Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
Hmmm. Good food for thought.
I'm starting to think Nigel has some long-game master plan that will end up with the the most horrible people on the worst forum on the internet becoming genuinely nice people.
IT WON'T WORK, FUCKERS!
:asshat:
I went on a drunken tirade about this a few months back. I'd been chatting with a girl at a party, someone I'd just met. Some time after, she'd left the place and I mentioned that I had a nice conversation. The reply was one of those "yeah, but she's kinda dumb," deals.
The world is full of, and run by, smart assholes. Intelligence is not the most valuable thing people have. Treating it as such leads to a world full of, and run by, smart assholes. It's no different than valuing someone just because they're pretty.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
So THATS why you're usually nice to me. Because I'm almost-but-not-quite retarded.
Kudos!
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
I currently work full time with adults with disabilities and it's already the best job I've ever had.
Some people look completely normal but have huge challenges in daily life, so I've been going through a very similar inventory of my worldview.
:cheers:
I think it has to do with perceived ammounts of accountability that vary depending on the condition of each person.
There's also the factor of varying degrees of conscious decision... without consciousness ¿can there be malice?
In law theres this thing called Malice aforethought ((law) The criminal intent which precedes a crime, especially murder.)
I know as i write it its a horrible comparison, but, its a comparison based on degrees of consciousness, not of quality, ¿if an animal hurts you, is it malicious?... i can say that one could make a scale of accountability based on mental capacity.
The most harshly punished crimes have a correlation with consciousness, intent and malice (murder, arson, rape, scams, fraud).
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 13, 2014, 09:11:31 PM
I'm starting to think Nigel has some long-game master plan that will end up with the the most horrible people on the worst forum on the internet becoming genuinely nice people.
IT WON'T WORK, FUCKERS!
:asshat:
:lulz:
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 13, 2014, 09:18:05 PM
I went on a drunken tirade about this a few months back. I'd been chatting with a girl at a party, someone I'd just met. Some time after, she'd left the place and I mentioned that I had a nice conversation. The reply was one of those "yeah, but she's kinda dumb," deals.
The world is full of, and run by, smart assholes. Intelligence is not the most valuable thing people have. Treating it as such leads to a world full of, and run by, smart assholes. It's no different than valuing someone just because they're pretty.
Yeah, I'm gradually coming to a similar conclusion. Thing is, it's easy to despise someone because they're stupid, or make bad decisions; it's low-hanging fruit, and in general we all like feeling superior.
Quote from: trix on May 13, 2014, 09:19:42 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
So THATS why you're usually nice to me. Because I'm almost-but-not-quite retarded.
Kudos!
:lulz:
Quote from: Net (+ 1 Hidden) on May 14, 2014, 04:19:32 AM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
I currently work full time with adults with disabilities and it's already the best job I've ever had.
Some people look completely normal but have huge challenges in daily life, so I've been going through a very similar inventory of my worldview.
:cheers:
It's hard not to judge people, and god knows I am a judgy mcjudgerson. But I'm trying to be less so, because the reality is that I don't know the particulars of anyone's life but my own, and there are so many variables that can make it hard or impossible for someone to "be smart" that I really have zero grounds for passing judgement or even really of forming an opinion in most cases.
Quote from: The Johnny on May 14, 2014, 04:55:48 AM
I think it has to do with perceived ammounts of accountability that vary depending on the condition of each person.
There's also the factor of varying degrees of conscious decision... without consciousness ¿can there be malice?
In law theres this thing called Malice aforethought ((law) The criminal intent which precedes a crime, especially murder.)
I know as i write it its a horrible comparison, but, its a comparison based on degrees of consciousness, not of quality, ¿if an animal hurts you, is it malicious?... i can say that one could make a scale of accountability based on mental capacity.
The most harshly punished crimes have a correlation with consciousness, intent and malice (murder, arson, rape, scams, fraud).
Right, but what I'm talking about is the fact that if a person is not mentally retarded, our society in general makes the assumption that they are naturally as mentally adept as the next guy, which of course is not necessarily true. Socially speaking, we (and I'm using that broadly) feel completely justified in mocking, belittling, and even punishing people for being stupid. We're cool with it, as a society, at least partly because we assume that stupidity is a matter of merit rather than a matter of physical limitation. I am talking about the arbitrary nature of the cutoff that recognizes someone with an IQ of 79 as mentally retarded and not responsible for their actions, but someone with an IQ of 81 as not retarded and therefore responsible, and about the public's relationship to that recognition, and our accompanying assumptions and attitudes.
Maybe there's two broad causes of "stupidity" - Physiological brain damage/pathology and memetic infection
On one hand bad brains, on the other bad ideas.
We feel sorry for someone who has been knocked on the head or born with a defective brain but we feel no empathy for someone who's mind has been infected with pathological memes
Poor downs kid, stupid fucking republican
I've actually half-started threads on this topic before, failed to explain myself and given up for later.
I feel like the same arbitrary cutoff may be used to determine whether some is responsible for being an asshole, there are people who are totally rude who we understand don't know any better, and others who are similarly rude but seem highly functioning enough that FUCK THAT GUY.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
I can think of a way in which it does. Sort of. You have to sequentially order the beliefs however, then it becomes more clear.
Belief 1: Stupid people need to be mocked.
Belief 2: Mocking people whose stupidity results from a disease is a social faux pas.
Belief 3: Those belonging to the group who fall under the second belief are given a free pass, because it is easier than re-examining my assumptions about belief 1.
See? Sorta makes sense, once you factor in the order beliefs and human psychology.
Quote from: Cain on May 14, 2014, 02:14:08 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
I can think of a way in which it does. Sort of. You have to sequentially order the beliefs however, then it becomes more clear.
Belief 1: Stupid people need to be mocked.
Belief 2: Mocking people whose stupidity results from a disease is a social faux pas.
Belief 3: Those belonging to the group who fall under the second belief are given a free pass, because it is easier than re-examining my assumptions about belief 1.
See? Sorta makes sense, once you factor in the order beliefs and human psychology.
That makes sense from an individual perspective, but it's still lacking from a social perspective.
