Reading Plato, Aristotle, and Homer, knowing calculus...

Reading Plato, Aristotle, and Homer, knowing calculus, and being fluent in a second language make you smarter than the grand majority of people. How do you live happily after having your eyes opened and realizing that the average person is quite honestly worthless and disgusting?

This might sound fedora as fuck, but by the time I graduated uni with my engineering degree and read the canon, I started viewing all other persons as not being worth my time. It is not even a superiority complex, it just sickens me that the average person is content to be ignorant, watch television, and drink alcohol on a daily basis. Whenever I go out I feign all of my social interactions to get by, but in my mind I'm just thinking of how sickening every person is. How do I be happy?

You're supposed to be living in a world where the level of knowledge you have now is roughly baseline. Instead everyone is a retarded chimp who eats cellphone radiation for a living. The only way to find contemtnent is either to resign yourself to some kind of detached exploitative sociopathy, to re-retard yourself and learn to enjoy pop culture again, or to devote your life even at the most minute level to wrenching the whole system apart and saving the shitchimps from their unthinking prisons, even if there's no real chance of success and you'll have to work your whole life at it.

>reading Plato, Aristotle
Is in practical sense worthless and doesn't make you a smart boi
>Homer
just a shitty poem most people read in highschool and never thought of again
>calculus
You can learn the basics of calculus in an hour
>being fluent in a second language
50% of world's population are capably bilingual

You're not special. The "normies" you despise so much have their own ideas, dreams, talents, and creative efforts to show. The only difference is that they're also happy, social people, while you're a bitter fuck posting on armenian genocide denial picture forum.

>How do I be happy?

read your pic related

Humans are supposed to be basic and simple animals, people like us are the anomaly in our species.

>or to devote your life even at the most minute level to gradually improving the system (knowing that attempts at radical change are usually destructive) and saving the shitchimps from their unthinking prisons
FTFY

>own ideas, dreams, talents, and creative efforts to show
Yeah, but there is little variation between one commoner to another.
>happy
Based on my observations they're barely happier than us.

>Is in practical sense worthless and doesn't make you a smart boi
Most people aren't capable of being interested in Plato or Aristotle
>just a shitty poem most people read in highschool and never thought of again
The Iliad is 'a shitty poem'? Umm... what do you consider a good poem, then?
>You can learn the basics of calculus in an hour
He can, most people can't learn the basics of calculus even if given years
>50% of world's population are capably bilingual
Tru

>Reading Plato, Aristotle, and Homer

And learning little of value from them it seems, or how to correctly apply what knowledge you have gleaned.

Read the Moral Discourses of Epictetus and stop being such a fucking babby. You can't change external circumstances, but how you react to those circumstances is entirely up to you. Good and evil lie only in your own perceptions, opinions and actions. Everything else, which is not under your control, is indifferent. Be the change you want to see in the world - embody it in your thoughts, opinions and actions.

Do you actively try to be happy? Do you try to be a good person?Do you speak to your family?Are you married?Do you spend time with children?
Go ahead and call those things spooks or some other inane thing, but the truth is you're not going to be happy if you spend your freetime participating in a self-congratulatory wankfest on Veeky Forums

>This might sound fedora as fuck
>I started viewing all other persons as not being worth my time.
>It is not even a superiority complex

>drink alcohol on a daily basis
I read a shit ton and still do this. Speaking of which, I'm going to go grab a beer right now.

It seems you've failed to accumulate any sense of modesty... I say start over and try again

>capable of being interested
Lmao, oh wow! Your socially ignited alienation sure differentiates you from everyone else! I doubt however whether that makes you superior.

Heres a fun thought OP, when you die your brain with all that accumulated knowledge will be just as tasty to the worms as the normies.

The fact that you have read Aristotle and the canon and not become a devout Christian who finds joy in the love of Christ demonstrates that you should probably read it again

Christianity is a fairy tale

>Reading Plato, Aristotle, and Homer, knowing calculus, and being fluent in a second language make you smarter than the grand majority of people
True, but you need much more in order to be actually smart.

