To clarify here, I don’t feel like I’m significantly smarter than most people, but I feel like people have a hard time doing any sort of thinking about stuff. Especially when it comes to verifying “facts.”
this is the most reddit post i’ve seen on lemmy
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There seems to be a shortage of critical thinking and problem solving skills, that’s for sure.
What I see that makes it worse now than in the past is the Internet. It’s easy now to find a group that agrees with your delusions and live in an echo chamber where mistaken beliefs are not challenged.
I think the average person isn’t very bright. And that’s okay. Most of us don’t need to be discovering new maths or creating new works of art.
But anyone is going to perform worse when they’re stressed, distracted, afraid, hungry, or similar. A lot of people, that’s their daily life. Something like less than half of americans can afford a $1000 surprise bill. You’re not going to see anyone’s best showing when they’re worried about feeding themselves tomorrow.
Incidentally, republican policies suck and make more people scared, angry, and financially insecure.
I’ve seen a $2 and a $100 bill and even had a few, but where’d you get a $1000 bill? I’ve never seen one of those.
I really hope this is an on topic funny.
I might be getting wooshed because this is wordplay, but ‘bill’ in this context is used like ‘invoice’ or ‘expense’
Something like less than half of americans can afford a $1000 surprise expense.
I get it, I was just leaning into the 90%.
Buy 4 new tires for your vehicle. All at once. Take a look at the vimes “boots theory of economic injustice” principal. 1000 seems extreme to you, but getting through the winter in certain parts can be sobering.
The point isnt the dollar figure, it’s the principal.
principle
It’s funny because a principle actually is a dollar figure when talking about finances.
It is old money, and not printed anymore. $1000 bills do exist, however.
They’re basically a collectors item these days. They haven’t been in circulation since the 60s or so. Grover Cleveland is the president on the $1000 bill.
To paraphrase George Carlin, by definition half of the population is below average intelligence. But nobody thinks they’re in that bottom half.
This is interesting to me though. Didn’t most people (at least in developed countries) take tests in school? Get grades? I would think if you did below average on those you kind of…should know that you’re in the bottom half?
I get that it’s possible to make changes after schooling, and grades are only somewhat reliable (in that they also rely on effort) but still.
You ever see the people who get As in school take an aptitude test? They don’t always get high scores.
And aptitude tests themselves are flawed and usually only measure certain quantities or qualities of intelligence, and are not really a great marker for general intelligence (this is including IQ tests which have a very racist origin and history)
Not to mention grades are about doing the work and having the discipline and organizational skills. There are plenty of people who are very intelligent, but lack both of those. US testing metrics (is that the right word?) are heavily flawed. This isn’t even bringing up the racist aspect of most institutions, including educational being headed up and formulated by white people.
I’m curious. Do you think “educational” being headed up and formulated by a black person would increase scores overall? Just within black children scores?
IQ tests were first developped because it seemed obvious not all students performed equally. On average a student that is good in a given discipline will also tend to do well in other unrelated disciplines. On average is the keyword here, outliers exist.
I think gifted students can easily tell what side of the curve they’re on, even though they might not want to acknowledge it. It is not even avout the grades, because gifted students also often learn early on that they can get away by doing the minimum amount of work and still get passing grades. So they’re not necessarily top of classes.
Gifted students get told they’re fast learner all the time, and they notice how everyone else seem to be progressing in slow motion. They know.
I think it gets harder to self-evaluate the closer you are to the average, since most of your peers will be more or less just as intelligent as you. Then, the dullest you are, and the less you can identify competense and the more likely you are to be over-confident.
I think in the end, most people will end up believing they’re above average because we tend to notice dumb people a lot. Ironically it is probably students who are just slightly above average who will have the most self-doubts, because they feel different from their peers, yet they can probably tell more gifted students are around.
Source: 50% my ass, 50% being surrounded by incredibly smart people who shared their personal experiences with me.
