Stupid is better than smart

Glorification of the stupid is nihilistic. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. So reason is required to produce the values on which human life depends.

In "The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism", Jay Gonen described the typical Nazi mentality as being a contradictory mix of brutality and intellect. He analyzed these "brilliant morons" in Freudian terms, but according to Leonard Peikoff, in his book "The Ominous Parallels", the roots of Nazi stupidity glorification are actually to be found in the philosophy of Kant who famously attacked reason.

Re: Stupid is better than smart

#5

Post by il » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 10:04 PM UTC

Actually it's smart to take risks. The expected value of foundig a startup is sufficiently high to make it a rational decision in most cases. I recently read an article which stated that most successful entrepreneurs are actually highly risk averse- they only take carefully calculated risks.

Re: Stupid is better than smart

#6

Post by sabat » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 10:11 PM UTC

The world is full of smart people doing all kinds of smart things. Thats smart.

That's.

Re: Stupid is better than smart

#7

Post by pedrokost » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 10:21 PM UTC

I disagree. One doesn't have to be either smart or stupid. One has to be smart and know when its best to act stupid.

And yes, one can outsmart stupid, by being smart and stupid as required.

Re: Stupid is better than smart

#8

Post by JosefK » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

sabat wrote: post #6

The world is full of smart people doing all kinds of smart things. Thats smart. That's.

Like baloons...

stupid has the one hell of a hangover.

Either he's trying to make the style mirror the content intentionally, or he just doesn't care much for standard English. I disagree either way.

Re: Stupid is better than smart

#9

Post by ThomPete » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 11:01 PM UTC

I think the saying go.

It's better to be lucky than smart.

I would replace stupid with ignorant.

Re: Stupid is better than smart

#10

Post by icegreentea » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 11:09 PM UTC

"Stupid" is not brilliant. "Don't be stupid" is a heuristic used where an idea does not conform to 'known' patterns. It's about someone else telling you that whatever you came up with does not appear to mesh with their understanding of reality. Those who ignore "don't be stupid" and succeed, not because they were stupid and there's something inherently positive about being stupid. It's because the heuristic was wrong this time. Someone applied it wrong, or maybe their understanding of the world is false.

When the heuristic is correct... well... the -other- saying goes 'if I had a nickle for every fool...".

For example, stupid has hangover. Smart has hangover too. The question is, is the hangover worth it. If it's worth it, then you're not actually stupid. You are in fact smart, and accepted the label 'stupid' that someone else gave you. On the other hand, if I got a hangover, a 5 hour hole in my memory, lost my wallet, and ended up in a hospital... probably actually stupid (happened last year). Cause that really wasn't worth it.