I was dumb enough to ask this question to LLM, and ofc I got bland answers like “You are probably not dumb, here’s ABC to improve oneself”…
So sad that I am too dumb to get a job or make friends. I ended up in grad school trying to get a doctorate, as I was so stupid that looking for a job sounded insurmountable. Now, LLM apocalypse is dawning upon us, which manufactures papers faster than we can even follow. Wonder if any of academia would even be left. Imagine my stupidity of not thinking ahead here.
So anyway, how do I cure my dumbness and actually function as a normal person?
It is not that you are dumb. It is that you WISH you were dumb so that you can have an excuse to give up, have an excuse to not try as hard.
You’re having difficulty fully convincing yourself that you’re dumb so you’re looking for easy arguments to shoot down in this comment section. You’re not getting it.
It will be difficult, you might fail anyways, but it won’t be due to a lack of effort. Stand and fight for your life, coward!
And I’m saying this for both of us.
You are being so general that your question cannot be answered.
What specific areas are you dumb at?
What specific areas are you not dumb at?
The two things you mention -get a job and make friends- are still way too general to even attempt an answer at. What kind if job are you seeking?
To make friends, what are your interests? Join in-person clubs about doing those interests, and try to have fun and talk to people. Start by talking about the subject of this shared interest. When some of them talk back to you, invite some of them to go eat afterwards.
- challenge yourself
- set goals
- observe instead of react
The fact that you’re “in school trying to get a doctorate” shows that you definitely aren’t unintelligent. Possibly less intelligent than your peers (who are already likely more intelligent than society on average), but very likely not unintelligent. So physiologically, I (who’s not a doctor) doubt this is an issue.
Maybe you’re THINKING that you’re dumb? Going through an irrational, emotions caused condition that does not originate from a lack of intelligence, but rather specific environmental conditions?
Talk to a mental health professional friend… Not random folks here.
UNLESS, you’ve seen a sudden decline in intelligence, where your cognition has become an issue when it wasn’t before. That could be physiological, so go see a doctor asap.
If you honestly think you’re dumb, get a full psychological evaluation (note: NOT a psychiatric evaluation—that’s something else entirely). This is an extensive series of yeasts that should take around 8 hours (often split over two days). That should settle the matter for you.
However, if you made it into a Ph.D. program, you almost certainly aren’t “dumb” in the sense that you have a below average IQ. While it is true that most of academic success is actually based on work (e.g. studying), IQ does place a limit on its ceiling.
I would suggest getting into therapy and only accepting therapists you deem to be smarter than yourself. Intelligence isn’t the most important characteristic in a therapist, but it matters. A good therapist will be able to help you tease out objective evaluations of your own intellect from insecurity-biased ones. A therapist with a solid background in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a plus in this case.
Extensive series of yeasts
Wine, beer and bread. Sounds like a good time tbh.
Don’t tie your self worth to a collapsing system.
Smart people know how little they actually know.
It’s the ultimate state of every expert:
Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.
Iirc, Descartes’ famous “cogito ergo sum” was the result of him realizing that nothing he knew carried a guarantee of truth, so discarding everything he had learnt throughout his life he set out to discover something universally true. And his famous quote was among the first such truths.
how do I cure my dumbness and actually function as a normal person?
Reevaluate your base line.
Most “normal people” have issues you probably never even thought about because you just solve them. Their struggles and their life are defined by things you probably will find boring or trivial.
Besides, LLMs are supposed to be useful.
which manufactures papers faster than we can even follow.
Does that sound useful to you? It doesn’t to me. Find that difference between papers and application and somewhere in there will be your niche.
I ended up in grad school trying to get a doctorate, as I was so stupid that looking for a job sounded insurmountable. […] Wonder if any of academia would even be left. Imagine my stupidity of not thinking ahead here.
I don’t think you’re dumb at all, you’d have to jump some serious hurdles to get into a doctoral program[1].
I would suggest you seem to lack confidence though. That’s relatively easy to fix. A timely comment I came across on Hacker News today seems pertinent. One quote in particular sticks out, which I myself have experienced:
my life got immeasurably better when I stopped trying to prove myself to everyone.
LLMs are stochastic parrots, they can really only repeat previously acquired human knowledge and apply it in rudimentary ways. True outside-the-box thinkers will always be required. An LLM is, and always will be a tool.
So anyway, how do I cure my dumbness and actually function as a normal person?
The want and willingness to learn, and the right attitude or mindset: relentless curiosity. If you have a passion, follow it. Don’t get into a field just because there’s huge dollar signs at the end of it.
