XSMatter

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)

 

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

 

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.

 

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

 

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"

 

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."

 

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

-- by Isaac Asimov

I’m heading for the Nexus conference in a few days time. And somehow it’s only now that I start wondering whether Nexus will change anything.

We’ve been talking about Web 2.0 for a superbly long time now. With every E27 Conference and every local web 2.0 article that I read, the higher my expectation becomes of what to expect of myself and of other locals who are hyped up by this Internet-wide transformation.

And repeatedly, I become more and more disappointed – because nothing is happening. Nothing really huge at least.

Am I expecting too much? After convincing myself that I’m not having too high an expectation I decide to try and find a single excuse as to why we’re underachieving…

“We are a feel good nation. I am no exception.”

Too many times, we’re focused on feeling good about ourselves. We were brought up to become a proud people. The mindset that good grades equate to some form of intellectual superiority is perpetuated from the very day we step into Primary 1. Some parents even drill that when the kid is in Kindergarten.

Once we’ve stepped into the likes of Secondary school, a different kind of emphasis begins to reveal itself. Status. You can be smart but you’re nothing if you’re not rich or holding some powerful position in school. Some go to the extent of feeling good because they’re in the most elite of schools. It’s simply cool to be in the cool club.

*suddenly I am reminded of The Arena where RI battled United World College on the motion of “The Education System Breeds Elitism” or something along that line…did anyone watch it? I missed it. Dang*

Anyway, once past secondary school is really when we start to become the sheep instead of the shepherds. Faced with a grueling decision of either going to JC(where you’d be expected to go to University) or a Polytechnic. Honestly, when I was in Secondary 4…I knew shit about where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I just wanted to go to the same school as some crush I had.

At this juncture of our lives, we figure – be safe, choose the option that makes us feel good. Walk with the herd. And so, for most of the people, off to JC they go because “people say” that poly is when you get more than 20 points for you O Levels. (Of course there are many who can’t go because they didn’t make the cut…but if they did, they’d probably go to JC too)

You might say that it’s really natural for us to make choices so that we’ll feel good because “who’d choose an option that makes you miserable?” right? Well, that’s the thing. You’ve seen people who make choices to go do volunteer work in 3^rd World countries or do start a venture and live on sandwiches so as to bootstrap. Do they feel good? Probably, they do.

But it’s important to ask ourselves, what are they feeling good about?

Are they feeling good because they made a choice that they believed in? Or are they feeling good because they ‘fit in’?

The latter can’t be true because obviously, that’s the path less traveled.

And when it comes to all this web 2.0 talk…I start to ask myself about us.

Are we just really happy talking about web 2.0 ?

Why is it that we keep talking and talking but not really producing anything?

Are we, perhaps, just really contented that we’re talking about a really cool topic?

I don’t have an answer I guess…But when I go to Nexus and see the familiar faces once again, I’ll perhaps remain silent because I’m wondering about who will actually take the next step forward instead of just talking about the cool successful entrepreneurs that they’ve talked to…