Mind you, I'm not talking about people with differing and/or inconsistent political or social views. I am not talking about people who are misinformed. I'm talking about people who are stupid; the people who do things that are stupid and then come to a bad end, after which people tend to react with phrases like "What an idiot! He had it coming" or comments about Darwinism in action. As a society, we generally condone the idea that the stupid deserve to get swindled, imprisoned, injured, or killed due to their stupidity.
I don't have a problem with "stupid" people, as long as they don't get their stupid on my pant legs. Filthy Assistant, for example, is stupid, and I hate him. I hate him with the fire of 10,000 suns, because his stupidity makes him believe that he is the SGitR, and it also makes him believe that he is sly. He is dishonest as hell, which is a trait found in many stupid people (probably because the smart people get away with it).
Mike is a different kind of stupid. Mike is smart when it comes to his core competencies (chemical engineering and fluid dynamics), but also assumes - DEMANDS - that HE is the SGitR. He is also blissfully unaware of how his behavior causes people to view him.
Safety Officer isn't really stupid, he's just an ass-lamprey looking for something to attach to.
So there's this mythological stupid person with a heart of gold. Never met him/her. I think instead that the stupidity means they cannot see cooperation as a winning strategy.
I'm probably wrong about this. I can only speak from experience.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 14, 2014, 02:56:11 PM
Quote from: Cain on May 14, 2014, 02:14:08 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
I can think of a way in which it does. Sort of. You have to sequentially order the beliefs however, then it becomes more clear.
Belief 1: Stupid people need to be mocked.
Belief 2: Mocking people whose stupidity results from a disease is a social faux pas.
Belief 3: Those belonging to the group who fall under the second belief are given a free pass, because it is easier than re-examining my assumptions about belief 1.
See? Sorta makes sense, once you factor in the order beliefs and human psychology.
That makes sense from an individual perspective, but it's still lacking from a social perspective.
Mind you, I'm not talking about people with differing and/or inconsistent political or social views. I am not talking about people who are misinformed. I'm talking about people who are stupid; the people who do things that are stupid and then come to a bad end, after which people tend to react with phrases like "What an idiot! He had it coming" or comments about Darwinism in action. As a society, we generally condone the idea that the stupid deserve to get swindled, imprisoned, injured, or killed due to their stupidity.
"It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money."
- Canada Bill Jones
That sort of thing?
Because, yeah, I can see that as being part of the American punishment mentality.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 14, 2014, 03:50:54 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 14, 2014, 02:56:11 PM
Quote from: Cain on May 14, 2014, 02:14:08 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 13, 2014, 08:52:06 PM
Today on the bus I was seated in front of a simple but charming young woman who was making conversation with her chaperone/coach, and I had the thought that retarded people really can be quite delightful.
Then I thought that it's interesting that we are taught compassion for those who fall below the 80 point line, but those who are just above it we treat with contempt, as though being stupid is a failure of merit, particularly if they break the rules.
Further, we aren't even supposed to acknowledge that such a thing is possible, as if everyone above that 80 point mark has equal inherent intellectual capacity. It's weird. "You are mentally retarded so we must be nice to you, but you, you're just stupid so we can totally make fun of you as cruelly as we wish". It doesn't make any fucking sense.
I can think of a way in which it does. Sort of. You have to sequentially order the beliefs however, then it becomes more clear.
Belief 1: Stupid people need to be mocked.
Belief 2: Mocking people whose stupidity results from a disease is a social faux pas.
Belief 3: Those belonging to the group who fall under the second belief are given a free pass, because it is easier than re-examining my assumptions about belief 1.
See? Sorta makes sense, once you factor in the order beliefs and human psychology.
That makes sense from an individual perspective, but it's still lacking from a social perspective.
Mind you, I'm not talking about people with differing and/or inconsistent political or social views. I am not talking about people who are misinformed. I'm talking about people who are stupid; the people who do things that are stupid and then come to a bad end, after which people tend to react with phrases like "What an idiot! He had it coming" or comments about Darwinism in action. As a society, we generally condone the idea that the stupid deserve to get swindled, imprisoned, injured, or killed due to their stupidity.
"It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money."
- Canada Bill Jones
That sort of thing?
Because, yeah, I can see that as being part of the American punishment mentality.
Yes, this exactly. Or the way people hoot and holler when someone gets themselves hurt or killed by doing something that's obviously stupid to someone who, well, isn't stupid.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 15, 2014, 04:06:37 AM
Yes, this exactly. Or the way people hoot and holler when someone gets themselves hurt or killed by doing something that's obviously stupid to someone who, well, isn't stupid.
I usually just feel bad that someone gets maimed or killed. Unless what they were doing at the time was malicious, in which case I usually just don't care (in very extreme cases, I am happy about it, but that's restricted to people like Martin Bormann, Adolf Eichmann, etc).
I was a little bothered by all the hooting and ass-slapping that went on when Fred Phelps died. The man wasted his entire life hating. That's tragic.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 14, 2014, 03:48:44 PM
I don't have a problem with "stupid" people, as long as they don't get their stupid on my pant legs. Filthy Assistant, for example, is stupid, and I hate him. I hate him with the fire of 10,000 suns, because his stupidity makes him believe that he is the SGitR, and it also makes him believe that he is sly. He is dishonest as hell, which is a trait found in many stupid people (probably because the smart people get away with it).
Mike is a different kind of stupid. Mike is smart when it comes to his core competencies (chemical engineering and fluid dynamics), but also assumes - DEMANDS - that HE is the SGitR. He is also blissfully unaware of how his behavior causes people to view him.
Safety Officer isn't really stupid, he's just an ass-lamprey looking for something to attach to.
So there's this mythological stupid person with a heart of gold. Never met him/her. I think instead that the stupidity means they cannot see cooperation as a winning strategy.
I'm probably wrong about this. I can only speak from experience.
I find that the kind of people who get under my skin with their stupidity are the people who aren't actually what I would call stupid... just stupider than me, and usually smart enough to have been told their whole life how smart they are. Smart enough to assume that they're smarter than everybody else they encounter, but not quite smart enough to recognize when they're in the presence of someone smarter. Those are the SGiTRs.
