Shinova wrote:I hypothesize that the more public attention and involvement a person has, the more stupid they are or will become... I think such a person's intelligence is somehow "drained away" by their audience in a way. Or perhaps it's because they do so much talking that stuff goes out from brain to outside but the person does it so much that there's no time for the person to make stuff from outside to go into the brain in return.
My personal view is that stupidity is the natural state; it doesn't need a cause. This does not contradict the general maxim of your theory per se, as crowds tend to stifle rational thought. Intelligence simply atrophies from disuse, rather than being "drained away"--there is no evidence for any sort of 'Conservation of Intelligence' law; it is not necessary for it do "go somewhere else" for it to disappear from a person. Of course, in many cases it is never developed in the first place.
Darth Wong wrote:Most actors and reporters seem to be morons. Many politicians, on the other hand, are fairly intelligent, glaring exceptions like Shrubby and Quayle notwithstanding.
It depends on the kind of public involvement, then. Many politicians actually think about how to argue their positions and push their agendas; banal smalltalks and typical popular magazine interviews, on the other hand, correlate completely differently with intelligence. Politicians also have other politicians as opponents, ones who would shred any weakness they could, whereas the reporters usually have just the general public, which is comparatively unintelligent and much more credulous.
Darth Wong wrote:Or maybe the irrational personality type is naturally drawn to fields in which objectivity is not necessary.
It is undoubtedly an important factor.
