The average person is dumbfoundingly stupid

[Meeksauce]

The problem goes like this - Every person alive thinks they are above average in intelligence, but how would it be possible for the entire population to be above average? The problem is people don't question their own minds and they don't question their own perceived intelligence level. It just goes completely unchecked for 99.9% of the population. The average person is stuck in one paradigm and is hard locked into the idea that they are right about everything. That means you, reading this. You might think a spiritual forum like Leo's is a place where highly intelligent people would gather, but no, even here stupidity runs rampant. Not that there aren't diamonds in the rough, but for most people they just assume they're the diamond. It's a very tricky trap, but once you start to escape it you can't unsee that all of society is completely brainwashed. A lot of people will never become intelligent because they lack the bandwidth to perceive and understand intelligence. Again - Leo talks about this endlessly - but assuming "yeah I'm fine, it's just everyone else" IS the core problem. That's the very thing that needs to be examined.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 minute ago, Meeksauce said:

 That's the very thing that needs to be examined.

Even the original premise too - that also needs inspection.

Less it become a limiting belief.

[Meeksauce]

1 minute ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Even the original premise too - that also needs inspection.

Less it become a limiting belief.

So transcend everything, nothing can ever be right? ...ok

[integral]

23 minutes ago, Meeksauce said:

So transcend everything, nothing can ever be right? ...ok

Using someones position against itself to see it it holds up to its own logic is a old socrates method.

They use is to create endless speculation in philosophy so no position can ever be true. lol

It can have some value but its so overused that at this point it feels like gaslighting because the speculator does not work with any of the content, they dismiss it all by going down this path. 

A better way is to extract the true/partial truth from every perspective and expand/build from there.

But most intellectual, rational types, think that if they can debunked something, the whole thing has to be thrown out the window. Because they're in this bubble of true false logic. Instead of learning to integrate and synthesize things into a larger perspective. 

Edited yesterday at 03:36 PM by integral

[Sugarcoat]

Stupid compared to what?

[Schizophonia]

Who is the common point between all these people.

[Meeksauce]

10 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Stupid compared to what?

What humans are actually capable of. We're massively undershooting our potential

[Meeksauce]

10 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

Who is the common point between all these people.

Cultural brainwashing is the common point. Lack of epistemology and tier II thinking.

[bazera]

11 hours ago, Meeksauce said:

The problem goes like this - Every person alive thinks they are above average in intelligence, but how would it be possible for the entire population to be above average? The problem is people don't question their own minds and they don't question their own perceived intelligence level.

Questioning oneself and one's intelligence itself assumes an above average abilities and self-awareness, which is in question in the first place.

Proper education would help fixing that issue. Also helping people grow up in their developmental levels. But there's lots of factors that come into play when it comes to the reasons why most people aren't able to do either of those.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

12 hours ago, Meeksauce said:

So transcend everything, nothing can ever be right? ...ok

That is your meaning you have taken away from my statement. I'm just saying, always investigate what a belief is doing for you. Intellectually and more importantly, emotionally.

[Meeksauce]

1 hour ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

That is your meaning you have taken away from my statement. I'm just saying, always investigate what a belief is doing for you. Intellectually and more importantly, emotionally.

That was already my point. I don't think the premise of "question your own mind" itself needs to be questioned. That's just needlessly circular. And I wouldn't have written this post if I wasn't already doing that for myself.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

26 minutes ago, Meeksauce said:

That was already my point. I don't think the premise of "question your own mind" itself needs to be questioned. That's just needlessly circular. And I wouldn't have written this post if I wasn't already doing that for myself.

My comment was made in good faith. I don't know who I am talking to or where they are at on the path - so no need to feel insulted. Just a broad line of enquiry I thought relevant - and not necessarily directed at yourself - for there are many readers here who this applies to. My thoughts on the topic went toward applying the assessment as a judgement vs a discernment. The distinction between the two is very powerful and good to be clear on.

I personally think all lines of questioning are worth it - even if to discard them.

None offence was meant

Edited 13 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Meeksauce]

55 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

My comment was made in good faith. I don't know who I am talking to or where they are at on the path - so no need to feel insulted. Just a broad line of enquiry I thought relevant - and not necessarily directed at yourself - for there are many readers here who this applies to. My thoughts on the topic went toward applying the assessment as a judgement vs a discernment. The distinction between the two is very powerful and good to be clear on.

I personally think all lines of questioning are worth it - even if to discard them.