Then there are the REALLY stupid people, the people who just can't grasp complex or abstract concepts very well. They range from good-hearted to mean bastards, just like everyone else, but they have a hard time understanding perspectives outside of their own experience, and relatively simple functions like reading a map or a bus schedule or a book may be harder and more time-consuming for them. They are slower to learn new things and don't make leaps of logic... or if they do, their leaps are often wildly inaccurate. These are people who, if they really put their minds to it and work hard, get straight C's, and are rightfully proud to have managed it.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 15, 2014, 04:20:05 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 14, 2014, 03:48:44 PM
I don't have a problem with "stupid" people, as long as they don't get their stupid on my pant legs. Filthy Assistant, for example, is stupid, and I hate him. I hate him with the fire of 10,000 suns, because his stupidity makes him believe that he is the SGitR, and it also makes him believe that he is sly. He is dishonest as hell, which is a trait found in many stupid people (probably because the smart people get away with it).
Mike is a different kind of stupid. Mike is smart when it comes to his core competencies (chemical engineering and fluid dynamics), but also assumes - DEMANDS - that HE is the SGitR. He is also blissfully unaware of how his behavior causes people to view him.
Safety Officer isn't really stupid, he's just an ass-lamprey looking for something to attach to.
So there's this mythological stupid person with a heart of gold. Never met him/her. I think instead that the stupidity means they cannot see cooperation as a winning strategy.
I'm probably wrong about this. I can only speak from experience.
I find that the kind of people who get under my skin with their stupidity are the people who aren't actually what I would call stupid... just stupider than me, and usually smart enough to have been told their whole life how smart they are. Smart enough to assume that they're smarter than everybody else they encounter, but not quite smart enough to recognize when they're in the presence of someone smarter. Those are the SGiTRs.
Then there are the REALLY stupid people, the people who just can't grasp complex or abstract concepts very well. They range from good-hearted to mean bastards, just like everyone else, but they have a hard time understanding perspectives outside of their own experience, and relatively simple functions like reading a map or a bus schedule or a book may be harder and more time-consuming for them. They are slower to learn new things and don't make leaps of logic... or if they do, their leaps are often wildly inaccurate. These are people who, if they really put their minds to it and work hard, get straight C's, and are rightfully proud to have managed it.
Can't argue with that. I was referring to the former of your examples.
My wife's best friend, now that I think about it, is pretty thick...But she's nice enough, and she tries hard.
Some "Thick" people frustrate me because I can't help myself from thinking they're not using their brain. They're walking around with a piece of hardware that would be capable or working out new quantum equations if it wasn't stuck in a - "Hello world" ... Goto 10 - loop.
You can make stupid. Just repeatedly them they're an idiot all their lives and some people will end up believing it.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on May 15, 2014, 06:06:32 AM
Some "Thick" people frustrate me because I can't help myself from thinking they're not using their brain. They're walking around with a piece of hardware that would be capable or working out new quantum equations if it wasn't stuck in a - "Hello world" ... Goto 10 - loop.
You can make stupid. Just repeatedly them they're an idiot all their lives and some people will end up believing it.
I'm interested in this assumption, which seems to be the most common one, that garden-variety stupidity is willful rather than inherent, which seems to be based on the belief that most people are issued a standard brain. Most interesting to me is that it generally co-exists with the comprehension that some people are mentally retarded, ie. have an IQ under 80 (or 75, depending on whose criteria you're using). The understanding of one seems to contradict the other, yet it's nonetheless the prevalent belief.
I try not to have a prevalent belief. I think there's truth in both - brain "damage" and the "wilful" stupidity, although wilful isn't the word I'd use since more often than not what seems to have happened is an institutionalised or self imposed erosion or corruption of will.
If someone believes they're stupid it isn't necessarily willful or lazy or any of the other things we accuse them of (although in some cases it might be), it's faulty self-reinforcing code, like an addiction, which is probably pretty fucking difficult to break out of. Requires a strong will. Oh yeah, that's right, the will has been corrupted. Whaddya do?
Education? 8)
Can we separate "smart" and "intelligent"? I know this guy who is certainly smart, but he simply refuses to read. Like, he's proud of not reading. And as a result, is incredibly dumb. Even though he's smart. You just can't have a conversation with this guy about anything other than the weather.
I think there's probably a lot of different 'flavours' of stupid. I'm reminded of people who can be geniuses in some field of science or art but unable to figure out a stick shift or order a pizza over the phone kind of thing.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:52:56 AM
Can we separate "smart" and "intelligent"? I know this guy who is certainly smart, but he simply refuses to read. Like, he's proud of not reading. And as a result, is incredibly dumb. Even though he's smart. You just can't have a conversation with this guy about anything other than the weather.
I think the right terminology here is "dumb" and "ignorant." The willfully ignorant are infuriating, and there's a whole culture of willful ignorance in the US right now that (quite justifiably) makes smart people crazy. It can be very difficult to determine if someone is dumb or ignorant at first glance, and it's important to reject ignorance culture, so I think a lot of dumb people wrongly get caught in the crossfire. There are also a disproportionate number of dumb people who ascribe to ignorance culture, because it makes them feel better about themselves, so people in the "educated" culture camp may make the mistake of conflating the two. There's also the difference between ignorance and willful ignorance to unpack in that baggage, but I think ignorance and stupid are the key things.
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on May 15, 2014, 12:52:23 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:52:56 AM
Can we separate "smart" and "intelligent"? I know this guy who is certainly smart, but he simply refuses to read. Like, he's proud of not reading. And as a result, is incredibly dumb. Even though he's smart. You just can't have a conversation with this guy about anything other than the weather.
I think the right terminology here is "dumb" and "ignorant." The willfully ignorant are infuriating, and there's a whole culture of willful ignorance in the US right now that (quite justifiably) makes smart people crazy. It can be very difficult to determine if someone is dumb or ignorant at first glance, and it's important to reject ignorance culture, so I think a lot of dumb people wrongly get caught in the crossfire. There are also a disproportionate number of dumb people who ascribe to ignorance culture, because it makes them feel better about themselves, so people in the "educated" culture camp may make the mistake of conflating the two. There's also the difference between ignorance and willful ignorance to unpack in that baggage, but I think ignorance and stupid are the key things.