>Good and evil lie only in your own perceptions, opinions and actions
look at this pleb
are you in highschool

you guys all talk like faggots

>You can't change external circumstances, but how you react to those circumstances is entirely up to you. Good and evil lie only in your own perceptions, opinions and actions. Everything else, which is not under your control, is indifferent. Be the change you want to see in the world - embody it in your thoughts, opinions and actions.
First of all, Stoicism is a plebeian philosophy. Secondly, you are wrong in your interpretation: Stoics do believe in objective good and evil, and they are determined by what conforms to Nature's will. What APPEARS good and evil to each person is entirely different.

kek
>you're greater than the "chimps"
>people greater than you think you're one of the chimps who thinks he isn't a chimp
>people stupider than you think you're a faggot and a chimp

how are you winning, user?

That's not my interpretation, it's a direct quote from Epictetus.

No doubt you know better than him.

>"... make you smarter..."
Category error.
Education doesn't make you 'smarter'. It make you more educated. A person with a 100 IQ that remains in college until they have a PhD at at 30 still has an IQ of 100. A person with an IQ of 145 that decides to become a mechanic and is too busy to read Greek still has an IQ of 145.
Indeed, you sound like the sort dim enough to not only assume education = intelligence but to also make the error that intelligence = worth.
Shorter - you read Plato, but you didn't understand it.

>feigns all social interaction while resenting people
>somehow also connects to people on a deep enough level to know their dreams, talents ect. and how happy they are

I think something is wrong with the way you're drawing these conclusions

>A person with a 100 IQ that remains in college until they have a PhD at at 30 still has an IQ of 100. A person with an IQ of 145 that decides to become a mechanic and is too busy to read Greek still has an IQ of 145.

Except that's wrong, you can develop intelligence with the adequate stimuli.

>you can develop intelligence with the adequate stimuli.
Maybe as a toddler, pal.

>engineering
>Being the living equivalent of the triple integral meme
Fucking lmao

1. You see what is nothing more than education as an axiomatic measure of "worth". That in itself is about the dumbest thing anyone could do. And even if you replaced education with IQ, it still wouldn't be much smarter.

2. You are unable to realise that the resentment and hatred you feel don't really come from where you think they come from. If you're serious, go read about Kaczynski's life. It will open your eyes to realise how much of his bitterness towards scapegoats came from simple things like rejection, failure with women and so on.

3. Realise that education and IQ are a sliding scale and how by your logic, the people in the 100% percentile should look at you the same way as you look at those lower than you.

4. If you realise that your lifestyle makes you deeply unhappy, why are you so surprised that others don't want the same?

>The "normies" you despise so much have their own ideas, dreams, talents, and creative efforts to show.

Not him, but virtually every person I've known in my lifetime was content with having a nice job, some friends, some time to waste on meaningless entertainment (TV, social media, chit chatting, going to clubs or pubs every week), NEVER striving for anything more than that. A great effort will be something like losing some weight, nothing that actually matters outside of their social circle. There is absolutely no ambition in them, and pointing that out will result in them responding on the lines of "Who am I? Beethoven? Ahahah", implying that that need for greatness is simply not present in them.
By the way I don't think that this is related to intelligence either: the best students I've met in both high school and during my Bs and Ms were unambitious, banal people who completely lacked self-awareness, to a degree that I really can't understand: these were the people who studied more diligently than everyone else our greatest scientific and artistic achievements, and still came out as unimaginative, uncreative slobs. How could that have happened? What were these guys really thinking when they were studying Shakespeare and the Krebs cycle? Were they just memorizing it?

>Is in practical sense worthless and doesn't make you a smart boi
Virtually every philosopher who has ever mattered referenced either directly or indirectly to Plato and Aristotle. Your objection makes sense only as long as you're willing to give the same judgement to the rest of philosophy at large.

>just a shitty poem most people read in highschool and never thought of again
You've managed to beat OP in edgyness.

Perhaps people who focus on a good life, a good family, and such are aware of how very lucky they are and have no narcissism driving them to think reading a set of books is necessary for them to be 'better'?

I have not implied that, OP did.
I do not really agree with the way he treated erudition: I'm pretty sure he does it intellectual status rather than for aesthetic and spiritual reasons (aka: he does not get it yet).

Still, there's a great difference between reading very few books and having absolutely NO ambition in life.

Art and greatness are born from pain. You're asking people to feel the same pain as you do because you can't stand their happiness and the fact that you feel that pain yet don't produce the greatness.

It's not a bad thing if people lack "that need for greatness".

Sounds like you're a typical STEM know it all faggot

>It is not even a superiority complex
No, it's a bait.

