Unlike most people you'd understand this post

Appealing to people's vanity is a time-honored method of salesmanship.
Trying appeal to people of average or below average intelligence, or "smart people" who are terribly insecure will cover a lot of ground. In fact the only sections of society to which it does not appeal, are the small portions of secure, very intelligent people or weirdly disconnected unassimilated mavericks¹.

While not exactly subtle, this propaganda is effective. It's also useful even when trying to sell an idea, instead of a product. Why else would anyone endure lengthy pseudo-intellectual books, lectures or articles, except for the fact that they have been told that's what smart people do:
"Smart people don't enjoy television, smart people don't like video-games, smart people like James Joyce." The more suggestible (not necessarily the same as 'less intelligent') accept these arguments and act as if having "intellectual tastes" increases your native intelligence. I do not find this particularly bothersome, unless I have to interact with someone who actually believes that reading Salinger or Margaret Sanger makes them smarter than the rest.
Truly "smart people" seem to be able to wring out a lot of intellectual goodness from the most barren and unappealing mental spaces, and are able successfully interact with less intelligent people; being an "intellectual" however guarantees neither of these abilities and seems to preclude them.


1. For the record: I hate the term maverick, because true mavericks are almost universally hated, so slightly daring and endearing term "maverick" is never used to describe them. I also really hate notes and references

in addition, for contrarians like myself there is: http://youarenotsosmart.wordpress.com/

Nerd Jokes!

"I thought d(jerk)/dt was yank."

from nerdy_yo_mamma_jokes

I love that someone did these, although the black hole and gravitational jokes lack imagination.
I just might start using reddit because of this. I love reading other people's jokes, it's sort of a Lamarckian theory of intelligence: 'I can understand intelligent people, hence I acquire their intelligence.. ' (edit 2011: this is probably the same reason I watch Big Bang)

I feel so witty... I can use big words like 'delicatessen' and know what they mean.

Additionally, I can't think where I heard it, but this probably qualifies as the worst nerd joke ever: "Q: What's the value of a contour integral around Western Europe? A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe."
(tell me if you can find anything in worse taste that won't get this blog blocked.)