Hard as fuck or smart as shit?

[Munday's Chylde]

It's a naff thread, granted, but it follows on from a recent discussion with my peers on the virtue of hardness over intelligence.

What would you rather be (assuming you can only have one or the other) - so hard that Vinnie Jones would give up his seat on a bus for you or so brainy that Stephen Hawkins refuses to play you at Trivial Pursuits (and not just because he's sick of having to throw the dice with his mouth).

Me? I'd love to be dead hard, I want to be chucked out of dangerous eastend pub every friday night for killing six of the regulars with my chin. Obviously the correct response would be intelligence but seriously, who gives a shit about that? You know when you get in a heated argument with someone who is very clever and can run rings around you verbally and look set to win? Well if you can counter their argument with, "Agree with me or I'll make you eat your own cock you fucking four eyed penis face." then who is the real winner? eh? eh?

It's probably because I'm small that the idea of striking fear into the heart of men appeals to me. At school I was a nasty little shit who got quite a kick out of bullying as many people as I could, back then it was a state of mind - I dont think anybody noticed they could just stop me by stepping on me, I'd hate to run into any of them now because they'd snap me like a twig.

So if your up for a real pleb debate then feel free to join in. What gets more respect? Big brains or a neck you moor a boat to?

[smoker]

i'd rather be hard as nails than smart, because you can always bully your way into university, but you can't think yourself tough. i wouldn't want to be a real meathead though, hard like pitt in snatch is how i'd be.

[fanny splendid]

Hmm, which one would I give up?

Probably being hard. Intelligence gives you the ability to talk your way into trouble, out of trouble, and get others to take and give the trouble for you.

[Frinky]

Brains. Using these brains I'd then build an army of robotic Mr T's to do all my dirty, foo'-smashing work.

[blue jammer]

I prefer 'as hard as shit and as smart as fuck'

I'd rather be tarred with the intelligent brush, even if it means being geeky, rather than thought of as "that twat who floored and hospitalised a load of people.."

[Krang]

Intelligence.

How strong are we talking though? like able to win most street duels, hard as mike tyson, or are we talking Incredible Hulk style.

I would'nt choose to be a run of the mill hardman, as eventually you'd get "iced" by some dawg with a tec9, in a low rider.

[Frinky]

...or are we talking Incredible Hulk style.

Sod that... what about Hulk Hogan? I've always wanted to have a PVC vest I can rip to shreds, plus he beat Rocky up. The kids love him, and you get to "Hulk Up"... whatever that is.

[Des Nilsen]

Intelligence, without a doubt.

I think you can easily persuade people or give the impression you're not to be messed with if you really want to. Having the conviction to do whatever it takes to 'sort someone out' would be easy enough, assuming you weren't totally incapable of letting go of any fear of injury.
Besides, with enough insight into another person you can 'engineer' their downfall with well worded implications that you can read them like a book. Their neurosis will bring them down.

(That's bollocks isn't it? Still, if you seem sure of yourself they'll have a crisis of confidence, which is always helpful).

-

[Borboski]

I'd much rather be supra-intelligent. Then I could also exile myself to Siberia, lift logs, like Rocky and Lenin, to become ubermenshky. But I could also put my brains to the good of society, whearas it's harder if all you've got is muscles - perhaps you could become some Stakhanovite worker, lugging bricks around, to build a church...

I am massive in the first place - 6 foot 8 and 18 stone, so I'm fairly physically powerful anyway. That said, I've never had a fight in my life. I can't even remember as a youngster hitting anyone (although I can remember being punched on a bus).

No - I've always felt that the best retaliation is to follow someone home and then over a period of weeks put anything you fancy through the letterbox, or to spraypaint "SILLY" all over there front door.

That'll learn 'em.

[mook]

Fucking hell, the thought of being followed about by a 6'8" 18 stone bloke is terrifying enough, but to wake up in the morning to find he has tagged your front door with "SILLY" in big red letters, jebus I nearly shat meself just thinking about it.

[Reverend Minge]

Got to be brains - but you can still be mean.

No matter how hard you are, a shotgun will always stop you in your tracks - and if you've got the brains you'll be clever enough to get away with it.