Oh this. The wilful ignorance thing is stunning and not just in the US. It appears to be a factor in most of the western world, and probably other places too. I only hesitate in that regard as there is again a difference between wilful ignorance and ignorance through lack of choice.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:52:56 AM
Can we separate "smart" and "intelligent"? I know this guy who is certainly smart, but he simply refuses to read. Like, he's proud of not reading. And as a result, is incredibly dumb. Even though he's smart. You just can't have a conversation with this guy about anything other than the weather.
There's a word for that, and it's "ignorance", which is distinct from "stupidity" (although choosing ignorance can have a self-limiting effect on intelligence, just as choosing education has a correlated rise in intelligence).
"Dumb" really has different connotations from "stupid", as it implies a lack of speech or communication, whether it's from inherent inability or from imposed inability (such as suppression).
Of course, all of these distinctions and definitions have little bearing on the point I was trying to make. They largely read as justification and avoidance.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 15, 2014, 05:10:58 PM
Of course, all of these distinctions and definitions have little bearing on the point I was trying to make. They largely read as justification and avoidance.
I think it is on topic, either that or I'm really misunderstanding what you were going for. We assume "stupid" people are ignorant by choice - wasting the precious resource that is a working brain and fuck them - while we understand that mentally handicapped people don't have the capacity to be smart, and aren't being ignorant by choice.
I try not to be ignorant but I am definitely stupid. I mean, I could probably hold a really intelligent sounding conversation with Triple Zero about computer stuff, but outside of that one topic I know less than average, "average" being the norm that I have encountered from living in Wisconsin for nearly 30 years. Especially History, which I recognize the importance of, but can't seem to stay interested enough to learn a whole lot about. Places like this help a lot, where I can see names and references that I know nothing about and look them up and learn, but on the whole, if I'm talking to someone about anything other than technology, they probably know more than I do.
Yet, unless I do something specific to solicit a negative reaction, people are generally kind to me. I cannot remember having ever been mocked for not knowing something most people know, or receiving any sort of negativity towards my lack of knowledge in the topic at hand. This could be respect for my willingness to learn what I do not know, or that I am not embarrassed to admit my ignorance and work to correct it, or simply because I am polite. Or maybe it's just the giant beard.
I'm not trying to say that my case is representative of some kind of norm, but I do think that the individual personality of the person has much more to do with how they are treated, than their raw level of knowledge or intelligence.
Also, their ability to communicate. I have a friend that people tend to assume is stupid, simply because he is not good as expressing his thoughts to others. He has pretty bad social anxiety, which is responsible for most of it, but if you look at what he spends his time reading, and the kinds of things he can apply what he learns to, it becomes clear that the guy is very, very smart.
On the other hand, I've met people who communicate very well, and are always assumed to be rather intelligent, but when I got to know them better over longer periods of time it started to become clear that those people are really quite stupid. In one case I discovered the person had trouble with basic math and serious reading comprehension problems, though he sounded great in person, if you discussed anything generic enough for him to keep up.
Of course then you have Bush, who can only appear intelligent if he doesn't open his mouth, write anything down, or otherwise attempt to actually communicate.
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on May 15, 2014, 06:48:11 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 15, 2014, 05:10:58 PM
Of course, all of these distinctions and definitions have little bearing on the point I was trying to make. They largely read as justification and avoidance.
I think it is on topic, either that or I'm really misunderstanding what you were going for. We assume "stupid" people are ignorant by choice - wasting the precious resource that is a working brain and fuck them - while we understand that mentally handicapped people don't have the capacity to be smart, and aren't being ignorant by choice.
Yes, that's the point of the OP; trying to pull out and examine this particular piece of cognitive dissonance.
Well, if it's making me uncomfortable and defensive (and it is), then I think it's something that's pretty important.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:00:27 PM
Well, if it's making me uncomfortable and defensive (and it is), then I think it's something that's pretty important.
I'm running out of people to be better than. :sad:
Nigel! UNNNG! :argh!:
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:00:27 PM
Well, if it's making me uncomfortable and defensive (and it is), then I think it's something that's pretty important.
Cool! And I've managed to do it without being horribly offensive, for a change! I think. :lol:
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 15, 2014, 11:23:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:00:27 PM
Well, if it's making me uncomfortable and defensive (and it is), then I think it's something that's pretty important.
I'm running out of people to be better than. :sad:
Nigel! UNNNG! :argh!:
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
You can still feel better than people who feel better than people.
I wonder, is the tendency to disparage those of lesser intelligence part of a broader tendency to ridicule people who are outside the norm? Outliers on the other end of the measurement, gifted or genius level, are able to hide their abilities with learned behavior. If less intelligent people were able to do the same, they wouldn't be less intelligent.
Is it a conformity issue?
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 15, 2014, 11:31:09 PM
I wonder, is the tendency to disparage those of lesser intelligence part of a broader tendency to ridicule people who are outside the norm? Outliers on the other end of the measurement, gifted or genius level, are able to hide their abilities with learned behavior. If less intelligent people were able to do the same, they wouldn't be less intelligent.
Is it a conformity issue?
Hmmm, that's an interesting angle... after all, "nerds" and academics used to also be fair game for disparagement, and in some circles still are.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 15, 2014, 11:24:38 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:00:27 PM
Well, if it's making me uncomfortable and defensive (and it is), then I think it's something that's pretty important.
Cool! And I've managed to do it without being horribly offensive, for a change! I think. :lol:
It's not too late! Retitle this thread "Well-read people are puppy-kicking assholes".
Quote from: Pæs on May 15, 2014, 11:55:48 PM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 15, 2014, 11:24:38 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 15, 2014, 11:00:27 PM
Well, if it's making me uncomfortable and defensive (and it is), then I think it's something that's pretty important.
Cool! And I've managed to do it without being horribly offensive, for a change! I think. :lol:
It's not too late! Retitle this thread "Well-read people are puppy-kicking assholes".
