Stupid is better than smart
christianowens.com
christianowens.com
In "The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism", Jay Gonen described the typical Nazi mentality as being a contradictory mix of brutality and intellect. He analyzed these "brilliant morons" in Freudian terms, but according to Leonard Peikoff, in his book "The Ominous Parallels", the roots of Nazi stupidity glorification are actually to be found in the philosophy of Kant who famously attacked reason.
[citation needed]
Yes, Kant wrote books called "Critique of pure reason" and "Critique of practical reason", but they were not attacking reason.
You needn't take my word for it. Here is an excerpt from the article on Kant in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is online but written by experts and very good indeed):
"Kant's main goal is to show that a critique of reason by reason itself, unaided and unrestrained by traditional authorities, establishes a secure and consistent basis for both Newtonian science and traditional morality and religion. In other words, free rational inquiry adequately supports all of these essential human interests and shows them to be mutually consistent. So reason deserves the sovereignty attributed to it by the Enlightenment."
"Famously attacked reason", forsooth!
On the contrary, Kant made no secret of his motive for writing those books. His aim was to make a metaphysical domain for religion.
His method was to drive a wedge between the natural world and the human mind.
In the Preface to the Second Edition of the "Critique of Pure Reason", he says "I must, therefore, abolish knowledge, to make room for belief."
To understand Kant's main gimmick, see "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" by Ayn Rand.
As for the "wedge between the natural world and the human mind": if by that you mean that, e.g., he insisted that our minds aren't presented directly with Things Themselves, and that perception is an indirect affair: yup, he did, and he was right, and again I see nothing anti-rational in that. (Yes, I know Objectivism teaches otherwise. So much the worse for Objectivism.)
Simply stating a position in order to propel a line of thought is just empty talk, to be dismissed without further consideration.
And yes, one can outsmart stupid, by being smart and stupid as required.
Clever campaign. I don't know of many clothing companies that have marketing slogans that get discussed on HN.
"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."
- John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)
I agree with the basic premise: Think outside the box. Don't get stuck in a mental rut. And most importantly, don't let others with no vision bring you down. But I think the validity of your message was undermined by how you said it.
It's better to be lucky than smart.
I would replace stupid with ignorant.
When the heuristic is correct... well... the -other- saying goes 'if I had a nickle for every fool...".
For example, stupid has hangover. Smart has hangover too. The question is, is the hangover worth it. If it's worth it, then you're not actually stupid. You are in fact smart, and accepted the label 'stupid' that someone else gave you. On the other hand, if I got a hangover, a 5 hour hole in my memory, lost my wallet, and ended up in a hospital... probably actually stupid (happened last year). Cause that really wasn't worth it.
That's.
stupid has the one hell of a hangover.
Either he's trying to make the style mirror the content intentionally, or he just doesn't care much for standard English. I disagree either way.