Help me refine my definition of dumb

Great Debates
1

I wasn’t sure if this was the proper forum, but I assure you I don’t consider this frivolous.

Let me start with my hypothesis: Most people are dumb.

As in a large majority. It’s a major reason Trump gets tens of millions of votes (though naked bigotry and self-interest are in play, obviously). It’s why I’m concluding that democracy is a seriously flawed political system, to the extent we rely on the general populace to make serious decisions and they regularly cock it up.

I’m not talking about people who have policy disagreements with me. I mean people, for example, who vote for Trump because “he tells it like it is.”

How do I define “dumb”? Glad you asked:

  • Extremely weak (or virtually nonexistent) critical thinking skills. The worst of these people couldn’t logic their way out of a wet paper bag.

  • Inability to formulate a coherent argument. Any assertion or explanation is riddled with non sequiturs and circular reasoning.

  • Inability to formulate, articulate, or possibly even conceptualize a coherent set of moral principles. “Jesus says we should help the less fortunate. Also, fuck those asylum seekers.”

  • No self awareness, and no desire to curb, the human tendency to let emotions cloud what should be rational, fact-based conclusions.

  • Another self awareness factor: Call it Dunning Kruger. Call it credulous acceptance of dodgy sources of info. But it’s astounding how many people do not recognize the shortcomings we all have in our own backgrounds and education. Fauci is an expert on infectious disease. I am in no position to counter anything he offers.

  • I guess this is a subset of the last, already mentioned but worth calling out. Zero ability to select credible info sources in disciplines where someone is inexpert. Watching a link from vaccinehater23 on X is not research.

To be clear, this includes people I love. Real sweethearts, many of them. Smart enough to make a living, pay their taxes, raise children. But not up to the task of complex thought.

None of us are perfect relative to the above criteria. But to me, someone needs to be at least solid in each to be drummed out of the dummy corps. I realize this is squishy. But it’s something that fascinates me given the collective power this sub-population has over momentous outcomes.

One last thing. I tend toward the Forrest Gump “stupid is as stupid does” school of thought. If someone has the capacity for critical thinking, for example, but rejects the need to develop or use that capacity, that’s close enough to dumb for me.

What does the SDMB say? With complete sincerity, I can think of no other forum better populated by smarties, so I welcome thoughts, adds, refinements (or rejections).

And what do we do with this analysis? Not exactly sure. Perhaps we’ll establish a superior political system, one that benefits the many without relying on their decision making.

Or, based on my thread-starting history, the thread will drop like a stone into the board’s basement. :grinning:

2

Some people are not limited in the criteria you’ve suggested but still willing to suspend disbelief and favor anything that feels right or good. Anyone can end up believing a comfortable story instead of an uncomfortable truth.

3

IMHO. We fight ignorance here, not much you can actually do about dumb on a message board. Then there is willful ignorance, some people just want to argue. Debating over the definition of dumb is somewhat dumb in itself, as it opens itself up to abuse.

4

That’s what I tried to convey with the fourth bullet.

5

This is the thing. There are plenty of people who believe in one or another version of bat-shittery or wing-nuttery because they want to, not because they are stupid. Linus Pauling wasn’t dumb by any reasonable definition of the word. Bill Barr isn’t stupid, either.

But they were/are laser-focused on their bugbears and visions of paradise, because that is what resonates with them as people. As long as we refuse to be Vulcans (stupid humanity!) emotional wants and needs are frequently going to override rationality. I see it happening with myself all the time.

Being dumb doesn’t help. But not being dumb will not come anywhere close to preventing people from being dumbasses.

6

How dare you, sir. Pistols at dawn!

7

The best definition I’ve read is this:

“A smart person may benefit at other people’s expense. But a dumb person hurts others and himself. Nobody benefits from the actions of a dumb person.”

8

I think my definition of smart is someone who regularly (not necessarily always) arrives at reasonable, fact-based conclusions. A dummy does not. So, even if you don’t check off everything on the list, an egregious-enough fault in a single one can be enough.

Also, I think people can be dumb in a single area, and perfectly reasonable elsewhere, though there’s no lack of all-purpose nitwits.

9

Here on the Dope, intellectualism, rationalism and logic are valorized, as they say in academia. Those are not virtues, or markers of excellence, or reasons for pride. They are, possibly, tools for understanding, but you can easily be evil, useless, and/or socially maladapted, and have all those things in spades.

Many people who lack the specific talents beloved on the Dope have ethics, generosity, compassion, and common sense which elevates them above most people on this board, certainly including myself. I have met them.

I also believe that the illogical and willfully ignorant adoration of trump is far more due to him tapping into the deep and very often perfectly understandable resentments of a certain class of people, and transmuting their individualized miseries into a focused collective rage, than any innate stupidity. If you have never felt the ecstatic joy of being of one mind with a furious mob, you cannot understand the appeal of trump. It isn’t about logic, but emotion, group emotion.

I will note here that I will be bowing out of the Dope at least for the period of Lent, which is forty days that begin tomorrow. This post is pretty similar to the rest of my posts, and I don’t think anyone is going to miss them.

10

I’ll miss your participation. BTW, we will savage your final contribution here, with copious ridicule and horse laughs, while you’re away.

11

An archaic (?) term for mutism.

12

There is a widespread attitude that’s sort of an Ockham’s Razor attitude, that there’s a simple (and obvious) answer to everything, that common sense and a half-second of just looking at something is entirely sufficient for figuring everything out. And that therefore all complexity and all claims to unexpected or counterintuitive truths are pretentious bullshit.

It takes a lot of different forms and can be found attached to a wide range of subject material, but yes, when you’re a person with a solid reason for embracing a complex or counterintuitive insight and then you run into it, it comes across as willfully and proudly stupid as a stump.

13

I see that you must have meant that by the use of a comma before the and to decouple the two requirements.

14

Laurel and Hardy. Stan was stupid. He acted at the level of a child. But Oliver was dumb. He even said it was how he created his character: “The dumbest guy there is: the one who thinks he’s smart.”

15

Did you ever notice “Democracy” isn’t mentioned, not even once, in the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights? There’s good reason for that.

16

I used to have this argument with a friend many years ago. His mother was trying to run a business supporting local Catholic missions, supplying all the Catholic Stuff they needed, like books and rosaries and the like. He kept telling his mother that she could make more money if she supplied things to all religions, and it drove him nuts that she was leaving money on the table.

I’d tell him, “Motivations are almost always irrational, but how we go about doing the things we are motivated to do can be rational.” His mom didn’t want to make money, she wanted to support the Catholic community. With the proper understanding of her motive, her actions were entirely reasonable.

Really dumb people can’t make that connection. They have irrational motivations like the rest of us, but they then try to act in ways that don’t really advance their desired outcomes. Like, they “want more freedom”, so they vote for the Republicans, who keep passing laws to restrict voting, ban abortion, censor books, and force queer people out of the public sphere.

17

I have two quotes for you.

It’s a well-worn trope with some truth to it.

18

My theory is that Trump acts like he is an alpha male. And there are a certain number of people who are wired in such a way as to think they must follow the alpha. If the alpha tells them to jump off a cliff, over they go.

This is basic primate behaviour so humans presumably have this psychology buried inside their brains somewhere.

19

He’s like the gorilla who rolled around in silver paint and now other gorillas defer to him.

20

BTW - my theory also explains why those same supporters seem to hate female politicians so much.

I’m thinking of publishing my theories.