Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing

> So stupidity is tough to fix.

I think there's a lot of people who have a higher bar than that (or lower bar depending on your perspective), but there is good traditional agreement;

You can't fix stupid.

That's one of its defining features.

Regardless, it's sometimes necessary to work year-round on maintenance & repair.

And everyone knows the effort involved polishing a turd and putting lipstick on a pig takes up all the time in between emergency restoration sessions.

This is something you need to get rid of whole-hog.

> subjective, rather than absolute

This is a false dichotomy. If I am trying try accomplish X, it is absolutely true that I am trying to accomplish X. Both you (the observer) and I can acknowledge this fact.

> adjudication of what is stupid is inevitably subjective

No, because as you yourself say...

> it depends on the objectives and interests of the subject

and what objective you're pursuing is factually the case as I already stated.

Furthermore, objectives and interests are not arbitrary and brute facts, but ultimately related to human nature. It is possible in principle, even if not in practice, to determine whether an objective being pursued is wrong, stupid, etc. It makes no sense, for example, to say that someone isn't stupid because he is pursuing the objective of suicide successfully. The objective itself is stupid because it is objectively (not "subjectively") contrary to the good of the subject (euthanasia supporters notwithstanding) to kill yourself and because it is factually the case that the ("subjective") understanding the person has of what is good for him is stupid.

The author IMHO hasn't quite got it. He's focused on people using the wrong conceptual model for solving a problem and says things like:

>> Stupidity has two features that make it particularly dangerous when compared with other vices. 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.

I would argue that it's not the misapplication of existing ideas, but ignoring the reality in front of you and doing something that goes against it. You might be going against it by habitually applying the wrong mental model, but it's only "stupid" in cases where that model seems obviously wrong (to others, or if you step back, etc) in a relevant way.

An example from a game: We are losing. We can win if we score one goal (2 points). There is only enough time for one quick play. Obviously we should make our best offensive play (including putting the goalie on offense and leaving the net open), but someone on the team gets the ball and takes a very defensive (slow) approach and the clock runs out. We lose. That was stupid - taking your time was never going to result in a win. It is a case of using the wrong mental model, but the reason it's stupid is because it obviously can't work in the given situation.

Product development example: The widget makes too much noise - the gears are noisy. Options: 1) change the material and test again. 2) hey the gear geometry can be improved - tweak design, make new tools and new parts. Management picks option 1 because we have a tight schedule and need to show improvement. OK with no other information, but this becomes really stupid when you hear that the material had already been changed once with no measurable effect.

Government example: People thinking they can legislate outcomes without any consideration how people or a system actually behave. Prohibition for example.

You might like Philip Tetlock's "Expert Political Judgement: How Good is it? How can we know?". He quantitatively studied political predictions for I think it was 20 years and how different cognitive styles affect effectiveness. Specifically he used the analogy of "foxes vs hedgehogs" from Isiah Berlin's famous essay as different cognitive styles and compared predictions over along period.

https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/d... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox

Lockdowns were a political choice to minimize impact on healthcare systems, not something that governments necessarily had to do. Obviously guerilla movements aren't going to suspend operations just because of a respiratory virus. The vast majority of Taliban combatants are young and metabolically healthy enough to be at virtually zero risk from COVID-19.

(And it should go without saying, but the concept of biological warfare is so abhorrent that it should never be considered as an option.)