:lulz:
This thread makes me want to add something about the people who say, "yeah, he's smart, but he's book smart," as though they are trying to both admit they, themselves, are not as smart but at the same time assert that they are just as capable.
Maybe it means I draw the line at people who are able to recognize intelligence?
I've been trying to notice how I behave and react to people because of this thread.
And if I experience something that sets me off, I try to figure out what's going on.
My job is mainly regulatory, so I have to know an entire stack of rules and tax code, and how that applies to the various products and exchanges that pass through the office on their way to gambling whether someone will die on time or not.
Some of my co-workers don't understand all the rules, for various reasons. Sometimes it's because they haven't heard it before, and I have no problem explaining it out for them. Most of the time, if we hired the right people, they catch on and everything's great. But then there's one or two people who just... stare at me when I'm talking to them, and I know they don't understand a single thing I'm saying. So I break it down, simplify, start over. And they still are looking at me like a brain dead hamster. And I grow frustrated, and angry.
So then I think, bringing it back to the abstract, that what maybe pisses me off about stupid people is that I simply can't communicate with them in the way I'm hoping. Much in the same way we here at PD don't want to go back and rehash topics we've already talked to death just because someone new wasn't here when that happened, I don't really want to have to retrace older ideas that I build new ideas on, just to get someone up to speed. Even worse when I realize a person won't even have the ability to do that. So I avoid them, or resign myself to pop cultural references to Honey Boo Boo or House.
The thing is, I know I'm on the other end of it, too, where my eyes just glaze over and I can't make sense of some convoluted international political shenanagin, or when I'm faced with a complex math equation that someone's trying to explain to me, and I just know they're thinking to themselves, "ugh, why don't we just talk about last week's Project Runway or something."
But that's not really the point, is it? I'm squirming my way out, here. The OP is about socially recognized retardation vs socially recognized stupidity, and how we treat one over the other.
If we're stripping it down to painful truths, I have adverse reactions to both types of people. I've never really known what to do or how to act around mentally challenged people -- Volunteering at the Special Olympic when I was a kid was kind of a weird experience because of that. At the same time, I try to avoid hanging out with the merely stupid, as well. Even if they're nice, and I know plenty of nice, friendly, stupid people who are perfectly happy in their stupidity, and I simply can't handle being around them. I mean, I try not to be rude, and it's not like I'll leave the room if they're there, but I just prefer, if I had the choice, not to be around them.
This is really making me sound like a dick.
I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring the company of people who are closest to your own abilities. Good conversation is based on stimulation and exchange. If people are unable to provide that with one another, why should they force themselves to engage in discussion? The feeling on the other end is probably mutual, LMNO. I think people have a tendency to avoid talking about things that they have aren't able to understand, and are probably likely to find the topic boring. The behavior, as Nigel pointed out with her comment that intellectuals are often subjects of ridicule, goes in both directions; not a smart thing, or a stupid thing, but a people thing.
We have a new co-worker who's been having a hard time grasping all the little details of our job. The other day he was ridiculed by our bosses because he didn't know the difference between the three classifications of inmates we have at the jail. In our tracking system, each has a different background color, orange for one, dark green for another, and light green for the third.
Later in the day, when they'd left, he came up to me with a pen and paper and asked me to tell him what each of the colors meant. Now he's a pretty nervous dude, so I was pretty sure he just had an anxiety block on the information and rather than telling him I prompted him to try and remember. Ultimately, he couldn't do it. He said thank you, and, earnestly, told me he would go home and study the paper.
Stupidly, I said, "You don't really need to study it - it's three colors."
He looked at me and said, "No, no, I do."
We're all pretty smart here, at PD, to varying degrees but all pretty smart, I think. I could not fathom having to study three colors. I commend the guy for doing it, I think it's awesome that he's working so hard at it, but the idea is incomprehensible to me, and I imagine it is for just about everyone reading this.
The idea I've been tossing around in my head for quite a while, a few years now possibly, is what the most valuable thing is that a person can bring to a conversation. Knowledge is an easy answer. Someone who understands the subject at hand and can present it in a clear manner. But that necessitates a conversation based ultimately on consumption. The person with the knowledge is just a vessel, in that case, spouting it out with little feedback. As an example I can remember a number of times where Cain posted a brilliant piece of political analysis and not a single goddamn one of us were able to provide adequate feedback. His understanding of it was simply too many levels beyond ours.
Intelligence is another possibility, but I think that's what leads us to the OP, a disdain for people who aren't able to "keep up" with us.
My answer is perspective. Perspective is the most important thing a person can offer. It's about people providing a way of looking at things that we actually cannot.
By the way, that lack of understanding of the three colors that my co-worker expressed is how I feel about Bayesian reasoning. I'd have to study that like he did his three lines of notes.
The difference is that he actually did that, and here I sit no closer to grasping Bayesian reasoning because I never put forth the effort.
What does that say about the fucking importance of intelligence?
We're all a walking venn diagram of what we know. Stupid people know fuck all so the overlap is small. The other end of the scale - people we consider really intelligent - tend to be mainly posessed of certain stock skills like critical thinking, literacy, numeracy, etc and one or two specialist interests, which are like long spikes pointing off the perimeter. The more expert we are, the longer the spike, the rarer the intersection.
When you are in this position, it's easy to recognise a "stupid" who doesn't understand the basic shit like how to spell and how to count so we maybe try to distance ourselves from them, because the experience is unrewarding. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. A prejudice is born.
Then we forget that not everyone knows quantum theory or integrated circuits or microbiology like we do and when we're trying to explain that shit to a smart person we mistake them for stupid, on account of we're experiencing the exact same kind of frustration we do when trying to explain what 14:30 means to someone who doesn't get the 24hour clock!
Whenever we do this, we fail at being smart
A concept I've mentioned a few times here and one that I beat into myself is "Smart enough to know I'm stupid". Just because you've got a handle on something doesn't mean you've got a grip on EVERYTHING.
Probably worth noting a perception/reality problem here too. Here's an example, in many business situations it can be very wise to play dumb. There's more than a few people I meet that I try to ensure consider me the stupidest man alive. I do this because it tends to result in profit for me at a later date. I'm reasonably certain that if you asked their opinion of me, it would be around the level of "drooling moron". Is that the reality? Well, partly, probably. What I'm getting at here is that just because you think someone is (Whatever) they may not actually be (Whatever).
