Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Brotherhood of Morons

ludic.mataroa.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 77 posts

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#51

Post by randusername »

Is this satire? I feel like I'm reading commentary from a strictly classical economist lamenting that our economy is worsened by all those pesky market participants that are ignorant of economic theory and therefore make irrational financial decisions.

Then there's this line:

> The implication is that [my critics are] the smart ones because they live in a world where the ultimate marker of intelligence is not the ability to discern sound action from unsound, but instead a grotesque meta-intelligence which manifests as the inexplicable belief that no action is ever deserving of contempt, and any deviation from this belief is a humility problem.

What about Chesterton's Fence? Or root-cause analysis? Those aren't just for code! Contempt is an ugly word, so the burden of proof should be pretty high. After all, we're trying to understand and fix and prevent "actions that harm everyone" and not just classify them, right?

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#52

Post by low_tech_love »

SamPatt wrote: post #12

There's a lot of truth in this, but I struggle with the conclusion of "avoid stupid (destructive) people at all costs." While I don't doubt this is best for personal satisfaction and sanity, it feels lacking in compassion. An example: I have teenage children, and they have some friends in school who fit the stupid description from the article (destructive behaviors). They grew up in unstable homes and didn't have goo…

I'd say definitely yes, it would be better if they did not associate, but I'm not sure if you pushing or not will work. So maybe you pushing will actually make them get even closer to the undesirable friends. But you could maybe talk to them and try to show them that it is not a good idea. Observing other persons' behaviors and reasoning about them being good or bad is not the same as associating with them. You can observe and learn; you don't need to necessarily bring them into your home or have them around you all the time. Not everyone deserves empathy, that is absurd and it's actually inhuman; if you believe that you yourself has the duty to show empathy to everyone, regardless of whatever they do, you are assuming an unrealistic responsibility on your back and setting yourself up for failure, confusion, and constant disappointment. As a human being, and individual, and a small cog on the big social system, you have not only the right but maybe the duty (?) to reason about other people's behaviors, make conclusions and take decisions that are at your reach, as an individual human being (and not above).

I come from a poor family from a weird small town in the middle of a poor country hundreds of kilometers away from any kind of interesting or relevant cultural/social center. I made it out and ended up in quite a nice place (at an international level) and I believe that it was in a big part due to me being very selective about the people I decided to be around with. That may sound elitist, but it's not at all; I made these decisions on my own, I chose those who did me good and those who didn't. By pushing the harmful people away from me I think I had much more space on my mind and my time to spend on things that rewarded me best. Whenever I get in touch with the guys who stayed behind that belief just intensifies. Everyone who is around you affects you, invariably, so it's up to you to manage that, nobody else.

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#53

Post by ericyd »

cstrahan wrote: post #34
ericyd wrote: post #2

I got part way through and quit. I appreciate the author's perspective, but I'm kind of tired of people so adamantly avoiding empathy. It's easy to say someone is acting stupidly; it's much harder to put yourself in their shoes and understand why they might be acting that way. I dunno, maybe there is some wisdom I missed because I didn't finish it.

> It's easy to say someone is acting stupidly; it's much harder to put yourself in their shoes and understand why they might be acting that way. This statement presupposes that there is a reason. Many people simply act completely irrationally, so the only "reason" for their actions that one can come up with is the overly reductive "well, their neurons fired in such a way that resulted in them doing ". I suspect avoid…

I totally agree incompetence exists in the world, and totally agree it can be frustrating to observe or deal with. If the article had been titled "Brotherhood of Incompetence" I might have reacted differently.

Even so, I find the author's stance to be off-putting. They write

> The first kind reads about "stupid people" and laughs.

And then go on to suggest that this is the "wrong" reaction, that stupid behavior is an insidious societal ill that should be treated with grave seriousness (obviously I'm exaggerating the author's words a bit). I find that laughing about circumstances which are both 1) outside your control, and 2) annoying is a much better response than stewing in my negative emotions and blaming the world for being incompetent. Better for my personal health, and better for those around me in that I'm not so bitter and unpleasant.

All that said, I love your closing line

> That doesn't make them any less deserving of love and care, but they are still (with no negative sentiment or judgement intended) incompetent.

This aligns very much with my personal perspective.

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#54

Post by ericyd »

low_tech_love wrote: post #46
ericyd wrote: post #2

I got part way through and quit. I appreciate the author's perspective, but I'm kind of tired of people so adamantly avoiding empathy. It's easy to say someone is acting stupidly; it's much harder to put yourself in their shoes and understand why they might be acting that way. I dunno, maybe there is some wisdom I missed because I didn't finish it.

