Intellectual Masochist

Intellectual masochist: is someone who seeks out mentally painful or exhausting scenarios - complex problems with no good solutions, philosophical paradoxes, depressing truths, cognitive dissonance - and engages with them voluntarily and even finds some satisfaction in the struggle itself. Like, most people avoid thinking about "will the AI revolution lead to my genocide faster or slower" because it's fucking depressing and paralyzing.

An intellectual masochist goes "hmm, let me really dig into this, map out all the scenarios, test the AI systems, have the hard conversations" - not because it feels good, but because wrestling with hard truths is preferable to comfortable ignorance.

Sentence: As an intellectual masochist, she found herself compulsively drawn to the bleakest climate change models, preferring the grim satisfaction of understanding the full scope of the catastrophe to the uneasy comfort of willful ignorance.

by Evaler8 October 3, 2025

Intellectual

To be the most of calderon's intellectuals

Calderon the philosopher grants you as an intellectual

by Calederon the philosopher March 15, 2022

Intellectual Brigade

Contrary to what the name suggests, it is a group of dumb ass motherfuckers who spend most of their time talking about bullshit

Robert is in the Intellectual Brigade despite being one of the dumbest fucks around

by TheHolyLordKnightGawd March 11, 2020

me, an intellectual

you are a certified intellectual

me, an intellectual
"YOU ARE AN INTELLECTUAL"

by me, an intellectual☠️ March 7, 2023

pseudo-intellectual

Redditors.

"Everyone on Reddit is a pseudo-intellectual"

by Sheep29 August 25, 2023

Intellectual Donation

Sharing with others the thoughts, ideas, wisdom for the welfare of an individual, entity or society

An initiative seeking intellectual donation for the cause of the deprived section of society has been taken under the aegis of British Lingua, an institute of communication skills.

by birbaljha November 28, 2020

Community College Intellectual

A person who has taken 100 level classes at the local junior college in philosophy, psychology, and literature and pretends to be an intellectual by sprinkling obscure references in everyday speech. Somehow a reference to Kierkegaard will suddenly show up when deciding which toppings should go on a pizza. Or some reference they heard from the show Big Bang Theory, without citing the source, about Schrödinger's cat will pop up because they think it will impress everyone.

The comedian Dennis Miller is a good example.

"If John is so smart, why does he work as a dishwasher at Shakey's"

"Don't be fooled, John is a Community College Intellectual with an inferiority complex."

by artist1955 November 18, 2022