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Why are smart people often really dumb?

My BIL was like that...a genius when it came to book knowledge...was brilliant with anything to do with electronics...but couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the directions on the heel...
 
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“Why are smart people often really dumb?” For starters, we can blame random YouTube videos.
Oh my - and I bet you thought you were being really clever.
 
My BIL was like that...a genius when it came to book knowledge...was brilliant with anything to do with electronics...but couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the directions on the heel...
That would be a design flaw. You would want the instructions written upside down on the outside edge of the toe.
 
This is a great video examining confirmation bias and the tendency of those on the higher end of the spectrum to be more rigid ideologically.



I don't think any of us can take a youtube cartoon supporting a biased opinion as a fact based study.
Do you have acceptable citation to offer?
 
Why don't you summarize the argument? Relying on a video but saying nothing about it doesn't cut it.

Thank you!

I ask this of opening posts all day long and people get all upset with me.

It's wild how people can't distinguish between opinion and fact or offer their own opinions.
 
he tendency of those on the higher end of the spectrum to be more rigid ideologically.

Except that is not true. There is no group with more ideological rigidity than the millions upon millions of DUMB people who are now members of the Trump cult. No matter how many outright lies he tells them, they simply lap them up and beg for more. Just how DUMB does a person have to be to do that?
 
Thank you!

I ask this of opening posts all day long and people get all upset with me.

It's wild how people can't distinguish between opinion and fact or offer their own opinions.

It should be a rule. This is advertised as a DEBATE forum, not a show videos forum. There are way too many people here who are either too lazy or too dumb to put their opinions into their own words.
 
It should be a rule. This is advertised as a DEBATE forum, not a show videos forum. There are way too many people here who are either too lazy or too dumb to put their opinions into their own words.

Often just a link appears in an opening post with a copy and paste from the link.

I have a news feed. I don't come to a debate forum for a news feed.
 
Often just a link appears in an opening post with a copy and paste from the link.

I have a news feed. I don't come to a debate forum for a news feed.

Exactly. And there are those here who literally post dozens of videos a week. What really is the point? There should be some sort of rule about them. Nobody wants to watch stupid videos. At least we can read that portion of articles that are presented that we want.
 
There is no group with more ideological rigidity than the millions upon millions of DUMB people who are now members of the Trump cult.

Educated people are far less likely to suspend critical thinking than less educated people.
It is the suspension of critical thinking that has enabled Trump.
People who do not understand how things fit together just accept anything they are told that makes them feel good
 
Educated people are far less likely to suspend critical thinking than less educated people.
It is the suspension of critical thinking that has enabled Trump.
People who do not understand how things fit together just accept anything they are told that makes them feel good
Not really accurate.

Today's education is far less likely to even teach critical thinking skills, let alone laud them; indeed, it's often the less educated who possess stronger critical thinking skills than the educated. Farmers and trades people for example. Their lives actually depend on their abilities to learn how to think critically and creatively whereas the educated can be actually handicapped by their degrees, believing because they've learned more (in class) they therefore "know" more. That is simply not true.

Ironically, it's those who imagine themselves "more educated" that are having such difficulty understanding Trump - which frankly, I find tragically hilarious. People so "smart" in their own minds they haven't the capacity to grasp their own inabilities to think critically or creatively. Moreover, such people have demonstrated themselves far more susceptible to "group think" than any group I've seen in my lifetime.
 
This is a great video examining confirmation bias and the tendency of those on the higher end of the spectrum to be more rigid ideologically.


Sorry, bud, smart people are never dumb. Those are opposites. Dumb people are never smart, either.
Why are short people often really tall?
 
Perhaps people with high intelligence just happen to have never had any experience on the subject you are familiar with.
Give them a little time to learn the subject and they just might wipe the proverbial floor with you.
 
This is a great video examining confirmation bias and the tendency of those on the higher end of the spectrum to be more rigid ideologically.



I would read the studies given in the video, and then look for more for and against the claim that "smart people" are "dumb".
 
Not really accurate.

Today's education is far less likely to even teach critical thinking skills, let alone laud them; indeed, it's often the less educated who possess stronger critical thinking skills than the educated. Farmers and trades people for example. Their lives actually depend on their abilities to learn how to think critically and creatively whereas the educated can be actually handicapped by their degrees, believing because they've learned more (in class) they therefore "know" more. That is simply not true.

Ironically, it's those who imagine themselves "more educated" that are having such difficulty understanding Trump - which frankly, I find tragically hilarious. People so "smart" in their own minds they haven't the capacity to grasp their own inabilities to think critically or creatively. Moreover, such people have demonstrated themselves far more susceptible to "group think" than any group I've seen in my lifetime.
Confusing education with intelligence is something smart people never do. Only dumb people do that.
Education has nothing to do with intelligence, and vice versa. Especially in some venues. I know a lawyer who got his baccalaureate at Magdalen College who left Oxford because, as he said, there's degrees bought at Oxford for several kinds of currency.
 
I know quite a few people who are book-smart but have no common sense. My BIL can beat all of us at trivia every time we get together but he can't find his way out of a bathroom.

Along the same lines, I've also known people all my life who are super intelligent but can't read the room. It's called Emotional Intelligence. I'll refrain from posting a Youtube video and instead post this. ;)

Emotional Intelligence: How We Perceive, Evaluate, Express, and Control Emotions​

 
This is a great video examining confirmation bias and the tendency of those on the higher end of the spectrum to be more rigid ideologically.



I found the video to be very obvious. Truthful, but obvious.

The scientific method. You establish truths. 2+2=4. The definition of gravity. Golden Rule Ethical Thinking. These are straight forward. Basic. Fundamental truths. You then grind all new data against these established truths as tests. It builds on your established truths as bits pass these tests and add to your base making you more effective in recognizing truth from fiction as your set of knowns grow.

Good character is essential. It creates the desire to seek truth and to place truth over falsehoods even if they present personal gain. Like recognizing the falsehood of situational ethics for example, even though it can be opportunistic to do otherwise.

That the obvious, like that good character is important, is added to your fundamental truths and becomes part of what you grind new data against to test its veracity.

You then apply this and learn more as experience testing this block of truths adds to the end result.

In this way we mature. We become increasing objective as that fundamental block of known truths grow and make us more effective at parsing fact from fiction in new data. One becomes increasingly objective. Common sense is the practical application of that objectivity.

Data gets parsed effectively in this matter becomes knowledge. This knowledge tested by experience becomes wisdom.

This seems all quite relevant to me, but also quite obvious. This is so NOT because I’m anything more because of it or the knowing of it makes me something above for the knowing of it. It is because it is a fundamental fact passed down in philosophical thinking. One of those truths time tested by folks smarter than myself left to be intellectually ingested. Like 2+2=4, the definition of gravity, and that it is right to treat others as we’d have ourselves treated in like circumstances. It’s a fundamental. A known. Recorded in our history, ready to be intellectually ingested.

It’s the human truths starter kit we use to teach our kids, and give them practice in using it to parse with via The Socratic Method. Something, perhaps, we should get back to?
 
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