7 ms·

Stupid people who think they're smart because they have a fancy education and are rewarded with high salary, that's probably a dangerous "brainy elite". Along

by dusted 6y ago

Stupid people who think they're smart because they have a fancy education and are rewarded with high salary, that's probably a dangerous "brainy elite". Along with stupid people who just so happened to get a ton of money by no merit of their own, but don't realize this.

powerapple 6y ago
if a person wanted to accumulate wealth/knowledge and did it, he/she is smart. if a person wanted to accumulate wealth/knowledge and failed to so do, he/she is stupid.
- ploika 6y ago
  Trying and failing doesn't make you stupid.
  - xenocratus 6y ago
    It does in a lot of courts of public opinion, unfortunately.
  - powerapple 6y ago
    if you keep trying and keep failing, and you do not adapt in the process, it does not make you smart. By failing, we learn and adapt. In theory it would make the next move wiser than previous moves. I agree calling it stupid may not be accurate.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Trying and failing indeed doesn’t make you stupid but in many circumstances, e.g. being poor, makes you stop trying or the feeling of inferiority seeps in. Also the people around you set a background that make it even harder to escape from.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  This assumes equality of opportunity.
- dusted 6y ago
  That's a stupid definition, and it's wrong. Let's say I want to accumulate wealth, and I play the lottery and win, then, by your definition, I'm smart.
  - powerapple 6y ago
    I believe, if you think you can win lottery and did it, you are smarter than average. Why not? Anyway, we are talking about a small percentage of people. I am used to generalization, couldn't help it :) Maybe I should not.
    - dusted 6y ago
      No, if you believe that winning the lottery is a good way to become rich, you're an idiot. If you actually do win, you're a lucky, rich idiot. I'm not against playing the lottery, but it's objectively proven that it's not a good way to become rich, and a persons smartness has no bearing over whether they actually do win (maybe a negative one, smarter people will gamble less).
- paradox242 6y ago
  Wow, this is just... wow this is wrong. This person is either a troll or their understanding of the world is so simplistic as to render any attempt to correct their misunderstanding pointless. After all, they've already figured everything out, everything is simple, black and white, what would they have to learn from you? One imagines that they are a decade or more away in life experience to even being in a place where they could see that their simple test here does not match reality and only then would they be ready to hear why that is.
- zxcmx 6y ago
  This seems like a variant of the "just world hypothesis".
sparkie 6y ago
Thomas Sowell writes about this in depth in several of his works. In Intellectuals and Society, he notes that many "intellectual elite" have been cheerleaders for some of the worst (economic) disasters and human rights abuses of the 20th century. In 2020, we can see this vividly with the coronahysterics causing untold and immeasurable damage to societies with arbitrary and poorly calculated lockdown rules. Sowell argues that these intellectuals believe their excellence in one field gives them the legitimacy to talk in depth about other fields in which they're not so excellent - perhaps most notably economics, which is Sowell's own field of expertise. In A Vision of the Annointed, he describes how these intellectuals have concocted a fantasy world view which is inconsistent with actual evidence, and the academies work to insulate themselves away from this evidence when it conflicts with their world view. This is true in economics, where the current leading school of thought (MMT) pretends they're not just kicking the can down the road, and ignores the works of the Austrian school. When he refers to 'intellectuals,' he doesn't just mean anybody intelligent or accredited with degrees. He is referring to people whose results are just ideas, and not products, inventions or scientific breakthroughs. Many "idea people" ultimately face no consequence upon themselves for their poor ideas; they have no skin in the game and are eager to inflict their world view upon society even if there is collateral damage. A slightly older of his works, A Conflict of Visions, suggests there are two prevailing visions: an unconstrained and a constrained vision. The unconstrained vision is that held by many intellectual elite and largely ignores some aspects of human nature. It believes that people are innately good and well meaning (The just-world fallacy). They don't believe that humans should have constraints because given the opportunity, they will act in their own or others' best interests. The constrained vision is one in which humans believe that man is not innately good and has some bad inside of him. In this vision, it is necessary to have some constraints (laws, fears, etc) so that they act in a manner which is in the best long term interest of themselves or the wider society. In the study of economics, it is not possible to ignore human nature because all economic activity is the result of people taking actions in their own self-interest. Praxeology studies how humans behave, without consideration for their thoughts or speech, but merely how they act in the real world. It argues that what someone does tells you far more than what a person says they will do, and even what they tell themselves.
- watwut 6y ago
C1sc0cat 6y ago
In the UK I think having to many politicians who only have a PPE is a problem
luminati 6y ago
That explains the current state of full stack developers.
joe_biden123 6y ago
the education takes work and they are raised to believe they will be rewarded for it. "fancy education" isn't something useless. read the article. there are 25000+ layers formed every year who can't find a job. lawyers do important jobs it's just there aren't enough jobs for them. there are too many humanity majors too. stem people think they are superior but they also are part of this overproduuced elites. more and more people are educated in stem and soon the demand for them will saturate and their salaries will drop. there is just no control over universities and no planning for the future they let too many people in and the economy can't absorb them. "useless" humanity majors in the past would have gotten jobs teaching or doing research but there's too many of them. society is paying the price

by dusted 6y ago

powerapple 6y ago

if a person wanted to accumulate wealth/knowledge and did it, he/she is smart. if a person wanted to accumulate wealth/knowledge and failed to so do, he/she is stupid.

