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Thread: Stupidity, the new Status Quo

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    What is another word for not smart?
    Words related to unintelligent
    brainless, deficient, dense, dumb, empty-headed, foolish, half-witted, idiotic, inane, meaningless, mindless, moronic, pointless, senseless, simple, simpleminded, slow, unthinking, witless, doltish.

    Unintelligent | Definition of Unintelligent at Dictionary.com

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    What Is Stupidity?
    . By Ross Pomeroy

    What is stupidity? Surprisingly enough, it's a question few scientists have grappled with, perhaps out of a desire not to wade into a subject that could so easily offend. After all, the field of intelligence studies is rife with controversy. Still, some have tendered their thoughts.

    Evolutionary biologist David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute, told Nautilus, “Stupidity is using a rule where adding more data doesn’t improve your chances of getting [a problem] right. In fact, it makes it more likely you’ll get it wrong.”

    Carlo M. Cipolla, a professor of economic history at the University of California - Berkeley, argued that stupidity is characterized by causing losses to another person or group whilst deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses yourself.

    In one of the few direct empirical studies on stupidity, researchers Balazs Aczel, Bence Palfi, and Zoltan Kekecs distilled a few traits that drive stupidity: overconfidence, ignorance, absentmindedness, impracticality, and an inability to control one's own actions.

    Notice that none of these descriptions of stupidity simply refers to it as an absence of knowledge. Lacking information about a topic does not make one stupid, as one can always educate oneself. Rather, stupidity is more of a choice. If someone chooses to act without taking full measure of the available evidence, that is stupidity.

    Since humans take countless actions that scythe across disciplines and scenarios, anyone – educated or not, wealthy or poor, politician or voter – can be stupid at one time or another. Although, it must be said, some tend to be stupid more often than others.

    One area of research where we perhaps can see stupidity on paper is the Dunning-Kruger effect. As many studies have revealed, it seems surprisingly (and unfortunately) universal that people who lack correct information about a certain issue tend to think they are actually informed about it. Often, they even overestimate their knowledge by such a degree that they are more confident than people who actually know the correct information. These people, the ones who know little but profess to know a lot, can be said to be truly stupid.

    Can stupidity be avoided or is it hard-wired? Perhaps writing tongue-in-cheek, Cipolla expressed the opinion that stupidity is genetically predetermined, an "indiscriminate privilege of all human groups... uniformly distributed according to a constant proportion."

    I'll take the opposite stance. I believe that education can root out stupidity like a garden weed. The answer is not to merely teach facts, as is still all too common, but to teach people how to attain facts and how to discern a good source of information from a bad one. One must also learn to nurture a healthy degree of self-doubt. Essentially, the antidote to stupidity is a scientific way of thinking.
    https://www.realclearscience.com/blo...stupidity.html

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    The Power of Stupidity [Part 1]

    By Giancarlo Livraghi
    gian@gandalf.it
    June 1996

    I have always been fascinated with Stupidity.

    My own, of course; and that's a big enough cause of anxiety.

    But things get much worse when one has a chance to find out how Big People take Big Decisions.

    We generally tend to blame awful decisions on intentional perversity, astute mischievousness, megalomania, etc. They are there, all right; but any careful study of history, or current events, leads to the invariable conclusion that the single biggest source of terrible mistakes is sheer stupidity. When it combines with other factors (as happens quite often) the results can be devastating.

    One of the many examples of stupidity is that intrigue and powermongering are called "machiavellian". Obviously nobody has read his books, as that is not what old Niccolò meant.

    Another thing that surprises me (or does it?) is the very little amount of study dedicated to such an important subject. There are University departments for the mathematical complexities in the movements of Amazonian ants, or the medieval history of Perim island; but I have never heard of any Foundation or Board of Trustees supporting any studies of Stupidology.

    I have found very few good books on the subject. One I read when I was a teenager, but never forgot. It is called A Short Introduction to the History of Human Stupidity by Walter B. Pitkin of Columbia University, and was published in 1934. I found it by chance many years ago while browsing around my mother's bookshelves; and much to my delight, when I went to her home yesterday and looked for it, it was still there. Old as it is, it's still a very good book. Some of Professor Pitkin's observations appear extraordinarily correct sixty years later.

    Now... why did he call a 300-page book a "short introduction"?

    At the end of the book, it says: Epilogue: now we are ready to start studying the History of Stupidity. Nothing follows.

