4 ms·

I completely agree with you when reading this at face value as a contemporary, serious essay. But it’s not quite that. It’s a long form semi-comic screed from

I completely agree with you when reading this at face value as a contemporary, serious essay. But it’s not quite that. It’s a long form semi-comic screed from a time when it wasn’t especially controversial to put plain words to one’s frustrations. I don’t share these particular frustrations. I don’t resonate with what’s being said. I think it comes from a pretty alienated experience where you’re convinced that there’s a lot of bad in the world and that it can be attributed to a few conceptual scapegoats that are simple and identifiable and that things would be so much better if not for this one (or two or ten) darn things. But a lot of people do feel that way, and I’m not ready to hold my different experience over theirs. It would probably be stupid of me to do so.

wildmanx 4y ago
Well said, thank you.
jjoonathan 4y ago
His observations resonate with me but his model sucks. In particular, his 3rd law / definition > A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. contradicts his 2nd law > The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. because if you select for accomplishment (or serial accomplishment) the definition implies that you had better start seeing fewer stupid people, but his 2nd law says you shouldn't. This isn't a nit, it strikes at the very core of why his model doesn't fit reality. Here's a model that better fits reality: our assumptions about what "everybody knows" tend to be bad, both in an absolute sense and when conditioned on some particular level of education / accomplishment. Knowledge silos run deep, their shapes are strange, and people are really good at accommodating gaps in their knowledge. Clever people even moreso. So it's easy to underestimate the gaps, watch otherwise respectable people stumble over them, and think "how in the hell did that happen?" If you attribute these gaps to an innate quality like stupidity, you will be unable to help people fill the gaps. Not because the people cannot be taught, but because your misunderstanding precludes you from being a good teacher. This makes his model damaging in addition to being incorrect and uncharitable. Those may sound like harsh words, but they are not nearly as harsh as the mistake that eventually shook me out of a similar set of beliefs. Someone went from "stupidest person I know" to "smartest person I know," and that was a big hint that my model was wrong. We are a decade distant from that event, I've had the chance to run a lot of evidence past these two models, and "weird knowledge gaps" so thoroughly whips "innate stupidity" that I am slightly embarrassed I ever considered it true. Live and learn.

wildmanx 4y ago

Well said, thank you.

jjoonathan 4y ago

His observations resonate with me but his model sucks. In particular, his 3rd law / definition > A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. contradicts his 2nd law > The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. because if you select for accomplishment (or serial accomplishment) the definition implies that you had better start seeing fewer stupid people, but his 2nd law says you shouldn't. This isn't a nit, it strikes at the very core of why his model doesn't fit reality. Here's a model that better fits reality: our assumptions about what "everybody knows" tend to be bad, both in an absolute sense and when conditioned on some particular level of education / accomplishment. Knowledge silos run deep, their shapes are strange, and people are really good at accommodating gaps in their knowledge. Clever people even moreso. So it's easy to underestimate the gaps, watch otherwise respectable people stumble over them, and think "how in the hell did that happen?" If you attribute these gaps to an innate quality like stupidity, you will be unable to help people fill the gaps. Not because the people cannot be taught, but because your misunderstanding precludes you from being a good teacher. This makes his model damaging in addition to being incorrect and uncharitable. Those may sound like harsh words, but they are not nearly as harsh as the mistake that eventually shook me out of a similar set of beliefs. Someone went from "stupidest person I know" to "smartest person I know," and that was a big hint that my model was wrong. We are a decade distant from that event, I've had the chance to run a lot of evidence past these two models, and "weird knowledge gaps" so thoroughly whips "innate stupidity" that I am slightly embarrassed I ever considered it true. Live and learn.