17 ms·

Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

264 points by mcguire 5y ago

sieabahlpark 5y ago
I love how there is no article attached. It's just linking me to a definition of psyche.
darawk 5y ago
> But dumbness alone is rarely the driving threat: at the head of almost every dumb movement, you will find the stupid in charge. This distinction is such a perfect distillation of something i've struggled to articulate for a long time.
acituan 5y ago
I wish the author[1] read a bit more about the science of wisdom and foolishness before ruining their good intuition with a stubbornly limited perspective. > Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes. Close but no cigar. Human computation requires forcing of phenomena into crude, somewhat distorting pigeonholes to do any symbolic processing on it. Reality is simply too combinatorially explosive to not use any compression. The foolishness arises when the distortions are systematically wrong; when you're stuck in a blind spot and keep focusing on the wrong subset of the data. It is a framing error that is specifically anti-adaptive. Besides, you can have the entire array of conceptual tools, and still be foolish; picking the right tool cannot be reduced to an algorithm or a tool itself. It is a recursive problem of finding relevance. > Historically, philosophers have worried a great deal about the irrationality of not taking the available means to my goals: Tom wants to get fit, yet his running shoes are quietly gathering dust. The stock solution to Tom’s quandary is simple willpower. Stupidity is very different from this. It is rather a lack of the necessary means, a lack of the necessary intellectual equipment. Combatting it will typically require not brute willpower but the construction of a new way of seeing our self and our world. This is a false dichotomy. Avoiding getting into the metaphysics of will and whether or how it exists, Tom also doesn't know how to construct a way of seeing his self and the world to get into running. He still doesn't know what is good for him because if he did, he would have done it (or done something else good for him). His problem is ignorance just like the other guy, not willpower. > First, unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals: after all, we get most of our concepts, our mental tools, from the society we are raised in. Collective intelligence and individual intelligence are similar machinery and both subject to blind spots and foolishness. In fact, the collective intelligence usually performs better on certain failure modes; it is easier for two people to find each other's blind spots than one person inferring their own. That's what for example therapy is (although unidirectional). It's just when it fails, it also fails spectacularly. > We can now explain why stupidity is so domain-specific, why someone can be so smart in one area, and such an idiot in another: the relevant concepts are often domain-specific. There is evidence against this; general intelligence predicts picking your meta-heuristics better for cross-domain problems; this is definitional after all. > So stupidity is tough to fix. Entire history of wisdom traditions and practices are dedicated to the suffering that comes with foolishness. They do not pass on conceptual tools though, because this is not an algorithmic problem. They pass on practices you participate in, which aim to train you to increase your likelihood of picking the relevant tools and finding out when you're stuck in a foolish framing. [1] Sacha Golob, who turns out to have a paper this article was based on, at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/110433270/Golob_A_New_Theory_of_Stupidity_IJPS_Upload.pdf https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/110433270/Golob_A_New...
- robert-cochran 5y ago
  Unrelated but have you been listening to a lot of vervaeke recently?
- seqizz 5y ago
  > He still doesn't know what is good for him because if he did, he would have done it (or done something else good for him). Really? Maybe he knows and choose some other (stupid) option. Because I really feel like Tom sometimes.
- stareatgoats 5y ago
  > the science of wisdom and foolishness I had no idea there was such a thing. Care to link to some relevant resources?
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    The OP seems to be coming from a Buddhist perspective. If that's correct, then I think he's got the wrong end of the stick; the mental impairment he is contrasting with "wisdom" is usually referred to in Buddhist literature as "ignorance", which means a propensity to ignore things, to deliberately refuse to know.
    - acituan 5y ago
      Not exclusively. It is also a very Socratic perspective (which happens to be a contemporary to Buddha). Buddhist interpretation of ignorance overlaps more with Socratic interpretation than our current use of the word. It is not a mere lack of knowledge in “propositions”. It is an existential state. If you think about it framing problems are also ignorance problems; ignoring relevant information/perspectives/action in our problem formulations.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >In fact, the collective intelligence usually performs better on certain failure modes; it is easier for two people to find each other's blind spots than one person inferring their own I'm not so sure I buy this one. A few years ago Amazon decided to silently delete 1984 from people's Kindle devices. One common refrain was that this is 'only the kind of stupid decision a collective can make', because no individual lacks the common sense to come up with that idea. It's the kind of bureaucratic stupidity that you get out of mechanic, group momentum. I don't think individual stupidity is like that at all, there is a qualitative difference. Individual foolishness is maybe sentimental or stubborn or attached, whereas collective foolishness is sort of autonomous. Kind of like a cult. Not only are blind spots harder to spot in homogenous groups, they even can conjure delusions up that nobody would ever even come up with on their own, because it takes the force of a 100 people to convince you that something is real that doesn't even exist.
deleted 5y ago
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duncanawoods 5y ago
Calling trench warfare stupid because of conceptual obsolescence seems suspect. It was a new problem with no obvious solution. Trench warfare in the US Civil War didn't end in such a stalemate so there wasn't much precedence, There were newer automatic weapons and a vast scale of the armies covering an entire front that hadn't been seen before. A stalemate might have been the best available outcome at the time where other alternatives would allow enemy advances. I believe the only "solution" was the tank which had yet to be invented and it's invention was a direct consequence of the stalemate. It doesn't seem right to call someone stupid for experiencing a problem that led to an invention. I would only call the pre-tank strategies "stupid" if the decisions discarded available information and solutions.
- Joker_vD 5y ago
  But the actual solutions were the shock troops, you know? The tanks and the anti-tank defence kinda reached parity by the middle of the WW2, so tanks became rather ineffective at breaking through the field defences. Solution? Specifically trained infantry groups that would infiltrate and destroy the fortifications, Germans used it since the early WW2. And here's a particularly interesting document from the Soviet side (dated 1944! so it's about time of finishing the liberation of their territory) at https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%BF%D0%B0 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BC... , here's a google-translated version: An instruction to the units of the 3rd Guards Rifle Volnovakhskaya Red Banner Division No. 0590 / op in addition to the previously given instructions on the preparation of assault groups (November 1, 1944). To the regiment commanders of the 3rd Guards Rifle Volnovakh Red Banner Division In addition to the previously given instructions for the preparation of assault groups, the divisional commander ORDERED: 1. In each rifle battalion, create an assault group consisting of: a rifle company, a reconnaissance squad, a sapper squad, a chemists squad, a platoon of 45-mm guns, two heavy machine guns. 2. For the convenience of the actions of the assault groups, divide them during the performance of combat missions into the following subgroups: barriers, blocking, cover and capture. Allocate sappers into the barriers subgroup, three - five submachine gunners; provide the subgroup with crampons with ropes, probes, scissors for cutting wire, whistles, small axes, small infantry shovels, extended explosive charges of three kilograms each, pointers to indicate passages. In the blocking subgroup, assign 3-4 sappers with universal charges, anti-tank mines or anti-tank grenades to blow up a structure or to throw grenades through an embrasure, before a platoon of shooters to deliver anti-tank mines, explosives and bottles with a combustible mixture, 2-3 chemists. In the cover subgroup, allocate the heavy fire weapons attached to the assault group (anti-tank rifles, 45-mm guns, heavy machine guns). Provide the cover subgroup with whistles, rocket launchers. In the capture subgroup, assign a platoon of riflemen, a reconnaissance squad, 2-3 chemists, 2-3 sappers. Arm the capture subgroup with grenades, knives, termite balls, bottles with a combustible mixture, smoke hand grenades. 3. The unit commanders should conduct training sessions with the assault groups for at least 4 hours every day, during which to work out the issues of the assault group's offensive, attacks by enemy bunkers, bunkers, methods of destroying bunkers, bunkers. 4. The composition of the assault groups should be submitted to the division headquarters by 10.00 2.11.44. Chief of Staff of the Division (signature) No. 0590 / op 1.11.44 Tanks are not enough, not by a long shot, and Germans knew it by the end of the WW1. Soviets learned it by the middle of WW2.
elihu 5y ago
Probably worth mentioning "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" by Carlo M. Cipolla, which has an interesting and somewhat different definition of stupidity and has been discussed here before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448
- mdp2021 5y ago
  > an interesting and somewhat different definition Stupidity is the disposition to the state of stupor - that break in reactions for need of processing in an unexepected situation, as if suddenly beaten. Golob stresses the root in not having the cognitive instruments to solve the cognitive impasse. Cipolla stresses the economical consequences of those who does not have the intellectual framework (of utility) to understand that their personal gain, or incapacity to build it, should not be reached through a catastrophe for the rest of us. ..."That guy who shoots me to spend a weekend with my wife in Montecarlo" [does not have a proper idea of weights].
