Stupidity
onepercentrule.substack.com
onepercentrule.substack.com
People can seem to be stupid if their reasons for action are not known.
People can't help but be stupid if deprived of factual information or if presented with false or confusing information.
Finally, all people are not trained to avail of the mental tools that civilization has honed over millennia to fight stupidity.
In the end "stupidity" is a social phenomenon, deeply connected to the nature of information exchange between individuals in society.
Transparency about the state of the world and the internal mental states of people and education (information processing capacity) can reduce what we commonly call stupidity.
But its a relative game. Full transparency and infinite processing capacity is not possible for human brains.
I'd argue that the universal quantifier "all people are not trained" should be changed. Surely we can say that some people are trained in at least some of the tools to fight stupidity we, humanity as a whole, developed over the millennia. So a phrase like "not all people are trained" seems to be more on the mark to me.
Beyond that I have little to say of substance, but I am curious. How do you fit "stupid actions", like putting your cat into a microwave oven, racing downhill on a gravel road in a shopping cart, or not running away from a blazing fire, into this framework? Is this a failure of reasoning, and therefore lack of training? (Training understood as guided or unguided learning) Is all stupidity avoidance empirical or are there stupidities (as an ontological object, LOL) that could be avoided on first principles?
The fact that younger people tend to be more prone to it is already an important clue. On the one hand their need to stand out in a competitive society creates an internal state that outsiders may not be able to appreciate. On the other hand their ability to assess the actual risk (take a calculated risk) may not be fully developed. E.g. unless trained formally (mock circumstances, games, history lessons, whatever), people will "train" simply through their own lived experience which in most cases is woefully inadequate for the range of situations they might face.
Ha - stupid actions were in the dumb and dumber category which I avoided, but would be fun on a course in Stupidity
> People can seem to be stupid if their reasons for action are not known.
> People can't help but be stupid if deprived of factual information or if presented with false or confusing information.
I put this in my fortune file and in the current signature. It explains so succinctly why we are so often frustrated in the workspace.
It's got a kind of "all but" deal going on: two ways to interpret it.
Really annoying how the English language can't get quantifying phrases right.
It also explains why intelligent people do stupid things. Just because they are a bit smarter than someone else doesn't mean anything relative to the complexity of reality. They still need to be humble but being told they are smart doesn't help.
Humility is unconditional self worth. If you don't need to worry about your appearances then you will be open to your own stupidity.
"According to Cipolla’s "Basic Laws of Human Stupidity," a stupid person is one whose actions result in negative consequences for both themselves and those around them, irrespective of intent"
Whould strongly argue against this.
The post doesn't try to teach people to tell the difference between stupidity and intelligence, but to give a definition and describe some of the mechanisms behind stupidity.
It still does give one example of stupid behavior ("Picture someone who (...)") and a few definitions of it. It's not well written, nonetheless, and might be at least partly AI slop or AI "researched".
>Whould strongly argue against this.
But, conveniently, not in this comment.
Besides, the post mentions some arguments against this already.
And this "Picture someone who recklessly spreads misinformation online, sharing a sensational but false news story without checking its validity." Please author of this article be more intellectual than this.
"Whould strongly argue against this." Yes because you see the intent(purpose) of the action taken is what matters(the end makes the means).
Also the article does not separates chronic stupid behavior by individuals and a stupid act for some reason.
I know the article has a much broader scope, but I really do think that when we set up too rigid systems with too much auditing and too many "best practices" we also create systems where a lot of people within them won't think. Especially when we manage to extinguish the will of people who might question parts of our systems which are so obviously terrible that they simply stop trying to create change. I never thought of it as collective stupidity before, but I think that it's the perfect description.
1. Something goes wrong
2. "We need more procedure to ensure this never-ever happens again!"
Repeat over many years, and now everything is regulated to the microscopic detail, and no one really has the authority to do anything.
It's basically a special case of the "Politician's fallacy" – "this is terrible, we need to do something!", "this is something", "therefore, we need to do this".
In some cases all of that is of course the correct response, but in many others it's a little but more dubious, and in some it's outright misguided.
I think everyone would be better off if we'd be a bit more relaxed about "stuff goes wrong sometimes, and that's not always a big deal as long as we correct it". All the preventive measures come with a cost of their own.
All of this seems very deeply embedded. Politicians from all sorts of parties have been promising to "cut red tape" for as long as I remember, but it never really happens under any party. I think most politicians are genuine in their intent, but it's not easy to change the mentality of a society.
That's the nature of dealing with complex ever changing systems. There is no free lunch unfortunately. Unless AI comes up with something that our own cognitive limitations individually or as a group block out.
It also recommends what to do in such cases. You either pick a simpler prob where the limits matter less or Accept your solution for complex problems will have issues.
I’d say one of OP’s main messages is that this is a misunderstanding or misuse of the word. We’re not stupid when we are aware of our limitations. Stupidity is more of a character flaw than a lack of intelligence. Perhaps you could say it’s a failure to even try to be rational.
