How intelligent are Billy and his bandmates?

[Candy Cane]

I've often heard Billy described as a fool on these boards. I want to stand up for him. My opinion is he is an intelligent man who talks a lot of sense, admittedly in a prolix and melodramatic manner. Sure, he's said some stupid things, but who hasn't? Only me.

Is Billy a savant or a simpleton? Is James' silence evidence of an inner wisdom? Is Jeff a bookworm genius? Is D'arcy intentionally dumbing herself down or she is just a drug-loving dumbass like everyone thinks?

Who is the most intelligent Pumpkin? Vote and let's decide once and for all.

[wHATcOLOR]

i'm not sure i knew the word prolix until now. thank you Candy Cane!

[Disco King]

My assessment is that he was a precocious kid who was bright for his age. But after dropping out of college and pursuing music, he stopped really developing his intellectual side, but still maintained his self-image of being "the smart guy." Everyone eventually caught up to and surpassed him as he remained "pretty smart for a teenager."

Obviously, he has (had) musical and lyrical intelligence, but I wouldn't be excited to talk to this guy about philosophy or politics or anything.

[Elphenor]

Originally Posted by Disco King

My assessment is that he was a precocious kid who was bright for his age. But after dropping out of college and pursuing music, he stopped really developing his intellectual side, but still maintained his self-image of being "the smart guy." Everyone eventually caught up to and surpassed him as he remained "pretty smart for a teenager."

Obviously, he has (had) musical and lyrical intelligence, but I wouldn't be excited to talk to this guy about philosophy or politics or anything.

idk


it's a special kind of idiot that nods along with Alex Jones let's all be honest

ofc there are all types of intelligence but BC is lacking in the ones we typically correlate with smarts...like critical thinking

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

let's all be honest

hi, fuzzy!

[smashingjj]

Originally Posted by Cool As Ice Cream

hi, fuzzy!

I mean, let's face it:

[Elphenor]

Originally Posted by Cool As Ice Cream

hi, fuzzy!

could offf

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by Disco King

My assessment is that he was a precocious kid who was bright for his age. But after dropping out of college and pursuing music, he stopped really developing his intellectual side, but still maintained his self-image of being "the smart guy." Everyone eventually caught up to and surpassed him as he remained "pretty smart for a teenager."

Obviously, he has (had) musical and lyrical intelligence, but I wouldn't be excited to talk to this guy about philosophy or politics or anything.

agree with you generally, just to dig in on a point or two..

yes, surely he was a precocious kid, used to being smart for his age, etc.

agree things went off track somewhere.. it's not as if college is required for intellectual development (and i don't think you're saying that it is).

who you spend your time with, and what your shared interests are, and types of conversations you have and what sorts of thoughts those bring up, your focus in looking to understand them better, what you read, etc. -- those are all legit sources for intellectual development.

i get the sense he's read plenty. he's seen a lot of the world. he's probably had a lot of interesting conversations with interesting people. but most of it has been as a "rockstar". but he's likely been surrounded by a rotating cast of employees, worshipers, fans, sycophants, flakes, "gurus", quacks, etc., most of whom believe he's great and tell him that. who among them is going to regularly challenge his ideas and help him refine them? not many..

surely he's spent time with intellectually rigorous people as well, but the ratio of lunatics to non-lunatics has likely been pretty high for him relative to most people and that's sure to have skewed things.

i think it's likely a seductive message, constantly being told you're amazing, having a set of people that will lap up whatever you put out there and tell you you're a genius. at a certain point you're probably pretty convinced you are indeed uniquely smart. and that likely causes you to become less hungry and more content when it comes to your own development


and that's my silly armchair speculation, thank you for coming to my ted talk

[trev]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

who among them is going to regularly challenge his ideas and help him refine them? not many..

i agree, and this was a role darcy played. which was one of the reasons their output with her in the band was at a higher level - she filtered out (most of) the crap.

and when she was gone the crap was getting through a lot easier.




p.s. jeff, melissa, mike, and nicole aren't real pumpkins so i ignored them in the poll.

[FoolofaTook]

Wtf is this shit? Where's the Jack "Master" Bates option?

[Candy Cane]

Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

Wtf is this shit? Where's the Jack "Master" Bates option?

Was gonna put him on it but I thought fuck it, I've never heard him talk and no one's gonna vote for him apart from FoolofaTook.

Originally Posted by Corgan's Bluff

Feeling too dumb to vote...:

I had written "How intelligent are Billy and his bandmates?"

Yeah, that may be right, but the 'are' in front of Billy just doesn't sound right to my ears.

No votes for Billy yet! I vote Jeff, Billy second.