    Professor Pitkin was a very wise man. He knew that a lifetime was far too short to cover even a fragment of such a vast subject. So he published the Introduction, and that was it.

    Pitkin was well aware of the lack of previous work in the field. He had a team of researchers hunt through the files of the Central Library in New York. They found nothing. According to Pitkin, there were only two books on the subject: Aus der Geschichte der menschlichen Dummheit by Max Kemmerich, and Über die Dummheit by Lewenfeld. Unfortunately I don't understand German, though "Dummheit" sounds clear enough; and I guess Kemmerich and Lewenfeld must have had a special abundance of material for their studies, considering what happened in Germany in 1933 and following years.

    In Pitkin's opinion, four people out of five are stupid enough to be called "stupid." That was one and a half billion people when he wrote the book; it is over four billion now. This, in itself, is quite stupid.

    He observed that one of the problems of Stupidity is that nobody has a really good definition of what it is. In fact geniuses are often considered stupid by a stupid majority (though nobody has a good definition of genius, either). But stupidity is definitely there, and there is much more of it than our wildest nightmares might suggest. In fact, it runs the world -- which is very clearly proven by the way the world is run.

    But somebody, fifty-four years later, came up with a rather interesting definition. His name is Carlo M. Cipolla and he is Professor Emeritus of Economic History at Berkeley. All of his books are in English, except two. The first was published by "Il Mulino" in Bologna in 1988.

    In that book there is a little essay called The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, which may be the best ever written on the subject.

    Here are the Five Laws of Stupidity according to Carlo Cipolla:

    First Law

    We always underestimate the number of stupid people.

    This is not as obvious as it sounds, says Cipolla, because:

    people we had thought to be rational and intelligent suddenly turn out to be unquestionably stupid;
    and

    day after day we are hampered in whatever we do by stupid people who invariably turn up in the least appropriate places.
    He also observes that it is impossible to set a percentage, because any number we choose will be too small.

    Second Law

    The probability of a person being stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

    If you study the frequency of stupidity in the people who come to clean up classrooms after hours, you find that it is much higher than you expected. You assume that this is related to their lower level of education, or to the fact that non-stupid people have better chances of obtaining good jobs. But when you analyze students or University professors (or, I would add, computer programmers) the distribution is exactly the same.

    Militant feminists may be incensed, says Cipolla, but the stupidity factor is the same in both genders (or as many genders, or sexes, as you may choose to consider). No difference in the sigma factor, as Cipolla calls it, can be found by race, color, ethnic heritage, education, etcetera.

    Third (and Golden) Law

    A stupid person is someone who causes damage to another person, or a group of people, without any advantage accruing to himself (or herself) -- or even with some resultant self-damage.

    (We shall come back to this, because it is the pivotal concept of the Cipolla Theory.)

    Fourth Law

    Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid people. They constantly forget that at any moment, and in any circumstance, associating with stupid people invariably constitutes an expensive mistake.

    That (I would say) suggests that non-stupid people are a bit stupid -- but I shall get back to this point at the end.

    Fifth Law

    A stupid person is the most dangerous person in existence.

    This is probably the most widely understood of the Laws, if only because it is common knowledge that intelligent people, hostile as they might be, are predictable, while stupid people are not. Moreover, its basic corollary:

    A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit

    leads us to the heart of the Cipolla Theory. There are four types of people, he says, depending on their behavior in a transaction:

    Hapless
    Someone whose actions tend to generate self-damage, but also to create advantage for someone else.
    Intelligent
    Someone whose actions tend to generate self-advantage, as well as advantage for others.
    Bandit
    Someone whose actions tend to generate self-advantage while causing damage to others.
    Stupid
    We already have this definition in the Third Law.
    Professor Cipolla uses a matrix that looks like this:

    <SEE LINK FOR DIAG 1>

    The "X" axis measures the advantage gained from one's actions.

    The "Y" axis measures the advantage gained by another person (or group).

    Clearly, people in the "I" area are intelligent, people in the "B" area are bandits, people in the "H" area are hapless, and people in the "S" area are stupid.

    It is also quite clear that, depending on where they fall in this matrix, people have a greater or lesser degree of stupidity, intelligence, banditism, etc. One can develop quite a variety of combinations, such as smart bandits or stupid bandits, depending on the benefit-damage ratio. (In this, Cipolla observes, the amount of damage is to be measured from the perspective of the victim, not the bandit, which makes most thieves and criminals quite stupid.)

