Smartest Guy in the Room Syndrome

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Smartest Guy in the Room syndrome is related to Dunning/Kruger Effect, and affects men and women equally.

The Smartest Guy in the Room is smart enough to know that he's smarter than most people, but not smart enough to recognize when other people are smarter. He defaults to the belief that because he is smarter than the majority of the population, he must be smarter than the people he's talking to, and tends to look no further or deeper than whatever initial assumption he has made or conclusion he has come to.

The Smartest Guy in the Room is recognizable for his tendency to dismiss other people's views without critically examining why, for glancing at a discussion, assuming other people are being foolish, and correcting them based on that assumption without actually checking the source material himself to understand what they are discussing, and for either digging in his heels and screeching, or for "refusing to argue because it's pointless" whenever anyone else presents difficult-to-refute information that contradicts his conclusion.

He actually can't learn, because he thinks he already knows, and that the rest of us simply aren't smart enough to see his enlightenment. The Smartest Guy in the Room has usually been through at least one, sometimes two jailbreaks, but then something critical happened; he stopped. Convinced that he had broken out of his cell, he latched onto whatever form of enlightenment helped him get there, failing to realize that enlightenment is a verb, not a noun. Clinging to the implements of his enlightenment, he also failed to notice that he is once again squatting in a cell almost identical to the one he believed he had left behind.

There is nothing that can be done with a Smartest Guy in the Room, as any attempt to convince him that he is missing out on a huge aspect of bipedal development will simply lead to him thinking that you don't understand his unique and highly sophisticated perspective. In that sense, the Smartest Guy in the Room is stuck in a state of arrested development, at approximately age fourteen.

He is a lost cause and cannot be rehabilitated.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Another distinguishing habit of The Smartest Guy In The Room is the practice of calling in to question any and all statements or decisions that don't immediately make perfect sense from his own perspective. He sees no reason to spend 5 seconds thinking about why someone might do or say something that way.

If you don't discourage this behavior, you might spend untold precious minutes of your life explaining why you chose to go to the gas station first, and the grocery store second; the minutia of your life are open to critical dissection and analysis, to determine just how stupid you are compared to The Smartest Guy In The Room.

[AFK]

A Smart Smartest Guy in the Room will recognize that there are other Rooms. 

[Danny Muffin]

I had this affliction in high school. Fortunately, flunking out of university cured me.

[LMNO]

I once suffered this painful affliction.  Luckily, I knew someone who really was the smartest guy in the room, and when I realized this, I accepted Lady Doubt into my heart.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Smartest guy in the room is often legitimately the smartest guy on a particular topic. He is aware of this fact and believes that this bleeds over into other areas of expertise where he is either adequate or deficient. That does not stop him on spouting the "facts" on those particular topics.

[Doktor Howl]

I occasionally suffer from this.  I am just smart enough, though, to change my mind if I'm shown actual proof of my error.  So I'm about half-way there.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

A Smartest Guy in the Room often has an advanced degree, and believes that it qualifies him as an expert on any topic. Likewise, he often thinks he is superbly well-connected and savvy, and can help you out by putting in a good word for you or writing you a letter of recommendation. This belief often defies all logic and crosses the boundaries of even remote plausibility, but being the Smartest Guy in the Room, he is incapable of recognizing that he sounds like a complete tool.

[LMNO]

Frequently, many people will see The Smartest Guy in the Room as... The Smartest Guy in the Room, and they will defer to him or her for no apparent reason at all.  In fact, if you point out that The Smartest Guy in the Room is talking out of his or her rectum, the crowd will resent you for this.

[Doktor Howl]

A Smartest Guy in the Room often has an advanced degree, and believes that it qualifies him as an expert on any topic.

Then there's the po'bucker SGitR, who dismisses all higher education as "book learning with no common sense", without ever considering that there's things that his limited education didn't teach him, and thinks that there are amazingly simple answers to very complicated problems.

[Doktor Howl]

Frequently, many people will see The Smartest Guy in the Room as... The Smartest Guy in the Room, and they will defer to him or her for no apparent reason at all.  In fact, if you point out that The Smartest Guy in the Room is talking out of his or her rectum, the crowd will resent you for this.

Ron Paul/Richard Dawkins/RAW devotees come to mind.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I occasionally suffer from this.  I am just smart enough, though, to change my mind if I'm shown actual proof of my error.  So I'm about half-way there.

I would say that we all suffer from the symptoms of Smartest Guy in the Room from time to time, but few of us have the full syndrome.

A defining part of the syndrome is an inability to change your mind or, in the most severe cases, admit error. The Smartest Guy in the Room is stuck in the moment when he realized that everyone around him was wrong, and so was he. It was a light bulb moment... and then he was done. Bam, he had it. And whatever savior led him to his Enlightenment™ became his new Jesus.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Frequently, many people will see The Smartest Guy in the Room as... The Smartest Guy in the Room, and they will defer to him or her for no apparent reason at all.  In fact, if you point out that The Smartest Guy in the Room is talking out of his or her rectum, the crowd will resent you for this.

The Smartest Guy in the Room often surrounds himself with such people, because they reinforce what he already knows about himself. A certain Color Religion Bird we know comes to mind.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

A Smartest Guy in the Room often has an advanced degree, and believes that it qualifies him as an expert on any topic.

Then there's the po'bucker SGitR, who dismisses all higher education as "book learning with no common sense", without ever considering that there's things that his limited education didn't teach him, and thinks that there are amazingly simple answers to very complicated problems.

This particular type of SGitR also avoids situations and people that challenge his beliefs with an astounding tenacity, and reacts as if to a threat to health and safety if he finds himself cornered by someone who can rationally out-argue him. Confronted with facts and reason, he promptly escalates into shouting and threats of violence.

[AFK]

Frequently, many people will see The Smartest Guy in the Room as... The Smartest Guy in the Room, and they will defer to him or her for no apparent reason at all.  In fact, if you point out that The Smartest Guy in the Room is talking out of his or her rectum, the crowd will resent you for this.

Dude, I was about to post this exact same thing.  Cosmic synergy!