Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#171

Post by jariel » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #72

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…

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…

Don't conflate 'religion' with 'arbitrary beliefs'.

Of course within religion there is going to be a lot of 'arbitrary belief', but that's not what it is essentially. 'Parables' etc. are a function of how it's communicated and propagated, ironically, for the 'dumber folks' who 'need something material to believe in' and for whom more abstract concepts don't provide solace.

Religion is a metaphysical perspective of existence, one based on spirituality from which we develop our humanity, morality etc. and none of that is irrational.

Our earliest civilizations often confounded civic norms, civil law, religion, faith, cultural history etc. into the same sphere, from that you get things like the Torah for example (i.e. 'The Law') which is like a legal code, moral code, civic code, national history rolled into one.

Since the Common Era (i.e. about Jesus' time) religion has developed into a more strictly moral and spiritual sphere, less so the core civic stuff, but it still lays at the foundation of all of our institutions ... especially ironically our University system, and partly medical systems depending where you're from.

Our current scientifically materialist 'belief' whereupon we are all merely bags of tiny particles, randomly interacting in accordance with a few 'known forces' - which almost by definition denies the very existence of things which we otherwise believe exist - like 'life', 'love', 'intelligence' etc. is a pretty bizarre bit of irrationality that we somehow don't bother ourselves much about.

Barack Obama along with the majority of our leaders of all kinds are religious and not in the Machiavellian 'fake' sense whereby he 'need to appear religious to get elected', so let's not write them off as idiots and contemplate maybe our crude and easy dismissal is too often misplaced.

Yes, ideological conformism and orthodoxy are going to appeal to certain groups, and that's nice point, but it would be confusing the issue.

And of course ... we all have some truly irrational beliefs.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#172

Post by sudosteph » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

I'm not sure I agree with the core phenomenon that the author is trying to explain.

Is it really people on average are getting stupider - or just people on the internet? Because yeah, coherent discussion on internet has been on the decline ever since Twitter got popular.

I haven't seen people in my real life have become less intelligent, though many have become more skeptical and outspoken. People on the left are skeptical towards police and religious and financial institutions, and people on the right are becoming more skeptical of news media and academics. The real difference here, which is probably influencing the author's take - is that many liberals regard skepticism towards moral authority is seen as healthy, and skepticism towards intellectual authority as stupidity (and for others, it's vice versa)

It's not that clean cut though, both sides have actually fed into each other with this skepticism - which entrenches it further. I grew up watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Colbert Report every night. Sure they mocked politicians, but they mocked news reporters just as often. Fox News was a big chunk of it - but nobody was spared. I spent a decade watching talking heads from every network lie, get called out, and then lie some more.

Likewise, while many of the right line up to "support the police" - is there really any greater sign of distrust for authority than gun ownership? I've talked with plenty of gun owners, and the reasons most admit to owning guns are as follows:

1. They're worried they'll be in trouble and cops wouldn't respond in time to help them. 2. They're afraid the government will become tyrannical

In either case, those reasons betray the underlying belief that even at it's best - the government and it's officials (cops) are not more capable of enforcing personal law and order than an individual is, and at worst - violence might be required to stop government officials.

So sure it's weird, but in a way, this could just be what it's like when people of all backgrounds start to look more critically at flawed institutions. Many of these people are excited to see that others who are "waking up" (ie, realizing that things are flawed) and are feeding into that energy online. It's similar to a religious fervor like the great awakening. Once the novelty of it all has passed, people will either start working towards actual change, or they'll be distracted by something else.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#173

Post by segfaultbuserr » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #144

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is also an old 4chan truism from the 2010s for that, "It's Still Shitposting Even If You Are Being Ironic", also one of the most overused 4chan meme of all time, with hundreds of cute image macros [0].

Speaking of 4chan, I found its trolling and politics are extremely objectionable, yet there's a lot of psychology and sociology to be learned here, especially the mechanisms commonly found in an online community. QAnon is an excellent case study on how a self-organized online community can create an influential meme that eventually affected mass psychology.

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-still-shitposting-even-if...

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#174

Post by seppin » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

qsort wrote: post #142

TallGuyShort wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bingo. A study I can't find after trying on Google took people with objectively wrong opinions and payed them for accuracy. Magically, people corrected their own opinions when they had a financial incentive to do so.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#175

Post by jariel » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:08 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…

So this is an interesting point and shouldn't be dismissed, it may be at the heart of irrational beliefs.

People can 'come to believe' what benefits them.

If an idea is truly exciting or engaging, or makes people feel special, or part of a 'group' esp. of 'special people' - it's just more likely we believe those things as 'factual'.

So in a way - though they would 'pass a lie detector test' and 'truly believe in a flat earth' - it's predicate upon all those things - it's an impassioned or subjective kind of belief.

They would act almost perfectly rationally if you asked them about some completely mundane subject like rocks rolling down a hill.

Our egos tend to believe it when we're told we are good, and tend to be dismissive when we are told we're bad at something, that right there is evidence we're not very objective about taking in data to begin with.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#176

Post by UncleOxidant » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:09 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'd guess there was a time in the US when if insisted the earth was flat it could have possibly gotten you committed to an asylum.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#177

Post by savanaly » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:09 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…

Have you considered as an explanation the concept of "epistemic learned helplessness"[0]?

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#178

Post by qsort » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #154

qsort wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think this is true. At any rate, if it is true I'd be more inclined to follow this line of thought if this was about anything else. "The earth is flat" is not a claim that's false upon closer inspection of the available data, it's a claim that's prima facie false, it's in the same category of "the moon is made of cheese" rather than "we didn't land on the moon".

> "The earth is flat" is not a claim that's false upon closer inspection of the available data, it's a claim that's prima facie false No, it isn't. We view the claim as absurd today only because we have the benefit of millennia of collection of evidence and arguments and theory that has established "the earth is round" beyond a reasonable doubt. But for a person who either does not have access to all that evidence an…

> We view the claim as absurd today only because we have the benefit of millennia of collection.

This premise is just historically false. Ancient civilizations knew full well the earth was not flat. More people in the history of mankind have known the earth is round than how to multiply.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#179

Post by mandelbrotwurst » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #115

pdonis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's only stupid if you're trying to optimize for social good, makes perfect sense as a short sighted, profit maximizing corporation.

Re: Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses

#180

Post by contravariant » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

ravitation wrote: post #147

contravariant wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

That's possible but it's something that pops up more often. The problem with it is that people then try to fix it by just telling people the knowledge they supposedly lack (typically failing despite their supposed superior intelligence).

Needless to say it's somewhat pointless to just tell a flat-earther the earth is actually round.