If you're just hard you'll inevitably just end up in prison, and anyway, as you get  older your hardness will diminish while you can stay intelligent for a lot longer. And by the time you can't think straight and are pissing your pants, you'll no longer care.

[elderford]

I think the real truth of the argument is: would you rather give a fuck or not about the consequences of your actions?

I had some recent dealings with a real pair of anti-social young ladies, who:

Usually on drugs
Buy prescription drugs from relatives
Bully employees
Sell employees drugs
Drive will suspended
Get into fights
Stab people
Vandalise cars
Regularly give false information to the police

This is only what I know they get up to. The key is not that they are hard, but that they do not give a fuck about the consequences.

Take the stabbing for example. I would be anxious carrying a weapon, I would be anxious about using it, I would cry like a girl when the police arrested me, I wouldn't be able to sleep for the worry as my day in court approached. The lass in question did the stabbing way before vandalising the cars and much drunken weekend fighting. She hasn't adapted her behaviour in the slightest, because she doesn't give a fuck.

...and she's right, her doctor explained in court that her prescription anti-depressants when mixed with huge amounts of alcohol could cause her to have unpredictable mood swings (ie. stabbing people in the neck) and so she was aquitted.

[Munday's Chylde]

Fucking hell, the thought of being followed about by a 6'8" 18 stone bloke is terrifying enough, but to wake up in the morning to find he has tagged your front door with "SILLY" in big red letters, jebus I nearly shat meself just thinking about it.

ha! ha! ha! I just laughed my intelligence off reading that. Wouldn't it be the most disturbing thing ever to find some nutter had gone to the effort of painting 'SILLY' on your door? The implications of choosing an innocent word like that over C*NT or something somehow makes the implied threat a hundred times more sinister.

[Cerys]

Oh, brains, definitely.  I'd hate to be stupid.  Although if I was stupid and had always been so, I probably wouldn't mind.

Can't I be both?  Please?  Just for a laugh....

[Martian Martian]

Seeing as I'm neither; either would do.

[Elliot]

I'd like to be Ninja hard.
Hard as Nija's.
A quick hows ya father and the pub prick would be eating his pint.
That quick.

[Uncle_Z]

Smart, definitely.  I smugly put myself in the brainy camp anyway, but have had a spell where I (arguably) gave the appearance of being "hard".  To put that in context I am only 5'9 and have a classically harmless looking face, but I hulked up to nearly 16 stone with a 130kg benchpress and 180kg 10 rep max on Deadlift, which I considered not bad.  

Bouncers were starting to apologise when they had to search me.  Not in a "sorry sir you're cleary hard" way (Henry Rollins, Henry Rollins), but in a "come on mate you know we have to do this" way, as if they had accepted me as "one of theirs".  I ttill could not scrap for biscuits but how were they to know?.  This aspect of it was cool, but the fact that I also got the attention of many late teen "do you think yer hard then?" bad boys was not.  As a kickboxing friend of mine once found out, it does not matter how big, strong or fast you think you are, some little scrote with a stanley knife can stil make a mess of your face.

The compromise?  Being smart, but knowing hard as fuck people :)

[Morrisfan82]

Being brainy as fuck but piss-poor physically is why they invented taserguns.

[hymen spaz]

can i be so hard that stephen hawkins gives up his seat.

[Mister Six]

I suppose that if you're very thick but very hard, you lack the level of self-awareness that would make you unhappy about your intelligence (and in any case you'd be too busy smashing and crushing to notice) whereas if you were very intelligent, you'd not only be aware of your own feebleness, but also of the ultimate futility of existence and your inability to drastically change the world for the better within your lifetime.

On the other hand, being a scheming Moriarty character, pulling off all kinds of devious criminal plots does hold a certain degree of appeal. Especially since you can pay the thick but tough chapsto act as bodyguards...

[glitch]

On the other hand, being a scheming Moriarty character, pulling off all kinds of devious criminal plots does hold a certain degree of appeal. Especially since you can pay the thick but tough chapsto act as bodyguards...

Which is exactly why I've always wanted to be a real life James Bond tpye of supervillian. Or more precisely, Hank Scorpio from that episode of the Simpsons.

[big dogs cock]

'Ard. Stupid people have more fun as they're too stupid to realise they're stupid etc... This:

the ultimate futility of existence and your inability to drastically change the world for the better within your lifetime.