0x10c0fe11ce 5y ago
The OP lost me on a bunch of bad analogies. I’ll keep recommending to my friends The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlo Cipolla. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49348225-the-basic-laws-of-human-stupidity https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49348225-the-basic-laws-...
- deleted 5y ago
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- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  Not a good summary. Some more informative links: • http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit... • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Cipolla#The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidity_(1976) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Cipolla#The_Basic_Law... • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448 (as someone else linked)
  - 0x10c0fe11ce 5y ago
    Usually I recommend the book as my friends don’t like summaries. But thanks anyway.
wombatmobile 5y ago
The adjudication of what is stupid is inevitably subjective, rather than absolute, because it depends on the objectives and interests of the subject, as distinct from the observer.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  > subjective, rather than absolute This is a false dichotomy. If I am trying try accomplish X, it is absolutely true that I am trying to accomplish X. Both you (the observer) and I can acknowledge this fact. > adjudication of what is stupid is inevitably subjective No, because as you yourself say... > it depends on the objectives and interests of the subject and what objective you're pursuing is factually the case as I already stated. Furthermore, objectives and interests are not arbitrary and brute facts, but ultimately related to human nature. It is possible in principle, even if not in practice, to determine whether an objective being pursued is wrong, stupid, etc. It makes no sense, for example, to say that someone isn't stupid because he is pursuing the objective of suicide successfully. The objective itself is stupid because it is objectively (not "subjectively") contrary to the good of the subject (euthanasia supporters notwithstanding) to kill yourself and because it is factually the case that the ("subjective") understanding the person has of what is good for him is stupid.
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    > If I am trying try accomplish X, it is absolutely true that I am trying to accomplish X. Both you (the observer) and I can acknowledge this fact. How does the observer know what someone else is trying to accomplish? The observer cannot peer into the person's mind.
stareatgoats 5y ago
There is no way round that "stupid" is primarily an insult thrown at opponents, not a statement of fact. As a matter of fact we are all incredibly smart. And stupid too. With that said, I have a hard time agreeing with the definition of stupidity put forth in the article, as far as I understand it. To me stupidity is that state of mind that one may find oneself in before the first cup of coffee in the morning, or when stress (or ignorance) prevents one from intelligently considering all the relevant facts in a case etc. It is not something I would assign as attributes of persons lest it be someone I really didn't like, or (shudder) groups of persons, nor qualitatively separate from "dumbness". Sticking to an outdated military tactic has far more reasons than one persons "stupidity", and what's up with mentioning South Africa in the context of "a kind of misguided innovation" influenced by "ideas and terms taken from the United States"? Looks to me like the author is attempting to accrue academic points on the topic of stupidity, in order to use the insult more effectively against opponents.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  > stupidity is that state of mind that one may find oneself in before the first cup of coffee in the morning This is very different than the condition to which the author is referring. I’d call it something like “false transfer” where one reasons about a complex, novel phenomenon using a (previously mastered) mental framework that is unsuitable or inadequate for the task. Perhaps we could call it a generalized Dunning-Kruger effect?
  - stareatgoats 5y ago
    > I’d call it something like “false transfer” Ok thanks. But I guess I'll stick to calling it stupidity. If it walks like a duck and all that.
- strebler 5y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree. It's by definition an insult and I don't believe an academic measurement of stupidity (or intelligence) is a terribly fruitful endeavor. "My math says you're stupid!" is a place some people may go with this. I try to think in terms of bias: "what biases do I possess that may cause me to yield an outcome that is negative?" or "what bias does person X have that lead them to those actions or words?" I feel it promotes empathy, questioning and understanding. Not name calling. At least, it's helped me to figure out some surprising things about myself and others!
Animats 5y ago
The author may be onto something. Or they may have had one good idea and are now trying to make it fit too many problems. WWI did have moments of extreme stupidity. But the real problem was that, for the first time since castles vs. troops without cannon, defense was stronger than offense. Machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches could resist most attacks. When that wasn't enough, both sides had plenty of railroad capacity and could move reserves around fast enough that no breakthrough got very far. There was much logistic cleverness behind that. It worked well. When defense is stronger than offense, wars stall. Which is what happened in WWI. Nobody could force a decision. Until tanks and aircraft entered the battlefield. We have that today. Guerilla warfare can go on for decades. Neither side can force a decision. If the guerilla side gets ahead, they control entire areas, which means they have vulnerable centers that can be attacked. If the other side gets ahead, the guerillas hide in the population until the heat is off. "A guerrilla swims among the people like a fish swims in the sea." - Mao. Neither side can force a decision, although one side may eventually wear down the other over a long period. Modern militaries realize that their tactical doctrine may not work, but they're also aware that new, proposed doctrine may be worse. There have been societies that couldn't even think about that problem. Many, from the Aztecs to the Zulus, are extinct.
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  The Zulu are most certainly not extinct.
  - stareatgoats 5y ago
    Additionally, The British severely underestimated the Zulus along the lines of the parent, with at least one devastating effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    :) The writer probably sacrificed facts to the satisfaction of instancing an "A-to-Z" («Atzecs to Zulus»).
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
mdp2021 5y ago
> Stupidity [...] occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job [...] [It] is a matter of the wrong tools for the job [from the Article] Golob's concept of "stupidity", in these terms, seems to be quite similar to Charlie Munger's reiterated idea of the "man-with-a-hammer syndrome: to the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". Edit: Those who do not know the Psychology of Human Misjudgement speeches by Charlie Munger, are warmly encouraged to find it. A revised version of the otherwise most famous speech at Harvard in 1995, seems to be here: https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/
chiefangel1 5y ago
in this world
chiefangel1 5y ago
no it’s not i was in the psych ward twice and i was talking to quote on quote stupid people “insane” asylum read what i’m saying and find me and don’t try to kill me because they force fed me prescription meds
nathias 5y ago
I don't think its a matter of having/lacking conceptual tools, but rather the skill in using them, I have seen many very stupid very learned people.
hoseja 5y ago
>To view political opponents as primarily cynical transforms them into Machiavellian monsters, leaving no space for anything but a zero-sum battle for domination. Yes, that is what it boils down to, at high-enough levels or over long-enough timespans.
_nub3 5y ago
On a side note, the linked article is not accessible anymorr, nor does a link to latest article work. i guess the author must be stupid. /s
denton-scratch 5y ago
> First, unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals: after all, we get most of our concepts, our mental tools, from the society we are raised in. That is not the way "stupid" is used. "Stupid" is a property assigned to an individual. It is not nowadays generally accepted that General Haig's strategy in WWI was stupid, or even wrong. If he was doing what all generals are said to do (fighting the last war), then arguably he was in agreement with the best minds in the business.
jonplackett 5y ago
> Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes. Most western governments: "Don't worry, COVID is just like the Flu"
- h2odragon 5y ago
  "covid is just like the flu" or "covid is just like smallpox" are both stupid; and even more stupid is the notion that those are the only choices A hallmark of human stupid I've noticed is the "It's what we're supposed to do" factor. We know its dumb but we do it anyway because "its what the job description says", or "its what the boss would want" or so on. Where we abnegate our judgement for that of another is often the root of it; when that other's judgment is unknown to us, it's always stupid.
  - jonplackett 5y ago
    Exactly! But it was too big of a shift in perspective for most to get their head around, and they clung to these ideas - Britain apparently based out entire response to covid on our Flu pandemic plan (which went... badly)
- bobthechef 5y ago
  I don't know which planet you're from, but on planet Earth, all Western governments are currently in the middle of aggressively coercing their citizens into getting vaccinated.
  - tstrimple 5y ago
    You're simply wrong. We've got plenty of conservative politicians celebrating low vaccination rates and pushing anti-vaccine misinformation. https://wset.com/news/local/us-rep-greene-congratulates-crowd-for-low-vaccination-rate-promotes-gun-violence https://wset.com/news/local/us-rep-greene-congratulates-crow... https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/71921 https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/71921
scotty79 5y ago