    I guess that from here on each of us can use this matrix to study stupidity and elaborate the application of the Cipolla Theory in all its many possible variations.

    But that is not quite the end of the story.

    <SEE LINK FOR DIAG 2>

    If we draw a diagonal line across the matrix, we find that everything on the upper right side of this line generates an improvement to the overall balance of the system, while events (and people) on the other side cause a deterioration.

    A variety of interesting analyses can be conducted by studying variables in each of the four sectors, such a Sh and Sb, Ib and Ih, Hs and Hi, or as many sub-sectors as one may wish to define.

    For instance, the "M" chord in the lower right side of the grid delineates the position of the "perfect bandit": someone who causes exactly as much damage as he or she accrues gain. Obviously, on the two sides of the diagonal you have "imperfect" bandits -- Bi are "intelligent bandits" and Bs are "stupid bandits."

    In a world populated exclusively by "perfect bandits," the system as a whole would be balanced; damage and advantage would cancel each other out. The same effect would occur in a world populated by "perfectly hapless" people.

    Of course intelligent people make the biggest contribution to society as a whole. But, nasty as it may sound, intelligent bandits also contribute to an improvement in the balance of society by causing more advantage than harm overall. "Hapless-intelligent" people, though they lose individually, can also have socially positive effects.

    However, when stupidity gets into the act, the damage is enormously greater than the benefit to anyone.

    This proves the original point: the single most dangerous factor in any human society is stupidity.

    As a historian, Cipolla points out that, while the sigma factor (stupidity) is a constant in time as well as space, a strong upcoming society has a higher percentage of intelligent people, while a declining society has an alarming percentage of bandits with a strong stupidity factor (sub-area Bs in the grid) among the people in power, and an equally alarming percentage of hapless (H area) among those who are not in power.

    Where are we now? That's a good question...

    Cipolla also observes that intelligent people generally know they are, bandits are well aware of their attitude, and even hapless people have a sneaking suspicion that all is not right.

    But stupid people don't know they are stupid, and that is one more reason why they are extremely dangerous.

    Which of course leads me back to my original, agonizing question: am I stupid?

    I have passed several IQ tests with good marks. Unfortunately, I know how these tests work and that they don't prove anything.

    Several people have told me I am intelligent. But that doesn't prove anything, either. They may simply be too kind to tell me the truth. Conversely, they could be attempting to use my stupidity for their own advantage. Or they could be just as stupid as I am.

    I am left with one little glimpse of hope: quite often, I am intensely aware of how stupid I am (or have been). And this indicates that I am not completely stupid.

    At times, I have tried to locate myself in the Cipolla matrix, using as far as possible measurable results of action, rather than opinion, as a yardstick. Depending on the situation, I seem to wander around the upper side of the grid, between the Hs and Ib areas; but in some cases I am desperately lost in Sh. I just hope I am on the right side of the diagonal as often as I think.

    On a broader scale, one would expect the strongest success factors to lie in the Ib and Bi subsectors. However, the staggering number of Sb and even Sh people who have wonderful careers can be only explained by a strong desire on the part of many leaders to be surrounded by as many stupid people as possible.

    When I read the book, I liked it so much that I wrote a letter to Carlo Cipolla. (I have done this sort of thing only twice in my life).

    Much to my surprise, he answered, briefly but kindly.

    I had two questions:

    "Can I have the original unpublished English text, for my English speaking friends?"
    The answer was no. (He didn't say why, but I have a hunch.)

    "What do you think of my 'corollary' to your theory?"

    In this case, the answer was "Well... why not, maybe..." -- which I took as Enthusiastic Approval and Endorsement of...

    Livraghi's Corollary to Cipolla's First Law

    In each of us there is a factor of stupidity, which is always larger than we suppose.

    This creates a three-dimensional grid and I don't think I have to take you through the steps, because no stupid (or timid) person would have had the courage to read this far.

    Of course, one can introduce other variables, such as our own H and B factors, and other people's S, H and B. It may be wise to forget I, as there never is enough of that; however, do consider B, because even the most generous person can sometimes behave like a bandit, if only by mistake. These additional factors generate multi-dimensional models that can get fairly difficult to manage. But even if we consider only our individual sigma values, the complexity can become quite staggering.

    Try it for yourself... and get really scared.
    https://serendipstudio.org/serendipia/Stupidity.html

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    Improbable Research: the laws of human stupidity
    Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals, it seems – this is one of the laws of human stupidity

    The basic laws of human stupidity are ancient. The definitive essay on the subject is younger. Called The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, it was published in 1976 by an Italian economist.

