this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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To clarify here, I don't feel like I'm significantly smarter than most people, but I feel like people have a hard time doing any sort of thinking about stuff. Especially when it comes to verifying "facts."

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

I think ignorant might be more accurate than stupid. That crosses into stupidity if the ignorance is wilful eg they refuse to accept facts or refuse to even investigate if someone tries to present evidence.

People these days seem exhausted and angry and for some there's comfort in the 'certainty' of their wrong beliefs. I read a piece recently about an ex qanon guy who said a large part of the appeal was being part of a community and encouraged to be angry about everything.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

I feel like 90% of people don't put in the mental effort to resolve cognitive dissonance, not that they are incapable of feeling it.

If that counts as stupid, then I fully agree 90%+ of people are "stupid".

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I do wonder how widespread Astro-turfing is. I just came from a discussion of EVs and some of the anti people were really obtuse in their claims. Just making wild claims that are completely against any actual real life data. There was similar for climate change, and smoking ….. sure I’m biased but people want to support the status quo against all reason. Is it some sort of stubborn stupidity? Are they malicious/trolls? Is it corporate propaganda?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Yes. But the 90/10 varies by topic.

And never assume you're in the 10%. Arguably, everyone thinking they are is the problem

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Epistemology, the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

People suck.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

90% of the population think that 90% of the population are stupid.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

More like 90% of human actions are stupid, as I'm not sure if there's an even split of "the stupid" and "the smart", and plenty people mix both. (E.g. being oddly competent at something specific, only to vomit assumptions on something else.)

In special I feel like four types of stupidity became a bit too common, too harmful, too egregious. They're the failure to handle:

  • uncertainty - or, "how your belief might be wrong, and you'll need to handle the case that it is wrong"
  • complexity - or, "how small details have a profound impact on everything"
  • undesirable possibilities - or, "how nature gives no fucks about your fee fees, and things don't become true because you roll in wishful belief"
  • context - or, "how things are never isolated, and you need to look outside the thing to understand the thing"

They're intertwined, I think. And perhaps there's something more important than those, but those four are the ones that I notice the most.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You’re probably as stupid as the rest. I expect there’s loads of stuff you’ve just taken at face value that is completely wrong.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

There's a lot of things that can go into being "stupid", and it's important to remember that these are largely conditions that are debuffing them rather than inherent features of who they are. Most specifically, huge deaths of the population (61% as of Oct 2023) are living paycheck-to-paycheck in the US and have little to fall back on - that kind of perpetual, hopeless stress can greatly fatigue you and occupy your higher reasoning. Moreover, a number of people have become "locked in" to certain kinds of facts - for example the belief that America is inherently good or that God actively relieves suffering; they would have to put their axioms through substantial reevaluation and fresh information to be able to cross through uncertainty and then accept contrary facts, and their living conditions make that difficult.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

It’s more of a mixture of stupidity, distraction, and willful ignorance

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I mean if it is a bell curve, even an average person is smarter than half the world. There's a selection bias on social media because those heated and ignorant threads get memed and shared either by people who believe the nonsense or by outrage.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes, though I think it’s easier for anybody to be duped by things they’re already pre-disposed to believing in. Show me a fake article about Trump doing something stupid or evil and I’ll probably be like, “How is he still free?” without really double-checking the source, unless it’s blatantly questionable.

Meanwhile, somebody of the opposite political persuasion will similarly soak in anything that confirms that Biden is the worst president we’ve ever had in history, but their range of “trusted” news sources is completely different than mine. I’m not sure how we can even bridge that gap, since our definition of reality and accepted facts isn’t really even the same anymore. There’s just so many propaganda engines active in the US right now, it’s hard to imagine anything being done about it. If anything, it’ll get worse.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A lot of people feel the ways you do at one point or another in their lives, and that means you probably end up in their 90%.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

No, it just means that he's smart enough to notice.

If you meet people every day that can't do simple math, yeah, that gets under your skin really fast... and then you start to notice other things, like their attitude towards life and problems, their lack of logical reasoning, etc. And then you realize that, yes, most people are stupid. You yourself are not very smart, but smart enough to notice.

My guess is, in most cases, people just lack good education. Sure, there are simpletones, but most people are not like that, they just never had proper education and guidance. And the problem seems to perpetuate. They don't see anything wrong with the way they were raised, so they raise their children the same way. An oddball might break the cycle every now and then, but their number is far too low to make an impact, so they usually just move when they become of age.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (10 children)

The under 25 crowd seems to be a bit.....off. I'm just an old guy now, so I'll be here yelling at my clouds.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I'm not so sure, I saw this short the other day of this Gen z woman with a caption that said something like "you can tell gen z from millennial by the rise of their jeans" with her wearing mid rise (labeled low) and high rise jeans, and the comments were full of millennial women pointing out that in the 90s the low rise was like way way way low (which they were) or that millennial wore low rise first, or that it was a bad style or whatever input they felt they needed to give

And I realized this Gen z girl doesn't care about any of this, and is actually quite clever, she's just effectively gotten an insane amount of engagement and is positioning herself as an influencer because much of my generation are idiots and are commenting and reacting on her stuff over the rise of pants

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

A bunch of us recently gained access to global platforms.

A bunch of global platforms recently gained access to us.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I'm not like those other dumb asses, cause I know I'm a dumb ass!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Everyone is stupid some of the time and after we've noticed all that it feels like we're surrounded by idiots.

Truth is we're just not seeing the competence.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I wouldn't say stupid but I'd say most people believe they know what they're doing, and don't.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I think so. One trip through social media is proof enough. Or, people are willing to be stupid for attention/money. But I add self-awareness to that, I’m not as smart as I think I am.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Especially when it comes to verifying “facts.”

"90%" doesn't feel very factual to me.

No, I don't feel (or think) that.

If 90% of the population was stupid there'd be no need to spend uncountable billions brainwashing them with propaganda at every turn, would it?

FYI... I once worked in the propaganda industry - propaganda doesn't work on the stupid (and I use that term lightly, since I'm not sure "stupid" is something that even really exists). The smarter you assume yourself to be, the more susceptible you are.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (5 children)

The comments in here are so depressing it's actually funny. Evidently we don't even know what the word means. "No metrics" ffs

Look, the fact of the matter is, as soon as you start even just inching over to the right of the curve, the people rolling the other way down the hill are already, let's say, beyond your horizons. The reverse is true too but in the less salutory way. You will never be able to fully communicate anything to them, their heads are populated with bullshit and nothing true can remain in their minds because it just gets overwritten by the stupidity which they have chosen as their life. They do not see obvious connections, they can not follow principles or see how they apply to them, and they are too arrogant to have sense spoken to them. They can not learn, resent the suggestion that there is something they don't already know in the first place, and they say things like "you can't tell me shit". I mean, thanks for self-identifying as a drain on society but we could already tell...

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Covid showed me we are living in a asylum.

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