> Global debates over social justice, for example, are now dominated by a set of ideas and terms taken from the United States, a nation marked by an incredibly specific historical and cultural trajectory. Simply transferring that framework to other countries, such as those in which class is less starkly racialised (for example, states reliant on exploiting white migrant labour from eastern Europe), or in which it is racialised in much more complex ways (for example, states such as South Africa) is conceptually and socially risky. Yes. And those noble (in USA context) ideas when they get into the wider world serve mostly the popultist conservatives because they rely on so many things that are local to USA that opponents only need to point and laugh at how remote those ideas are from non-US reality to get people on their side.
himinlomax 5y ago
Contemporary historians of WW1 such as Michael Neiberg object to calling actors of that war stupid. See this interview where he mentions "the stupid box": http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110822_michael_neiberg_on_dance_furies_europe_outbreak_world_war_i/?page=2 http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110822_michael_neiberg_on_da... A lot of the seemingly obvious explanations for that war is just wrong, and tainted by the official narrative that came later. One example among many: French revanchisme about Alsace-Lorraine did not factor in starting the war, or at least not significantly and very indirectly. It was a hot topic in the 1890s, but that had been almost entirely absent from the political debate for 20 years by the start of the war. The reason you might think otherwise is simply that it was used during the war as a motivation to conjure up patriotic morale.
eric4smith 5y ago
Stupidity is one of humanity's greatest virtues. Because it allows entrepreneurs to come up with solutions for the "stupid" that simplifies problems. An even greater virtue is "laziness". Trillions of dollars are made off the laziness of people not wanting to do one thing or another. Isn't humanity great? I'm only saying, see it as an opportunity and not a problem. Because it is what is it, and we can never change it. Best to live in a world of what "is" than what we would like it to be.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
My working definition of stupidity is making poor predictions that lead to self-harm. The more stupid the predictions, the more extreme the self-harm. I'm not sure trying to improvise a way through a novel kind of conflict counts as stupid so much as untrained. Maybe there was someone in WWI saying "This is obviously wrong and won't work - we should do this other thing instead." Maybe there wasn't. At this distance it's hard to tell. We tend to call someone stupid when the quality of the predictions is worse than some population median, and the self-harm seems both unsurprising and trivially avoidable. Stupidity is only loosely related to IQ. Low IQ people don't have the horsepower to make good models, so they're often blindsided by challenges. But high IQ people can have bad beliefs and poor models. Without self-correction and a reality-testing loop they're just as likely to believe wrong and dangerous things. One of the most toxic things that happens in politics is re-framing a problem away from rational competence towards emotive and narrative non-logic. If you can succeed in this, you can make people stupid. Emotion and narrative, especially ego-gratifying and tribal narratives, are reliably unrealistic models that lead to poor predictions.
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  > One of the most toxic things that happens in politics is re-framing a problem away from rational competence towards emotive and narrative non-logic. In politics emotional and even irrational narratives are a centerpiece of how effective leaders lead. In virtually all sufficiently complicated human affairs there is NEVER enough facts and visibility at hand to make objective decisions. Moreover, now more than ever, influencers and thought leaders can easily cherry-pick whatever facts rhyme with their narrative and sound completely rational and "facts-based" to those who lack (or have been conditioned to lack) critical thinking skills and experience. All effective leaders, regardless of whether they're good or evil, democratic or autocratic make decisions and motivate people by appealing to emotion, history, cultural background. "Logic and rationality" of course is necessary for success but it's only one component. The finest leaders are fully in touch with their subjectivity _and_ can also draw from deep knowledge and rational thought.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
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antattack 5y ago
I sometimes do stupid things when I act on a 'gut feeling'. The reason why I don't learn from my mistakes is that it only happens sometimes.
jkhdigital 5y ago
> Global debates over social justice, for example, are now dominated by a set of ideas and terms taken from the United States, a nation marked by an incredibly specific historical and cultural trajectory. It’s interesting that the author tucks this line neatly into the middle of an article otherwise focused on a generalized notion of stupidity. The implication is left unsaid, wisely.
api 5y ago
> In at least some cases, intelligence actively abets stupidity by allowing pernicious rationalisation This is something I’ve believed very strongly for many years. I’ve met some amazingly stupid geniuses who believe things so absurd it actively hobbles their ability to function. I’ve met many others who advocate almost psychotically destructive (to others) beliefs that they have meticulously rationalized. Totalitarian politics of various stripes is a petty common case. It’s one of several reasons I am deeply skeptical of the cult of IQ. Even if you accept that intelligence is a single dimensional trait, it is not clear to me that more IQ equals better. More IQ seems to often result in a superior capacity to rationalize delusional thinking. Thinking is a practice, an art, and how you think matters quite a bit. A person of average intellect who thinks rationally is going to do better than someone with a high IQ who is insane or delusional.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  I also know a few people who would be considered learning impaired. They exceed at making bad decisions. They will never do good in life. You can flat out show them how it is bad. They will still do it. I also know some who are in that same spectrum and they will freely admit they are wrong and willing to learn better. They usually are willing to not do silly things. But sometimes to an irrational degree. Rationality in different systems and IQ I would suspect are not correlated. One thing I have found that does help with many is saying 'i am probably wrong' or 'i dont know'. If you are at least willing to say those two things you can at least maybe do better in life.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  > More IQ seems to often result in a superior capacity to rationalize delusional thinking. Oh, yes. You can tie yourself up in knots. You can blind yourself to the truth. This is why virtue goes hand in hand with wisdom. Without virtue, you're a fool. Or, if you prefer, stupid. No respect can be extended to foolishness. There is no tragic greatness to be found here, only pathetic degeneracy. As someone once said, in order to believe the 100 stupidest ideas ever conceived by the human mind, all you need is a PhD.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  IQ tests measures your ability to think abstractly. It does not measure your ability to think for yourself, or your ability to find practical working solutions to problems.
paulpauper 5y ago
Stupidity: hubris, being unqualified.
phkahler 5y ago
The author IMHO hasn't quite got it. He's focused on people using the wrong conceptual model for solving a problem and says things like: >> Stupidity has two features that make it particularly dangerous when compared with other vices. First, unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals: after all, we get most of our concepts, our mental tools, from the society we are raised in. I would argue that it's not the misapplication of existing ideas, but ignoring the reality in front of you and doing something that goes against it. You might be going against it by habitually applying the wrong mental model, but it's only "stupid" in cases where that model seems obviously wrong (to others, or if you step back, etc) in a relevant way. An example from a game: We are losing. We can win if we score one goal (2 points). There is only enough time for one quick play. Obviously we should make our best offensive play (including putting the goalie on offense and leaving the net open), but someone on the team gets the ball and takes a very defensive (slow) approach and the clock runs out. We lose. That was stupid - taking your time was never going to result in a win. It is a case of using the wrong mental model, but the reason it's stupid is because it obviously can't work in the given situation. Product development example: The widget makes too much noise - the gears are noisy. Options: 1) change the material and test again. 2) hey the gear geometry can be improved - tweak design, make new tools and new parts. Management picks option 1 because we have a tight schedule and need to show improvement. OK with no other information, but this becomes really stupid when you hear that the material had already been changed once with no measurable effect. Government example: People thinking they can legislate outcomes without any consideration how people or a system actually behave. Prohibition for example.
bena 5y ago
I think one of the biggest issues is confusing knowledge with intelligence. Haig may have known everything about the previous generation of warfare, that doesn't necessarily make him intelligent. It makes him knowledgeable. Now, he was also likely intelligent enough to apply his knowledge of then conventional warfare to various then conventional situations. And this likely made him excellent at his position. In so much that he was appointed a leader of his nation's army during WWI. But he lacked the intelligence to achieve anything novel. He lacked the speed of thought to see where the current situations couldn't apply to his breadth of knowledge. He lacked the ability to deduce where his knowledge could be adapted to this new situation. That's why "smart" people seem "stupid". Because they're likely knowledgeable, not intelligent. Every single person I've considered intelligent, it wasn't because they knew a lot of facts. It's because they're always a couple thoughts ahead of most people. They're able to see what others are getting to, sometimes before the others even know they're about to get there. Intelligence is a multiplier. It's not a thing on its own. That's why most decent intelligence tests test abstract reasoning. We also make the mistake of confusing success for intelligence. That if someone is successful, they must be intelligent. That's not the case. Success is multi-faceted and there is no one thing that will make you successful.
