Baltimore without a real core industry. DC still doesn't have an industry on par with NYC's finance or the Bay Area's tech world.
It has been argued that DC produces nothing of economic value for the rest of the world. So yes, DC can be called intellectual. But in the way a burnt-out stoned pony-tail wearing ex-hippie baby boomer professor who teaches classes on ancient Greek philosophy who has never had a real job in the private sector is "intellectual".
This
I said it before and I'll say it again. Most of the DC "intellectuals" aren't the kind of students who came from humble beginnings, busted their asses, and burnt the midnight oil. Many of them - the FOBs, nerds, and geeks who were targeted in middle and high school - are in places like the Bay Area and Seattle (and if they're really smart, outside of the country, but that's another story). DC's "best and brightest" are mainly the spoiled brats who were born on third base but act like they hit a triple. They are the "Teacher's Pet" variety of people who weaseled their way to prominence and power. There's a reason why despite having the highest percentage of millennials/twenty-somethings, this place has none of the positive social aspects of a college town and quite frankly is just soulless.
The only disagreement I have with the above is the reason for the inflated salaries. To be fair, government employees aren't the ones at fault. Most of them get paid less than the average private sector salary for their respective fields. The high CoL is because of a combination of overpaid lawyers, lobbyists, and contractors, along with the DC Area being the only region where high-paying jobs are being created en masse.
Well the leader of DC and our country wants to let thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States after its been proven that terrorist are hiding among them.
Based on current administration the intellect of DC downgrades to that of low SAT scores.
This is put very unpleasantly.
If you want to know the truth, the Syrian refugees are fleeing from US coalition bombing of their country, as well as ISIS occupation.
There are 50,000 + ISIS members, not counting the other terrorist organizations. ISIS alone make $1 Billion + a year, $50 Million a day from the oil production that they have occupied. They will get in to US if they want to.
If you haven't understood this simple fact yet, US and the coalition are reacting now, because ISIS need territory to operate properly. They have about 20% or less occupation now in Syria, and if we don't intervene, they will just get more money, and that will get out of hand. Nuclear weapons or worst, chemical weapons are all for sale to the highest bidder. It's just that we haven't had crazy enough, and rich enough terrorist organization to buy them. But, we might with ISIS if they continue to expand their territories.
US need to help these refugees, because America is the land of the free, liberty, and justice for all. And if you don't believe in that, you should really learn about how many people in all diversity and culture have fought for this idea so you can talk freely online or otherwise.
DC have a lot of smart people who can really dig deep into an idea. And they have people that can manage people who are A straight to Z. The genius level people. And by having the skill and resources to manage the genius level people, the people who manage that becomes genius on their own. That's very hard to do. If you want to compare this much stress with people who make a cellphone, you should really reconsider how different that is.
DC have a lot of smart people, because they have to. It's not like SF or NYC where they wnat to have smart people, DC have to have smart people. They can't afford to mess up for even a second. And these are the people that gave up the flashy life of private industry to dedicate themselves to making our country better. And this is the reason why DC is the smartest place in US, or even world.
I thought about this after I posted the whole Boston NYC thing previously, and this is the conclusion that I derived at, after reflecting a lot about it.
ISIS is a scary organization, not because of the money they make or the money given to them as a donation from a lot of the countries nearby. ISIS is scary, because they're selling an idea, just like America does. Even if you kill all of the ISIS soldier's, that idea will still remain and it will pop up one day inside America.
This is the reason why they're propagandizing with HD videos of their executions. Why would a terrorist organization try to be flashy? And that's the reason why you should be worries about bringing Syrian Refugee into America, or Canada that's fleeing US Coalition bombing. Not because you think there are some of ISIS agents with them, but if they're treated badly, they'll know that everything ISIS has ever said is true about America. And those agents among them will be there to affirm that conviction.
Also if America refuse these refugees, that's killing an idea of what America is, and what America is advertising. The idea of America being the free place for all human beings cannot be killed. If it does, we've already lost a war to something small as ISIS to a whole of what America stands for the human kind.
Last edited by Plokivos; 12-11-2015 at 10:09 PM..
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