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"Being smart is the solution to all problems, so any problem where I can't solve it by being smart, the problem is not being smart enough."

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"Being smart is a solution to most problems. People can often get a surprising amount done even if they aren't smart, or are smart only in really different ways from you or me. And sometimes figuring out a smartness-based solution is just unavoidably time-consuming compared to using some other trait."

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"I don't think I have other traits."

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"...What other things are you counting as traits people may have?"

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"Some people are funny, or generous, or beautiful, or kind."

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"You could be - well, I'm not sure how much you get to decide if you're beautiful but you're pretty cute - you could cultivate the other three if you wanted, though."

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"I don't think I could."

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"Why not?"

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"I just don't have any idea how and if I figured it out that'd still be doing it with smarts."

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"Well, that's kind of what I'm saying. If you don't like the fact that sometimes you run into problems being smart won't handle for you, you could try to convert - not even convert, channel - some smart into some other stuff."

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"Yeah. I could do that. How do you channel smart into generous?"

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"Well, who's your template for a generous person?"

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"Dunno. Lórien?"

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"And why'd you pick him?"

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"He gives lots of people lots of things."

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"Do you think something would go wrong if you started just giving lots of people lots of things, then? Wouldn't work? Wouldn't count?"

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"They might think I was generous but I wouldn't actually be."

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"What would it mean to 'actually' be?"

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"Doing that because you wanted to enrich peoples' lives instead of because you want attention."

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"How do you know why Lórien does it?"

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"I don't know. I could be wrong about him being generous."

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"And you're pretty sure you just want attention and not to enrich people's lives?"

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"I want to enrich peoples' lives, but that doesn't motivate me to give them things, usually. Not that I can think of."

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"Well," she says, "why not?"

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"When I give people things I'm mostly thinking about how it's good that I made it and I can make such nice things and maybe they'll respect me. I'm just not thinking about whether they'll be happy. I know I should, and I can force it, but it's not what motivates me."

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