    Professor Carlo M Cipolla taught at several universities in Italy, and for many years at the University of California, Berkeley. He also wrote books and studies about clocks, guns, monetary policy, depressions, faith, reason, and of course – he being an economist – money. His essay about stupidity encompasses all those other topics, and perhaps all of human experience.

    Cipolla wrote out the laws in plain language. They are akin to laws of nature – a seemingly basic characteristic of the universe. Here they are:

    1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

    2. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

    3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons, while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

    4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

    Cipolla's essay gives an X-ray view of what distinguishes countries on the rise from those that are falling.

    Countries moving uphill have an inevitable percentage of stupid people, yes. But they enjoy "an unusually high fraction of intelligent people" who collectively overcompensate for the dumbos.

    Declining nations have, instead, an "alarming proliferation" of non-stupid people whose behaviour "inevitably strengthens the destructive power" of their persistently stupid fellow citizens. There are two distinct, unhelpful groups: "bandits" who take positions of power which they use for their own gain; and people out of power who sigh through life as if they are helpless.

    Cipolla died in 2000, just a year after two psychologists at Cornell University in the US wrote a study called Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Leads to Inflated Self-Assessments. Without mentioning any form of the word "stupidity", it serves as an enlightening and dismaying supplement to the basic laws.

    Next week, I will tell how some physicists, inspired by Cipolla's work on stupidity, have come up with an improved way to choose politicians. They applied a bit of modern mathematics to an old Athenian principle of democracy. The result: governments that more efficiently produce laws that benefit society.

    • Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize

    https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...uman-stupidity

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    It’s the stupidity, stupid
    A course on ‘the most powerful determinant of human destiny’ strikes a nerve with the American media. Jon Marcus reports

    September 19, 2009
    By Jon Marcus
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    The smartest course to take at Los Angeles’ Occidental College this semester may be Critical Theory and Social Justice 180. The subject? Stupidity.

    In an age of anti-intellectualism, embodied by everything from George W. Bush’s presidency to Beavis and Butt-Head, the class at the university that Barack Obama attended for two years quickly reached its maximum enrolment of 35, and has a waiting list, too.

    In its consideration of stupidity, the course covers the work of philosophers such as Avital Ronell (author of Stupidity), novelists including John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces), social commentators such as the documentary-film-maker and writer Michael Moore (Stupid White Men), and popular culture (the movies Idiocracy, Jackass and Dude, Where’s My Car?). It describes stupidity as “the most powerful determinant of human destiny”.

    The course leader, Glenn A. Elmer Griffin, called it “unpolitical” in the paradoxical sense that Massimo Cacciari, the Italian philosopher and politician, uses the term.

    “We attempt a rigorous critique of what passes for political reason in the US. We try to understand the force of stupidity – elective non-comprehension – in shaping the terms of this discourse,” Professor Griffin said.

    But he added that while stupidity is “a topic as old as philosophy itself”, it is also “current, in the sense that there have been something like 40 books written on this topic in the past decade, and a fair number of them have been concerned with anti-intellectualism in America”. Examples of the serious consideration the topic has received include Richard Hofstadter’s classic 1960s text Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and, more recently, Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason.

    It is not necessarily the case that people are becoming more stupid, Professor Griffin said, notwithstanding, he added, the incompetence evidenced in the national response to Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war, the wilful ignorance that led to the global economic crisis, celebrity magazines and reality TV.

    Instead, Professor Griffin likens the rising awareness of stupidity to the increasing consciousness of autism. It is not that there is more of it; it is just that there are more ways to discern it.

    “With the application of critical and postmodernist theory – most notably in the extraordinary work of Avital Ronell – we are in a position to identify stupidity in its more varied, dynamic and pervasive forms,” he said.

    The reception to the course seems to prove Professor Griffin’s point. A blogger criticised the course description for its “hyper-deconstructionist language” – essentially, for using too many big words – and the post was rebroadcast by countless other blogs and picked up by comedians on radio and television.

    The criticism has left many at the small liberal-arts university of about 1,900 students reluctant to talk to the press. Jonathan Veitch, Occidental’s president, has defended the course publicly, but Donna Maeda, chair of the critical theory and social justice department that runs it, declined to discuss the situation (although Professor Griffin said she had been supportive).

    Professor Griffin, a member of the Occidental faculty for 20 years and three-time winner of its distinguished teaching award, has also refused to be interviewed by the American media.