If you don't recognize value in the people around you, you either aren't looking or you're an idiot OP. Try being open and honest with other people (and moreso yourself). Or maybe it's your purpose to help these people recognize the life they could have if they aimed themselves towards greatness.

Jesus Christ, engineering studients or engineers in general are so stuck-up.

>plato, aristotle
try kant and hegel
>calculus
try learning real analysis then try real analysis on r^n
>second language
try learning latin and greek and then reading Homer the way it was meant to be read

until then, you are nothing special, so please stfu and delete this thread

>Why aren't these people all miserable, rebellious art majors like me! How dare they pretend like happiness for it's own sake is enough for good life! That makes me inferior idiots, even if I'm willing to admit their academic superiority!
>I SAID TO SALT MY TENDIES MOM REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>triple integral meme

What's that, user?

This does not really stands outside of literature: people like Mozart and Picasso did not live harsh, tragic lives. Pain is one of the best motivatora, but it's not the only one. I'm not glamourizing pain, nor I am conflwting the concept of greatness with art and only art.
Nice projection.

So, what are you accomplishing with your vast wealth of knowledge? What new contribution to human knowledge have you made?

Many people don't live harsh, tragic lives but still bear that pain that fuels their ambition. A need for greatness can almost always be traced back to pathological narcissism. In music, you have pure genius like Mozart who could write music at an age before "greatness" even becomes a concept and then gets pushed through the system automatically without any further decisions.
The point is, if you want to be heard or if you want to stand out, that's almost always pathological so it's silly to attack people who don't feel that way, just because they don't make life as exciting.

Why is the ambition to be the most well read person you can be (be it for social or aesthetic reasons) better than the ambition to have a comfy life with friends and family ?

where do you live? here everyone that goes to university reads at least one plato and aristotle book and to graduate with a language arts major you need to take another language.

>feigns all social interaction while resenting people
I'm not OP.
>somehow also connects to people on a deep enough level to know their dreams, talents ect. and how happy they are
You don't have to connect with them on a deeper level to understand them, these people are more simple than you think.

probably an ameriburger that thinks reading about philosophy is anything that special

The higher you climb the more lonely you will be. If you are fit for the task, it (need for solitude) should come naturally to you. Do something special or become a normie and forever stay silent.

Now, I louse up myself as much as possible. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working to make myself a Seer: you will not understand at all, and I hardly know how to explain it to you. The point is to arrive at the unknown by the dissoluteness of all the senses. The suffering are enormous, but one has to be strong, to be born poet, and I have recognized myself to be a poet. It is not my fault at all. It is wrong to say: I think. One ought to say: I am thought. - Pardon the pun. -

Most normal people are actually pretty interesting and entertaining.
I've only met a few truly worthless people in my life, one being my roommate. He has no ambitions beyond a minimum wage job, accepts a girlfriend he's miserable with because he can't find anyone else, has absolutely no discernible interests outside star wars, has no social skills, eats nothing but pizza, is out of shape, doesn't clean, and is utterly uninformed about any topic you could bring up.
Most people aren't like that though.

Not him but you obviously don't understand the basics of IQ tests and the meaning of their results.

>engineering degree
>reads philosophy after
lmao there is no hope for you

Not at all. Take an illiterate man who's job is manual labour and has next to no education. Say he does the test, has an IQ of 80. Then you spend 10 days doing exercises with him, to train his brain and make it more accommodating of the types of things present in the test. Do the test again, and you can get his IQ upwards of 100.

It's bullshit pseudoscience. It's indicative of your ability to take the given test, which is generally indicative of being able to think and reason in a certain way, in the realm of the typical question. Nothing more.

Now get into the occult and learn how to take advantage of the cattle. Herd them properly, and make billions of $$

aspects of crystalized intelligence (vocabulary etc) increases with age and one is compared to one's age group. Hence, one can improve one's IQ by reading more than the normative group of comparison

IQ isn't intelligence,it's a pretty blunt tool one uses to try to measure as many aspects of intelligence as possible

hahaha "read the canon" my dude you don't know shit about philosophy >i've read a bunch of books I'm smart now hahaa

if you can't figure out how to make life amazing you are a fucking dumbass

I've also fallen into this trap!