- hnskrall 5y ago
  This is something that was briefly touched upon in The Smug Style in American Liberalism where Knowledge and Knowing aren’t the same, but in general people are incredibly uncomfortable in hearing this - on HN and elsewhere. Too many confuse Knowing with Knowledge. Knowing isn’t a metric of intelligence, merely conformism without any critical thinking.
  - bena 5y ago
    The problem isn't deferring to expertise so much as believing that such deference makes you more intelligent or even knowledgeable. For instance I know that I should not put diesel in my car. I know that it will fuck it up. The reason I know this is that it's literally in the manual. And the only reason I trust the manual is that it was written by the people who built the car. I defer to their expertise. But not for one second do I believe that it means I know why I shouldn't do that. Or how a combustion engine works. Or that I can diagnose and repair my car's engine if it breaks down.
fallingfrog 5y ago
We have a whole generation of people right now who grew up in an environment where the USA was number one in everything, and could push around any other country, had the best technology and the biggest economy and all the smartest people, and that’s an assumption so deeply embedded in the national consciousness that’s it’s impossible to jettison. That’s why we’re facing such a tidal wave of stupid right now. That historical period is over now, but to acknowledge that is so unthinkable that people will seek an answer that makes it still true. Hence you get wacky conspiracy theories and disastrous military adventurism.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  Which universe did you live in? In the universe I lived in the US was scared of being nuked by Russia or China (Google “Cold War”) and got its ass kicked in Vietnam and Korea, while getting its industry ass kicked by Japan, Germany and China, and destroying its middle class. Believing what you seem to believe is actually a perfect example of what the author is talking about: a mental model that is not matching reality and therefore makes you say things and take actions that are s*.
steve76 5y ago
> Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. Some lack morals and are dishonest, drunk, cruel, barbarous, and selfish. Some people survived a stroke, or fighting addiction, or live in pain. Some people come from a bad environment, as in, people are trying to kill them. Give any those people mastery of the concept, they'll still mess up the job. Odds are the job is messed up more from those than just lacking the concept. Don't have those, and lack the concept, job still likely gets done. > it is more the property of a political culture than of the individuals in it, needing to be tackled at that level No. Leave people alone. There's no changing people. Replace them. Meddle, you provoke them, wake them up, and make it so much worse. Your argument is very arbitrary. Has anyone taken a good long look at the war on poverty like they do to the war on drugs? War on poverty failed greater under the same criticism. It just doesn't reward everyone with a license to be drunk all the time. Education, or civil rights, or multiculturalism, or activist celebrity governing of fools telling everyone what to do from far far away, ever ask if those are stupid? Why not? Just because it makes you upset?
karmakaze 5y ago
> Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes. Is a long way of saying "thinking you know something that you actually don't." It's about hidden assumptions, and if there's any psychology to it would be hubris.
magwa101 5y ago
This idea is a breath of fresh air. It reminds me of the discussion of AI: "Will it ever be as smart as humans? Can it ever be AGI?", it's hilarious. We are so stupid, in such specific ways, that AI/AGI will easily be objectively "smarter" than us, it's just that we'll never recognize it as such, because, we're so stupid.
rmah 5y ago
I understand that the author was just using WW1 western front strategy & tactics for illustrative purposes, but I feel that far too many people think that the leadership of the armies involved were simply idiots, stuck in the mud, etc. The reality is quite different. Most military strategists understood before the war broke out how important recent tech developments (e.g. machine guns, improved artillery, etc) were in the defense. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, most military thinkers felt that it was best to bypass defensive fortifications. They understood that charging trenches and machine guns would lead to horrendous casualties. They wanted to fight a war of maneuver to counter strong static defenses. This was essentially a no-brainer. What they did not foresee was 1) how rapidly ad-hoc fortifications (i.e. trench lines) could be extended; and 2) the massive amount of ammunition expenditure by artillery. That part is critical... because it means that advances had to slow down to account for the logistics train. Which meant that fortifications couldn't be as easily bypassed... which meant trenches could be extended further... And thus, quite rapidly, the entire western front was covered in trenches/fortifications. At that point, it all becomes political. The governments want a win. At any cost. And orders are orders. When you can't go around, there's not much you can do but charge forward (after an huge artillery barrage, of course... which leads to more logistical headaches) In short, the military leadership in ww1 wasn't any more "stupid" than usual. They were simply stuck between a rock and hard place.
- antocv 5y ago
  It was still pretty stupid to not see that situation is the situation in 1915 and calling for a cease-fire and peace talks, stop right there, for the benefit of all sides.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Is that stupidity though? All it takes is one side that is evil enough to be willing to sacrifice as many lives as necessary to accomplish their goals. They may have well known how many lives it would cost and did not care.
  - jeffdn 5y ago
    Germany, the aggressor, had a substantial chunk of France and Belgium in their control at that time, and were, for all intents and purposes, winning the war from defensive positions. They had no incentive to initiate peace talks. Had the French or British initiated peace talks, it would've been essentially a surrender, and involved the loss of territory. There was no way that either side was going to budge when that was the status quo. When the Hundred Days offensive kicked off, and Germany was being pushed back on the Western Front, and with their home front on the brink of collapse due to blockade-induced starvation, they did indeed initiate peace talks.
kizer 5y ago
It’s about the plasticity of your brain, but also sometimes about the opposite: holding firm mentally. Some brains hold simpler models with greater certainty. Some brains hold more complex models with less certainty. Each type witnesses instances of “stupidity” in the other; overly plastic brains (guilty) can seem aloof, imprecise; the opposite can seem too literal and closed-minded. Guess which brain votes for which political party :). However, the caveat is that the latter brain is more suited to the world right now, with society becoming information rich and complex, and with nuanced social norms (not just x is good, y is bad). Of course I’m biased here.
lmilcin 5y ago
I think "stupidity" as a specific set of traits that people can express either occasionally or continuously. I don't think stupidity is the same as lack of intelligence or wisdom. Highly intelligent people can behave stupidly, too. I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I arrived that stupidity is lack of intelligence/wisdom AND/OR inability to make use of intelligence/wisdom. For example, one way you can be intelligent and yet stupid is if you lack self-reflection and/or are dishonest with yourself. This impairs ability to acquire wisdom -- honest observations about truth of yourself and the world around you, may make you repeat same mistakes without realizing what is causing them, etc. Being unable to learn from your mistakes (maybe because you are not honest enough to recognize them as mistakes or recognize true causes) basically prevents you from advancing as human being. If your level of advancement is below your age you might be labeled as "stupid".
- hanniabu 5y ago
  I've been told by 3 different people at different times that I'm both the smartest and the dumbest person they've ever met.
jrm4 5y ago
Ugh, I find this whole article fails because the author couldn't find a more precise word than "stupidity," though I think "bureacracy" or "institutional red-tape" or similar completely fits the bill?
- mcguire 5y ago
  Not really, although bureaucratic decision making is (sometimes!) a subset of stupid decision making as described in the article. Ever dealt with statistics? Take someone who assumes all phenomena can be described by a normal distribution---in those cases where it isn't, they will consistently come up with an incorrect answer from perfectly correct math.
e40 5y ago
My idea about why smart people are sometimes stupid: mis-prioritization. If you rank solutions in the wrong way, even though you have thought of all the solutions, your actions might appear very stupid. The most recent cases of this are about the COVID vaccinations. When I hear people say why they are not getting vaccinated, almost always they've elevated something in priority/importance above something else which is more important.
_tom_ 5y ago
The fundamental flaw in this article is trying to redefine stupidity to be one specific cognitive failing. This leads to the comments being full of people quibbling about the definition. If he’d called out “cognitive tool failure” and defined it clearly, people would be discussing his ideals, not arguing about what “stupid” means.
plowman 5y ago
What we have here is rather someone ‘acting as if they were stupid’. It’s not just that they failed to apply the concept of betrayal, but that they literally didn’t think of it: it was effectively ‘offline’, due to emotional and other pressures. In this kind of case, agents possess the necessary intellectual tools but unwittingly lock them away. This marks an important contrast with dumbness – we can make ourselves stupid, but we don’t make ourselves dumb. This is a good insight. Lots of stupidity is a lack of imagination rather than a lack of raw intelligence. This is also an idea that Julia Galef illuminates in great detail in her book "The Scout Mindset." She describes this as the difference between "Scout Mindset", which attempts to figure out what is correct, and "Soldier Mindset", or "stupidity" the way this article describes it, which attempts to fight to confirm what one already believes to be true.