    However, at least one of the students in the class has defended it, albeit anonymously, online.

    The course, the student said, “changed the way I think completely. It opened my mind to new perspectives and challenged my thought process. It is the best class I have ever taken, even as it challenged me to the point of frustration.”

    And while others who commented suggested that a course in stupidity was an implicit liberal attack by Democrats on Republicans, the student said that politics “can never be removed from a class, whether it is biology or history. But this professor refused to reveal his political bias, and I found it hard to determine the way he leaned. This class addresses politics, but it is not meant to be any sort of political brainwashing.”

    Of course, Americans are not the only ones who act stupidly, said Professor Griffin, who was raised on St Croix in the US Virgin Islands and went to school in Trinidad.

    “No one who has been to England or felt its presence in a former colony can imagine that America has a corner on stupidity,” he said.
    https://www.timeshighereducation.com...408274.article

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    The Power of Stupidity

    Part Two

    by Giancarlo Livraghi

    fter fifteen months, my little essay on stupidity seems to be quite alive on the net. I am still receiving mail from different corners of the world; and it's being mirrored, linked or quoted in a number of places. The resulting dialogue made me discover some very interesting people and some remarkable websites I didn't know -- such as Serendip.

    Questions and comments from several people led me to think a little more about this intriguing (and terrifying) subject. Here is the "humble result" of those meditations.

    Is the Cipolla definition "true"?

    In my early stages of learning, I was lucky enough to have teachers who set a few principles that, many years later, remain firm in my mind.

    One of those philosophical principles is that there is no such thing as "absolute" truth. A "true" theory is simply the most convenient under the circumstances: the one that best explains and interprets what we are studying.

    I don't know which is the best "absolute" definition of stupidity -- or even if there is one that makes any sense. I am not aware of any really effective definition of intelligence, either.

    The beauty (I think) of Carlo Cipolla's definition of stupidity (and intelligence) is that it is not based on an abstract concept but on results: a person or a behavior is stupid or intelligent depending on what happens. This has two advantages.

    The first is that it defines a person (and that person's behavior) as stupid (or intelligent, or hapless, or a bandit) on the basis of facts; or, at least, on our understanding and definition of facts. The second, and even more important, is that it leads us to concentrate on the vital factor: not stupidity per se, but the damage it causes.

    There can be countless types of behavior that are, or appear, "stupid" but are harmless. They come up close to neutral in the Cipolla matrix -- and that is, indeed, where they belong.

    For instance, sharing silly fun with friends and having a good laugh may be seen as "stupid" by outsiders, but according to the Cipolla Theory such behavior is likely to be classified as "intelligent": which indeed it is, as long as the fun shared by the people being amused is more than the annoyance or boredom caused to bystanders. Generally the intelligence (practical advantage) of such behavior is limited to a moment of good humor; but quite often it can lead to more relevant effects, by sparking up cooperation and ideas in ways that would not be possible in a boring environment.

    "Silly" can be remarkably intelligent, while "serious" can be awfully stupid... quite apart from the fact that innovative thinking is often seen as "silly" by people who don't understand it.

    This leads to an important subject: the relevance of non-linear thinking (as well as emotion and humor) in all mental processes and especially in innovation. To discuss that in a meaningful way I would need much more space than I have here. Let me just say that the distinction of "right" and "left" mind may be interesting in clinical experiments but, in my view, should be avoided in the general observation of human behavior because the structure of thinking is not as simple as that -- and, in any case, the various processes of perception and thought always work together and are better understood as a whole than as the sum of separate functions.

    Three corollaries

    Shortly after reading about the Cipolla Laws, I developed what came to my mind as the "First Livraghi Corollary". Then I realized that I couldn't call it "first", because I had only one. But my original feeling was right... I have since discovered that there are at least three.

    Here they are:

    First Corollary:
    In each of us there is a factor of stupidity, which is always larger than we suppose

    (I explained that in my original "stupidity" paper).

    Second Corollary:
    When the stupidity of one person combines with the stupidity of others, the impact grows geometrically -- i.e. by multiplication, not addition, of the individual stupidity factors

    It seems to be a generally accepted concept that "the sum of a network increases as the square of the number of members" and it seems quite obvious that the same criterion applies to the combination of stupidity factors in individual people. This can help to explain the well-known fact that crowds as a whole are much more stupid than any individual person in the crowd.

