014 Would you like to be truly brilliant—more intelligent than 99.9 percent of the population? If so, would it matter if being that smart would virtually eliminate your sense of humor about the things that amuse most people?

Happy soon-to-be first day of August! And also JKR/HP's birthdays!!!

To answer this question, yes, I would like to be brilliant. I would like to be brilliant so I could achieve things for this world and make a difference. I think that for me, nothing is more important than being able to find the cure for cancer, or diabetes, or finding a way to manufacture alternative energy. If I could do that, no personal risk is too much.

And who says being brilliant and finding things amusing are mutually exclusive? Some of the smartest people in the world have the greatest senses of humour. For instance, Einstein went and insulted all of humanity by saying "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." I mean, I'm not a genius or anything, but I still find that pretty funny. I don't know what's going on with the 'virtually eliminate your sense of humour' business, because what else do you joke about when you're the most brilliant person on earth? Tesla coils?? The Stock Exchange?? Pseudocholinesterase?????

Of course, there is the matter of being manipulated or transferred to "the dark side". With great power comes great danger, and I'm not sure I'm smart enough to evade other people controlling me... oh wait. I would be smart enough, wouldn't I?

But anyways, what would this 'brilliant' encompass? Would this mean quickly being able to learn what other people teach me? Would this mean being impossibly charismatic and cunning? Or would this mean being able to calculate huge sums in my head within seconds?

I guess there are different types of smart, and no type of smart is smarter than the other. That's the power of human intelligence; it's such a vague idea that it's impossible to be the "smartest person in the world". We all have our weaknesses and our strengths, and there honestly is no example figure of a 'smart' person, not when Marilyn Monroe had a higher IQ than Albert Einstein.

- Quibbles 7/31/14