ploika 6y ago
Trying and failing doesn't make you stupid.
- xenocratus 6y ago
  It does in a lot of courts of public opinion, unfortunately.
- powerapple 6y ago
  if you keep trying and keep failing, and you do not adapt in the process, it does not make you smart. By failing, we learn and adapt. In theory it would make the next move wiser than previous moves. I agree calling it stupid may not be accurate.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Trying and failing indeed doesn’t make you stupid but in many circumstances, e.g. being poor, makes you stop trying or the feeling of inferiority seeps in. Also the people around you set a background that make it even harder to escape from.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
This assumes equality of opportunity.
dusted 6y ago
That's a stupid definition, and it's wrong. Let's say I want to accumulate wealth, and I play the lottery and win, then, by your definition, I'm smart.
- powerapple 6y ago
  I believe, if you think you can win lottery and did it, you are smarter than average. Why not? Anyway, we are talking about a small percentage of people. I am used to generalization, couldn't help it :) Maybe I should not.
  - dusted 6y ago
    No, if you believe that winning the lottery is a good way to become rich, you're an idiot. If you actually do win, you're a lucky, rich idiot. I'm not against playing the lottery, but it's objectively proven that it's not a good way to become rich, and a persons smartness has no bearing over whether they actually do win (maybe a negative one, smarter people will gamble less).
paradox242 6y ago
Wow, this is just... wow this is wrong. This person is either a troll or their understanding of the world is so simplistic as to render any attempt to correct their misunderstanding pointless. After all, they've already figured everything out, everything is simple, black and white, what would they have to learn from you? One imagines that they are a decade or more away in life experience to even being in a place where they could see that their simple test here does not match reality and only then would they be ready to hear why that is.
zxcmx 6y ago
This seems like a variant of the "just world hypothesis".

sparkie 6y ago

Thomas Sowell writes about this in depth in several of his works. In Intellectuals and Society, he notes that many "intellectual elite" have been cheerleaders for some of the worst (economic) disasters and human rights abuses of the 20th century. In 2020, we can see this vividly with the coronahysterics causing untold and immeasurable damage to societies with arbitrary and poorly calculated lockdown rules. Sowell argues that these intellectuals believe their excellence in one field gives them the legitimacy to talk in depth about other fields in which they're not so excellent - perhaps most notably economics, which is Sowell's own field of expertise. In A Vision of the Annointed, he describes how these intellectuals have concocted a fantasy world view which is inconsistent with actual evidence, and the academies work to insulate themselves away from this evidence when it conflicts with their world view. This is true in economics, where the current leading school of thought (MMT) pretends they're not just kicking the can down the road, and ignores the works of the Austrian school. When he refers to 'intellectuals,' he doesn't just mean anybody intelligent or accredited with degrees. He is referring to people whose results are just ideas, and not products, inventions or scientific breakthroughs. Many "idea people" ultimately face no consequence upon themselves for their poor ideas; they have no skin in the game and are eager to inflict their world view upon society even if there is collateral damage. A slightly older of his works, A Conflict of Visions, suggests there are two prevailing visions: an unconstrained and a constrained vision. The unconstrained vision is that held by many intellectual elite and largely ignores some aspects of human nature. It believes that people are innately good and well meaning (The just-world fallacy). They don't believe that humans should have constraints because given the opportunity, they will act in their own or others' best interests. The constrained vision is one in which humans believe that man is not innately good and has some bad inside of him. In this vision, it is necessary to have some constraints (laws, fears, etc) so that they act in a manner which is in the best long term interest of themselves or the wider society. In the study of economics, it is not possible to ignore human nature because all economic activity is the result of people taking actions in their own self-interest. Praxeology studies how humans behave, without consideration for their thoughts or speech, but merely how they act in the real world. It argues that what someone does tells you far more than what a person says they will do, and even what they tell themselves.

watwut 6y ago

C1sc0cat 6y ago

In the UK I think having to many politicians who only have a PPE is a problem

luminati 6y ago

That explains the current state of full stack developers.

joe_biden123 6y ago

the education takes work and they are raised to believe they will be rewarded for it. "fancy education" isn't something useless. read the article. there are 25000+ layers formed every year who can't find a job. lawyers do important jobs it's just there aren't enough jobs for them. there are too many humanity majors too. stem people think they are superior but they also are part of this overproduuced elites. more and more people are educated in stem and soon the demand for them will saturate and their salaries will drop. there is just no control over universities and no planning for the future they let too many people in and the economy can't absorb them. "useless" humanity majors in the past would have gotten jobs teaching or doing research but there's too many of them. society is paying the price