    Third corollary:
    The combination of intelligence in different people has less impact than the combination of stupidity, because (Cipolla's Fourth Law) "non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid people"

    Stupidity is brainless -- it doesn't need to think, get organized or plan ahead to generate a combined effect. The transfer and combination of intelligence is a much more complex process.

    Stupid people can combine instantly into a super-stupid group or mass, while intelligent people are effective as a group only when they know each other well and are experienced in working together. The creation of well-tuned groups of people sharing intelligence can generate fairly powerful anti-stupidity forces, but (unlike stupidity bundling) they need organized planning and upkeep; and can lose a large part of their effectiveness by the infiltration of stupid people or unexpected bursts of stupidity in otherwise intelligent people.

    In some situations these dangers can be partly offset (if not totally controlled) by being aware of the potential problem before anything goes wrong and having "backup intelligence" in the group (and in whatever equipment is being used) to fill the gaps and correct the mistakes before the damage becomes too serious. Any good skipper of a sailboat knows what I mean; so does any other person that has experience of an environment where the cause-effect process is bluntly direct and tangible.

    Communities with a high intelligence factor are likely to have greater potential for long-term survival, but for that to be effective we must avoid the potentially devastating short-term impact of shared stupidity, which (unfortunately) can cause major damage to large numbers of non-stupid people before it self-destructs.

    Another dangerous element in the equation (as pointed out by Carlo Cipolla) is that the machinery of power tends to place "intelligent bandits" (sometimes even "stupid bandits") at the top of the pyramid; and they, in turn, tend to favor and protect stupidity and keep true intelligence out of their way as much s they can. That is, I think, an important subject per se. Maybe one day I shall try to comment on it... if and when I do, the title could be The Stupidity of Power.

    Stupidity and biology

    In a basic biological environment, the "stupidity problem" doesn't exist. The process is based on the production of an extremely large number of "dumb" mutants. Only very few (the "fittest") survive, and that's it. From that point of view, what we see as catastrophe is just another variation in the "natural" course of events. Destructive fires are understood by botanists as a necessary, indeed desirable, step in the evolution of a forest. Millions of living creatures that die in the process may disagree, but their opinion is irrelevant.

    In that perspective, solutions are simple and very effective. If there are too many people, all we need is another plague (or any mass slaughter device that will not interfere too much with the overall environment) that can kill 90 percent of the population. The surviving 10 percent, as soon as they get over the shock, are likely to find the resulting environment quite agreeable. They are also likely to be genetically similar: share specific traits of appearance and attitude. If they all had green hair, pink eyes and liked rainy weather, they would soon come to consider the (extinct) people with any other hair or eye color, as well as people that like sunny weather, as rather quaint and "inferior"; their moisture-resistant history books would treat most of us as we treat the Neanderthals.

    The destruction or sterilization of our planet, by man-made nuclear (or chemical) power or by collision with some wandering rock, would be an irrelevant detail in a cosmic perspective; and it if happened before the development of space travel and colonization the disappearance of our species (along with the rest of the terrestrial biosphere) wouldn't cause much of a stir even in our galaxy.

    But in the particular biological environment that is set by certain species (such as ours) the system is based on the assumption that the environment can, and should, be controlled; and that each individual in our species (and in other species that we "protect") should be able to live longer, and more pleasantly, than he or she would in an uncontrolled environment. This needs a particular breed of organized "intelligence". Therefore stupidity, in this stage and type of biological development, is extremely dangerous.

    As we are human, that's what we need to worry about.

    Stupidity and the "millennium"

    There are very few things in this world that can be predicted as precisely as the end of the 20th Century. It will happen at exactly 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds of January 1, 2001; and we have enough shared conventional definitions to set our clocks and watches in each of the time zones as precisely as we need to pop a cork or use a sophisticated timer.

    But there is a surprisingly large number of people who think the millennium will end at midnight on December 31, 1999. When, of course, we shall enter "year two thousand": but we shall still be in the 20th Century for another year. I know lots of bright and well educated people who take a while to adjust to that notion. They scratch their heads and eventually, only half-convinced, mumble something like Uhm, maybe you are right, I guess there never was a Year Zero.

    Is that stupid?

    By the Cipolla definition, it is not; because it's unlikely to cause any major harm, could encourage us to refresh our 'rithmetic, and may lead us to celebrate twice. If that doesn't cause too many accidents, it could mean people having twice the fun, merchants making money twice... at the end of the story it could turn out to be quite harmless, or even "intelligent".

    But... there is a problem that may hit us quite severely at the end of 1999, and that is how clocks are set in computerized systems.

