> I think you may be confusing your particular intellectual interests with intellectualism itself.
I'm trying to articulate a very fine point myself here, so I might be failing at expressing it.
I agree that Austen's works, or other genres other than sci-fi are not "intellectual" or don't "make you smarter". They all have their niches and good books of each genre have lots of intellectual gems. Sci-fi is good at this particular mathy kind of intellectualism, the one that gives you game theory, and economics, and cryptography, that helps you to understand the increasingly complex world. The kind that puts your System 2 (as in Kahneman's System 1 and 2 of your mind) on overdrive, because what is discussed is something we rarely have natural intuiton for.
It's of course not The Only Knowledge. But (I believe) it's getting more and more important nowadays, and as for something that feels so vital, it's getting a disproportionate amount of hate and dismissal among general population.
I'm trying to articulate a very fine point myself here, so I might be failing at expressing it.
I agree that Austen's works, or other genres other than sci-fi are not "intellectual" or don't "make you smarter". They all have their niches and good books of each genre have lots of intellectual gems. Sci-fi is good at this particular mathy kind of intellectualism, the one that gives you game theory, and economics, and cryptography, that helps you to understand the increasingly complex world. The kind that puts your System 2 (as in Kahneman's System 1 and 2 of your mind) on overdrive, because what is discussed is something we rarely have natural intuiton for.
It's of course not The Only Knowledge. But (I believe) it's getting more and more important nowadays, and as for something that feels so vital, it's getting a disproportionate amount of hate and dismissal among general population.