Stupidity as a Tribal Identifer

[rodant_kapoor]

Kapoor has been thinking about stupidity-specifically, why people choose to believe stupid things-and has come to the conclusion that a great deal of stupidity is voluntary. Voluntary is different from native stupidity or simple ignorance in which one's honestly not bright enough to make a given decision, or makes a bad decision based on a lack of

Comments

[eggshellhammer]

Being smarter is fatiguing as heck.

[athelind]

I can't remember where I first stumbled across it -- I think it might have been in Senator Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action, but I've never been able to find the exact phrase during the times I've re-read it -- but someone once asserted that human beings do not have an instinct for self-preservation so much as an instinct for self-image preservation. That's why human beings will lay down their lives for a principle or a cause or for "honor".

Of course, this isn't always a negative thing; a careful cultivation of the appropriate self-image in Boot Camp is one reason why, for example, the Coast Guard will go out in dangerous, life-threatening conditions to rescue people who didn't know any better.

[leonard_arlotte]

Simply being able to say 'I may be wrong' is the biggest hurdle that people have to face. In this day and age, it is avoided all too often, because it's easier to just restate your opinion even louder, as though increased volume makes it more factual.

[jthinktoomuch]

I tried one time in church to have a conversation about the health care reform that was being put forward. I found out that this was a mistake. A man I viewed as otherwise intelligent and trustworthy had swallowed the idea that it was going to ruin small business and was a liberal and immoral plot.

Science is not well thought of there, and I no longer go back.... But this post was funny...

Reminds me of this Comic Recently (it is work appropriate or clean)
http://www.gppcomic.com/2010/10/22/remember-thats-1-555-ugo-migo/