(September 27, 2019 at 4:32 pm)mordant Wrote: So based on perceived intelligence (though he was in fact extremely bright and intuitive, just not broadly or socially), on appearance and perceived attitude, he wasn't worth a shit.
I can't answer the bigger question, but I think you make an important point here.
People are really complex. It's very hard to pass judgment on fuzzy qualities like intelligence. When we try, we're likely to use obvious and contingent values like how much money they've made, or how "successful" they look from a social standpoint.
Maybe the difficulty of judging quality should push us towards a sort of tentative default -- since our yardsticks are flawed, best to err on the side of compassion.
