Principles for navigating stupidity

[LordFall]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@trenton The best thing you can do to stave off stupid people is to run your own business so that no stupid people can be your boss.

If you work hard, you can have enough wealth to avoid much stupidity.

This is mainly the answer. Complaining about stupid people if you're intelligent you should see it as victimizing yourself. It just means that you lack communication skills, empathy or self-sufficiency. Worry about your own lack of competence instead of other people who you will rarely be able to change.

Why do you need to have political debates? Gain power and change the world. 

Why do you need friction against rigid institutions? Create your own. 

If you study systems thinking you will realize that human systems are created to benefit mostly those who created them. Complaining about them not benefitting you enough is obviously peak stupidity. Integrate within them as much as you have to, reverse engineer them and make your own. 

[Jodistrict]

There is always Socrates method of dealing with stupid people.  Keep asking them questions until they realize for themselves that they don’t know what they are talking about.  But then Socrates ended up being executed. 

[lostingenosmaze]

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

No one in the comments regards themselves as stupid. It's always someone else. Interesting.

Nah, I know I'm stupid 🤓 I just don't need someone else to validate it for me. I have a feeling others may feel the same.

Confessing your ignorance to others is another matter than admitting it honestly to yourself.

[UnbornTao]

1 hour ago, lostingenosmaze said:

Nah, I know I'm stupid 🤓 I just don't need someone else to validate it for me. I have a feeling others may feel the same.

This could be a sincere assessment but if hurting yourself is the goal, then the assessment lacks objectivity, in my view. But I wouldn't be so hard on myself either way.

1 hour ago, lostingenosmaze said:

Confessing your ignorance to others is another matter than admitting it honestly to yourself.

Definitely. Although you mentioned ignorance here, which is different.

Without any judgment attached, we're all ignorant to some degree. That's natural. By its very nature we're likely to be ignorant of the vast majority of our ignorance - we don't know what we don't know.

A core aspect of stupidity might be an insensitivity to one's ignorance - failing to recognize it when opportunities and feedback are presented - defending it unwittingly, and getting stuck with it. Or: not learning, failing to see whether one is learning anything new. Finding learning threatening to one's identity and view of the world.

And who can say with all honesty they haven't done this to some degree? Maybe that is how this process has to go.

Edited 1 hour ago by UnbornTao