Yeah, most definitely, I realise as I get older (I'm in my early 40s now) that life is quite complicated and there's almost no "evangelical"-like truth to it. Especially not when it comes to economics, that's for sure.
I honestly don't know what you want me to say that would have more "content" than this.
This is such a content-lite view of intelligence it's embarrassing to even take it seriously. It really comes across that you consider intelligence a virtue and it just isn't. You probably have a lot to learn from "people of average intelligence" about actual virtues like obligation and responsibility, commitment, compassion, understanding, and growth. We aren't lesser than you and I'd take a "average intelligence" person over this sort of smart ass shit as my teammate, business partner, lover, or friend in a second.
You can't really blame them though, the average person simply doesn't have the time to be well researched on a given topic, and so are going to default to tribal thinking that when you poke at, falls apart.
It has nothing to do with inability to articulate their position, and everything to do with the fact that there simply isn't enough time for most people to become well informed on a given topic.
Sure, we can't all be well researched on most topics.
But we can learn to have better BS detectors. We can learn to identify bad arguments. We can learn to question the incentives of people arguing on cable TV. We can learn to be skeptical of claims without evidence, and to understand the kinds of caveats that accompany various kinds of evidence.
These can separate the critical thinker who, after watching a TV news segment isn't sure what's true but has some pointed questions, and an uncritical viewer who believes new claims made by whichever talking head they already agreed with.
true, but I also cannot expect the average person to be a doctor, but if someone feints in the cinema, and I yell "anyone here a doctor??" I do expect them to not claim to be one if they are not.
If you do not know something about a subject, you should not inject yourself in where it matters. And when you want to learn about a subject, you should not be a total sheep that blindly listens to the talking heads on TV, regardless of which channel it is on.
Would you mind answering the one that was asked?
"Is this to say that the proposition has no truth or validity to it, that there are not people who hold extremely confident opinions on certain matters but are literally not able to accurately substantiate their claims in detail in a logically consistent manner given sufficient time?"
Granted it's at least somewhat complicated, and I can see that it could be incomprehensible to many, but this is Hacker News ffs. And, if one is throwing around confident opinions, pulling a "I don't understand what you mean" technique seems a bit disingenuous (although I suppose it could be true...but then, that in itself says something important imho).
At the very least, can we agree that "The idea that beliefs are only valid if you are able to adequately articulate them to the standards set by someone else is invalid, yes." is an inaccurate (not-necessarily-intentional) rhetorical framing of the conversation?
In the end, you just wanted to insult me and virtue signal. It's boring.