The Line Between Smart and Dumb

 Everyone leaps to conclusions. They shouldn't, but that's Caino hypocriens for you.

 Since everyone leaps to conclusions, it's important to leap to correct conclusions rather than incorrect ones. Dumb people rely on something unreliable. Smart people rely on something reliable. Both rely on their own brain, so there you go, that's the line.

 This is a qualitative difference between manipulatable and not-manipulatable. 

 I am smart. When a dumb person is in my presence, I can reliably predict which wrong conclusions they will leap to. I pick the wrong conclusion which is favourable to me, regardless of the welfare of the idiot.
 Dumb folk can be hypnotized. Because they trust themselves to see through scams without effort, they're uncritical of the things they hear. Hearing someone else say something becomes a memory of hearing themselves say it - they fool themselves into thinking they believe it. Then they defend the implanted belief for ego reasons. Dumbass: "I'm smart, I wouldn't think something dumb. I thought it, therefore it's smart, and I have to go on believing it to go on being smart." (Tomorrow: a post on sogical thinking.) "I asserted it out loud. If it was wrong, that would be embarrassing. Therefore, it's correct." (Self-esteem, aka unearned false self-confidence, is a critical vulnerability.)

 Someone who is +55 on me (210) the way I'm +55 on the average, can't manipulate me. I either leap to the correct conclusion, or I say I don't know. Based on accurate data, I choose the advantageous option for me. +55, +110, +165, doesn't matter. I still choose the advantageous option. If they try to feed me unreliable signals I simply discount them, the same way I discount unreliable signals from dumb people. 

 The advantage of the 210 is that they can pick even more advantageous advantages than I can, as they don't have to say [I don't know] as often.
 Indeed if there were a trustworthy 210 I would be more than happy to let them make my decisions for me.

 Although, empirically, they don't pick advantageous advantages. Doing the sets is critical. I've read a couple reports of 200+. One is a failed playwright. One is a middle manager. I know of a 180, Sam Vaknin. He studies narcissism for a living and knows less about it than I do, albeit not by much.
 I'm not exactly jealous of these lifestyles. Even money: insofar as they make more money than I do, it's by being inefficient. My revenue is at multiples of their dollars per hour.
 I assume the problem is their superstitious religions. They do indeed uphold that religion better than I could. To check I would have to convert one and see if it solved the problem, but I haven't had the chance to do so. Conversion relies on either manipulation or the sword, so it's unlikely I will ever get the chance.

 The question is how far down the scale you have to go before doing the sets doesn't help enough to put you over the line.