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Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

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Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#141

Post by sdht0 »

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…

One thing I have come to include in my mental model when interacting with people online is the existence of people who deliberately keep up the "stupid" facade, either with the intention of trolling (think 4chan) or with nefarious agendas, such a government-sanctioned trolling farms that we keep hearing about. This at least helps me rationalize away the worst parts of Twitter, Reddit, or Whatsapp shares.

Confirmation bias also explains a lot. I remember seeing many anecdotes about Trump before the 2016 election that felt quite possibly true but turned out to be false on further investigation. As if the true things were not exciting enough.

Moreover, I suspect that much of our perceptions, esp. on topics that we don't directly seek out, are based on just glancing at the continuous stream of clickbaity article titles that cross our feeds everyday without even clicking them. In isolation, they'd be harmless, but if the same articles appears across HN, FB, and Twitter, they make a mental impact. And these half-digested impressions then color our opinions when those topics come up in debate or discussions.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#142

Post by qsort »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #112
qsort wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I would suggest that it's possible this need is subconscious

It's definitely possible. I'm saying I'd be more inclined to believe the "need" in question is a social need, rather than bad media/"fake news" influence.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#143

Post by Diederich »

omio wrote: post #118
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.

> influence your way of thinking.

Yup! I've read a number of papers about this over the years, and it's a big chunk of this whole landscape. The old saw: you either pay for the product, or you are the product, is right on target here.

Gaining attention and clicks from a person is much easier if that person is afraid. And/or angry, among others.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#144

Post by krapp »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #117
seanalltogether wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vari…

Also see the Rule of Goats: Even if you fuck goats ironically, you're still a goat-fucker.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#145

Post by henrikschroder »

reader_mode wrote: post #121
henrikschroder wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was research last year that showed that cynicism is a way for less intelligent people to protect themselves from being taken advantage of. Basically, if you know you're not smart enough to figure out if other people are genuine or out to scam you, defaulting to assuming that all strangers are lying is a winning strategy. The same kind of logic fuels conspiracy-minded people. The one thing they all have in commo…

>There was research last year that showed that cynicism is a way for less intelligent people to protect themselves from being taken advantage of. Basically, if you know you're not smart enough to figure out if other people are genuine or out to scam you, defaulting to assuming that all strangers are lying is a winning strategy. That narrative is ridiculous - what does intelligence have to do with it ? I guarantee you…

> That narrative is ridiculous - what does intelligence have to do with it ?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/014616721878319...

"Further studies demonstrated that cynicism is more likely to be a worldview endorsed by individuals with lower rather than higher levels of education (Haukkala, 2002; Stavrova & Ehlebracht, 2018) and intelligent individuals’ behavior was shown to be more likely to depart from the norms of self-interest (Solon, 2014). Higher levels of education and com-petence in a broader sense might help individuals detect and avoid potential deceit in the first place, thus reducing the probability of negative social experiences, which might in turn contribute to a more positive view of human nature (Yamagishi, Kikuchi, & Kosugi, 1999). Indeed a number of studies showed general cognitive ability to be negatively related to cynical hostility (Barnes et al., 2009; Mortensen, Barefoot, & Avlund, 2012) and positively related to trust (Carl, 2014; Carl & Billari, 2014; Hooghe, Marien, & de Vroome, 2012; Oskarsson, Dawes, Johannesson, & Magnusson, 2012; Sturgis, Read, & Allum, 2010)."

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#146

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

ctlachance wrote: post #76
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "the strong country has a right to invade the week country" Indeed they do. But not the month country. I mean, maybe they have the right to, but it'd be foolish. And invading the year country would be outright suicide.

Comedy? In MY serious thread? Not on my watch.

Making jokes on HN is pretty hit-or-miss.

Though I suppose a joke based off a typo is pretty low-effort.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#147

Post by ravitation »

contravariant wrote: post #109
Raphmedia wrote: post #56

I would be curious about what is the author's definition of the word "stupidity"? "Lack of judgment"? "Lack of knowledge"? "Unintelligent"? "Mental slowness in speech or action"? Perhaps, "Lack of education"? In a lot of the points, the author uses "smart" as the opposite of "stupid". Smart is also a vague word that comes up with multiple definitions such as "having or showing a high degree of mental ability", "styli…

It's disappointing how many examples in this thread are about lack of knowledge (or even just disagreeable beliefs). If intelligence is taken to be about manipulating the world around you then this is to some extent connected to the ability to obtain and verify knowledge but the ability to act upon that knowledge is far more important. True stupidity is almost by definition self-defeating. While I will admit that som…

I'd argue, at least in part, that the discussion about "lack of knowledge" in these comments is at least partially a result of the author's own failure to define, or even maintain a consistent implied definition throughout his own hypotheses of, intelligence/stupidity (even going so far as to use "wisdom" in place of intelligence in some of the hypotheses).

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#149

Post by googthrowaway42 »

cryptica wrote: post #127
googthrowaway42 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you're being downvoted is so typical of the kind of midwits that inhabit HN. People vastly underestimate (read: do not even consider) the role that vast monetary manipulation has on a society. It creates so many distortions at so many levels. People spend so much of their energy and time on earth engaging with the monetary system and when you do very extreme things to that it creates a lot of problems (…

I think that the people who are downvoting me are definitely not nitwits. They are smart, but they're short term thinkers and they think that they can improve things by censoring these kinds of insights. It's not uncommon for me to get many downvotes while people replying in the comments are saying that they agree. The irony is that I don't think that our monetary system is evil. I just think it has been hacked/explo…

Midwits, not nitwits. Obviously these people are very smart in a particular sense. But yes I agree with you. The super elites with competent financial advisors will just roll over into gold or crypto.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#150

Post by ifyoubuildit »

For any given question, there are few right answers and many wrong ones. Therefore it's a lot easier to be wrong than to be right.

Combine that with the permanence of the internet and you have a few right answers surrounded by a sea of things that range from almost right to complete nonsense.

I think B:9 is related. I really liked this article. A lot of the points made me go "hmmm".

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