As an aside, This whole topic needs e-priming to fuck, by the by.
Quote from: rong on May 16, 2014, 11:22:30 AM
This thread makes me want to add something about the people who say, "yeah, he's smart, but he's book[\i] smart," as though they are trying to both admit they, themselves, are not as smart but at the same time assert that they are just as capable.
Maybe it means I draw the line at people who are able to recognize intelligence?
The "book smart" thing is interesting, because it can be used to disparage people, the implication being that "book smart" is not a useful kind of smart. At the same time, it is also true that street smart/farm smart/other applied smarts are also a valid form of intelligence, and some of the same people who are street smart would also do very well with a more formal, book-based educational setting.
And, of course, there is also the classic condition of being unable to accurately assess one's own competence, and a lot of people who consider themselves "street smart" aren't... but it's always someone else's fault when things go wrong for them, so they are able to dismiss their failures as being a result of outside interference, and not a result of their own misjudgment. The ability to learn from one's mistakes, of course, is a pretty fundamental measure of any type of intelligence.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on May 16, 2014, 01:12:31 PM
I've been trying to notice how I behave and react to people because of this thread.
And if I experience something that sets me off, I try to figure out what's going on.
My job is mainly regulatory, so I have to know an entire stack of rules and tax code, and how that applies to the various products and exchanges that pass through the office on their way to gambling whether someone will die on time or not.
Some of my co-workers don't understand all the rules, for various reasons. Sometimes it's because they haven't heard it before, and I have no problem explaining it out for them. Most of the time, if we hired the right people, they catch on and everything's great. But then there's one or two people who just... stare at me when I'm talking to them, and I know they don't understand a single thing I'm saying. So I break it down, simplify, start over. And they still are looking at me like a brain dead hamster. And I grow frustrated, and angry.
So then I think, bringing it back to the abstract, that what maybe pisses me off about stupid people is that I simply can't communicate with them in the way I'm hoping. Much in the same way we here at PD don't want to go back and rehash topics we've already talked to death just because someone new wasn't here when that happened, I don't really want to have to retrace older ideas that I build new ideas on, just to get someone up to speed. Even worse when I realize a person won't even have the ability to do that. So I avoid them, or resign myself to pop cultural references to Honey Boo Boo or House.
The thing is, I know I'm on the other end of it, too, where my eyes just glaze over and I can't make sense of some convoluted international political shenanagin, or when I'm faced with a complex math equation that someone's trying to explain to me, and I just know they're thinking to themselves, "ugh, why don't we just talk about last week's Project Runway or something."
But that's not really the point, is it? I'm squirming my way out, here. The OP is about socially recognized retardation vs socially recognized stupidity, and how we treat one over the other.
If we're stripping it down to painful truths, I have adverse reactions to both types of people. I've never really known what to do or how to act around mentally challenged people -- Volunteering at the Special Olympic when I was a kid was kind of a weird experience because of that. At the same time, I try to avoid hanging out with the merely stupid, as well. Even if they're nice, and I know plenty of nice, friendly, stupid people who are perfectly happy in their stupidity, and I simply can't handle being around them. I mean, I try not to be rude, and it's not like I'll leave the room if they're there, but I just prefer, if I had the choice, not to be around them.
This is really making me sound like a dick.
I will be honest here, and maybe this will make you feel better: I don't generally enjoy spending time with a whole raft of various categories of people. This includes, basically, everybody who doesn't have enough in common with me to allow me to relate to them, particularly in the arenas of intelligence, social analysis, and education (formal or informal). People with mental retardation make me uncomfortable and I don't like to talk to stupid people for very long if I can help it because it makes me feel like I'm dying on the inside. I will outright avoid conservatives, anarchists, and Libertarians, I become exasperated with people who are intelligent but ignorant or misinformed, privileged liberals make me tired, and I have limited ability to enjoy spending time with certain categories of people I *like*, such as children and old people. I love children, and I love them the most when they aren't talking to me. I am even more likely to spontaneously smile at someone who has a similar skin tone to my own.
In short, on some level I am an intolerant asshole who would like to insulate herself in a special snowflake bubble of similar people if I could.
And that is completely normal, and while it is something to be aware of, it's not something to be ashamed of. We are prone to liking people who are like ourselves, and that's OK.
But on the flip side, being conscious of these internal biases allows us to be more compassionate toward people who are unlike ourselves, especially those who may not have control over the ways in which they are unlike ourselves, and I think that's basically what I'm aiming for.
Needless to say, this whole "compassion" thing is incredibly difficult to the point I don't even bother trying when it comes to shit like anti-vaccine freaks, homophobes, science deniers, etc.
The cognitive dissonance this creates for me, personally, is that I know I'm being intolerant and biased when it comes to these issues, but I think that I'm justified, just like they think they're justified.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 16, 2014, 02:08:12 PM
By the way, that lack of understanding of the three colors that my co-worker expressed is how I feel about Bayesian reasoning. I'd have to study that like he did his three lines of notes.
The difference is that he actually did that, and here I sit no closer to grasping Bayesian reasoning because I never put forth the effort.
What does that say about the fucking importance of intelligence?
Maybe your coworker expected there to be another layer of meaning behind the colours?
I agree that effort is a thousand times more important than intelligence.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 16, 2014, 02:05:22 PM
I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring the company of people who are closest to your own abilities. Good conversation is based on stimulation and exchange. If people are unable to provide that with one another, why should they force themselves to engage in discussion? The feeling on the other end is probably mutual, LMNO. I think people have a tendency to avoid talking about things that they have aren't able to understand, and are probably likely to find the topic boring. The behavior, as Nigel pointed out with her comment that intellectuals are often subjects of ridicule, goes in both directions; not a smart thing, or a stupid thing, but a people thing.
We have a new co-worker who's been having a hard time grasping all the little details of our job. The other day he was ridiculed by our bosses because he didn't know the difference between the three classifications of inmates we have at the jail. In our tracking system, each has a different background color, orange for one, dark green for another, and light green for the third.
