Intelligence can be both a boon and a curse. It depends on how we use it, and more importantly, what governs it.
Welcome to Plain Sight by Wyzr, where we bring hidden patterns into plain sight. Every week, we explore stories and ideas that help us understand why we are the way we are.
When Intelligence Is Dangerous
This weekend, I was watching Titan: The OceanGate Disaster, a Netflix documentary that examines the rise and fall (mostly fall) of OceanGate, the maker of the infamous Titan submersible that imploded somewhere near the Titanic’s remains.
Stockton Rush, its founder and CEO, was no ordinary businessman. He was a highly intelligent, visionary engineer who truly believed he was pushing the boundaries of deep-sea exploration. He had proclaimed loudly, “I’m not going to die. Nobody is going to die under my watch — period.” And yet, in 2023, the Titan imploded in the Atlantic, killing him and four others aboard.
What fascinated me wasn’t just the tragedy, but the psychology behind it. How could a man so smart, so aware of engineering principles, ignore repeated warnings? How could he overlook clear evidence that his vessel wasn’t safe?
But then I also realised — this wasn’t new. Time and again, history has shown that intelligence, when combined with ego, identity, and rigidity, can lead people into ruin. It happens all the time in businesses of all sizes. It’s a timeless pattern — bad leadership creates bad culture, and bad culture leads to disaster. In most cases, people’s lives aren’t on the line. Sadly, that wasn’t the case with OceanGate.
The Descent of Titan: Warnings Ignored
Let’s start with what happened. Stockton Rush’s Titan submersible was designed with a carbon-fiber hull — a material choice that raised eyebrows across the engineering community. Experts warned that carbon fiber, though lightweight and strong, was vulnerable to fatigue under deep-sea pressures, especially after repeated use.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations and chief pilot, flagged these concerns loudly. He warned that the vessel’s testing was inadequate and that critical safety systems were missing. His insistence on further tests wasn’t welcomed — he was fired, and his warnings dismissed as alarmism.
Rush, meanwhile, dismissed industry standards as unnecessary bureaucracy. He opined that safety beyond a threshold was “pure waste” and saw certification as a barrier to innovation. His confidence only grew after a series of successful dives — but beneath the surface, the Titan’s hull was weakening. Prior dives had produced ominous sounds: loud bangs and creaks that suggested structural strain. Data had clearly captured that carbon fibres were unable to withstand the high pressures of ocean depth, especially after repeated use. Yet Rush interpreted these as harmless quirks rather than red flags. He ignored the data and gave in to his bias, that if it hasn’t resulted in anything disastrous yet, everything must be fine.
In June 2023, Titan began its final descent. Minutes later, it imploded, killing everyone aboard. What Stockton Rush had seen as proof of his vessel’s resilience had, in fact, been warnings of its impending failure.
Edison vs. AC: When Brilliance Fights Progress
But Rush’s behavior is hardly an isolated phenomenon. There are countless examples from history and from life where you’d see similar patterns repeating. Let me just cite a couple, for the sake of anecdote, from the field of science.
Thomas Edison, most famous for his invention of the light bulb, transformed the world with his inventions. But when it came to electrifying cities, his preference for direct current (DC) became an obsession. DC was reliable for short distances but impractical for powering entire cities. His contemporary George Westinghouse’s proposal for alternating current (AC) offered a cheaper and more scalable solution. Edison took this personally.
Rather than adapt, he dug in. He launched a bitter PR war against AC. He staged public electrocutions of animals with AC to show its supposed dangers. He advocated for AC’s use in executions in the hope that AC would always be associated with death, and hence people would refuse to use it in daily life. Interestingly, Edison had earlier been a staunch advocate of abolishing capital punishment.
Edison could have used his brilliance to make AC safer, to help it serve the masses, but he chose to further his ideals than do what was right for the world. He was too tied to DC, too invested in being right. And so he fought a losing battle, trying to slow progress rather than shape it.
He was a genius. But with his intelligence, more than anyone else, he was capable of convincing himself that his ideas were right.
When it comes to genius, Albert Einstein’s name is pretty much synonymous with it. His early work reshaped physics — from special and general relativity to the famous equation E=mc². But for the last 30 years of his life, Einstein chased a dream that never materialized: a unified field theory, one elegant framework that would link gravity and electromagnetism.
Again and again, he proposed solutions. Again and again, experiments proved them wrong. But Einstein didn’t let go. As Oppenheimer observed, he “turned his back on the experiments” and tried to “rid himself of the facts.”
Einstein himself saw the futility toward the end. “I must seem like an ostrich who forever buries its head in the relativistic sand in order not to face the evil quanta,” he once wrote to his friend in his final years, reflecting on his failed theories. His towering intellect had, in some ways, become his blindfold.
When Intelligence Becomes a Blind Spot
There’s a pattern in these stories. The smarter we are, the better we become at defending our own ideas — even when they no longer serve us. We rationalize. We explain away flaws. We dismiss dissent as ignorance or hostility. And over time, the cost of these blind spots grows.
The biases are well documented:
- Confirmation bias: We seek information that supports our views and ignore what challenges them.
- Overconfidence bias: We overestimate our knowledge and underestimate risks.
- Motivated reasoning: We argue not to find the truth, but to defend what we already believe.
Sometimes these blind spots lead to wasted years. In a few rare instances, as in OceanGate’s case, they cost lives.
When Stockton Rush’s Titan made its last descent on June 18, 2023, it had no third-party certification, no proper acoustic or stress monitoring that could detect a failing hull in time. The sub imploded, taking with it not just human lives, but the cautionary lessons of so many past tragedies.
Rush didn’t fail because he wasn’t smart. He failed because he was smart — but unwilling to be challenged, unwilling to admit he might be wrong. He had created blind spots for himself, and he almost wanted it to grow. Ultimately, he paid with his life, and of four others.
Intelligence is a powerful tool. But it’s not infallible. The most brilliant minds can build the highest walls around their ideas, shutting out criticism that could save them.
The real challenge isn’t to be brilliant — it’s to stay open, humble, and adaptable. To invite dissent. To listen, even when it hurts.
“Sometimes the smartest thing to do is admit you might be wrong.”
So here’s a question for you:
What’s one idea you’ve grown too attached to? And who can you ask to challenge it?
What we’re reading at Wyzr
The Intelligence Trap by David Robson — a fascinating exploration of how intelligence can often trap us. So many fascinating anecdotes and learnings. Highly recommended for anyone interested in psychology.
Until next time.
Best,
Yashraj
