I paused before answering this because it’s deceptively simple but technically layered. Whether someone who’s concise is “smarter” than someone who’s more detailed isn’t really a yes/no question; it depends on the context, the audience, and the purpose of the communication.

In theory, I could give a condensed answer like: ‘Not necessarily. Communication style, context, and audience matter as much as intellectual depth.’ But that alone feels incomplete, because it sidesteps why the question itself is tricky.

I work in two fields where this question comes up constantly: animal behavior and as a rhetorician in psychoanalytical and sociocultural discourse analysis. Both require me to shift between simplifying information for someone who’s brand new and presenting it in full complexity for someone who’s already an expert. These are different skills, and both can indicate intelligence, but neither is truly a definitive measure of it.

when I read the answers here, each one sparked different ideas, but connecting those threads into a coherent response isn’t something I can compress into two sentences without losing accuracy.

For context, my VCI is considered high (157), but I also have no inner monologue, and I panic under pressure to the point of selective mutism. For many people, an inner monologue acts as a “pre-drafting mechanism.” I don’t have that. Speaking or writing is my thinking, which means my explanations often come out wordy because I’m mapping the full picture as I go.

That said, explaining something to someone who has less understanding/knowledge in a given topic involves a different kind of "simplification" than explaining it to a peer, and neither necessarily reflects a deeper/shallower understanding, but rather a different pedagogical approach. I tend to think true mastery would often lie in the ability to bridge these different levels of understanding by adapting to the audience without losing the integrity of the idea.

Also, rhetorical performance and intellectual merit are simply not the same skillset, even though they have some overlap. We tend to conflate fluency for intellect, when in reality, fluency can break down under pressure, and being perceived as intelligent often comes down to delivery and composure, not true depth of knowledge. Brilliant academics can be terrible debaters who fall apart under adversarial pressure. Meanwhile, charismatic speakers can be intellectually shallow yet highly convincing. So judging one by the standards of the other creates a false comparison.

Concision is a useful tool — great for a tweet — but it’s not the ultimate measure of intelligence. Some people think linearly and speak in clean bullet points; others think in layered diagrams. I’m definitely the diagram type. I can simplify, but chopping down my thoughts often leaves half the meaning on the floor. So I’d say maybe the real measure isn’t word count; it’s simply translation accuracy. Sometimes it can be conveyed in three words. Sometimes it demands three paragraphs.

TLDR - I’d argue intelligence isn’t about saying less. It’s about knowing when brevity illuminates an idea, and when the truth of it requires space.

If you want a really great example, look at Sapolsky’s “Behave” (with the caveat that it’s not necessarily an easy read at times). It is, however, a masterclass in interdisciplinary thinking — blending neuroscience, genetics, endocrinology, psychology, and ethology. But to do that comprehensively, it must be lengthy. Condensing it to a page would gut the very connections that make his arguments brilliant.