Problem is there is no real evidence provide to back the assertion. Is the ability to solve well-defined problems really different from the ability to solve poorly-defined problems?

"One way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives" seems like a circular definition. So people that feel good do so because they are better at solving poorly defined problems? How do we know?

I'm positive it is a different skill and I even think that those two skills can be at odds at times.

Poorly defined problems often come down to things like creativity and your ability to handle emotions. Sometimes you have to follow a seemingly senseless curiosity to find the right path forward. Sometimes it is about finding beauty where it isn't expected. Also these problems have multiple valid and fundamentally different solutions and can be highly subjective. Think art.

Well defined problems are about juggling multiple things in your head, high concentration, relying on fundamental knowledge, heuristics etc. All of that possibly under pressure. There might be multiple solutions but they are typically on a scale (good enough vs perfect etc.) or are choices between measurable tradeoffs. Think engineering.

Intuitively sure, but would be nice to have some data to back it up; my intuition could say otherwise. Also, even if they're different how do we know how the correlation works? The article claims there is either no correlation or negative correlation. How do we know that?

There's even less evidence for the idea that smart people see how bad reality really is... Even dumb people know there are "kids starving in Africa", and people beat their wife and kids in their home town.

Yes, but dumb people think those problems can be easily solved, and smart people think about the second and third order effects. A dumb person will think sending free food will solve the problem, and a smart person will realize that will negatively effect food production as local farmers cannot compete with free

> and a smart person will realize that will negatively effect food production as local farmers cannot compete with free

Or it'll be seized and hoarded by corrupt governments or militias.

Then the best we can claim is we don't know why smart people aren't as happy.

> Is the ability to solve well-defined problems really different from the ability to solve poorly-defined problems?

It seems plausible. For instance, would a good accountant (well defined problems) necessarily make a good physicist (poorly defined problems)?

Well at least I didn't see any evidence that says a good accountant would make a worse physicist than a bad accountant. So the assertion that people that are good at solving well-defined problems are not as good at (or at least has no correlation with) solving poorly-defined problems is not well supported.

So, there's some known correlation between IQ and creativity/divergent thinking ability. This article: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.0025...

Seems to indicate that the threshold hypothesis (IQ helps creativity/divergent thinking up to a point, then levels out in correlation) is largely correct

Good points, and I would even go one step further and cast doubt on the notion that "dumb" people don't see the awful. That is not my experience at all.

> That is not my experience at all.

I think we have different experiences then. Or, maybe, your interpretation of 'seeing the awful' is different.

I see 'dumb' people fall for pyramid schemes/MLM which seem obvious to me. They will only see the awful after they've lost money. We both see it, but there's a period where they don't, while I do.

I see people fall for sales tactics and which are transparent to me. Getting a €400 discount on an €800 delivery package for a second hand car that has €150 in actual value, does not seem like a deal to me. Others are very happy and are happy the sales person gave them the fake discount.

When other people are happy that the government reduces taxes on gas due to rising prices, I see rising corporate profits that were paid for with public funding.

When some people get angry about the conspiracy they read on Facebook, I get angry about the manipulation going on that caused that conspiracy to spread.

In the end, in my experience, the 'dumb' people see awful more on the micro level, while I see it more on the macro level. That probably probably makes us just about as unhappy about the stuff that happens around us, just from completely different perspectives.

The only real difference I see, is that I seem to have a harder time finding people to discuss things with than the average person seems to. Where 'dumb people' just seem to be able to repeat talking points and opinions they've heard somewhere, I often prefer more in depth discussions and conversations on the why and how, causing me to be an outsider (sometimes).

The isolation is horrible. All I can see is bickering between interest group/partisant politics when the solutions require neither or in fact require the best of both. Any sane person would agree with both sides but get rid of all the rent seeking. Hence you are now stuck in this position where you hate everyone for their horrible, pointless and counterproductive actions and love them for all the good ideas they have.

Because you aren't picking sides, you will be accused by every side to be siding with the "enemy".

They are more likely to be religious though. Which brings lots of happiness benefits because of the extra community and pro-social activities

Sometimes people call it wisdom. A concept which has largely fallen out of fashion.

OP suggests:

> Wisdom comes the closest, but it suggests a certain fustiness and grandeur, and poorly defined problems aren’t just dramatic questions like “how do you live a good life”; they're also everyday questions like “how do you host a good party” and “how do you figure out what to do today."

Part of the problem IMHO is that we make out wisdom to be this grand thing, rather than simple and effective thinking (that cannot be put into a short list of rules).

“How do you host a good party” might be ill-defined to OP, but I’m sure this is a well defined question with a good answer for a lot of people. (Let’s call that “social quotient”)

I came here to make the same points that you made so eloquently. The only thing I’ll add is that I wonder if there is some correlation between the traits that make someone so good at solving “well defined” problems and mental illnesses. You can’t be “happy” if you’re paranoid (as one of the OP examples- a 9/11 conspiracy where his own theory- Cognitive Theoretical Model of the Universe, or CTMU- is under attack.

I forget where, but I read somewhere that people are good at recognizing patterns are susceptible to conspiratorial thinking because they see patterns everywhere.

And one of the components of intelligence is pattern recognition.

Basically they fall for the social version of pareidolia.

This is an aspect of Taleb's argument against the usefulness of IQ measures

Weird, I thought smart people are those who are good at solving poorly defined problems.

Have you read the OP?

It's less about making an argument for the "correct" definition of "smart"; and more about saying that the way psychologists measure "intelligence" (eg when trying to study things like "are smarter people more or less happy") is measuring success at solving well-defined problems. That things like IQ tests as well as academic success are about solving well-defined problems.

You can think "smart people" are whatever you want, it's not about any "true" definition of what "smart" means, it's just a word that means different things to different people -- often probably not very rigorously defined or consistently applied. The OP is in fact about investigating what some of these different meanings may be with relevance to correlation to happiness.

I don't think academic success only involves well-defined problems even if your work doesn't involve research and just teaching. Being able to convey properly ideas, concepts and information to students is not a well defined problem...

Oh, I think OP is talking about success in school as a student, particularly children in "lower" education (K-12), not adults in post-graduate academic careers.

Oh makes much more sense. Thanks.