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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (403035)	3/16/2019 11:49:38 PM
From: Sun Tzu	1 Recommendation Recommended By Arran Yuan Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542904

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" :((

To: bentway who wrote (403035)	3/17/2019 11:51:46 AM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542904

I love orthogonal analysis and this is good. Imagine a mythical thief like Robin Hood though - this graph may not correctly classify them. Where do political leaders like Gandhi fall within this grid when they are ultimately found to have objectionable personal attributes? I think of Margaret Sanger, Shockley or Watson whose racist positions are untenable in the modern world. I think of OJ Simpson - whom I enjoyed in Airplane! and the Naked Gun series but his screen presence had ruined the movies for me. It's good to determine some things: a) are the axes really mutually exclusive b) are there other mutually exclusive dimensions that should also be mapped to gain other insights. c) do the axes remain orthogonal over time or generally with respect to other independent variables These kinds of graphs are awesome for starting the conversation. But as in the parable of the three blind men who touch an elephant for the first time and are asked to assess the totality of the animal, the dimensional oversimplification can cause misunderstanding. Agreement on the utility of the axes is essential. So what other variables could we plot? Here's a non-exhaustive list: Spiritually Rewarding vs Material Rewarding Contentment vs Dissatisfaction Sustainable vs. not sustainable Materially Efficient vs. Inefficient Permanence vs. Ephemerality Rapid vs Slow