There is no wisdom, it's supposed to be a rant. I don't think empathy applies to this kind of wide-ranged broad-stroked text. If he was attacking someone specifically and there was some side to the situation that he was willingly ignoring I might agree with you, but I think in this specific case (i.e. just a brain dump) this is interesting; you either identify with it or you don't, and both reactions are just as vali…

I agree that there are people in the world who regularly trample on common notions of ethics and morals. It is really sad and frustrating that such people exist. I still find empathy to be a better reaction than blame and contempt. It is foundational to the way I choose to live my life. And with this response, I'm pushing my values on you in a way which is probably immoral! The author suggests that this "Brotherhood of Morons" is a recurring theme in their writing. The recurring theme is my writing is a simple mantra which I find brings me peace: we are all just humans doing our best in a difficult world.

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#56

Post by angiosperm »

It is hazardous to comment on this topic.

However, I would remind the reader of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's maxim, "The boundary between good and evil runs through every man's heart".

The time each of us spends stupid is identically that same sigma. Some are seen to keep to themselves better during such times, mostly through happenstance, though a few by bitter experience. It takes enormous effort to look back at your sigma time and reflect, which rarely returns better results than chagrin. Keeping consequential actions better confined to the >sigma times is the best we can hope for.

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#57

Post by angiosperm »

nemo44x wrote: post #42
myth_drannon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taleb's modus operandi is to be condescending towards others, read his Twitter account.

Sam Harris isn't impressed with him: > I know many of you love this guy, and think he's a genius. I can assure you, none among you, are as impressed with his intelligence as he is. This guy is just insufferable. I've actually never witnessed a marriage of incompetence and confidence so fully and grotesquely consummated in the mind of a person with a public platform. > This is the most arrogant person I have ever had…

Sam Harris, you say.

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#58

Post by angiosperm »

NickC25 wrote: post #45
borbulon wrote: post #4

> What Taleb calls the Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) - someone who has the mannerisms and interests of a superficially intelligent person but who nonetheless is unable to self-reflect or deal with nuance, such as the Harvard-educated Ben Shapiro. I worked in Harvard Square for 5 years (dead center, across the street from Curious George, between the Greenhouse and the Coop), and it was always my assertion that Harvard…

> and it was always my assertion that Harvard is full of Well-Educated Idiots. I grew up surrounded by Ivy leaguers. You could tell who came from money, and who made it on their own merit. Some of the wealthiest people I've ever met growing up were lower/middle class kids with tremendous academic intelligence AND street-smarts who made it to the ivies on their own merit and excelled from there. Some of the dumbest of…

It is often very hard to identify the best course of action. But in any large enough group, you can in short order identify the Oracle of Wrong, who has a complementary skill. For the most difficult choices, where you honestly cannot decide, you may simply look to the local Oracle of Wrong, and do the opposite of what they advocate. This yields well above average results.

Oracles of Wrong will have above-average intelligence, but estimate it higher than that. Some decades of observation suggest they most usually come from a life of privilege, where no personal choice has caused them substantial difficulty or distress.

Do not neglect that you may be the Oracle of Wrong in the group.

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#59

Post by nemo44x »

angiosperm wrote: post #57
nemo44x wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam Harris isn't impressed with him: > I know many of you love this guy, and think he's a genius. I can assure you, none among you, are as impressed with his intelligence as he is. This guy is just insufferable. I've actually never witnessed a marriage of incompetence and confidence so fully and grotesquely consummated in the mind of a person with a public platform. > This is the most arrogant person I have ever had…

Sam Harris, you say.

Well yeah, there is that.

I love Taleb's writing (Black Swan was an important book) and observations (Power law distributions are the world globalization trends towards) but truth be told he does come off as a bit of an ass. I mean, he really just had the key observation and then somehow wrote a few thousand pages around it and more or less got lucky with a trade once.

Re: The Brotherhood of Morons

#60

Post by angiosperm »

nemo44x wrote: post #59
angiosperm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam Harris, you say.

Well yeah, there is that. I love Taleb's writing (Black Swan was an important book) and observations (Power law distributions are the world globalization trends towards) but truth be told he does come off as a bit of an ass. I mean, he really just had the key observation and then somehow wrote a few thousand pages around it and more or less got lucky with a trade once.

I take wisdom where I can find it, and leave the rest.

I wouldn't want as much attention on my flaws as his get.

Post reply on HN