, if you have no religion, is the conclusion you always come to if you think hard enough about truths, and where's the point in that.

Plus, i'm absolutely rubbish at feighting and that, my mums village is being terrorised by gipo's at the moment, they've been stopping kids and checking they're pockets for pot and fucking dinner money, putting bricks through bus windows, stealing milk off doorsteps and trying to create gang 'fueds' with unintrested bemused locals. One of the little shits put my mums front window through the other day trying to break in frightening her silly (my stepdad works away so she was alone), and if I had been there and caught the kid in my house, and i'm assuming it's the same kids, I would have had to simply stab him to death, I would have had no other idea of what to do! But when you see meatheads who enjoy violence brawling they seem to kick into some sort of set of rules, the squaring up, the posing, the shoving, i've seen apalled looks on peoples faces when the opponent smashes a bottle as if tho say 'hey, that's not fair', when i'm just thinking 'what the hell do you expect you're trying to physically hurt him!'.

[wasp_f15ting]

I'd hate to be "just" smart. That is not going to work when confronted by a bunch of shitless wanks that can't comprehend anything beyond themselves. Seriously are you going to stand their and talk Plato when some cunt wants to smash your face in?

If anyone really confronts me, I'll make sure I'll make them suffer with all I can. I vent most of my fighting rage through other means ;) but when I have it in reserve if some fucker touches me. I don't actively look for fights, but I won't stand there and go, "argh he's only being racist because he's from an economically backward family, his ignorance should be clarified not punished"

But on the note of fighting, it is nice to beat someone up isn't it? I really enjoy myself when I get into an aggressive spree, pulverising someone's body with my own energy is quite refreshing. My last confrontation was some time ago, but I loved it, the buzz of cracking bones and hearing his g/f cry out for mercy was exhilarating. I guess its my primal monkey wanting flesh and blood.

[terrorist]

definitely intelligence,
I'm so good at playing out different scenarios in my head that I rarely get into arguments I just let things go by.  You see I play it out in my head and I always win so I just act as though I've already won from the start and then there's no need to go through the whole painful physical shit.  Of course this doesn't work for burglars or muggings but thankfully (touch wood) I haven't had to deal with that much.

[Munday's Chylde]

and trying to create gang 'fueds' with unintrested bemused locals.

:D

I'm picturing some scruffy lookin 'ard 'uns grouped outside of a retirement home, clicking together their bottled fingers and chanting, "W-a-r-r-i-o-r-s come out to plaaay" whilst a couple of sweet old ladies peek uncertainly out of their floral curtains.

[Krang]

can i be so hard that stephen hawkins gives up his seat.

ahahaha. short and sweet.

Theres nothing worse than gypo's. On my way home the other day, we (me and my mum) drove round a blind turn, only to be met by a gypo cunt, coming the other way (single lane road) on a moped. No helmet, argos gold chain blowing in the wind, he was on the wrong side too, he even had the cheek to signal (i presume) "YEH WELL FUCKIN' PLAYED" as if it was my mum's fault.

His friend was 20 metres on up the road, wearing the helmet. (on foot)

[Purple Tentacle]

His friend was 20 metres on up the road, wearing the helmet. (on foot)

Surely it would be safer on his head?

[big dogs cock]

Christs knees wasp, better not mess with you mate! I agree though, I don't really think anyone ever didn't really enjoy the feeling of winning a fight against a cunt. I'm just arse at it.

It is a bit mundays, a load of small boys turned up with sticks with pins in them at the pub and started making cut-throat gestures at some of my mates the other day, so they went outside, simply took the sticks of them and told them to fuck right off. they're only 16 year olds, but they won't be for ever and if the coppers don't shift the scumbags on soon it'll be lynch mob time, and i'll be happy to provide matches and petrol. they're an absolute disease, and it's very easy to be lefty and bang on about tolerance and travellers rights until they pull up on your doorstep and start hanging about outside the shops all fucking day looking for fights, stealing things and generally being beastly. And claiming benefits too. Grr, i'm in full daily mail mode here.

[Gazeuse]

You can have both...I present...Judge Judy.

[big dogs cock]

Nah, Judge Judy presents Judge Judy.