    I've heard many rather dumb comments on this subject. Such as «Haha, my Mac will adjust to year 2000 and your PC won't» - or «What's all the fuss about? the clock in my computer will handle the 2000 figure.»

    It seems nearly impossible to make people stop and think about broader implications than their own personal computer. I don't want to get into technicalities -- that's not my field and I leave it to the experts. Here is a link to a detailed analysis of "myths and realities" and several different opinions on this matter. It could be debated forever; but time is running out.

    In any case, there seems to be enough old software around, in huge systems or in small vital devices, to be a serious problem for lots of people who have nothing to do with computers. A friend of mine, who is a very competent and bright EDP expert, says: «Your coffee machine, your alarm clock and your video recorder are unlikely to have date tantrums; your PC may well work through the turn of the century as it is, or with a few minor adjustments; but, in spite of the OTIS disclaimer, in some parts of the world you should be careful before you take an elevator on January 1, 2000.»

    I don't think we are heading for doomsday. I guess in the next couple of years solutions will be found. But suppose just one little bit of something, in one single system or piece of equipment, is not fixed and tested properly ahead of time; and suppose it's in air traffic control, or a hospital, or the aiming device of a weapon... can we really trust all of the people concerned, in every corner of the planet, do their homework properly?

    Big or small as the problem may be... the stupidity lies in its predictability. The Gregorian calendar was set 415 year ago; long before any of the modern devices (electronic or other) were conceived. How could anyone, no matter how long ago, make a computer, a piece of software, or anything containing a time program without considering that there would certainly be a problem if it couldn't handle year digits beyond 99? Two years from the deadline, they are still fussing about how to untangle the mess.

    We could forget electronics and talk about many other things. Take pensions. In my country, pension schemes are government controlled and compulsory. Several decades ago it was abundantly clear that the population would get older and there would be a serious problem. Nobody did anything about it. Quite to the contrary, they did a number of things to make it worse: early pensions, special favors to people that neither deserved them or needed them, etcetera -- on a monstrously wide scale. And now they are still quarreling about how to try to fix the problem.

    And the environment, the population explosion, the use of fossil energy... the dumb, hierarchic rigidity of private and public organizations (including schools) in a world of increasing turbulence and complexity... the "information society", the networked world, being potentially a powerful tool for the underprivileged, but driven by fatware in the opposite direction...

    The blind are leading the blind, stupidity is running the world. For anyone looking at us from outer space, this could be extremely funny. But somehow it doesn't make me laugh.
    https://serendipstudio.org/serendipia/Stupidity2.html

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    Are Americans really that dumb when it comes to civics?

    MAR 13, 2015 AT 11:00 AM

    Americans love democracy and freedom -- so long as there's no quiz involved.
    The numbers are depressing: One in four Americans do not know that the U.S. declared its independence from England. One in three cannot name a single branch of government. Three in four don't know why the Civil War was fought.

    Late-night comedians and plenty of others have had fun shining a light on the dark corners of the American brain, and when faced with such obliviousness, it's surely better to laugh than cry. Better yet would be to do something about it.
    More than 90 percent of students take a civics class in high school, but on a national test given in 2010, only 27 percent of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency in the subject.

    A core purpose of public education is to prepare young people not only for college and careers, but also for the responsibilities that come with citizenship, including voting. Schools require students to meet basic standards in math and English. The same should be true of civics.
    Recently, a movement has sprung up around a simple but compelling idea: requiring high school students to pass the same citizenship test given to immigrants. In January, Arizona and North Dakota became the first states to adopt such a requirement, and 19 other states are considering it. Americans may have a constitutional right not to pay attention, but ignorance has never been an excuse for failing a test in high school -- on civics, chemistry or anything else.

    To be clear: A citizenship test is not a panacea for civic ignorance or the abysmally low voting rates that define U.S. elections. But if immigrants are expected to pass it before receiving their citizenship papers, it's reasonable to expect high school students to pass it before receiving their diploma. And it's hardly rocket science.
    The federal government's citizenship test contains the most basic kinds of questions about U.S. history and government, such as: "What did the Declaration of Independence do?" and "Who vetoes bills?" and "What is the capital of your state?" Each year, more than half a million immigrants take the test, and more than 90 percent pass. Yet a survey in 2012 found that only 65 percent of native-born citizens would pass the test, which requires answering only six out of 10 questions correctly.