Later in the day, when they'd left, he came up to me with a pen and paper and asked me to tell him what each of the colors meant. Now he's a pretty nervous dude, so I was pretty sure he just had an anxiety block on the information and rather than telling him I prompted him to try and remember. Ultimately, he couldn't do it. He said thank you, and, earnestly, told me he would go home and study the paper.
Stupidly, I said, "You don't really need to study it - it's three colors."
He looked at me and said, "No, no, I do."
We're all pretty smart here, at PD, to varying degrees but all pretty smart, I think. I could not fathom having to study three colors. I commend the guy for doing it, I think it's awesome that he's working so hard at it, but the idea is incomprehensible to me, and I imagine it is for just about everyone reading this.
The idea I've been tossing around in my head for quite a while, a few years now possibly, is what the most valuable thing is that a person can bring to a conversation. Knowledge is an easy answer. Someone who understands the subject at hand and can present it in a clear manner. But that necessitates a conversation based ultimately on consumption. The person with the knowledge is just a vessel, in that case, spouting it out with little feedback. As an example I can remember a number of times where Cain posted a brilliant piece of political analysis and not a single goddamn one of us were able to provide adequate feedback. His understanding of it was simply too many levels beyond ours.
Intelligence is another possibility, but I think that's what leads us to the OP, a disdain for people who aren't able to "keep up" with us.
My answer is perspective. Perspective is the most important thing a person can offer. It's about people providing a way of looking at things that we actually cannot.
I like this. Well said.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 17, 2014, 12:35:03 AM
Needless to say, this whole "compassion" thing is incredibly difficult to the point I don't even bother trying when it comes to shit like anti-vaccine freaks, homophobes, science deniers, etc.
The cognitive dissonance this creates for me, personally, is that I know I'm being intolerant and biased when it comes to these issues, but I think that I'm justified, just like they think they're justified.
Nice and succinct. I think you've pretty much nailed down the heart of "Stupidity" because I think what you've just described is true of many (perhaps everyone)
Even the dumbest person you ever meet will have a tale of "some idiot who was so thick they didn't even know..."
Maybe a lot of stupid is a subjective judgement call. Made by both the observer
and the idiot
The last few posts make me feel better about myself. I guess, just like the privilege thing, the point isn't to "fix" it in one's self, it's to KEEP TRYING.
For me, the entire dichotomy is largely explained by the bedrock of social psychology: the fundamental attribution error. We have a strong tendency to make snap judgments about people's character without considering their situation, except if very obvious cues (such as those associated with Down Syndrome) tell us otherwise. In ambiguous situations we're not apt to spend the extra energy to find out unless we have to, so if someone is borderline mentally retarded but looks very normal, we'll just go with the fundamental attribution error instincts and "normal person" schema of interacting. Considering people's situation takes a lot of psychological energy so we just can't do that all the time.
I noticed this at my old job, where people would call in incredibly irate about some computer issue. Nine times out of ten, they were completely justified in being so angry and had their professional reputations and a lot of client money tied up in the problem. Yet my co-workers would talk mad shit about how stupid our callers were day in and day out. One particular guy who had been there for years, would mute his mic and let out a stream of petty hate toward the caller on just about every call. Even grannies that never owned a computer before (my favorite) would get the 3rd degree on mute.
I'd look at this guy and think, "what a douche," and then catch my hypocrisy. He'd been working in that shitty corporate environment for years being underpaid and dicked around by a site manager that literally could not make a distinction between software and hardware. And who knows what sort of bag of shit he has to deal with when he gets home? Was the abusive stream of epithets related to Tourette's? I struggle with the ambiguous line implicit in the fundamental attribution error as well: does this person's cirucumstances excuse or mitigate their responsibility for their behavior? How will I ever know unless it's super obvious?
And if one gets really crazy about it, one could justify just about any behaviour by looking at the why's of a given persons clinical and biographical history, but counter correlate that with the battered housewife syndrome threshold and you get a really muddled frontier.
Quote from: The Johnny on May 17, 2014, 07:41:28 PM
And if one gets really crazy about it, one could justify just about any behaviour by looking at the why's of a given persons clinical and biographical history, but counter correlate that with the battered housewife syndrome threshold and you get a really muddled frontier.
The only conclusions I've really come to on the issue is that every person is incomprehensibly complex and has some life history that their behavior makes a lot of sense in, but that understanding their situation doesn't necessarily justify anything.
Taken to the extremes, either bias is likely to get you into trouble. Getting overly focused on people's circumstances could lead to excusing horrible behavior, getting overly focused on people's character could lead to punishing people for simply being in bad situations.
Pragmatically, it's moot point, because you rarely will know enough history about a person to determine what circumstances their behavior makes sense in. Yet, there's always the possibility that the person IS in a shitty situation and are actually doing a remarkable job of coping with it.
It's much easier to resolve the circumstances-versus-character problem when the person in question has clear signs of being born with a disability—hence the dichotomy. That's easy right? They deserve a little extra patience, because through no fault of their own they face difficult challenges. But intelligence is likely distributed over a spectrum, so why don't people with below average IQ's (but not technically mentally disabled) get extra compassion as well?
I think it's because it requires a lot of extra energy to determine that the person is just a little bit slow. There aren't obvious physical signs of having a lower than average IQ. Mental retardation just is far easier to notice, and in many cases doesn't require any extra energy determine.
And yet, we readily come to the conclusion that someone is stupid, and rather than responding with compassion (because, after all, we did just decide that they're categorically stupid) we respond with contempt because the cultural value is that stupid people are bad and deserve bad things. Speaking broadly.
In other words, we are rapid to "diagnose" someone with stupidity, yet unwilling to entertain the possibility that stupidity may be an inherent trait rather than a deliberately-chosen character flaw that merits punishment.
Remember the scene in H.G. Wells' Time Machine where the hero is asked how the machine works? He explains that if you want to move forward in time, you push the lever forward, and if you want to move backward in time, you pull the lever back, and that the farther you push or pull the lever, the faster the machine travels.
