Intelligence is Bliss

There is no such thing as "smart" or "stupid". All people are equally "smart".
　
Think about it. The sheer number of things that a human has to learn in the first couple of years of life completely eclipses any learning that is done later. You only have to look at how a baby learns the things that you take for granted every day to get an idea of the millions of little facts that everyone has to know just to be able to get up in the morning and make it through the day without dying. Gravity makes things fall down. If I hold my cup like this, it spills. The red square does not fit in the round hole. When something has steam coming off of it, it is probably too hot to touch. What makes it even more astounding is that we are all largely self-taught.
　
All our brains are about the same size. We all have about the same number and quality of neurons. It seems like the capacity for storing information doesn't vary from person to person.
　
If it is not necessarily the number of facts that someone knows, is it the quality of those facts? What does that even mean? Who is to say that is it more important to know how long it takes light to travel from the sun to the Earth versus what the best sunscreen is to use for your baby? Is it somehow "smart" to be able to answer the Final Jeopardy question correctly, but "pedestrian" to be able to recite the recipe to grandma’s famous homemade biscuits? Is it better to know the details of Marco Polo’s travels or the directions to a good Italian restaurant?
　
Let's assume the answer depends on money - supply and demand, say. If the demand for a certain intellectual ability is large and the number of people that can supply that ability is small then the cost of that type of knowledge is high. Therefore those particular facts or abilities can be identified as those things that are "smart", right?
　
Well, no, of course not. It would explain why nuclear engineers get paid more than janitors, but so what? Does the knowledge of how thermal neutrons behave in a zirconium matrix somehow prevent the scientist from mixing bleach- and ammonia-based cleaners in his garage when he gets home from work? "Smart" people are killed every day because they lack one piece of information that people that make many times less than them know by heart.
　
Maybe being smart means being able to survive longer because smart people are better at assimilating information quickly. No. I doubt that car accidents are somehow inversely proportional to IQ. If that were the case, insurance companies would be pushing intelligence tests as a way to determine initial premiums or changing rates based on the number of accredited degrees the insuree has accumulated. Longevity may only indicate someone is lucky or risk-adverse. Lucky is not smart. Neither is boring.
　
It seems that the only real meaningful measure is that if the facts that someone knows increase quality of life, not quantity. If someone knows how to make themselves happy (in ways that are not disruptive or criminal, obviously) then these things they know must be considered "smart". Different things make different people happy – making money, watching football, religion, cooking, enjoying social interactions, etc. There is no universal set – we are all different.
　
So we come back to the beginning. There is no such thing as smart or stupid, only happy and unhappy.

Ignorance might be bliss, but being blissful is not ignorant.