    Critics of the test worry that states could use it as a replacement for civics classes, but there is no reason why the two can't coexist. In fact, states should adopt the test as part of a stronger civics curriculum with higher standards. Unfortunately, in 2013 the U.S. Department of Education suspended national exams in civics and history for 12th-graders as a result of budget cuts, making it harder to assess whether students are making progress -- and easier for schools to walk away from these subjects.
    Civic pride runs deep in American culture. It's not too much to demand that this pride be based on civic knowledge.

    https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion...313-story.html

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    US President says, "It depends on what the definition of 'IS' is"

    Muslim Billionaire brainwashes thugs into attacking US with Kamikaze Planes

    Marriage for non-parents

    Defund Police

    Lootings are reparations

    Prime time TV is full of salacious dirty talk

    US Taxes are for support of illegal immigrants

    "Trump is the greatest treat to America" --Nancy Pilosi


    STUPID STUPID STUPID


    So it doesn't appear a natural progression of Stupidity in the psychi of
    Mass-Consciousness that this would be next in the headlines?...



    And now for something completely different...?

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    Quote Originally Posted by bhaktajan View Post

    So it doesn't appear a natural progression of Stupidity in the psychi of
    Mass-Consciousness that this would be next in the headlines?...



    And now for something completely different...?
    Israel hits Beirut with nuclear missile, Trump and Lebanese Govt. confirm (New infrared images from 2 cameras)
    https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/0...-nukes-beirut/

    BREAKING: Israel Bombed Beirut
    https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2...bombed-beirut/

    FALSE FLAG OPERATION: Beirut Targeted By Devastating 9/11-Level Terrorist Attack—Who did it and Why?
    http://themillenniumreport.com/2020/...id-it-and-why/

    Like those lunatic conspiracy theory headlines?

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    Quote Originally Posted by bhaktajan View Post
    Are Americans really that dumb when it comes to civics?

    MAR 13, 2015 AT 11:00 AM

    Americans love democracy and freedom -- so long as there's no quiz involved.
    The numbers are depressing: One in four Americans do not know that the U.S. declared its independence from England. One in three cannot name a single branch of government. Three in four don't know why the Civil War was fought.

    Late-night comedians and plenty of others have had fun shining a light on the dark corners of the American brain, and when faced with such obliviousness, it's surely better to laugh than cry. Better yet would be to do something about it.
    More than 90 percent of students take a civics class in high school, but on a national test given in 2010, only 27 percent of high school seniors demonstrated proficiency in the subject.

    A core purpose of public education is to prepare young people not only for college and careers, but also for the responsibilities that come with citizenship, including voting. Schools require students to meet basic standards in math and English. The same should be true of civics.
    Recently, a movement has sprung up around a simple but compelling idea: requiring high school students to pass the same citizenship test given to immigrants. In January, Arizona and North Dakota became the first states to adopt such a requirement, and 19 other states are considering it. Americans may have a constitutional right not to pay attention, but ignorance has never been an excuse for failing a test in high school -- on civics, chemistry or anything else.

    To be clear: A citizenship test is not a panacea for civic ignorance or the abysmally low voting rates that define U.S. elections. But if immigrants are expected to pass it before receiving their citizenship papers, it's reasonable to expect high school students to pass it before receiving their diploma. And it's hardly rocket science.
    The federal government's citizenship test contains the most basic kinds of questions about U.S. history and government, such as: "What did the Declaration of Independence do?" and "Who vetoes bills?" and "What is the capital of your state?" Each year, more than half a million immigrants take the test, and more than 90 percent pass. Yet a survey in 2012 found that only 65 percent of native-born citizens would pass the test, which requires answering only six out of 10 questions correctly.

    Critics of the test worry that states could use it as a replacement for civics classes, but there is no reason why the two can't coexist. In fact, states should adopt the test as part of a stronger civics curriculum with higher standards. Unfortunately, in 2013 the U.S. Department of Education suspended national exams in civics and history for 12th-graders as a result of budget cuts, making it harder to assess whether students are making progress -- and easier for schools to walk away from these subjects.
    Civic pride runs deep in American culture. It's not too much to demand that this pride be based on civic knowledge.

    https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion...313-story.html
    the critical theorist globalists undermine civic awareness by pretending that bill of rights doesnt exist, ignorant mob violence is valid, and citizenship is racism.

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    Critical mass

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    Quote Originally Posted by bhaktajan View Post
    Critical mass
    critical mass is a moron club. their cause is literally playing in traffic.

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