Explaining our cultural attitudes toward stupidity in terms of heuristics and FAE are to this discussion as that explanation was to the question asked, in that it is a description of how people reach the conclusion that someone is stupid, and not an explanation of why our culture views stupidity as a character failing.
Because in a highly technologized world with a lot of specialized crafts and jobs, those that are "stupid" are deemed as worthless not only by the job market but by the prevalent ideology.
If you are stupid, not only is your time worth nothing because you cannot do something particular that everyone else cannot do (salary wise), you are also easy prey because your lack of knowledge of a field or the mechanics of basic trade, you can get taken advantage of.
In a dog eat dog world of hi-tech capitalism (alongside the elaborate scamming and marketing techniques that have developed), the "stupid" are the prey.
Quote from: The Johnny on May 17, 2014, 11:35:23 PM
Because in a highly technologized world with a lot of specialized crafts and jobs, those that are "stupid" are deemed as worthless not only by the job market but by the prevalent ideology.
If you are stupid, not only is your time worth nothing because you cannot do something particular that everyone else cannot do (salary wise), you are also easy prey because your lack of knowledge of a field or the mechanics of basic trade, you can get taken advantage of.
In a dog eat dog world of hi-tech capitalism (alongside the elaborate scamming and marketing techniques that have developed), the "stupid" are the prey.
The same is true of elderly and chronically ill people, but culturally speaking we don't assume them to be at fault for it. So while the "what" of the mechanism makes sense, it doesn't address the question, which is why we refuse to acknowledge even the
possibility that stupidity is not a failure in a person's moral fiber, but likely a weakness in their biological makeup.
So we evolved to be a social organism. Maybe it's related to that. The group would select for those who bring benefit to the group, intelligence carrying currency in this exchange. Meanwhile the (intellectual) runt of any litter is left to rot.
Personally, I don't think it's evolutionary. I think it's cultural, and I think it's related to Calvinism.
Culture evolves too, selects on analogous criterion but Calvinism sounds interesting too care to explain? I don't really even know what the word means.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 18, 2014, 12:08:44 PM
Personally, I don't think it's evolutionary. I think it's cultural, and I think it's related to Calvinism.
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central time zone &4get.it (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=28564.270)
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 18, 2014, 12:08:44 PM
Personally, I don't think it's evolutionary. I think it's cultural, and I think it's related to Calvinism.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 17, 2014, 10:55:06 PM
Remember the scene in H.G. Wells' Time Machine where the hero is asked how the machine works? He explains that if you want to move forward in time, you push the lever forward, and if you want to move backward in time, you pull the lever back, and that the farther you push or pull the lever, the faster the machine travels.
Explaining our cultural attitudes toward stupidity in terms of heuristics and FAE are to this discussion as that explanation was to the question asked, in that it is a description of how people reach the conclusion that someone is stupid, and not an explanation of why our culture views stupidity as a character failing.
Thanks for clarifying.
I don't think there is a singular cause as to why Americans view stupidity as a moral failure.
I suppose you'd also find the just world fallacy to be an operational description rather than a contributing factor as well?
I'm sure there are multiple contributing factors, because that's just how the world works.
And yes, mechanisms aren't generally considered causative factors.
I think that there is room for interesting discussion here, and I doubt there are any pat answers or neat packages that it can be wrapped up into as an explanation for why our culture accepts this particular piece of contradictory belief system. I also think that, like with most issues, dialogue can be a vector for changing perspectives.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 18, 2014, 10:51:24 PM
I'm sure there are multiple contributing factors, because that's just how the world works.
And yes, mechanisms aren't generally considered causative factors.
How would Calvinism be considered a causative factor?
Quote from: Net (+ 1 Hidden) on May 19, 2014, 02:00:44 AM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 18, 2014, 10:51:24 PM
I'm sure there are multiple contributing factors, because that's just how the world works.
And yes, mechanisms aren't generally considered causative factors.
How would Calvinism be considered a causative factor?
Because it is outright, no-joking EVIL.
Quote from: Net (+ 1 Hidden) on May 19, 2014, 02:00:44 AM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 18, 2014, 10:51:24 PM
I'm sure there are multiple contributing factors, because that's just how the world works.
And yes, mechanisms aren't generally considered causative factors.
How would Calvinism be considered a causative factor?
It could go some distance to explain the punishment-oriented mindset of a culture which considers stupidity a moral failing that deserves ill consequences. It could at the very least be a contributor.
But just to clarify... I didn't say that I think Calvinism is a causative factor, I said that I think it's related.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 19, 2014, 04:28:19 AM
But just to clarify... I didn't say that I think Calvinism is a causative factor, I said that I think it's related.
Link2AuDio
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 19, 2014, 04:28:19 AM
But just to clarify... I didn't say that I think Calvinism is a causative factor, I said that I think it's related.
Sure, but you shot down a number of people's posts for not answering the question about causal factors. It's a bit odd that you give room for yourself to speculate about related ideas, but when some other posters did so, you rejected their input.
Quote from: Net (+ 1 Hidden) on May 20, 2014, 12:24:01 AM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 19, 2014, 04:28:19 AM
But just to clarify... I didn't say that I think Calvinism is a causative factor, I said that I think it's related.
Sure, but you shot down a number of people's posts for not answering the question about causal factors. It's a bit odd that you give room for yourself to speculate about related ideas, but when some other posters did so, you rejected their input.
I am rebutting answers that are overly simplistic, pat, or which present observable mechanisms rather than examining possible causative factors. If you think I'm "shooting down" posts, maybe they shouldn't be so easy to shoot down, and should take a little more care to be worded analytically rather than conclusively.
You seem to not like that I'm trying to steer the conversation in the direction I want it to go in, which is not one of pat answers or mansplaining. I suggest that you start your own thread, fill it with pat answers, wrap it up in a bow, and call it a day.
Obviously I have utterly failed at communicating the ideas I wanted to discuss here, so basically, fuck it. I give up.
FTR - nothing I've suggested in this thread has been intended as a pat answer. I'm just throwing out what I think may be contributing factors. Truth is, I suspect there is no single root cause. Seems to me it's a complex issue.