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Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

psyche.co

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Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#31

Post by alexashka »

acituan wrote: post #4

I wish the author[1] read a bit more about the science of wisdom and foolishness before ruining their good intuition with a stubbornly limited perspective. > Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pi…

> I wish the author[1] read a bit more about the science of wisdom and foolishness

There is no such science.

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#32

Post by mdp2021 »

elihu wrote: post #11

Probably worth mentioning "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" by Carlo M. Cipolla, which has an interesting and somewhat different definition of stupidity and has been discussed here before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2570448

> an interesting and somewhat different definition

Stupidity is the disposition to the state of stupor - that break in reactions for need of processing in an unexepected situation, as if suddenly beaten.

Golob stresses the root in not having the cognitive instruments to solve the cognitive impasse.

Cipolla stresses the economical consequences of those who does not have the intellectual framework (of utility) to understand that their personal gain, or incapacity to build it, should not be reached through a catastrophe for the rest of us. ..."That guy who shoots me to spend a weekend with my wife in Montecarlo" [does not have a proper idea of weights].

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#33

Post by mdp2021 »

Cederfjard wrote: post #24
Animats wrote: post #18

The author may be onto something. Or they may have had one good idea and are now trying to make it fit too many problems. WWI did have moments of extreme stupidity. But the real problem was that, for the first time since castles vs. troops without cannon, defense was stronger than offense. Machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches could resist most attacks. When that wasn't enough, both sides had plenty of railroad cap…

The Zulu are most certainly not extinct.

:) The writer probably sacrificed facts to the satisfaction of instancing an "A-to-Z" («Atzecs to Zulus»).

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#34

Post by jdkfglkjh34 »

Animats wrote: post #18

The author may be onto something. Or they may have had one good idea and are now trying to make it fit too many problems. WWI did have moments of extreme stupidity. But the real problem was that, for the first time since castles vs. troops without cannon, defense was stronger than offense. Machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches could resist most attacks. When that wasn't enough, both sides had plenty of railroad cap…

Guerilla warfare is a consequence of modern ethical standards, not technology. One side can "force a decision" by executing non-combatants. Such policies were par for the course in the first half of the 20th century.

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#35

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

Cederfjard wrote: post #24
Animats wrote: post #18

The author may be onto something. Or they may have had one good idea and are now trying to make it fit too many problems. WWI did have moments of extreme stupidity. But the real problem was that, for the first time since castles vs. troops without cannon, defense was stronger than offense. Machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches could resist most attacks. When that wasn't enough, both sides had plenty of railroad cap…

The Zulu are most certainly not extinct.

kwaZulu is no longer an independent kingdom though, and hasn't been since 1879. Yes, the Zulus defeated the British at Isandlwana, but still lost the war.

kwaZulu remains part of the Republic of South Africa, despite recent troubles from Zuma/Zulu loyalists.

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#36

Post by denton-scratch »

> First, unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions, not individuals: after all, we get most of our concepts, our mental tools, from the society we are raised in.

That is not the way "stupid" is used. "Stupid" is a property assigned to an individual.

It is not nowadays generally accepted that General Haig's strategy in WWI was stupid, or even wrong. If he was doing what all generals are said to do (fighting the last war), then arguably he was in agreement with the best minds in the business.

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#37

Post by jonplackett »

> Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes.

Most western governments: "Don't worry, COVID is just like the Flu"

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#39

Post by oblio »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #28
Animats wrote: post #18

The author may be onto something. Or they may have had one good idea and are now trying to make it fit too many problems. WWI did have moments of extreme stupidity. But the real problem was that, for the first time since castles vs. troops without cannon, defense was stronger than offense. Machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches could resist most attacks. When that wasn't enough, both sides had plenty of railroad cap…

> for the first time since castles vs. troops without cannon, defense was stronger than offense. Huh? Castles couldn't beat troops without cannon. If you got besieged, your options were to be relieved by an external army, surrender, or lose.

They could force a drawn-out engagement, though, which in many cases the attackers couldn't support. You needed a lot fewer people to defend a castle than to assault it.

Re: Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

#40

Post by scotty79 »

> Global debates over social justice, for example, are now dominated by a set of ideas and terms taken from the United States, a nation marked by an incredibly specific historical and cultural trajectory. Simply transferring that framework to other countries, such as those in which class is less starkly racialised (for example, states reliant on exploiting white migrant labour from eastern Europe), or in which it is racialised in much more complex ways (for example, states such as South Africa) is conceptually and socially risky.

Yes. And those noble (in USA context) ideas when they get into the wider world serve mostly the popultist conservatives because they rely on so many things that are local to USA that opponents only need to point and laugh at how remote those ideas are from non-US reality to get people on their side.

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