The real flaws shine, when the stupidity is load bearing. As in, if you try to repair it, society falls apart. You cant repair it, you must life with it, it produces constant failed attempts and it severely limits societal ability to act/steer and move to survive problematic events.
You could make a Big(O) table of stupidity and there is of course the whole variants of levels.
Detectable: by Individual / Organization / Undetectable / Unknowables
Patchable: by Individual / Organization / Unpatchable Big(O)
Dependencies: Stupidity is Standalone / Affects Organizations / isDependentForFixOnOthers/ Loadbearing for Society / Not fixable without patching biology
"For Bonhoeffer, this concept was deeply rooted in his theological beliefs"
I will make a Christian commentary on ignorance. Here by "ignorance" I refer to the deliberate act of not wanting to know (something close to the author's definition of stupidity, but within the Christian perspective the concept I explained is more commonly used).
Spiritually speaking, ignorance is a kind of arrogance. If reason reveals to us the order of reality as created by God, the ignorant person harms themselves and others, dragging them into darkness through their refusal to know. They act as if they have the right to harm others for the sake of their own desires; that is arrogance. As stated above, it is a failure of character.
This is proportional to how often people are wrong, or at least how frequently worried they are that they will be wrong, and not surprisingly this is more common in people that didn't have the chance to gain a proper education.
It's gotten so bad now though, this not wanting to be considered stupid at any cost, that we have entire swaths of people dedicated to 'alternative facts' because they're not wrong, they just have 'different interpretations of different evidence' or whatever.
That's what we need to fight as a society, because that leads to the crazy divide that exists in the US and to a lesser extent in other countries,and IMO it's what holds or disrupts progress and potentially even ends up being a contributor in setting up a civil war.
On this note - I'm mostly interested in validation deficit that has strong prevalence in recent years - now that would be a great article.
I'm curious if you've gotten many emails, and if so what the nature of them tend to be.
> Q. Are you trying to change the world? The answer is no.
I found this part a bit counterintuitive.
No I don't get many emails. In the rare case when I do get one - it's one that is somewhat preachy. They think I'm a nut who needs therapy.
>I found this part a bit counterintuitive.
I believe that the vast majority of people who are stupid are innately stupid, meaning if circumstances change they are not going to be less stupid ( though they might be nicer). Trying to change stupid people would be a fool's errand and IMO an impossibility. If one were very rich one may attempt changing the world, though I suspect that the rich (who are more likely to be bright) know that that it can be difficult to budge the needle.
I believe it to be possible, and in play, at scale.
Not intrinsically, but certainly the stupid under the right circumstances can be incited to commit acts that they will normally not think of, and yes it can be done at scale, govts, dictators, rulers, all do it.
Do you think non-stupid people can have their stupidity:
1. increased by outside forces?
2.sustained due to a lack of outside forces?
When I mean "intrinsically" or in 'intrinsic' I mean what is innate. To make the distinction clearer smart people can occasionally do stupid things, do to various factors like time constraint, ill luck etc, but they won't do it consusrtently. To give you a very simple example someone who earns reasonably well, if they are consistently out of money before their next paycheck, they are intrinsically stupid.
>Do you think non-stupid people can have their stupidity: >1. increased by outside forces?
No as a general rule. More specifically they are less likely to be manipulated by outside forces
>sustained due to a lack of outside forces?
For some it may be yes, others no I think. I'm not sure of the breakup. There are various categories of non stupid people, for some external influences are needed to stimulate their thinking, and there are others which are self-reflective even without targeted ( at them) external influences. The latter would be a category of truly independent thinkers.
p.s: Since a few line of definition of what is/is not stupid can be inadequate, I have a page devoted to it https://quberoot.wordpress.com/dysfunctional/
On certain topics they will!
> No as a general rule.
Which logically resolves to Yes.
> More specifically they are less likely to be manipulated by outside forces
In the broad aggregate agree, but not on all topics.
> For some it may be yes, others no I think.
What if there is something like science that's yet to be invented (" a lack of outside forces"), thus people do not have access to the "intelligence" bonus it provides. Would this count, if there was such a thing?
You mean will it count into sustaining stupidity? yes is the answer. ( and to be more nuanced I wouldn't call it stupidity, that's ignorance).
On another note: science was never 'invented' - the spirit of inquiry was always there among minority of individuals since ancient times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O9FFrLpinQ
(Carlo M. Cipolla - 5 laws of stupidity)
Just look at qanon or proud boys for example, people in distress get radicalized by finding community in the worst places. They get pushed away by friends and family as they get more radicalized. They are then trapped, unwilling/unable to change their views as it would mean being rejected by their now only community. They develop cognitive dissonance and lead generally miserable lives.
You can find similar but less extreme cases in religion, politics, etc.
I don't know anything about running a car company, but I do know enough about poker to know that "Just buy more chips and bet again" is not in fact a winning strategy.
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oldpersonintx 4 hours ago [dead] | prev [–]
reminder that Germany, during the rise of the Nazis, was the most educated nation
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My comment: The article in the link has an almost fun/light/academic take on the subject, there are serious consequences as noted by the user oldpersonintx.