264 points by mcguire 5y ago

I love how there is no article attached. It's just linking me to a definition of psyche.

> But dumbness alone is rarely the driving threat: at the head of almost every dumb movement, you will find the stupid in charge. This distinction is such a perfect distillation of something i've struggled to articulate for a long time.

acituan 5y ago

I wish the author[1] read a bit more about the science of wisdom and foolishness before ruining their good intuition with a stubbornly limited perspective. > Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes. Close but no cigar. Human computation requires forcing of phenomena into crude, somewhat distorting pigeonholes to do any symbolic processing on it. Reality is simply too combinatorially explosive to not use any compression. The foolishness arises when the distortions are systematically wrong; when you're stuck in a blind spot and keep focusing on the wrong subset of the data. It is a framing error that is specifically anti-adaptive. Besides, you can have the entire array of conceptual tools, and still be foolish; picking the right tool cannot be reduced to an algorithm or a tool itself. It is a recursive problem of finding relevance. > Historically, philosophers have worried a great deal about the irrationality of not taking the available means to my goals: Tom wants to get fit, yet his running shoes are quietly gathering dust. The stock solution to Tom’s quandary is simple willpower. Stupidity is very different from this. It is rather a lack of the necessary means, a lack of the necessary intellectual equipment. Combatting it will typically require not brute willpower but the construction of a new way of seeing our self and our world. This is a false dichotomy. Avoiding getting into the metaphysics of will and whether or how it exists, Tom also doesn't know how to construct a way of seeing his self and the world to get into running. He still doesn't know what is good for him because if he did, he would have done it (or done something else good for him). His problem is ignorance just like the other guy, not willpower. > First, unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals: after all, we get most of our concepts, our mental tools, from the society we are raised in. Collective intelligence and individual intelligence are similar machinery and both subject to blind spots and foolishness. In fact, the collective intelligence usually performs better on certain failure modes; it is easier for two people to find each other's blind spots than one person inferring their own. That's what for example therapy is (although unidirectional). It's just when it fails, it also fails spectacularly. > We can now explain why stupidity is so domain-specific, why someone can be so smart in one area, and such an idiot in another: the relevant concepts are often domain-specific. There is evidence against this; general intelligence predicts picking your meta-heuristics better for cross-domain problems; this is definitional after all. > So stupidity is tough to fix. Entire history of wisdom traditions and practices are dedicated to the suffering that comes with foolishness. They do not pass on conceptual tools though, because this is not an algorithmic problem. They pass on practices you participate in, which aim to train you to increase your likelihood of picking the relevant tools and finding out when you're stuck in a foolish framing. [1] Sacha Golob, who turns out to have a paper this article was based on, at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/110433270/Golob_A_New_Theory_of_Stupidity_IJPS_Upload.pdf https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/110433270/Golob_A_New...

robert-cochran 5y ago
Unrelated but have you been listening to a lot of vervaeke recently?
seqizz 5y ago
> He still doesn't know what is good for him because if he did, he would have done it (or done something else good for him). Really? Maybe he knows and choose some other (stupid) option. Because I really feel like Tom sometimes.
stareatgoats 5y ago
> the science of wisdom and foolishness I had no idea there was such a thing. Care to link to some relevant resources?
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  The OP seems to be coming from a Buddhist perspective. If that's correct, then I think he's got the wrong end of the stick; the mental impairment he is contrasting with "wisdom" is usually referred to in Buddhist literature as "ignorance", which means a propensity to ignore things, to deliberately refuse to know.
  - acituan 5y ago
    Not exclusively. It is also a very Socratic perspective (which happens to be a contemporary to Buddha). Buddhist interpretation of ignorance overlaps more with Socratic interpretation than our current use of the word. It is not a mere lack of knowledge in “propositions”. It is an existential state. If you think about it framing problems are also ignorance problems; ignoring relevant information/perspectives/action in our problem formulations.
Barrin92 5y ago
>In fact, the collective intelligence usually performs better on certain failure modes; it is easier for two people to find each other's blind spots than one person inferring their own I'm not so sure I buy this one. A few years ago Amazon decided to silently delete 1984 from people's Kindle devices. One common refrain was that this is 'only the kind of stupid decision a collective can make', because no individual lacks the common sense to come up with that idea. It's the kind of bureaucratic stupidity that you get out of mechanic, group momentum. I don't think individual stupidity is like that at all, there is a qualitative difference. Individual foolishness is maybe sentimental or stubborn or attached, whereas collective foolishness is sort of autonomous. Kind of like a cult. Not only are blind spots harder to spot in homogenous groups, they even can conjure delusions up that nobody would ever even come up with on their own, because it takes the force of a 100 people to convince you that something is real that doesn't even exist.

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duncanawoods 5y ago

Calling trench warfare stupid because of conceptual obsolescence seems suspect. It was a new problem with no obvious solution. Trench warfare in the US Civil War didn't end in such a stalemate so there wasn't much precedence, There were newer automatic weapons and a vast scale of the armies covering an entire front that hadn't been seen before. A stalemate might have been the best available outcome at the time where other alternatives would allow enemy advances. I believe the only "solution" was the tank which had yet to be invented and it's invention was a direct consequence of the stalemate. It doesn't seem right to call someone stupid for experiencing a problem that led to an invention. I would only call the pre-tank strategies "stupid" if the decisions discarded available information and solutions.

Joker_vD 5y ago
But the actual solutions were the shock troops, you know? The tanks and the anti-tank defence kinda reached parity by the middle of the WW2, so tanks became rather ineffective at breaking through the field defences. Solution? Specifically trained infantry groups that would infiltrate and destroy the fortifications, Germans used it since the early WW2. And here's a particularly interesting document from the Soviet side (dated 1944! so it's about time of finishing the liberation of their territory) at https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%BF%D0%B0 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BC... , here's a google-translated version: An instruction to the units of the 3rd Guards Rifle Volnovakhskaya Red Banner Division No. 0590 / op in addition to the previously given instructions on the preparation of assault groups (November 1, 1944). To the regiment commanders of the 3rd Guards Rifle Volnovakh Red Banner Division In addition to the previously given instructions for the preparation of assault groups, the divisional commander ORDERED: 1. In each rifle battalion, create an assault group consisting of: a rifle company, a reconnaissance squad, a sapper squad, a chemists squad, a platoon of 45-mm guns, two heavy machine guns. 2. For the convenience of the actions of the assault groups, divide them during the performance of combat missions into the following subgroups: barriers, blocking, cover and capture. Allocate sappers into the barriers subgroup, three - five submachine gunners; provide the subgroup with crampons with ropes, probes, scissors for cutting wire, whistles, small axes, small infantry shovels, extended explosive charges of three kilograms each, pointers to indicate passages. In the blocking subgroup, assign 3-4 sappers with universal charges, anti-tank mines or anti-tank grenades to blow up a structure or to throw grenades through an embrasure, before a platoon of shooters to deliver anti-tank mines, explosives and bottles with a combustible mixture, 2-3 chemists. In the cover subgroup, allocate the heavy fire weapons attached to the assault group (anti-tank rifles, 45-mm guns, heavy machine guns). Provide the cover subgroup with whistles, rocket launchers. In the capture subgroup, assign a platoon of riflemen, a reconnaissance squad, 2-3 chemists, 2-3 sappers. Arm the capture subgroup with grenades, knives, termite balls, bottles with a combustible mixture, smoke hand grenades. 3. The unit commanders should conduct training sessions with the assault groups for at least 4 hours every day, during which to work out the issues of the assault group's offensive, attacks by enemy bunkers, bunkers, methods of destroying bunkers, bunkers. 4. The composition of the assault groups should be submitted to the division headquarters by 10.00 2.11.44. Chief of Staff of the Division (signature) No. 0590 / op 1.11.44 Tanks are not enough, not by a long shot, and Germans knew it by the end of the WW1. Soviets learned it by the middle of WW2.

elihu 5y ago

Probably worth mentioning "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" by Carlo M. Cipolla, which has an interesting and somewhat different definition of stupidity and has been discussed here before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448

mdp2021 5y ago
> an interesting and somewhat different definition Stupidity is the disposition to the state of stupor - that break in reactions for need of processing in an unexepected situation, as if suddenly beaten. Golob stresses the root in not having the cognitive instruments to solve the cognitive impasse. Cipolla stresses the economical consequences of those who does not have the intellectual framework (of utility) to understand that their personal gain, or incapacity to build it, should not be reached through a catastrophe for the rest of us. ..."That guy who shoots me to spend a weekend with my wife in Montecarlo" [does not have a proper idea of weights].

