How to be smarter?

sully1975 said:

What no Bowen Dynamic Family Theory? They cram it up your ass in any addictions based psychology tracks.
With all the Freud, you must dislike Jung and all the Heresies that sprouted off from him like personality typology, which is technically a tool of management. I view it more like a card counting of people.
No audiobooks? I used to download anything nonfiction too and put it in a cheap ass mp3 player and walk around or instead use it for driving. Kindle or books for toilet time or waiting in doctor's appointments.

Remember psychopaths have a diminished sense of smell. So do the fart test.

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LOL. I remember Bowen Theory and Margaret Mahler. However, the professor I had for that class (I think it was adolescent psychology?) was a royal kunt. I had a lot of great professors in college but she was the biggest fucking bitch I ever had. If you didn't remember something she'd call you up to the front of the class and make you read the whole theory back to everyone. I think her idea was if she embarrassed her students enough they'd associate the stress of public speaking with the shit she was trying to teach. But she was a young / inexperienced professor and ironically I don't remember much of anything from that class. All I really remember is being nervous every day cause I never knew when she'd call me out to speak.

In fact, my adolescent psych teacher basically traumatized me as far as public speaking goes in my sophmore year. She didn't give 2 fucks if someone was nervous or shaking she'd demand you speak in front of class no matter what. 1 day when she called me up to speak I grabbed my bag, left class and drove straight home. So by my senior year when I had to take Critical Discourse, which was ALL public speaking, I was honestly thinking of dropping out of college. I had 2 classes left to graduate that's how much I hated public speaking. But that woman turned out to be a blessing. I don't know how she did it but she completely transformed my public speaking skills. I went from basically having panic attacks in class to being a rock solid confident mfkr who could speak in front of any crowd at anytime. And had it not been for that woman I would have seriously dropped out of college.

As far as Freud and Jung go... it would be hard for me to say I favor any specific psychologist. I didn't really like Freud as much as I liked his writing. And as much as I liked psychology in college my outlook on it has completely changed now that I'm older. I'm far more critical of it. Especially psychiatry.... of which I have less respect for than I do Scientology. Don't get me wrong, psychology itself has an important place in this world. Especially in marketing. As marketing is mostly psychology. But I think the way psychology is applied on a grander scale, both academically and "professionally" in practice... it's just pure heretic, frenetic bullshit. The flaws are astronomical. The amount of misdiagnosing. All these kids who are told they're "bipolar" when they're 7 or 8 years old. Then they think, "thank god! it's not my fault you see... I'M BIPOLAR MOM". It becomes so ingrained in their identity, they believe in their diagnosis like religion. Then by the time they're 18 they have the worlds best excuse to be a complete and utter fuck up.

That's the 1 thing I can't stand about psychology. When you start telling children they have all these disorders... these kids can't fucking think for themselves. They don't have the ability to really analyze and criticize what an alleged professional is telling them. Like, "hey kid, I'm diagnosing you with ADD... take this adderal". And the parents secretly think, "well damn, this is great! now I don't have to be a diligent, responsible parent or hold myself accountable for my childs behavior... all I gotta do is put my kid on AMPHETAMINES!!!". LOL.

What a crazy world we live in. Just to think how many kids are on this shit right now and their parents have NO IDEA what addy's really do to a childs brain and central nervous system. I should really just shut up.

-BB

Wow thats a lot of books to read -BB recommended. I think you posted about the book sperm wars. Reading it little by little now, very interesting one indeed. I think i need to get library card since i don't really like reading books off computer screen. Theres just something in it....

Also obtaining information about things you find interesting is great way too. Also these days its really important to know how to find information rather than knowing it all. My teacher at Uni said that many of the engineers working there are really good but don't really know how to search for the needed information.

Its also fun to know all kinds of freaky shit.

Stop involving yourself heavily in the electronic gaming industry. The more you do, the less time you have to focus on other things.

Want to be smarter? 1) stop posting such threads 2) read up

BreaknBrix said:

All these kids who are told they're "bipolar" when they're 7 or 8 years old. Then they think, "thank god! it's not my fault you see... I'M BIPOLAR MOM". It becomes so ingrained in their identity, they believe in their diagnosis like religion. Then by the time they're 18 they have the worlds best excuse to be a complete and utter fuck up.

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This is becoming prevalent in psychiatry (especially in child psychiatry) and it happens because all parties have a psychological need they are trying to satiate:

The psychiatrist needs to diagnose a condition and put a label on it - as that's how they validate their profession and justify their fee.
The parents need their child to be labelled - as that gives them absolution from being bad parents.
The child needs a label - as that either gets them the attention they are desperately craving or gives them permission to continue their bad behaviour.

It's psychological symbiosis and the massive irony is that the psychiatrists can't even see it. They know psychiatry, but clearly know fuck all about psychology.

And to me, psychology is a great place to start if you want to get smarter. My answer to the OP's question is if you want to get smarter, learn about people (I say this from the assumption that the OP is thinking about business when he asks the question, as he's asked it in a business forum)

Understanding why people behave they way they do, why they do good things, bad things, buy things, say things, believe things - that knowledge is invaluable.

If you understand why people do things, you gain power over them - and I don't mean that in a nefarious way.

In business, you can sell your vision, your ideas, or your products to them.
In relationships, you can be more empathetic and sympathetic
In confrontations you can more easily diffuse things
In negotiations you can find mutually beneficial solutions
In the pub - you can pick up women (not business, but useful nevertheless ).

To get smarter in general, I completely agree with BB - read as much as you can, as often as you can and about as many subjects as you can.

And don't just read about things that interest you. Try exploring new subjects - everything you learn will be useful at some point and in some situation in your life.

And also - read things by people you disagree with. There are two sides to everything and by reading the opposing point of view, you will learn so much more - about the subject and (more importantly) about yourself.

@BB,

One of the books you mentioned was The Art of War - a brilliant book.

If you liked that one, you should read Thick Face, Black Heart, by Chin-Ning Chu - from reading your posts I think you will enjoy it immensely.

start doing meditation and use your brain to deal situations against you !!! the world will say you are smart

Introspection is pretty damn good, and we do not get enough of it because of digital devices.

This guy is a nerd, but I really dig what he has to say. I think that he has some clues on how to learn things faster, really fast. To that some people, that is being smarter faster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY

Intelligence is another thing completely, you need to develop your skills to process things more efficiently.