Stupid? Maybe if verifying “facts” is your sole metric. I know people who aren’t very media savvy who fall for some stupid propaganda, but they could empty my car’s engine bay and put it back together again and have it cranking the same day. Or you can drop them in any body of water in a 250km radius and they’ll know what fish can be caught there and be able to hook an edible-sized one in half an hour or less. We don’t all have the same skill sets, but we ain’t all “stupid”.
I’d argue given enough time and effort almost anyone can become a domain expert in specific things and do incredible stuff. What distinguishes smart people from simpler folks usually boils down to them having a very easy time processing new stuff, which includes the ability to filter noise and fact check.
I don’t like the term “stupid”, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of evidence supporting the idea that human intelligence is compartimented. Humans with high IQs tend to outperform in average at most of what they try. Low IQ probably means you will work harder and have to specialize to achieve the same degree of competency. This just my hot take, I’ve fallen into this rabbit hole before and read a lot on the origin of IQs tests. In the end, intelligence alone does not determine a person’s worth anyway.
The feeling of the intelligence or stupidity in others is all relative.
For example an IQ around 170 or above makes somebody have a 1-in-a-million level of intelligence, so for such a person 99.9999% of the population feels less intelligent, with the level felt as “stupid” being a lot higher than average intelligence, to the point that for such a person “entry level” geniouses - those people with an IQ just above 120 - often feel “stupid”.
And then there is the whole non-IQ factor to the feeling that somebody is “stupid” - for example, intelligence (even the 170 IQ level) can be “stupid” (more broadly “fool”, “gullible”, “weird” and so on) because of lack of wisdom, life experience (in the sense of having lived, as age by itself means little for those who don’t do much living) or even just social awkwardness. (The Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, though a stereotypical portrait, is quite a good example of that difference between “intelligence” and “smarts” or “wisdom”)
You could say that IQ is computing power but with the wrong software or bad data, it’s still going to underperform.
Personally, I think it’s best not to go around passing judgment in such absolutist terms as “stupid” since we’re all “stupid” in some domains and often one’s “I’m so much smarter than these people” feeling is nothing more than a case of the Dunning-Krugger Effect.
High intelligence people, especially, need to learn that IQ by itself is not enough and take to hearth Socrate’s dictum: “All I know is that I know nothing” (or, as I read it: “The more I learn, the more find out I have yet to learn”)
There’s also what another comment pointed out. It’s not so much that most of us are stupid but that we’re not really equipped for the internet as a species. We get bombarded with too much crap from all directions, get stuck on echo-chambers, and don’t really fact-check, even when we do, because you can’t just fact-check everything that’s thrown at you 24/7. It’s a lot easier to not care, or care too much without substantiating your beliefs.
For example, Covid wasn’t the first time the anti-mask, anti-Vax, conspiracy theorist, all-around crazy movement popped out their head. It wasn’t the first time money beat forethought. It wasn’t the first for much of the negative shit we saw, and yet for me it marked the moment I lost hope for the future of our species, after all, how can we hope to deal with stuff as huge and hard to see as climate change if we can’t even believe the existence of a virus that’s actively killing us? Are they all stupid for not putting in some effort to prevent this virus from spreading and killing millions? Am I stupid for thinking they would? Am I stupid for losing hope due to listening to all these stories of people fighting masks and vaccines? How many people worldwide actually fought back and resisted? You see it in my own words, I’m sort of convinced the crazies got riled up, and for sure in some parts of the world they did, but the scope of the internet spreads all sentiments on the matter to every corner of our interconnectedness, before we’re even aware it’s happening. All of a sudden we’re seeing conclusions from all sides without checking for how they all got where they did nor how many people actually believe it, we pick one side, maybe skim over another, and decry the rest as insane and sometimes even malevolent. These republicans sure want their voters dead or at the very least are too stupid to understand the dangers of the virus, this bill gates guy sure wants everyone microchipped or at the very least wants the medical world in his hands, these Chinese fellows for sure developed and released the virus or at the very least had it slip from their fingers. How am I supposed to know, or care, for all of it? How is any of us? Is it our personal responsibility to know and clear every fact we can? Spread awareness and fact-check everything? Just shut up and don’t get involved? What the fuck do we do, what can we do? Do we fight dissenting voices online? Do we march on the streets over beliefs we might not fully grasp nor could we?
