Understand

What irks me about Understand is that nobody who reviews it online seems to have the same takeaway as me.

Greco isn’t really a genius! At least after he takes the third shot he’s not. And why is this obvious? Well because he failed! Because nothing he does actually indicates above average intelligence vs. super-intelligence. All his behaviors are just as consistent with a regular paranoid schizophrenic and nothing he does invalidates that interpretation.

Before he takes the third test he’s most likely smart. He has excellent memory and he does incredibly well on IQ tests. The doctors interviewing him are shocked with his improvement, but hey he was only 70th percentile before which is basically retarded.

But look at all his actions after he takes the third shot. He sees a news article about a woman he once knew and assumes it must be related to him! The CIA is using it to blackmail him. And he outwits the CIA, he spots all their vans and hidden agents at the scene. But who’s to say those are actually CIA agents? Who’s to say he’s not just assuming that everyday strangers are secretly fibbies out to get him. Have you ever spoken to a schizophrenic? That’s what schizophrenics do! Just talk to one and they’ll tell you how the black guy who they saw on the train yesterday was actually Obama undercover spying on them. Obama was preparing to kill them. But luckily for the schizophrenic, they beat him, they outwitted Obama by getting off the train and switching three stops before continuing on their journey. Later that day the schizophrenic saw Michelle too but they weren’t quick enough to outwit her. She managed to inject them with a tracker virus and that’s why they have all those scratch marks on their arm. They have to remove the virus!

That’s the main character of Understand, that’s Greco! He invents this conspiracy against him and then masterfully thwarts it without anybody else noticing what’s going on.

He says he found some incriminating memos. But they’re already public record and nobody would understand that they’re incriminating without his explanation. He sends that to the director of the CIA and he calls off his goons. But what did this actually accomplish? No sign that the girl was treated unusually by state law enforcement. No response from the CIA director. Nothing besides the main character’s assumptions.

No evidence he’s done anything else besides experience some paranoia.

This isn’t a “he’s delusional the whole time” or “he was dreaming” explanation. What he sees and describes literally happens, it’s just that the way its described suggests he’s smart. But an equally plausible explanation is that Greco is just schizophrenic.

He never makes any great sums of money. In fact loses money in the stock market and assumes that his loss is the product of another conspiracy. Greco recognizes the need to defend himself. So being a smart man he hires armed guards to protect him and goes out to live at a secret compound in the country. Ha no, fat chance, his plan to protect himself is actually: watch some kung fu movies and absorb the actor’s fighting style through osmosis. Ridiculous! Chiang is so on the nose here it’s palpable.

Greco does accomplish a few things that could only plausibly be accomplished by a smart person. I’ve mentioned the IQ tests already but there’s also the hacking. Spoofing a login screen and using it to acquire a password requires some real skill. Cracking a competent electronic lock on a safe is very tough.

Yet I haven’t found any discussion online where someone points this out. Everybody just takes for granted that Greco actually is super smart. But is he really?

What are the hallmarks of a really smart person? One for sure is that they are either making a ton of money or working on a very prestigious project. Think of a businessman or a NASA engineer.

Greco has great ideas for projects of course. He invents a method for “artifically generating spherically symmetric gravity fields.” Does he get a patent on this method and license if to trillions of dollars? no. Does he test it out and use it to create an amazing art installation? no. What does he actually do:

"I won't build such a device, or any other. It would require many custom-built components, all difficult and time-consuming to procure. Furthermore, actually constructing the device wouldn't give me any particular satisfaction, since I already know it would work, and it wouldn't illuminate any new gestalts."

This is literally the most cucked, loser response to inventing something of this magnitude. Greco actively does nothing because of Akrasia. Even his explanation reeks in how the second half is designed to justify the ‘im too lazy’ excuse of the first half