High IQ = Low Commonsense?

I used to hold many hitherto academically brilliant contemporaries in awe. I admired them for their ability to solve very complex scientific and mathematical problems and to cite facts and figures as though they are in their fingertips. Many still have such abilities, but they appear totally dumb dumb when it comes to common sense stuff.

One of them sees a conspiracy in every event that captures world headlines. He is certain that MH370 was hijacked by Americans and ISIS was the creation of the Americans. The world's financial system will soon undergo a global currency reset, again thanks to stupid American Dollar. Now the good Asian Elders who are the real owners of all the gold in Fort Knox, and hence been controlling all the “Global Collateral Accounts” for the past decades, are galloping to save the world. They are about to neutralise the evil and greedy Americans soon. And soon Obama will resign to give way to a new president and America is already called the Republic of the United States if America. So on and so forth!

If you goggled Global Currency Reset, or Global Collateral Accounts, or the Republic of the United States of America, you would see tonnes of articles on them. But none is from the mainstream sources - the Federal Reserve, any central bank, or any university. To him, the lack of such credentials simply goes to prove that his contentions are right. These people are trying to hide the truth from us!!! 

This friend of mine placed this wager with me three months ago. I would have to buy friends an MYR500 dinner if by 15 March 2016 one of these events took place: Global Currency Reset or Obama leaving the White House. If none of this happened, he would pay for the dinner instead. On 16 March, I wrote to him, not to claim the prize, but to try to shake him out of his dreams. And he literally replied to say that he had NOT lost. The Global Currency Reset was already in place and asked me to expect Obama’s resignation in a matter of days!

How can he believe in such nonsense? Mind boggling indeed!

This same friend of mine came years ago to tell me that he had been entrusted by a powerful party to cash out his USD97 billion bonds. Yes, USD97,000,000,000! He showed me the certificates. I had never seen one before, but the quality of the paper and the wording in the certificates certainly looked impressive. He said he would be rewarded with a percentage, which would run into hundreds of millions. I really didn’t understand what he was supposed to do to deserve this reward.

But I asked him, "Who are you to them for them to want to give you these many millions?" He never gave me an answer, but I supposed in him he must be saying this, “Let’s me show you!”

I don’t believe he has collected a single cent, let alone millions. But after squandering all his nest egg on this rainbow, until today he still believes that he failed because he couldn't come up with the last "bit" to make it work! 

My Indonesia-born son-in-law who runs a law firm in Melbourne told me that he was recently approached by a compatriot client to help authenticate billions worth of bond certificates that he had been entrusted to handle. I suppose this case is the same as my friend's. This is already twenty years later, yet the same myth still persists! (The client walked away disappointed, thinking that my son-in-law's incredulity was misplaced!)

There appears to be a common trait between this client of my son-in-law and my aforesaid friend. According to my son-in-law, this client is no bodoh stuff; apparently he is pretty outstanding academically. And he really believes in conspiracy theories!!! 

I can now perhaps put up this hypothesis: Inclination to believe in conspiracy theories is directly proportional to one’s IQ?

Is Global Currency Reset for real? For those who are interested, I suggest you read this book by Marcus Curtis. The Kindle edition cost only a couple of dollars.