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by wHATcOLOR

agree with you generally, just to dig in on a point or two..

yes, surely he was a precocious kid, used to being smart for his age, etc.

agree things went off track somewhere.. it's not as if college is required for intellectual development (and i don't think you're saying that it is).

who you spend your time with, and what your shared interests are, and types of conversations you have and what sorts of thoughts those bring up, your focus in looking to understand them better, what you read, etc. -- those are all legit sources for intellectual development.

i get the sense he's read plenty. he's seen a lot of the world. he's probably had a lot of interesting conversations with interesting people. but most of it has been as a "rockstar". but he's likely been surrounded by a rotating cast of employees, worshipers, fans, sycophants, flakes, "gurus", quacks, etc., most of whom believe he's great and tell him that. who among them is going to regularly challenge his ideas and help him refine them? not many..

surely he's spent time with intellectually rigorous people as well, but the ratio of lunatics to non-lunatics has likely been pretty high for him relative to most people and that's sure to have skewed things.

i think it's likely a seductive message, constantly being told you're amazing, having a set of people that will lap up whatever you put out there and tell you you're a genius. at a certain point you're probably pretty convinced you are indeed uniquely smart. and that likely causes you to become less hungry and more content when it comes to your own development


and that's my silly armchair speculation, thank you for coming to my ted talk

I agree with all of this.

[FoolofaTook]

Any thoughts on the dadvalanche?

[Disco King]

Schroeder has a PhD, doesn't he? He's probably the smartest.

[wHATcOLOR]

Originally Posted by Disco King

Schroeder has a PhD, doesn't he? He's probably the smartest.

that's a good point, forgot about that when i voted. i voted jimmy for real-world smarts but for academics surely jeff is most advanced

[houseofglass11]

James >

He knew when to quit. And knew when to come back ($$)

[johncg]

Darcy for leaving permanently in 1999

[Corgan's Bluff]

Feeling too dumb to vote...:

I had written "How intelligent are Billy and his bandmates?"

[Mals Marola]

he WAS intelligent

now i think he's just so routinely "out to lunch" it doesn't even matter how smart he is or isn't (was or wasn't?) because all it's resulting in is shitty music, shitty Jesus shpiels, & stories about shape-shifting/Alex Jones camaraderie which at the very least seems like it all might be passing, at least to a degree

so uh, D'arcy

[FoolofaTook]

fuck this poll i'm not voting

imma start my own thread, with Jack right up at the top like a BOSS

[Mals Marola]

Originally Posted by FoolofaTook

fuck this poll i'm not voting

imma start my own thread, with Jack right up at the top like a BOSS

imma start a thread: How funny-looking is Fool & his Tookeries?

[Mals Marola]

i'm predicting landslide results!

[FoolofaTook]

ur dad's a manslide

[houseofglass11]

No, but I can offer a Bruce Vilanch:

[reprise85]

Yeah but IQ is an imperfect measure. Someone could have some amazing IQ and still be a dumbass politically or socially. Billy probably has a higher-than-average IQ, but his social influences have changed since he was a kid and decades of ass-kissing would change anyone's personality. He also seems to be vulnerable to manipulation such as those deployed by cults and other propaganda proliferation.

IQ /= intelligence

[pavementtune]

Originally Posted by reprise85

Billy probably has a higher-than-average IQ

I wonder what this is based on, through what actions/expressing what thoughts and when did he show a higher-than-average IQ? Or is it only based on the child-like adoration most of us had when getting into SP? When you are 13 and think "man, these lyrics, these songs, that guy, he surely can open my eyes to some fucking wisdom" - only did anything in the past 25 years in reality suggest that he is more intelligent than the average person?

[johncg]

Originally Posted by reprise85

Yeah but IQ is an imperfect measure. Someone could have some amazing IQ and still be a dumbass politically or socially. Billy probably has a higher-than-average IQ, but his social influences have changed since he was a kid and decades of ass-kissing would change anyone's personality. He also seems to be vulnerable to manipulation such as those deployed by cults and other propaganda proliferation.

IQ /= intelligence

Yes it does

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by johncg

Yes it does

No it doesn't. IQ tests are a complex mix of different tests that are intended to measure certain traits, but intelligence consists of things that are not measurable in that way. For example, creativity. Even the test makers agree it doesn't actually test intelligence but something that correlates with it. There are also problems with how it scores different subsets of the population, especially poor people and minorities. For example, https://nrcgt.uconn.edu/newsletters/winter052/# (quick google search)

but now i've gotten off topic. corgan is a high average IQ dumbass

[reprise85]

You might be right, but I think the average person is dumber than most people think. When I was studying IQ tests we had some examples of different people taking the tests (video) and it really made me adjust my perspective what average IQ is. A really big giveaway is vocabulary (in adults), believe it or not. Most people I thought were at average were actually 10-15 points above, which is statistically significant.

[pavementtune]

Originally Posted by reprise85

You might be right, but I think the average person is dumber than most people think.

Yea I just realized “average” in the real world differs greatly from what I thought (I figured around 120).
Google tells me above 115 is already considered above average, yet I only ever saw IQ test results in university settings, including from people who scored so high on the Stanford-Binet test that they qualified for a Mensa membership.