| > What makes something funny? Usually, it's by subverting someone's predictions. And in those other cases? You have a rigorous definition of comedy? > You have to explain a phenomenon better than the truth to convince someone of your lie. This is so often not true I would argue it's generally false. A story is believed because a listener "wants" to believe it. Some listeners have more or less complex criteria for acceptance. > As in, world-building? That is more of a memory problem than an intelligence problem, though you do need to be good at compressing the whole world into what is relevant to the story. People who are worse at that will have to take more notes and refer back to them more often. People like Tolkien and Martin? Note taking as a sign of poor skill/intelligence is a wildly novel take from my point of view. > Also, using the adjectives 'complex, multi-faceted' is lazy here. Be more introspective and write what you really want to say. Couldn't I say the same about your use of Introspective? Surely a more detailed phrase exists to describe what you mean. > interpersonal conflicts... Quite often not an intelligence problem. Oh, I think this will get at the root of our misunderstandings. I believe I've seen this attitude before. Before I jump to conclusions: Why exactly do you say this skill is not intelligence-based? |
There's surely more to comedy than subverting expectations. Someone else who cares more about comedy in particular can figure that out for themself, but surely I gave enough of the general idea to make it clear how you could go about measuring the intelligence necessary for comedy.
> A story is believed because a listener "wants" to believe it. Some listeners have more or less complex criteria for acceptance.
Yeah, that's the sense of "better" I was going for. I could have been more clear here, so I'm glad you figured out what I meant.
> Couldn't I say the same about your use of Introspective? Surely a more detailed phrase exists to describe what you mean.
It was a not-so-kind way of saying, "don't point at vague ideas to obscure what you really mean and make it difficult for others to understand what you mean to keep your opinion unassailable."
> Why exactly do you say this skill [resolving conflicts] is not intelligence-based?
Most people have more time to think than they actually use during conflicts, so I expect most of the time conflicts come from people preferring to not think than because they lack the ability. That or a fundamental value difference (you want my food, I want my food).