0x10c0fe11ce 5y ago

The OP lost me on a bunch of bad analogies. I’ll keep recommending to my friends The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlo Cipolla. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49348225-the-basic-laws-of-human-stupidity https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49348225-the-basic-laws-...

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MaxBarraclough 5y ago
Not a good summary. Some more informative links: • http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit... • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Cipolla#The_Basic_Laws_of_Human_Stupidity_(1976) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Cipolla#The_Basic_Law... • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448 (as someone else linked)
- 0x10c0fe11ce 5y ago
  Usually I recommend the book as my friends don’t like summaries. But thanks anyway.

wombatmobile 5y ago

The adjudication of what is stupid is inevitably subjective, rather than absolute, because it depends on the objectives and interests of the subject, as distinct from the observer.

bobthechef 5y ago
> subjective, rather than absolute This is a false dichotomy. If I am trying try accomplish X, it is absolutely true that I am trying to accomplish X. Both you (the observer) and I can acknowledge this fact. > adjudication of what is stupid is inevitably subjective No, because as you yourself say... > it depends on the objectives and interests of the subject and what objective you're pursuing is factually the case as I already stated. Furthermore, objectives and interests are not arbitrary and brute facts, but ultimately related to human nature. It is possible in principle, even if not in practice, to determine whether an objective being pursued is wrong, stupid, etc. It makes no sense, for example, to say that someone isn't stupid because he is pursuing the objective of suicide successfully. The objective itself is stupid because it is objectively (not "subjectively") contrary to the good of the subject (euthanasia supporters notwithstanding) to kill yourself and because it is factually the case that the ("subjective") understanding the person has of what is good for him is stupid.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  > If I am trying try accomplish X, it is absolutely true that I am trying to accomplish X. Both you (the observer) and I can acknowledge this fact. How does the observer know what someone else is trying to accomplish? The observer cannot peer into the person's mind.

stareatgoats 5y ago

There is no way round that "stupid" is primarily an insult thrown at opponents, not a statement of fact. As a matter of fact we are all incredibly smart. And stupid too. With that said, I have a hard time agreeing with the definition of stupidity put forth in the article, as far as I understand it. To me stupidity is that state of mind that one may find oneself in before the first cup of coffee in the morning, or when stress (or ignorance) prevents one from intelligently considering all the relevant facts in a case etc. It is not something I would assign as attributes of persons lest it be someone I really didn't like, or (shudder) groups of persons, nor qualitatively separate from "dumbness". Sticking to an outdated military tactic has far more reasons than one persons "stupidity", and what's up with mentioning South Africa in the context of "a kind of misguided innovation" influenced by "ideas and terms taken from the United States"? Looks to me like the author is attempting to accrue academic points on the topic of stupidity, in order to use the insult more effectively against opponents.

jkhdigital 5y ago
> stupidity is that state of mind that one may find oneself in before the first cup of coffee in the morning This is very different than the condition to which the author is referring. I’d call it something like “false transfer” where one reasons about a complex, novel phenomenon using a (previously mastered) mental framework that is unsuitable or inadequate for the task. Perhaps we could call it a generalized Dunning-Kruger effect?
- stareatgoats 5y ago
  > I’d call it something like “false transfer” Ok thanks. But I guess I'll stick to calling it stupidity. If it walks like a duck and all that.
strebler 5y ago
I wholeheartedly agree. It's by definition an insult and I don't believe an academic measurement of stupidity (or intelligence) is a terribly fruitful endeavor. "My math says you're stupid!" is a place some people may go with this. I try to think in terms of bias: "what biases do I possess that may cause me to yield an outcome that is negative?" or "what bias does person X have that lead them to those actions or words?" I feel it promotes empathy, questioning and understanding. Not name calling. At least, it's helped me to figure out some surprising things about myself and others!

Animats 5y ago

The author may be onto something. Or they may have had one good idea and are now trying to make it fit too many problems. WWI did have moments of extreme stupidity. But the real problem was that, for the first time since castles vs. troops without cannon, defense was stronger than offense. Machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches could resist most attacks. When that wasn't enough, both sides had plenty of railroad capacity and could move reserves around fast enough that no breakthrough got very far. There was much logistic cleverness behind that. It worked well. When defense is stronger than offense, wars stall. Which is what happened in WWI. Nobody could force a decision. Until tanks and aircraft entered the battlefield. We have that today. Guerilla warfare can go on for decades. Neither side can force a decision. If the guerilla side gets ahead, they control entire areas, which means they have vulnerable centers that can be attacked. If the other side gets ahead, the guerillas hide in the population until the heat is off. "A guerrilla swims among the people like a fish swims in the sea." - Mao. Neither side can force a decision, although one side may eventually wear down the other over a long period. Modern militaries realize that their tactical doctrine may not work, but they're also aware that new, proposed doctrine may be worse. There have been societies that couldn't even think about that problem. Many, from the Aztecs to the Zulus, are extinct.

Cederfjard 5y ago
The Zulu are most certainly not extinct.
- stareatgoats 5y ago
  Additionally, The British severely underestimated the Zulus along the lines of the parent, with at least one devastating effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana
- mdp2021 5y ago
  :) The writer probably sacrificed facts to the satisfaction of instancing an "A-to-Z" («Atzecs to Zulus»).
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

mdp2021 5y ago

> Stupidity [...] occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job [...] [It] is a matter of the wrong tools for the job [from the Article] Golob's concept of "stupidity", in these terms, seems to be quite similar to Charlie Munger's reiterated idea of the "man-with-a-hammer syndrome: to the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". Edit: Those who do not know the Psychology of Human Misjudgement speeches by Charlie Munger, are warmly encouraged to find it. A revised version of the otherwise most famous speech at Harvard in 1995, seems to be here: https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/

chiefangel1 5y ago

in this world

chiefangel1 5y ago

no it’s not i was in the psych ward twice and i was talking to quote on quote stupid people “insane” asylum read what i’m saying and find me and don’t try to kill me because they force fed me prescription meds

nathias 5y ago

I don't think its a matter of having/lacking conceptual tools, but rather the skill in using them, I have seen many very stupid very learned people.

hoseja 5y ago

>To view political opponents as primarily cynical transforms them into Machiavellian monsters, leaving no space for anything but a zero-sum battle for domination. Yes, that is what it boils down to, at high-enough levels or over long-enough timespans.

_nub3 5y ago

On a side note, the linked article is not accessible anymorr, nor does a link to latest article work. i guess the author must be stupid. /s

denton-scratch 5y ago

> First, unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals: after all, we get most of our concepts, our mental tools, from the society we are raised in. That is not the way "stupid" is used. "Stupid" is a property assigned to an individual. It is not nowadays generally accepted that General Haig's strategy in WWI was stupid, or even wrong. If he was doing what all generals are said to do (fighting the last war), then arguably he was in agreement with the best minds in the business.

jonplackett 5y ago

> Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes. Most western governments: "Don't worry, COVID is just like the Flu"

h2odragon 5y ago
"covid is just like the flu" or "covid is just like smallpox" are both stupid; and even more stupid is the notion that those are the only choices A hallmark of human stupid I've noticed is the "It's what we're supposed to do" factor. We know its dumb but we do it anyway because "its what the job description says", or "its what the boss would want" or so on. Where we abnegate our judgement for that of another is often the root of it; when that other's judgment is unknown to us, it's always stupid.
- jonplackett 5y ago
  Exactly! But it was too big of a shift in perspective for most to get their head around, and they clung to these ideas - Britain apparently based out entire response to covid on our Flu pandemic plan (which went... badly)
bobthechef 5y ago
I don't know which planet you're from, but on planet Earth, all Western governments are currently in the middle of aggressively coercing their citizens into getting vaccinated.
- tstrimple 5y ago
  You're simply wrong. We've got plenty of conservative politicians celebrating low vaccination rates and pushing anti-vaccine misinformation. https://wset.com/news/local/us-rep-greene-congratulates-crowd-for-low-vaccination-rate-promotes-gun-violence https://wset.com/news/local/us-rep-greene-congratulates-crow... https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/71921 https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/71921

scotty79 5y ago

> Global debates over social justice, for example, are now dominated by a set of ideas and terms taken from the United States, a nation marked by an incredibly specific historical and cultural trajectory. Simply transferring that framework to other countries, such as those in which class is less starkly racialised (for example, states reliant on exploiting white migrant labour from eastern Europe), or in which it is racialised in much more complex ways (for example, states such as South Africa) is conceptually and socially risky. Yes. And those noble (in USA context) ideas when they get into the wider world serve mostly the popultist conservatives because they rely on so many things that are local to USA that opponents only need to point and laugh at how remote those ideas are from non-US reality to get people on their side.

