Because talking with confidence will go 90% of the way to convincing people that you know what you're talking about. So often I've worked with assholes who talk with such confidence that most people won't bother filtering the garbage coming from their mouths. They just believe it. It's almost eerie how effectively talking with confidence works. It's so effective that when you complain about these charlatans, YOU look…
I mean, I already know this is true but I'm dealing with exactly one of these people right now and this is so reassuring to read. Especially the bit about just how scarily effective and utterly impossible to criticise this behaviour is.
The principle of sexual inequality (and male superiority) appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon--arising only around the time of agriculture. Even subsequent to the development of agricultures, plenty of civilizations have practiced matrilineal succession, with no apparent cost to their dealings with neighboring societies (indeed, some even flourished at the expense of others--consider the Iroquois, for exampl…
>The principle of sexual inequality (and male superiority) appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon Recent? Even gorilla have males bigger (and thus leading the pack) than females and so far prehistoric humans are known to have been that way too. It is exactly the rise of civilization(agriculture, technology, complex social structure, etc) which allowed for situations with female leadership.
Gorilla males are about 50% larger compared to human males being about 20% larger. There is much in our anatomy that implies humans behaved more as polyamorous tribes than solitary male harems.
If you're really interested, look up "Sex at Dawn"
Its a political problem. When voting is rigged it happens that those who get benefits vote for those incompetent. And those incompetent promise free benefits to obtain votes. Vicious circle.
Because talking with confidence will go 90% of the way to convincing people that you know what you're talking about. So often I've worked with assholes who talk with such confidence that most people won't bother filtering the garbage coming from their mouths. They just believe it. It's almost eerie how effectively talking with confidence works. It's so effective that when you complain about these charlatans, YOU look…
I have noticed the same phenomenon. Since humans are social creatures I think there is an evolutionary bias to avoid decision paralysis and just follow whoever seems to be the most confident. We are better off in general if we just cooperate and take action instead of deliberating every decision so people seem to be wired to just accept the first thing that appears to be reasonable.
At the risk of being divisive, this will generally only work if you're white, if you're a minority or a woman, there's way more pushback on all those things, even when you're right. Seen it many times.
Oh great, a race and gender discussion based on an internet user's personal opinion. That's going to be fascinating!
I can't wait for the exciting source-based debate (with citations!) that is sure to happen.
I find that confidence is really powerful, even among engineers (who you would think are rational). I noticed that some engineers can come across as extremely smart because they talk fast and can think fast - Also, they are really good at defending their ideas when put on the spot but if you dig deeper afterwards you might often find that while their solution is good, it's not the best one. It always takes time to co…
+1 for the fast-talking engineer phenomenon. I think quickness of thought is a fitness that can be exercised, mostly orthogonally to deep thought. We all eventually find someone who thinks and talks faster than ourselves, but indeed we also eventually become that person to another. If you find yourself feeling like you're 10 steps ahead, the best thing to do is give ample room for your conversational foil to express their thoughts. If they disagree, don't immediately assume it's because they haven't considered everything. You should go in with the good faith assumption that they intuitively see a corner case you haven't considered, and then work collaboratively with them to put their objection into words. After all, if there is a problem, it will rear its head eventually, whether or not you can "win" the argument!
>if you're a minority or a woman for hundreds of thousands of years having your tribe represented by a confident male (selected from the majority of the tribe) was beneficial (at least we can conclude that now based on the survivor bias principle) We still have those cave man instincts with us to a high degree. The point of civilization development is to reign in cave man instincts inside and among us. Seems that it…
The principle of sexual inequality (and male superiority) appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon--arising only around the time of agriculture. Even subsequent to the development of agricultures, plenty of civilizations have practiced matrilineal succession, with no apparent cost to their dealings with neighboring societies (indeed, some even flourished at the expense of others--consider the Iroquois, for exampl…
I'm sorry but this is pure myth. There has never been a human society where primary political/executive power was vested in women, except some developed and recent examples.
The idea of tribes controlled by women just never happened; not once. It's wishful revisionism motivated by modern politics.
I would say that it's not that incompetent men become leaders. Certainly men are over-represented, but I would wager that woman leaders are no more competent on average. The truth is almost everyone is incompetent and leaders get more scrutiny.
That's actually a good point. Everyone is incompetent; we just don't have a way of filtering that in our leaders. Possibly because the people selecting those leaders are incompetent too. It's incompetence all the way down.
Because talking with confidence will go 90% of the way to convincing people that you know what you're talking about. So often I've worked with assholes who talk with such confidence that most people won't bother filtering the garbage coming from their mouths. They just believe it. It's almost eerie how effectively talking with confidence works. It's so effective that when you complain about these charlatans, YOU look…
Inverse relationship: critical thinking skills of the populace being led, and the presence of incompetent "bullshit artists" leading them.