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When I was a kid I decided that test pilots must be idiots. My logic: Being a test pilot is dangerous. Only idiots do dangerous things. Therefore test pilots
by csours 5y ago
When I was a kid I decided that test pilots must be idiots.
My logic:
Being a test pilot is dangerous. Only idiots do dangerous things. Therefore test pilots must be idiots.
Later (embarrassingly later) I learned that many test pilots were also engineers. This made me reconsider my opinion. I learned to be very careful when judging intelligence, and also the limits of inference.
- nradov 5y agoIntelligence is generally orthogonal to physical risk tolerance. I don't know why anyone would conflate the two.
- scotty79 5y agoBeing an idiot us a varied and nuanced thing. Plenty of very intelligent people are idiots in one way or another. Being drawn to excessively risky behavior is just one aspect of idiocy.
- TremendousJudge 5y ago>This made me reconsider my opinion Why? Plenty of engineers are complete idiots in many levels.
- csours 5y agoI think these comments highlight to me how difficult it is to reason and talk about intelligence. Intelligence and stupidity suffer from fundamental attribution error. The main thing I learned from reflecting on my error is that making any sweeping conclusions about people is foolhardy. So yes, engineers can be idiots, test pilots can be idiots, smart people can decide to do dangerous things on purpose, idiots can do dangerous things on purpose, idiots can do dangerous things on accident, so on to absurdity. Putting people in buckets based on some observed criteria is rarely advisable; everyone's story is different.