Define stupid

Theory versus empirics

Lucien reflected on the careless use of the term “stupid” in a recent post.

I am guilty, obviously, of the broad brushstroke approach. My earlier self, trained in economics, would be shaking his head, sadly, disappointed in my current self’s indulgence in the high school point-of-view. People are not stupid, after all, they simply have different goals/values/whatever, and they are fully capable of rationally pursuing those. Rational, in econ, being a piece of jargon that does not mean “rational” in the way we use the term colloquially, but that people behave in a predictable way we can mathematically model.

Math is neat. I can feel very good about myself if I solve a model or explain something about reality with math. If I am smart enough to set up a math problem so that it solves for a value in the realm of what I find politically convenient, then I can also use math to reinforce the “preconceived notion of what we should do”. Economic models on the importance of climate change, for example, used to hinge on how much to value the future, as the rest of the conclusions fell out of the math that uses that parameter. So in a marketplace for ideas, you put out your model and if it gets picked up, great. Unfortunately, reader, you can also imagine that with the spectrum of model results that can be created by varying parameters, you end up with a model for everyone rather than a best model rising to the top that we all agree on. This is normal and something that scientists deal with, “the literature” is an everchanging ocean of evidence that needs constant sorting and critical appraisal.

Within scientific debate it’s good to consider what the correct value for the future should be in these models. However, once the story needs to be relayed to the general public it gets fuzzier, either because of the scientist (see previous post on fish flipping sexes) or because the public simply do not have the capacity, training, interest, time, or skills to engage meaningfully with the content. They’re science consumers. The nuance is lost completely and it turns into the same old fight versus their archnemeses on a new frontier: which climate change model is the correct one, which boils down to a single parameter (usually a lower-case delta, for “discount rate”).

So in a way, I suppose, the “people are stupid” criticism is not really a statement on people and their abilities in general, it’s more like their ability to act on what they need to act on is limited because one cannot be an expert on everything, but one can certainly hold an unfounded opinion on all sorts of stuff! Something I like to say is that the problem with smart people is that they don’t appreciate their smartness does not apply to things they know absolutely nothing about. I’ve seen this called Nobel Disease. Someone sure would sound pretty stupid to my past self about these models and started popping off about an article they read on the internet about climate change models. Have this happen in enough domains that you care about and the empirical evidence really starts to overwhelm the basic idea that people are smart enough to solve simple problems and behave in a rational manner. So people might not be stupid, but as a group, many representatives of the group “people” behave that way in enough settings that the evidence starts piling up.

We have seen calls for teaching critical thinking in schools, apparently this is already done in countries we compare ourselves to (Finland). Even then, it’s presented as helpful for recognizing “fake news” rather than the important literacy skill that it is. Aside: I hate the term “fake news” and every other piece of doublespeak that comes from that propaganda machine, double plus ungood. Anyway, an element of critical thinking is knowing when your critical thinking can even be appropriately applied, a sort of knowledge of the bounds of your critical thinking skills. I know nothing about making stained glass, I think it’s cool but I have never done it, so I am not really in a position to judge it on technical merits, I just know when I think it looks cool. I think that people who are able to say something like “I don’t know enough about that to have an opinion on it” are exhibiting the humility that comes with critical thinking skills, and that is an under-represented and unappreciated skill. Identifying the limits of your knowledge is the first step to knowing when you need to actively learn something.

So when people are acting stupid, looking stupid, being fucking stupid dumbasses and ruining everything, I believe that the critical observer is able to announce that without having to add the caveat “conditional on the fact that they are actually not brain dead, they are simply acting in a way that is counter-intuitive and with important consequences in this particular case.” However, I do get what LG is saying in his post, that it’s an unhelpful position to assume everyone is stupid, not to mention an arrogant one. I guess the critical thinking and honest engagement I have experienced within Temple Satanist spaces is spoiling me, and now I hold the gen pop to higher standards.