I like the idea, but the branding/execution is a little off-putting. Memorizing obscure facts won't necessarily make me smarter, and honestly I don't know exactly what would be involved in literally making a person smarter, but I would feel smarter if instead of obscure random facts I got obscure random teachings.
Examples:
A brief explanation of A^2 * B^2 = C^2, followed by a link to the relevant Wikipedia page.
A formula for approximating the volume of a cylinder presented as an easy-to-remember mnemonic, like pi * z * z * a where z = radius and a = height.
These are primarily math-based examples, but anything that tells more about how the world works than which movie happens to be the highest grossing or which dinosaur happened to be the biggest would be more what I would expect.
In "The Book" Alan Watts discusses how he would write a book to his children explaining things like morality, reality, etc. He decides that things like the Bible, books on secular moralism, etc are pretty useless because they just list a bunch of rules or ideas.
He explains that you can't just say things, valid or not, but that you need to enable the cognitive tools and perceptions to see these things oneself. This is how people really learn, by practice, lessons, challenges, etc via some guiding teacher's hand. Writers call something similar to this, "Show, don't tell." Turns out we like to learn by solving puzzles. We just need to know the basics of how the puzzle works like its mechanics, how to start, and what being solved looks like.
I'm surprised to see this trivial quote generator on the top of HN. Its all the things we make fun of, like the word a day calender your friend owns and everyday uses an archaic word in an ill-fitting way to never use it again. Or how we mock the idiocy of the lazy didactic learner. Or the buzzword memorizer. We're supposed to be doers right? Coders, creators, etc.
I guess the facts are kinda cute, but some of these I've seen debunked in some way in the past or are written in a generalist 'know it all' way that doesn't apply to all examples of the thing explained. Everytime I encounter a person who has these memorized I know I'm not dealing with someone fascinated with nature or science or whatever. Just someone who found an easy way to not be so dull and can't really discuss these things past just quoting the 'fact.' The same way uninteresting young people pretend to have humor by memorizing Monty Python lines and repeating them ad nauseaum.
Unfortunately, this does create 'nerds.' The Python quoting kind I mentioned above. Not the kind up all night excited to play with their new arduino kit or with some new framework or language. I know the above sounds elitist, but the fact that they couldn't be bothered for sources really kills this for me. It just seems like a way to spread disinformation and heaven forbid you try to argue against someone parroting these lines in the future. Afterall, he learned it as fact from a fact site. It can't be wrong!
I love Alan Watts and I'm glad you mentioned him. "What is Zen" was extremely influential on me when I was young and I've been obsessing over his writing ever since.
I've only read "The Book..." once, but you remind me that it's a book I seriously need to read again. Thanks for that reminder and taking the time to write out this comment.
On the topic of the bible, I know I need to read "The Book..." again because I'm drawing a blank on Watts' reasoning. Personally, when I was a kid, my Mom encouraged me to think critically about Christian scriptures and our Catholicism. In that sense, the bible was a teaching tool and my Mom played the role of the guiding teacher. In retrospect, I think this helped me, though likely not in the way she intended. :)
"Smart" is so subjective anyways. Personally, I find someone who knows little but is open to new ideas smarter in many cases than someone who might be an expert in an area but is closed off to new ideas. Those people, I might ask for help, say, designing my electron microscope (or high performance network, or quilt design) but I won't ask for general advice.
And then what about street smarts? The ability to experience empathy, to detect emotions and subtle changes in the way people are acting? To be able to connect at a personal level?
Smarts that are applicable only to specific situations I find less "smart" than those skills which may be applied to your understanding of life and your interpersonal relationships. Skills which help you learn more things which are applicable to specific situations fall into the same boat for me.
These are very interesting, but they're like Snapple bottle caps to me.
Examples:
A brief explanation of A^2 * B^2 = C^2, followed by a link to the relevant Wikipedia page.
A formula for approximating the volume of a cylinder presented as an easy-to-remember mnemonic, like pi * z * z * a where z = radius and a = height.
These are primarily math-based examples, but anything that tells more about how the world works than which movie happens to be the highest grossing or which dinosaur happened to be the biggest would be more what I would expect.