We’re just a bit too overloaded with everything to make a good job as a species about anything. At least that’s what I think, at least for the individuals that make up our species. Whatever you choose to believe, whatever actions you choose to take in response, someone somewhere will see you and think you’re an absolute idiot… And, I think, there’s not much to do about it.
That stuff was mainly an US phenomenon and, IMHO, was quite a good display of how easy it is to tickle people’s emotions so that they override reason: mask-wearing and vaccination was turned into a kind of tribalist signal by manipulative politicians and for the vast majority of people the need to fit in (an other emotional aspects of tribalism) easilly override rationalism (which isn’t even practiced in any sistematic way by most people) so you ended up with people treating the whole thing in the most irrational way and denialism being almost entirelly a phenomenon of just one political and social tribe in the American society.
In countries were tribes are less adversarial (for example, places with voting systems that do not mathematically favour a power duopoly) or were none of the dominant tribes turned Covid denialism into a tribal thing, vaccination takes were much higher and refusal to wear a mask near non-existent (especially because the kicking out of the handful of mask-wearing refusers from places like supermarkets was approved by an overwhelming majority of people).
Mind you, had some local tribe taken that up as a tribal flag, you would see the same phenomenon as the US, maybe not as much because almost no other Democracy has such a rigged voting system and hence the power split into two sides with a wide chasm in between when it comes to social and moral issues.
In my opinion as a species we might have came up with quite a lot of fancy tech in the last handfull of millenia but we haven’t evolved that much as intelligent beings, both individually and in our social structures.
In my experience, I have found the least intelligent people to also be the most vocal, which makes it look like they are overrepresented in the population.
They’re insecure about their intelligence but too prideful to admit when they don’t know something, even to themselves.
the only cure for that condition is showing them how stupid they are, so that everyone can see
this.
I would put more but it would mess up the comedy. anyway go to a public library and look at folks on the computers. If you are old enough you will remember that going to like a 7/11 or such there always seemed to be some crazy guy talking to himself. You never see them now because they are on the internet all day.
90% of people feel like that
What you’re really saying is “other people aren’t as smart as me.”
I like xkcd but I feel like Munroe is being assumptive here, assuming “your expectations are based on you”. Are they?
Yeah, “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence. This whole panel is an example of a straw man fallacy to undermine someone saying “people are stupid”.
Sure, “stupid” isn’t defined around average intelligence, but “people” is defined around the average person. So, by saying “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence, you’re really criticizing the phrase “people are stupid”…
…which is exactly what this comic is doing
Saying “people are stupid” is the same as saying “the average person is stupid”. What’s hard to understand here?
Frankly, that is just a big pile of babble.
but “people” is defined [SIC] around the average person
There’s no “definition” here. The closest to what you said that would make some sense would be “but “people” implies a generalisation around the average person”, but it doesn’t work in your argument because it does not contradict what BananaTrifleViolin said. Nor it justifies your assumption that
by saying “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence, you’re really criticizing the phrase “people are stupid”…
I genuinely think that you did not understand what the other poster said, so I’ll repeat it under different words.
The comic has an implicit definition of stupidity as “lower than average intelligence” (see panel 2).
BananaTrifleViolin is highlighting that this is not the definition that people use for “stupid” when they say “people are stupid”. And that leads to a fallacy called “straw man”, where you misrepresent a position to beat it. Munroe (the cartoonist) is doing this, either by accident or on purpose. (It is not the first time he does this; his comic about free speech also shows the same irrationality.)
