Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#111

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #32

I've engaged a few flat earthers to actually listen to their arguments and show them my own evidence that it's real (locating amateur radio satellites using data shared by people around the globe and demonstrating the doppler effect on them). The response strikes me as being indicative of mental illness. And I don't mean that as an insult - I mean that when confronted with that they're clearly irrational. And somethi…

> I've engaged a few flat earthers to actually listen to their arguments

I found the best thing to do is stop there. Just listen, observe, try to understand. Be patient.

Unless someone comes to you asking a question, you're unlikely to change anyone's mind immediately, and even if they are asking opinions often change slowly if at all.

When we tell people they're wrong, we push them away a little, and our sphere of influence diminishes.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#112

Post by TallGuyShort » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

qsort wrote: post #96

TallGuyShort wrote: post #32

I've engaged a few flat earthers to actually listen to their arguments and show them my own evidence that it's real (locating amateur radio satellites using data shared by people around the globe and demonstrating the doppler effect on them). The response strikes me as being indicative of mental illness. And I don't mean that as an insult - I mean that when confronted with that they're clearly irrational. And somethi…

I don't mean to attack you, but I don't think you are approaching this the right way. There are exactly zero people who believe the earth is flat. Some join conspiracy groups because they are social outcasts who enjoy being part of a tight-knit group, while for the most part they are being isolated and rejected (sometimes, admittedly, because of faults of their own, unrelated to being flat-earthers). They aren't insa…

I don't feel attacked :) Some of these folks have indeed been randos from the Internet. Some of them are people that I've known well in real life and I'm convinced they genuinely think this. I could be fooled - I wouldn't know - but on my list of possible explanations, a desperate need for more attention than they otherwise get is high on the list.

I would suggest that it's possible this need is subconscious, and if they're believing nonsense because that need is so great, I'd consider that a mental illness.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#113

Post by srsQtho00 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

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Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#114

Post by wolfgke » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33

Counterintuitively, people love reading about and engaging in what they consider "stupidity". Internet companies capitalize on this by bringing an optimized stream of stupidity for your viewing pleasure. Take a look at the front page of Reddit (logged out, default subs): Half of the content highlights stupidity of others: /r/IdiotsInCars shows the worst drivers from around the world, /r/insanepeoplefacebook shows the…

> Internet companies capitalize on this by bringing an optimized stream of stupidity for your viewing pleasure. Take a look at the front page of Reddit (logged out, default subs): Half of the content highlights stupidity of others: /r/IdiotsInCars shows the worst drivers from around the world, /r/insanepeoplefacebook shows the most bizarre clips from social media, /r/choosingbeggars highlights the dumbest negotiation attempts, /r/trashy and /r/iamatotalpieceofshit are selected stories of bad behavior, /r/whatcouldgowrong and /r/instantkarma are videos of people making bad decisions and suffering the consequences, /r/publicfreakout is videos of people fighting. Contributors hunt for the most egregious examples to post to Reddit in the hopes of getting upvotes.

Scene from the movie Idiocracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Idiocracy&oldid=9...):

https://youtu.be/1hj_7U40z5I?t=19

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#115

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #94

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think social media companies are deliberately promoting stupid and blatantly wrong beliefs. It's good for engagement. If you've ever watched someone be completely wrong about something you know a lot about, you know how strong the urge to correct them is. On social media, promoting clearly wrong beliefs and ideas (Flat Earth, for instance) is good for business because people will similarly jump in to correct…

> I really think social media companies are deliberately promoting stupid and blatantly wrong beliefs. It's good for engagement. I don't think it even has to be deliberate; the algorithms social media uses, by their very nature, are going to promote stupid and blatantly wrong beliefs, since so many people will enjoy mocking them and there will always be some believers willing to argue back and keep the discussion goi…

You could make a case that optimising for engagement - and getting stupidity - is a predictable outcome and therefore itself stupid.