None offence was meant

I get what you mean, I can take a harsher tone without actually meaning ill will sort of like Leo. My apologies if that was too much

[Natasha Tori Maru]

10 minutes ago, Meeksauce said:

I get what you mean, I can take a harsher tone without actually meaning ill will sort of like Leo. My apologies if that was too much

It's all good! I have to remind myself often, that my open questions can appear to carry doubt as a smuggled in meaning. 

You were right to lean on questions not being in good faith - it is sort of a condition on the forum. And society at large. 

Good faith discussions should be assumed - but this is an ideal. And we all know where ideals lead LOL

But considering approximately 54% of American adults (aged 16 to 74) read below a 6th-grade level, with about 21% being functionally illiterate - most people are on the stupid spectrum, and it is a correct assessment. People are either stupid, or ignorant (or both). Which can lead to the same outcomes.

Edited 12 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Meeksauce]

19 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It's all good! I have to remind myself often, that my open questions can appear to carry doubt as a smuggled in meaning. 

You were right to lean on questions not being in good faith - it is sort of a condition on the forum. And society at large. 

Good faith discussions should be assumed - but this is an ideal. And we all know where ideals lead LOL

But considering approximately 54% of American adults (aged 16 to 74) read below a 6th-grade level, with about 21% being functionally illiterate - most people are on the stupid spectrum, and it is a correct assessment. People are either stupid, or ignorant (or both). Which can lead to the same outcomes.

After a certain point you kinda just assume everyone is trying to tear your ideas down, but that's not always the case. Open-mindedness can be challenging. And yeah the literacy rate is absolutely plummeting, I think covid played a large part in making gen Alpha illiterate and education-resistant. Even if people have the basic foundations of intelligence, and are literate, ideology is the next barrier that most people will never surpass. Ideology and cultural bias is most of the reason why we even have wars and conflict.

[Schizophonia]

7 hours ago, Meeksauce said:

Cultural brainwashing is the common point. Lack of epistemology and tier II thinking.

No i meant the nature of comprehension of the world is projective so if you see stupid people it means you're stupid yourself in denial.

It's logical if you were particularly intelligent your attention would go toward intelligents things people and egregors in general and you would regularly contact intelligence; but insofar as you're actually not experiencing there same frequencies whatever your ego/mental can say you see "stupidity". 

Edited 8 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Meeksauce]

43 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

No i meant the nature of comprehension of the world is projective so if you see stupid people it means you're stupid yourself in denial.

It's logical if you were particularly intelligent your attention would go toward intelligents things people and egregors in general and you would regularly contact intelligence; but insofar as you're actually not experiencing there same frequencies whatever your ego/mental can say you see "stupidity". 

I don't buy it

[Sugarcoat]

9 hours ago, Meeksauce said:

What humans are actually capable of. We're massively undershooting our potential

I see.

What I meant by my comment, was kind of how, in order for you to recognize that the average population is "dumbfoundingly stupid" you'd have to reach some kind of higher intelligence yourself 

So it was attempt to expose how your post might imply you see yourself as higher intelligence. Not that it couldn't be true, but it sounded like you excluded yourself from the category of people who would see themselves that way

[LastThursday]

21 hours ago, Meeksauce said:

Every person alive thinks they are above average in intelligence, but how would it be possible for the entire population to be above average? The problem is people don't question their own minds and they don't question their own perceived intelligence level. It just goes completely unchecked for 99.9% of the population.

The thing is, intelligence is not just one thing on a sliding scale. It is multiple things. I could be intelligent at Chess but stupid at cooking. It's not even clear if skill equals intelligence, I could be skilful at tic-tac-toe but is that really intelligence? Is just having knowledge equal to intelligence, am I intelligent if I know all the capital cities?

You are right though that most people probably overestimate their own abilities. But even saying that is problematic. I can measure my skill in Chess fairly easily, but how do I measure my skill in cooking: how do I know how much ability I have in something? You can only know by comparison and measurement, but life's too short to be measuring everything all the time. Most people don't know their own level in anything, you can't blame them.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by LastThursday

[Basman]

Humans have evolved to conserve energy. It's less that the average person is dumb and more like they don't bother expending the energy to expand their worldview. Especially if they are very conformist and haven't had the privilege of education.

But there also different kinds of intelligence. It's unintelligent to measure intelligence by a single metric. A lot of users here are quiet autistic and are unintelligent in certain ways where the average person would be more intelligent, like social skills or sanity.