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The ability to manipulate a machine does not make one an intelligent person.

I thought of this because you often hear automatic praise and high intelligence attribution to those who are, for example, computer programmers.  “Oh, he’s a programmer, he’s so smart.”  “He works with computers, you know, he’s smart.”  But is he, or she?  It is my assertion that there are a large number of such people out there who are fools when it comes to other subjects, issues, or dealings.  This is, at its base, obvious, and of course applicable to any field, be it doctors, lawyers, what have you.  I mean, I’m sure there’s a decent correlation between people in these higher wage fields and intelligence, but it certainly is not high enough to be considered a given.  I’ve noticed that persons in such positions often unfortunately assume their own intelligence as well.  Though sometimes true, one should not think it to be automatic.  Though if one does not think it to be automatic, they’re probably smarter than the one who does.

And no, I don’t think I’m the smartest guy on planet Earth.

…how about the fucking ability to manipulate those blockquote quotes (mine) = fail.