himinlomax 5y ago

Contemporary historians of WW1 such as Michael Neiberg object to calling actors of that war stupid. See this interview where he mentions "the stupid box": http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110822_michael_neiberg_on_dance_furies_europe_outbreak_world_war_i/?page=2 http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110822_michael_neiberg_on_da... A lot of the seemingly obvious explanations for that war is just wrong, and tainted by the official narrative that came later. One example among many: French revanchisme about Alsace-Lorraine did not factor in starting the war, or at least not significantly and very indirectly. It was a hot topic in the 1890s, but that had been almost entirely absent from the political debate for 20 years by the start of the war. The reason you might think otherwise is simply that it was used during the war as a motivation to conjure up patriotic morale.

eric4smith 5y ago

Stupidity is one of humanity's greatest virtues. Because it allows entrepreneurs to come up with solutions for the "stupid" that simplifies problems. An even greater virtue is "laziness". Trillions of dollars are made off the laziness of people not wanting to do one thing or another. Isn't humanity great? I'm only saying, see it as an opportunity and not a problem. Because it is what is it, and we can never change it. Best to live in a world of what "is" than what we would like it to be.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

My working definition of stupidity is making poor predictions that lead to self-harm. The more stupid the predictions, the more extreme the self-harm. I'm not sure trying to improvise a way through a novel kind of conflict counts as stupid so much as untrained. Maybe there was someone in WWI saying "This is obviously wrong and won't work - we should do this other thing instead." Maybe there wasn't. At this distance it's hard to tell. We tend to call someone stupid when the quality of the predictions is worse than some population median, and the self-harm seems both unsurprising and trivially avoidable. Stupidity is only loosely related to IQ. Low IQ people don't have the horsepower to make good models, so they're often blindsided by challenges. But high IQ people can have bad beliefs and poor models. Without self-correction and a reality-testing loop they're just as likely to believe wrong and dangerous things. One of the most toxic things that happens in politics is re-framing a problem away from rational competence towards emotive and narrative non-logic. If you can succeed in this, you can make people stupid. Emotion and narrative, especially ego-gratifying and tribal narratives, are reliably unrealistic models that lead to poor predictions.

crispyambulance 5y ago
> One of the most toxic things that happens in politics is re-framing a problem away from rational competence towards emotive and narrative non-logic. In politics emotional and even irrational narratives are a centerpiece of how effective leaders lead. In virtually all sufficiently complicated human affairs there is NEVER enough facts and visibility at hand to make objective decisions. Moreover, now more than ever, influencers and thought leaders can easily cherry-pick whatever facts rhyme with their narrative and sound completely rational and "facts-based" to those who lack (or have been conditioned to lack) critical thinking skills and experience. All effective leaders, regardless of whether they're good or evil, democratic or autocratic make decisions and motivate people by appealing to emotion, history, cultural background. "Logic and rationality" of course is necessary for success but it's only one component. The finest leaders are fully in touch with their subjectivity _and_ can also draw from deep knowledge and rational thought.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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antattack 5y ago

I sometimes do stupid things when I act on a 'gut feeling'. The reason why I don't learn from my mistakes is that it only happens sometimes.

jkhdigital 5y ago

> Global debates over social justice, for example, are now dominated by a set of ideas and terms taken from the United States, a nation marked by an incredibly specific historical and cultural trajectory. It’s interesting that the author tucks this line neatly into the middle of an article otherwise focused on a generalized notion of stupidity. The implication is left unsaid, wisely.

api 5y ago

> In at least some cases, intelligence actively abets stupidity by allowing pernicious rationalisation This is something I’ve believed very strongly for many years. I’ve met some amazingly stupid geniuses who believe things so absurd it actively hobbles their ability to function. I’ve met many others who advocate almost psychotically destructive (to others) beliefs that they have meticulously rationalized. Totalitarian politics of various stripes is a petty common case. It’s one of several reasons I am deeply skeptical of the cult of IQ. Even if you accept that intelligence is a single dimensional trait, it is not clear to me that more IQ equals better. More IQ seems to often result in a superior capacity to rationalize delusional thinking. Thinking is a practice, an art, and how you think matters quite a bit. A person of average intellect who thinks rationally is going to do better than someone with a high IQ who is insane or delusional.

sumtechguy 5y ago
I also know a few people who would be considered learning impaired. They exceed at making bad decisions. They will never do good in life. You can flat out show them how it is bad. They will still do it. I also know some who are in that same spectrum and they will freely admit they are wrong and willing to learn better. They usually are willing to not do silly things. But sometimes to an irrational degree. Rationality in different systems and IQ I would suspect are not correlated. One thing I have found that does help with many is saying 'i am probably wrong' or 'i dont know'. If you are at least willing to say those two things you can at least maybe do better in life.
bobthechef 5y ago
> More IQ seems to often result in a superior capacity to rationalize delusional thinking. Oh, yes. You can tie yourself up in knots. You can blind yourself to the truth. This is why virtue goes hand in hand with wisdom. Without virtue, you're a fool. Or, if you prefer, stupid. No respect can be extended to foolishness. There is no tragic greatness to be found here, only pathetic degeneracy. As someone once said, in order to believe the 100 stupidest ideas ever conceived by the human mind, all you need is a PhD.
mbrodersen 5y ago
IQ tests measures your ability to think abstractly. It does not measure your ability to think for yourself, or your ability to find practical working solutions to problems.

paulpauper 5y ago

Stupidity: hubris, being unqualified.

phkahler 5y ago

The author IMHO hasn't quite got it. He's focused on people using the wrong conceptual model for solving a problem and says things like: >> Stupidity has two features that make it particularly dangerous when compared with other vices. First, unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals: after all, we get most of our concepts, our mental tools, from the society we are raised in. I would argue that it's not the misapplication of existing ideas, but ignoring the reality in front of you and doing something that goes against it. You might be going against it by habitually applying the wrong mental model, but it's only "stupid" in cases where that model seems obviously wrong (to others, or if you step back, etc) in a relevant way. An example from a game: We are losing. We can win if we score one goal (2 points). There is only enough time for one quick play. Obviously we should make our best offensive play (including putting the goalie on offense and leaving the net open), but someone on the team gets the ball and takes a very defensive (slow) approach and the clock runs out. We lose. That was stupid - taking your time was never going to result in a win. It is a case of using the wrong mental model, but the reason it's stupid is because it obviously can't work in the given situation. Product development example: The widget makes too much noise - the gears are noisy. Options: 1) change the material and test again. 2) hey the gear geometry can be improved - tweak design, make new tools and new parts. Management picks option 1 because we have a tight schedule and need to show improvement. OK with no other information, but this becomes really stupid when you hear that the material had already been changed once with no measurable effect. Government example: People thinking they can legislate outcomes without any consideration how people or a system actually behave. Prohibition for example.

bena 5y ago

I think one of the biggest issues is confusing knowledge with intelligence. Haig may have known everything about the previous generation of warfare, that doesn't necessarily make him intelligent. It makes him knowledgeable. Now, he was also likely intelligent enough to apply his knowledge of then conventional warfare to various then conventional situations. And this likely made him excellent at his position. In so much that he was appointed a leader of his nation's army during WWI. But he lacked the intelligence to achieve anything novel. He lacked the speed of thought to see where the current situations couldn't apply to his breadth of knowledge. He lacked the ability to deduce where his knowledge could be adapted to this new situation. That's why "smart" people seem "stupid". Because they're likely knowledgeable, not intelligent. Every single person I've considered intelligent, it wasn't because they knew a lot of facts. It's because they're always a couple thoughts ahead of most people. They're able to see what others are getting to, sometimes before the others even know they're about to get there. Intelligence is a multiplier. It's not a thing on its own. That's why most decent intelligence tests test abstract reasoning. We also make the mistake of confusing success for intelligence. That if someone is successful, they must be intelligent. That's not the case. Success is multi-faceted and there is no one thing that will make you successful.

