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"If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature." The philosophical attitude should be trying to understand. The

"If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature." The philosophical attitude should be trying to understand. The way I think about it, if someone has been around for 1,000 years and yet is indulgently stupid then maybe I have some right to be angry with them, otherwise I should consider that they haven't been around that long and are understandably susceptible to the double ignorance of thinking they know what they don't. "Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it." This statement reflects a general observation present in Socratic (or Platonic and Xenophonic) philosophy that those with the most power and authority are basically by definition most responsible for changing things for the better. Without organization and attention people act on an individual level, and their apparent unreasonableness may be a concession to their limited circumstances. "The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity." "God" could be replaced with "Nature" for those of a modern, skeptical bent, but nevertheless can combine a humility resulting from an awareness of the limits of human knowledge with a confidence in greater meaning in virtue of the existence of humanity and the ordered cosmos itself.

p-e-w 3y ago
> if someone has been around for 1,000 years and yet is indulgently stupid then maybe I have some right to be angry with them Alternative interpretation: If someone has managed to be around for 1,000 years and you think they are stupid, then maybe your definition of "stupidity" is the wrong one.
- ttonkytonk 3y ago
  > Alternative interpretation: If someone has managed to be around for 1,000 years and you think they are stupid, then maybe your definition of "stupidity" is the wrong one. I'd be surprised if they were.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Stupidity is simple to understand. Primate brain activity is metabolically expensive... we spend more calories thinking than we do nearly anything else. And in a social species like the bald monkey, it's just pointless. In a tribe of 100 apes, do they all need to think, when imitation is so much cheaper? It's better for one or two to think, and the rest to just do what they do once they've got it figured out. How many use microwave ovens, but have no clue about what principles they operate from? And so evolution has gifted most people with a positively abysmal level of stupidity. They just don't need it, as long as some outlier pops up once in awhile. This isn't some personality flaw. No one raised them wrong, the education system didn't betray them, and nothing you do can fix it. Ever. Because they're all just horrifically imbecilic. And every time you see them do something that appears at first glance as clever, it really is just them imitating really well. They do it so well it manifests as the Flynn Effect on IQ tests.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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p-e-w 3y ago

> if someone has been around for 1,000 years and yet is indulgently stupid then maybe I have some right to be angry with them Alternative interpretation: If someone has managed to be around for 1,000 years and you think they are stupid, then maybe your definition of "stupidity" is the wrong one.

ttonkytonk 3y ago
> Alternative interpretation: If someone has managed to be around for 1,000 years and you think they are stupid, then maybe your definition of "stupidity" is the wrong one. I'd be surprised if they were.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

Stupidity is simple to understand. Primate brain activity is metabolically expensive... we spend more calories thinking than we do nearly anything else. And in a social species like the bald monkey, it's just pointless. In a tribe of 100 apes, do they all need to think, when imitation is so much cheaper? It's better for one or two to think, and the rest to just do what they do once they've got it figured out. How many use microwave ovens, but have no clue about what principles they operate from? And so evolution has gifted most people with a positively abysmal level of stupidity. They just don't need it, as long as some outlier pops up once in awhile. This isn't some personality flaw. No one raised them wrong, the education system didn't betray them, and nothing you do can fix it. Ever. Because they're all just horrifically imbecilic. And every time you see them do something that appears at first glance as clever, it really is just them imitating really well. They do it so well it manifests as the Flynn Effect on IQ tests.

Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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