If it weren’t for curiosity in understanding how something worked by tearing it apart, seeing its insides, then putting it back together, I wouldn’t have the foggiest of clues how to build and fix computers today. Despite my academic qualifications[1] and long career in an unrelated field I’m opting to do some basic trade skills training in Electronics, because it helps satisfy my relentless curiosity, and because it might be useful one day.
Skills and learning things don’t necessarily have to be academic. There are people infinitely smarter than me in their own fields who don’t have any academic qualifications at all. Intelligence is relative to the field it is being applied to.
As for finding friends, if you have a hobby find a local club or maker-space or something like that and go along. Interact with people but don’t go with the singular explicit goal of ‘making friends’. Friendship will flourish as you get to know people naturally through a shared hobby or cause.
[1] for what its worth, I hold two distinct bachelors degrees (not a combined double degree) and am currently studying a masters degree.
Are you dumb, or are you just anxious and sheltered? Your sentence about grad school makes me think it’s the latter. There are a lot of people like you in the world of academia.
You are not a piece of paper with a list of scores. It’s not as simple as I am good at # therefore should do ABC.
You are a human with 100000s of aspects that make you amazing. So you’re not a rocket scientist, you might not be Brad Pitt either, but you need to get up each day and say hey I’m alive and I’m actually fantastic.
Good luck. Keep smiling, step away from the dumb LLM. Pick up a book, grow a flower, cook the best cheese toastie.
Got a love a random Shania Twain’s quote
You’re not giving us a whole lot to work with here. What specific behaviors do you exhibit that you don’t like and what kind of challenges are giving you problems in particular?
You say that looking for a job sounded insurmountable. What part of the process seemed most daunting to you and why?
Basically, the horror stories of job search and thoughts of rejection was very scary to me. Worse, I was dumb enough to choose math major, which does not help.
One another thing is, I have no friends. Seems like I am too dumb to understand what people want and see how to communicate. Maybe this dumbness is genetic in origin and cannot be fixed :/
All right. The first thing I’m going to advise you to do - or rather not do - is constantly putting yourself down so much. Humility may be a virtue, but constantly telling yourself that you can’t do something is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Secondly, what you’re describing doesn’t sound like stupidity. It sounds like you’re neuro-atypical, specifically mildly autistic. While that can make socialization - and by extension networking - considerably harder, the good news is that there’s a plethora of effective strategies that can help drastically with that. I suggest you head over to one of the Autism communities and ask them for assistance with introducing you to them, and maybe help with finding the ones that’ll work most effectively for you. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to help.
Finally, perhaps you can try to consciously veer away from focusing on the things in your life you feel you cannot currently do. Instead, try redirecting your focus to what you can do. It doesn’t matter whether it’s something big or something small. Even the smallest victory is still a victory, and every one of those is something you can use to build confidence which in turn can be leveraged to achieve more.
You’d probably benefit from talking to a therapist. They’d be able to work with you closely about your job search anxieties, your negative feelings about your intellect, and your challenges finding friends.
details
- to start, see if your university has any kind of mental health counseling for students
- if your university has a hospital, see if it has mental health services
- if you have paid insurance, look on the portal to see if you can search for therapists there. Find some that sound promising and call/text/email.
- if you have a doctor, ask them for help/advice about finding a therapist
- e: or just do a web search for therapists in your area. pick out some, and call / text / email.
- keep trying. pick one thing from above and try it out. if that doesn’t work pick another and keep trying it out. etc.
Mate, you sound autistic. Not meant as an insult - I am also autistic. For people like us, learning to communicate is difficult and takes a lot of effort, trial and error and potentially assistance.
Also, math major is a fantastic background. You have plenty of opportunities in manufacturing - look at remote processing plants and see if they are looking for optimisation-focused people.
Rejection-aversion is also a real thing, I’m not sure how to help with this other than pointing you towards therapy
Get some radish seeds and plant them in some soil.
Read books.
Look around your house. Do you know how that thing works? Do you know how it was made? Do you know how it was invented? Do you know why someone wanted to make it? Research those things. Learn about it until you can explain it to someone else.
Be curious. Ask questions.
Critical: answer those questions from a reputable source. Not ai. Ask a librarian for a book that can answer it.This. Curiosity is a hallmark of it intelligence. Reading sci fi and fantasy is also a good indicator of how imaginative you are. Find your interests and read about then we much as possible. After that find conventions or clubs that match your interests and eventually you’ll find some good people to chat with.