hnskrall 5y ago
This is something that was briefly touched upon in The Smug Style in American Liberalism where Knowledge and Knowing aren’t the same, but in general people are incredibly uncomfortable in hearing this - on HN and elsewhere. Too many confuse Knowing with Knowledge. Knowing isn’t a metric of intelligence, merely conformism without any critical thinking.
- bena 5y ago
  The problem isn't deferring to expertise so much as believing that such deference makes you more intelligent or even knowledgeable. For instance I know that I should not put diesel in my car. I know that it will fuck it up. The reason I know this is that it's literally in the manual. And the only reason I trust the manual is that it was written by the people who built the car. I defer to their expertise. But not for one second do I believe that it means I know why I shouldn't do that. Or how a combustion engine works. Or that I can diagnose and repair my car's engine if it breaks down.

fallingfrog 5y ago

We have a whole generation of people right now who grew up in an environment where the USA was number one in everything, and could push around any other country, had the best technology and the biggest economy and all the smartest people, and that’s an assumption so deeply embedded in the national consciousness that’s it’s impossible to jettison. That’s why we’re facing such a tidal wave of stupid right now. That historical period is over now, but to acknowledge that is so unthinkable that people will seek an answer that makes it still true. Hence you get wacky conspiracy theories and disastrous military adventurism.

mbrodersen 5y ago
Which universe did you live in? In the universe I lived in the US was scared of being nuked by Russia or China (Google “Cold War”) and got its ass kicked in Vietnam and Korea, while getting its industry ass kicked by Japan, Germany and China, and destroying its middle class. Believing what you seem to believe is actually a perfect example of what the author is talking about: a mental model that is not matching reality and therefore makes you say things and take actions that are s*.

steve76 5y ago

> Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. Some lack morals and are dishonest, drunk, cruel, barbarous, and selfish. Some people survived a stroke, or fighting addiction, or live in pain. Some people come from a bad environment, as in, people are trying to kill them. Give any those people mastery of the concept, they'll still mess up the job. Odds are the job is messed up more from those than just lacking the concept. Don't have those, and lack the concept, job still likely gets done. > it is more the property of a political culture than of the individuals in it, needing to be tackled at that level No. Leave people alone. There's no changing people. Replace them. Meddle, you provoke them, wake them up, and make it so much worse. Your argument is very arbitrary. Has anyone taken a good long look at the war on poverty like they do to the war on drugs? War on poverty failed greater under the same criticism. It just doesn't reward everyone with a license to be drunk all the time. Education, or civil rights, or multiculturalism, or activist celebrity governing of fools telling everyone what to do from far far away, ever ask if those are stupid? Why not? Just because it makes you upset?

karmakaze 5y ago

> Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes. Is a long way of saying "thinking you know something that you actually don't." It's about hidden assumptions, and if there's any psychology to it would be hubris.

magwa101 5y ago

This idea is a breath of fresh air. It reminds me of the discussion of AI: "Will it ever be as smart as humans? Can it ever be AGI?", it's hilarious. We are so stupid, in such specific ways, that AI/AGI will easily be objectively "smarter" than us, it's just that we'll never recognize it as such, because, we're so stupid.

rmah 5y ago

I understand that the author was just using WW1 western front strategy & tactics for illustrative purposes, but I feel that far too many people think that the leadership of the armies involved were simply idiots, stuck in the mud, etc. The reality is quite different. Most military strategists understood before the war broke out how important recent tech developments (e.g. machine guns, improved artillery, etc) were in the defense. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, most military thinkers felt that it was best to bypass defensive fortifications. They understood that charging trenches and machine guns would lead to horrendous casualties. They wanted to fight a war of maneuver to counter strong static defenses. This was essentially a no-brainer. What they did not foresee was 1) how rapidly ad-hoc fortifications (i.e. trench lines) could be extended; and 2) the massive amount of ammunition expenditure by artillery. That part is critical... because it means that advances had to slow down to account for the logistics train. Which meant that fortifications couldn't be as easily bypassed... which meant trenches could be extended further... And thus, quite rapidly, the entire western front was covered in trenches/fortifications. At that point, it all becomes political. The governments want a win. At any cost. And orders are orders. When you can't go around, there's not much you can do but charge forward (after an huge artillery barrage, of course... which leads to more logistical headaches) In short, the military leadership in ww1 wasn't any more "stupid" than usual. They were simply stuck between a rock and hard place.

antocv 5y ago
It was still pretty stupid to not see that situation is the situation in 1915 and calling for a cease-fire and peace talks, stop right there, for the benefit of all sides.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Is that stupidity though? All it takes is one side that is evil enough to be willing to sacrifice as many lives as necessary to accomplish their goals. They may have well known how many lives it would cost and did not care.
- jeffdn 5y ago
  Germany, the aggressor, had a substantial chunk of France and Belgium in their control at that time, and were, for all intents and purposes, winning the war from defensive positions. They had no incentive to initiate peace talks. Had the French or British initiated peace talks, it would've been essentially a surrender, and involved the loss of territory. There was no way that either side was going to budge when that was the status quo. When the Hundred Days offensive kicked off, and Germany was being pushed back on the Western Front, and with their home front on the brink of collapse due to blockade-induced starvation, they did indeed initiate peace talks.

kizer 5y ago

It’s about the plasticity of your brain, but also sometimes about the opposite: holding firm mentally. Some brains hold simpler models with greater certainty. Some brains hold more complex models with less certainty. Each type witnesses instances of “stupidity” in the other; overly plastic brains (guilty) can seem aloof, imprecise; the opposite can seem too literal and closed-minded. Guess which brain votes for which political party :). However, the caveat is that the latter brain is more suited to the world right now, with society becoming information rich and complex, and with nuanced social norms (not just x is good, y is bad). Of course I’m biased here.

lmilcin 5y ago

I think "stupidity" as a specific set of traits that people can express either occasionally or continuously. I don't think stupidity is the same as lack of intelligence or wisdom. Highly intelligent people can behave stupidly, too. I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I arrived that stupidity is lack of intelligence/wisdom AND/OR inability to make use of intelligence/wisdom. For example, one way you can be intelligent and yet stupid is if you lack self-reflection and/or are dishonest with yourself. This impairs ability to acquire wisdom -- honest observations about truth of yourself and the world around you, may make you repeat same mistakes without realizing what is causing them, etc. Being unable to learn from your mistakes (maybe because you are not honest enough to recognize them as mistakes or recognize true causes) basically prevents you from advancing as human being. If your level of advancement is below your age you might be labeled as "stupid".

hanniabu 5y ago
I've been told by 3 different people at different times that I'm both the smartest and the dumbest person they've ever met.

jrm4 5y ago

Ugh, I find this whole article fails because the author couldn't find a more precise word than "stupidity," though I think "bureacracy" or "institutional red-tape" or similar completely fits the bill?

mcguire 5y ago
Not really, although bureaucratic decision making is (sometimes!) a subset of stupid decision making as described in the article. Ever dealt with statistics? Take someone who assumes all phenomena can be described by a normal distribution---in those cases where it isn't, they will consistently come up with an incorrect answer from perfectly correct math.

e40 5y ago

My idea about why smart people are sometimes stupid: mis-prioritization. If you rank solutions in the wrong way, even though you have thought of all the solutions, your actions might appear very stupid. The most recent cases of this are about the COVID vaccinations. When I hear people say why they are not getting vaccinated, almost always they've elevated something in priority/importance above something else which is more important.

_tom_ 5y ago

The fundamental flaw in this article is trying to redefine stupidity to be one specific cognitive failing. This leads to the comments being full of people quibbling about the definition. If he’d called out “cognitive tool failure” and defined it clearly, people would be discussing his ideals, not arguing about what “stupid” means.

plowman 5y ago

What we have here is rather someone ‘acting as if they were stupid’. It’s not just that they failed to apply the concept of betrayal, but that they literally didn’t think of it: it was effectively ‘offline’, due to emotional and other pressures. In this kind of case, agents possess the necessary intellectual tools but unwittingly lock them away. This marks an important contrast with dumbness – we can make ourselves stupid, but we don’t make ourselves dumb. This is a good insight. Lots of stupidity is a lack of imagination rather than a lack of raw intelligence. This is also an idea that Julia Galef illuminates in great detail in her book "The Scout Mindset." She describes this as the difference between "Scout Mindset", which attempts to figure out what is correct, and "Soldier Mindset", or "stupidity" the way this article describes it, which attempts to fight to confirm what one already believes to be true.