I dunno your country or your premise, but I can state pretty confidently that the American school system is completely and utterly failing to prepare Gen Z. Working adjacent to the schools, even amongst the best and brightest the country has to offer are thousands upon thousands of students who fundamentally do not know how to think for themselves about anything.
All this to say, depending on if you’re in the U.S., things might just keep getting worse. Especially if you’re living in a deeply conservative state, I would not be surprised if the number really was 90%. It’s really sad, but that’s what happens when you attack public schools for decades.
fundamentally do not know how to think for themselves about anything.
What’s sad is, that’s the point. That’s how they get prepared for the future.
A future where they work for their rulers and don’t cause controversy.
Saddest part is, their teachers who should be encouraging intrigue and free thought are usually the first ones to fight back against it in their classroom. All to make their job easier, lol.
All to make their job easier, lol.
Not a teacher, but what I keep reading is that they’re trying not to get pilloried by students’ screaming MAGA parents.
It’s not necessarily the teachers’ fault. Most of the teachers I’ve talked to legitimately want to help students. The issue is the administrations. I have school counselors who are refusing to write letters of recommendation for full-ride scholarships. Principals who don’t know what a pdf is. Testing coordinators who literally cannot read.
It infuriates me that most of the money that goes to schools ends up in the pockets of these administrative bureaucrats that do not care about children in the slightest. At best they are grossly incompetent, at worst they are actively malicious.
It’s definitely not their fault, per se.
They’re just doing their job. It’s how the system is set up.
The best teachers I’ve had were ones that routinely went outside of the curriculum to engage with students on a human level. But current trends in academia heavily discourage that.
See I don’t buy into this. To me, this is getting into seriously conspiracy theory stuff. I don’t think that there is some grand plan to keep people stupid so that they don’t cause trouble.
I think the system just fails at educating students well due to a variety of factors.
I think we live in an age where advertisements are literally gaslighting, and also where large portions of the population are bombarded with advertisements on a daily basis. I’m not surprised if people’s grip on reality gets a little wobbly, resisting all that propaganda is a lot of effort.
I think adblocking is the best thing I’ve done for my children.
Think about all those poor youtubers and the platform itself.
Lol obvious sarcasm, fuck 'm and the insane amount of ads that are nowadays considered normal.
That’s a lot more complex than people are stupid. Occam’s razor.
I would like to believe this is sarcasm, but it’s impossible to distinguish fake stupidity from real stupidity; Poe’s law.
I don’t think most people are stupid if stupid means lacking reasoning skills or knowledge or curiosity. You can find all sorts of people who you’d think sound stupid but know tons about one subject. But even if they don’t, they likely have a working knowledge base and only know what they need to know.
What I consider stupid or problematic is that most people, probably 75% or more of the overall population, are not skeptical or analytical and have a fundamentally busted epistemology. Even if your information filter works, if you don’t understand why it works, I’m going to struggle in conversation with you. So yes I think the general population has a hard time thinking critically because they don’t know how to analyze their own beliefs or knowledge.
Your description fits my brother perfectly.
He has very little curiosity, hasn’t read more than 3 books in his entire life, strongly dislikes all forms of art (except shitty movies and TV-shows), isn’t capable of analytical or critical thinking and hasn’t got a clue how the political system works.
He apes the attitudes of his spouse and friends, so much that I’m not sure he even has any opinions of his own.
Yet this doesn’t bother him at all. He’s very happy being oblivious and he makes more than twice as much money per month than I do with my master’s degree. He is very good at what he does and I’m happy for him.
It would still be nice to be able to have a real conversation with him, instead of just stating the factual matters or laughing at some dumb jokes. If we both didn’t share such a strong resemblance of our dad I’d assume that my mom had an affair, beyond our appearance we have almost nothing else in common.
I feel like I personally make up for a lot of other people’s skepticism
The fact that this post has more up- than downvotes is already an indication, that the majority seems to agree with you.
Everybody thinks that everybody else is stupid.
