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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: bentway who wrote (403035)3/16/2019 11:49:38 PM
From: Sun Tzu1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Arran Yuan

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That is an important article. There were several insightful points in it. Firstly, he defines stupidity in a very specific way that I had not thought of before. Generally speaking people all over the world associate intelligence with efficiency and stupidity with waste and ineffectiveness. E.g. the person expresses the same meaning in two sentences is considered more clever than one who take 5 sentences to say the same thing.

But here stupidity is defined as an action that harms self without providing clear benefits. So he ties to judgement, emotional intelligence, and really self control than efficiency. Under this definition, many things from road rage to bickering become indicators of stupidity. And he is saying that this sort of stupidity is independent of how educated or proficient a person really is. And anecdotally, I agree.

The other very insightful thing I gained from it was how dangerous idiots really are. They are people to be avoided at all costs - like you'd avoid sociopaths. Even bandits/criminals are preferable to idiots b/c at least you can be sure that they act in their own self interest. I had never thought of it that way.

And yes, a society that has too many idiots and bandits (per his definition) will collapse under its own weight. I think over the past 25 years, we've had a marked increase in a culture that promotes "stupidity" and "banditry" :((
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