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Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

scientificamerican.com

191–200 of 336 posts

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trumps-top-9-accomplishmen... http://blog.dilbert.com/2017/11/13/president-trumps-2017-rep...

Those are BS accomplishments and their twisting of logic is beyond ludicrous.

> The fact that some people dislike the things he's getting done doesn't take anything away from that.

What’s BS about them?

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#192
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, usually, just seek the "expert" support from economists for validating policies that promote their and their backers interests...

So then, there must be a visible, provable correlation between economist activities and inequality.

Yes.

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1429/19/142919512461...

The late 1970s were when neoliberal economic fundamentalism took over public policy.

The graph shows the effect on equality.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#193
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People feel that leaders they can relate to are more likely to take their interests seriously.

> People feel that leaders they can relate to are more likely to take their interests seriously. The statement that if one can relate to a leader, he will take ones interests more seriously is a strong assumption that I cannot believe in.

[deleted]

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#194
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question is why do we need a leader we relate to? We're not living in tribes any longer. The president of a country isn't likely to sit down and have a beer with us.

People feel that leaders they can relate to are more likely to take their interests seriously.

It would be better to say, if a leader can relate to the people, then he may be more likely to take their interests seriously.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#195
The problem is that even the smarter person can't compute and analyse all the existing data and factors to make a decision. Most big decisions are made on some conviction or a hunch because reality is too complicated and nobody is a prophet. Therefore being slightly smarter doesn't give somebody such a huge advantage, for example many smart people supported communism, many others didn't because honestly nobody could predict the outcome of the communist movement.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#196

>The study’s lead author, John Antonakis, a psychologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, suggests leaders should use their intelligence to generate creative metaphors that will persuade and inspire others—the way former U.S. President Barack Obama did. “I think the only way a smart person can signal their intelligence appropriately and still connect with the people,” Antonakis says, “is to speak in char…

I think charisma is best used to signal a lack of intelligence. Someone else posted a link to a op-ed about GWB, but Trump follows a similar approach. Lots of people question his intelligence and decision-making ability, yet, every one of us hear or talk about him several times a day. He also has a political sleight-of-hand that I don't think has ever been matched. Every time a key policy decision is being debated, t…

To use a metaphor as a counterargument, if there were a 6 foot spider in my shower you'd better believe I would talk about it at least a few times a day. That doesn't mean the spider has charisma, just that it's a clear and present danger weighing heavily on my mind.

If anyone is exercising political sleight of hand I'd say it's the legislators and executive staff who are getting in all their unpopular actions while the getting is good, like a looter in a riot. Trump doesn't have to be politically savvy or even aware of what they're doing for that to happen.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#197
post #103

My takeaway was that people don't like leaders that can't relate to them. Obama related well to one part of the country, and Trump related well to another part of the country. Trump's case being more surprising since he's tries very hard to come off as a class traitor. ex. Notice his love of the peoples food (fast food)

Question is why do we need a leader we relate to? We're not living in tribes any longer. The president of a country isn't likely to sit down and have a beer with us.

You've turned the question around. I don't think it's particularly important that people relate to their leaders. However, if leaders can't relate to (i.e. understand) the people they lead, then you might end up with misaligned goals and motivation.

For instance, if the president of the country is wealthy and associates almost exclusively with and identifies as a wealthy person, then that person might consider their primary goal as president to promote economic growth as measured by the stock market. Some less well-off constituents might rather the president focused on programs to improve access to food, health care, and education for the less well-off.

This isn't an either-or thing; a president could do both. However, if non-wealthy voters think the president doesn't understand their situation or have any policies in place to improve it, then to that voter is not likely to have a high opinion of that president.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#198
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charisma: if you like it, it's charisma, if you don't it's a sense of entitlement. Metaphors: they're cooked up in the moment.

Sorry, what do you mean by “if you like it”?

He means the listener. Another way to put it: the difference between coming off charismatic vs entitled is having the emotional intelligence to predict what your listeners will like.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#199

There could be something else at work here. My father told me that con men preferred to go after smart people, like doctors. The reason is that smart people thought they were too smart to get conned, and hence were more gullible. He was also an economist, and told me that there wasn't an economist born who could stand the idea that the economy would run better (i.e. free market) without their "help". And I've noticed…

Sort of a reverse Dunning-Kruger effect?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of economic history, including the 1870s (but many other busts, too), is quite different. Can you cite a source? I happen to be reading "A History of The World Economy", by James Foreman-Pack. It contradicts you at every turn (Chapter 6 esp) and notes there was a time when the U.S. was the odd man out, lacking a national bank and suffered more severe downturns than other nations, amongst other things…

"And the Reserve System, established in response to monetary instability, had the power to exercise deliberate control over the stock of money and so could take advantage of this possibility to promote monetary stability. That conjecture is not in accord with what actually happened. As is clear to the naked eye in Chart 1, the stock of money shows larger fluctuations after 1914 than before 1914 and this is true even…

The idea that "the stock of money" is a real, objective thing is rank insanity. The idea that this "stock of money" should magically be constant makes even less sense.

There is no stock of money. There are only political decisions, assorted client and patron relationships, and national and international conflicts among interest groups that define social goals and resource distribution.

Money is political power counted on imaginary tally sticks. Volume fluctuations are irrelevant. What matters is what people do, for whom, to what end, using what resources.

In an alleged democracy what should matter is economic enfranchisement - which in practice means creating fluid and porous social castes and interest groups, and inventing interesting goals with intelligence, realism, and effectiveness.

Booms and busts are caused by aimless short-term accumulation, which is a form of unintelligent goal setting. Whether tally sticks are referenced to lumps of shiny metal or numbers derived by fiat is wholly irrelevant if the only goal is to acquire as many sticks as possible, and nothing else matters.

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