Imagine what would happen if social media algorithms started promoting the opposite. Engagement would drop, but there might be some interesting second and third effects.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#116

Post by seppin » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #32

I've engaged a few flat earthers to actually listen to their arguments and show them my own evidence that it's real (locating amateur radio satellites using data shared by people around the globe and demonstrating the doppler effect on them). The response strikes me as being indicative of mental illness. And I don't mean that as an insult - I mean that when confronted with that they're clearly irrational. And somethi…

> I mean that when confronted with that they're clearly irrational. And something's gotta be going on their heads that makes them cling to this hypothesis.

The way i've heard it explained that makes the most sense to me: "people are convinced (rightly) that there is something wrong with our world and society, they just don't know what it is. Conspiracies provide answers and a framework to accommodate that feeling."

The opposite of knowledge isn't no knowledge, it's bad knowledge. The creation of a parallel reality is not so unreasonable response to nothing nothing about our current reality.

We all need something to hold on to.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#117

Post by segfaultbuserr » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

seanalltogether wrote: post #62

TallGuyShort wrote: post #32

I've engaged a few flat earthers to actually listen to their arguments and show them my own evidence that it's real (locating amateur radio satellites using data shared by people around the globe and demonstrating the doppler effect on them). The response strikes me as being indicative of mental illness. And I don't mean that as an insult - I mean that when confronted with that they're clearly irrational. And somethi…

I would not be surprised to learn that flat earth theories started as satire online, but it slowly turned into a theory for people who didn't know any better. I would also not be surprised to learn that QANON simply started out as trolling and morphed into the weird following it now has.

An old 4chan truism says,

> Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company.

- DarkShikari, Hacker News - in a comment on 4chan, 2009, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498

A decade later, it still applies...

Since then, this has always been one of the most overused 4chan memes, with more than 100 variants of cute image macros. I always assumed it was a 4chan meme, and it was a huge surprise for me when I realized it actually came from Hacker News... Top 4chan meme from Hacker News?! It was beyond my imagination, I obviously underestimated the richness of cultural exchanges online.

And it was from a well-known x264/ffmpeg developer...

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#118

Post by omio » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

Diederich wrote: post #30

There's quite a bit of insight in this article, and I'm not going to dismiss or directly comment on any of it. In my mind, there are two pretty straightforward, first principles at work that underlay a lot of these items. Many, if not all, negative emotions, at least while being experienced, directly diminish cognitive capabilities. A concrete example: when a person is angry, that person is more stupid. Next: modern…

Fear is a big one. Getting you in these emotional states makes it easier to influence your way of thinking.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#119

Post by ponker » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

The Internet has exposed the fact that human brains are like unpatched Windows 98. Hacking in and causing mayhem is very simple, not everyone can do it but the knowledge on how to do so is widely available. Advertisers, Trump, Zuckerberg, etc. are basically script kiddies and unfortunately there is no patch simpler than quality education.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#120

Post by pier25 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #88

pier25 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, humans have always been (and will always be) irrational. Even the most rational among us make plenty of irrational decisions or have contradictory beliefs. We've replaced religion and witches with aliens, new age beliefs, flat Earth, reptile conspiracies, etc. I don't think it was that different a couple of centuries ago. I read in the book Supersense by the neuroscientist Robert Hood [1] that in…

> We've replaced religion and witches with aliens, new age beliefs, flat Earth, reptile conspiracies, etc. I think you are understating the problem. Aliens, new age beliefs, flat Earth, reptile conspiracies, etc. are fringe beliefs in our current society, and are recognized to be fringe beliefs. Religion and belief in witches, in the societies you are referring to that had those beliefs, were not fringe beliefs; they…

> For example, in Salem, Massachusetts in 1695, people who said witches did not exist were the ones who were believed to be on the fringe.

Indeed, but those people were highly religious Puritans that emigrated to the New World because they were prosecuted in England.

https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/puritanism

When you put those kind of people in isolation and a high stress situation you get those kinds of behaviors.

> So the question we should all be asking ourselves is not, what is wrong with today's flat Earthers, but which of the mainstream beliefs we have today will end up being like the belief in witches in 1695?

Totally agree. For example, climate change denial.