This exactly. Everyone also thinks they’re the best driver on the road and everyone else is an idiot. It’s good to humble yourself everyone now n’ then.
Just once I wanna see a dude do a bitchin’ flip on the highway (without it being an accident that results in a crash) and humble me. Is that so much to ask?
I usually feel like most people I talk to are smarter than me.
There’s an old proverb I like about this: a person is smart but people are dumb.
People en masse tend to be dumber than they are apart. I think you’re comparing yourself to the faceless masses. It’s much more humbling to try comparing yourself to someone you respect (but don’t do it as a “I’m not as good as them” thing, only do it as a “goals to maybe achieve one day” thing to avoid accidentally trashing your self esteem)
Side note: old proverb here means I think my dad said it once but I have no idea where it actually came from
Tommy Lee Jones says this in Men in Black, no idea if it was coined before that though.
I choose to believe Agent K came up with it.
“The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its dumbest member divided by the number of mobsters.” (attributed to Terry Pratchett)
None of us is as dumb as all of us.
a person is smart but people are dumb.
Whoever says that pretty much qualifies as dumb in my book.
Collective deision-making is superior.
It depends. Group psychology like mass delusion is well known. Collective decision making works in specific circumstances where the majority have some idea about what the problem is.
Collective decision making works in specific circumstances where the majority have some idea about what the problem is.
So you’re saying that the only obstacle to effective collective decision-making is the withholdiing of relevant information?
I think you meant “the ability to learn” because you’re not getting better answers from groups of non-physicists about the geometries of black holes than from individual experts regardless of how much information you give them
individual experts
Sooooo… are you suggesting that individual physicists would be better off working in isolation? That must be what you are suggesting… since nothing that I have said suggested anything about groups of people making collective decisions about matters that are completely arbitrary.
Just linking to an article about collective decision making isn’t really that helpful without quoting the article for your points.
So that article you posted talks about animal behavior, and that an economic view on collective decision making is a good approach for animal behavior.
As motivated in the Introduction, our review has focused primarily on an economic view on collective decision-making. The economic view is a staple of behavioural ecology, and motivates the tools of optimal decision theory for the study of animal behaviour.
Nowhere did they make the conclusion that collecting decision making is superior, especially in the context of humans.
especially in the context of humans.
Were you not aware that humans are animals?
I’ve always felt like most people lack problem solving skills. Nobody knows how to use Google or just figure things out themselves. Friends often call me for tech support but it’s often very basic things like how to plug in an HDMI cable or how to fix an error that says how to fix it in the error code.
I work tech support too and deal with behavior like this daily. 90% of what I do is simple things that can be found on the first Google result. People open tickets asking how to unmute their microphone in Teams, it’s ridiculous.
error messages thing, man.
I had a user complain that they “didn’t know what to do” with the error message “Your calendar access has expired, please click this button to reconnect. [Big orange button saying “Reconnect”]”
I said “Did you click reconnect?”
“No”
it immediately fixed it.
I know and have dealt with very highly educated and intelligent people who just can’t do proper thorough problem evaluation and solving, and I don’t mean just hands on practical things, I mean obtaining information, thinking a situation through and coming out with an explanation and possible solutions.
I think it’s really a question of practice in Analytical Reasoning, which people in STEM have lots of because that’s what those domains require (try designing a bridge using persuasion techniques from Business Management and see what happens) so they constantly practice it, but most other areas don’t so people there have little practice in that mode or reasoning (but lots of practice in other ways of thinking).
You see it here tons of times: people who clearly are intelligent and educated arguing via semantics, appeals to emotion and just about a ton of falacies, all of which are noticeable as obviously flawed in logical terms with just a tiny bit of analytical thinking.
One thing I learned from my period of contact with the Theatre world some years ago (pretty much the opposite of what I do for a living), is that there are many ways of being highly intelligent (it was quite suprising for me the intelligence required to be a good actor) and maybe is better not to judge or, worse, to presume.
To sum up everything you said.
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