Oh my god what do I do now

I'm stuck being a code monkey help

Become a software engineer so you order around the code monkeys

This post is actually spot-on.

You posters here think you're so special because you're privy to a bit of literary or historical trivia; but those normalfags also have their own interests, their own dreams and fancies and wishes, their own knowledge. Just because you only see the superficial part of them you assume all they do is party or work and not much else.

You're not special. There is no teleology to the Universe: so even if you considered yourself special, it wouldn't mean much.

>armenian genocide denial picture forum.

kek

>philosophy
>poetry
>basic maths
>a second language

Baby stuff. You can't guarantee that people you meet aren't versed in this shit and have even wider range of skills than you do.

Pretty much any normie in Europe, for example, is guaranteed to be bilingual and have a much better education than you on top of drinking, fucking and whatever other hobbies they might have.

Don't be arrogant, there is a whole world out there and unless you contribute to it positively you don't have any claim to superiority

>There is absolutely no ambition in them, and pointing that out will result in them responding on the lines of "Who am I? Beethoven? Ahahah", implying that that need for greatness is simply not present in them.

I can't wait to look back on this user in ten years after they stop using Veeky Forums right now and they have become the president and/or the only good writer and philosophy of this century and/or have cured cancer.

Because some random chode claiming to have "ambition" while ghetting his kicks by being edgy on the internet is totally who I expect to lead the pack on this one

>Pretty much any normie in Europe, for example, is guaranteed to be bilingual and have a much better education than you


i don't believe this. i see enough students coming from europe who complain endlessly about how american degrees "require a bunch of useless stuff" and how european degrees are just vocational skills, i'm like ok cool so stay in europe if you don't want to have to take humanities elective you fucking nerd

Greatness is defined by historical standards, you just want to be loved and praised instead of doing what drives most people who produce any meaningful work,the need to understand, express or create, regardless of whatever the rest of the people around them want, do or say.

I think this is just you justifying that you're too good to be arround other people since it's a far more digestible answer than people not wanting to be around you.

If you are better than the people around you in a particular activity or way of thinking there's no need to feel superior or convince yourself of that fact, it's reflected on the execution of this action or way of thinking.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to your surroundings effectively. All you've done is adapt to forms of media that alienate you from your peers. Right now there's probably some fucker out there who can't read but knows how to survive pretty much anything beacause he is intelligent and manages to adapt quickly to whatever life throws at him. Culture and knowledge are not intelligence.

The other day I was talking to an American teacher that didn't realise that a Centurion was the leader of a hundred men, not the leader of the legion or the general of an entire army.

That's basic historical trivia, but if you guys fuck that up I can't imagine what else you get wrong.

>i'm like ok cool so stay in europe if you don't want to have to take humanities elective you fucking nerd
Aren't American arts colleges notorious for SJW pseudo-science?

Go read about rimbaud.

>average
>worthless
Literally a contradiction

I'm sorry that the people who replied to you didn't understand your post.

In this thread

The usual pseuds who whine and whine about how "normies" lack ambition, drive etc. all the while doing nothing but complain about it on the Internet

Fuck off

You are not better than someone else because you read a fucking book

The philosophers you claim to read and despise others for not reading would be disgusted in your pitiful conduct

>based on my observations

Because everything is all about you. Go climb a tree.

intelligence is not the basis of a person's worth

WOE IS ME!

Maybe understanding what you read helps, dush.

Knowledge can be taught.
Wisdom needs to be found.

Now go talk WWF over a diet glutenfree MacLate with your poker buddies.

It boggles the mind why would anyone on their perfect sense would want to go to a shitty dangerous country where you get an enormous ammount of debt to get a higher degree or become virtually poor if they break a bone. Have fun with you freedom fatso

stale bait

>shitty dangerous country

> Yeah, but there is little variation between one commoner to another.

You honestly believe your special don't you? This seems to happen to people who are of slightly above average intelligence and have no friends.

>The Iliad is 'a shitty poem'? Umm... what do you consider a good poem, then?

What's so great about the Iliad from a poetic perspective?

Many people have the ambition of a comfortable happy life with a loving spouse and children. Having simple ambitions is not the same as having no ambition.

Do your fucking job and write in your spare time if you actually care that much.

>Heres a fun thought OP, when you die your brain with all that accumulated knowledge will be just as tasty to the worms as the normies.

>muh nothing matters nihilist meme