The Dunning-Kruger Effect: The real problem with America

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LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
This seems to be a very real problem. Too many on the right are too stupid to understand what their own intellectual shortfalls are. You see it on this forum every day. You see it in candidates such as Palin, O'Donnel, Angle...etc. You see these idiots shout from the rooftops without any logic, reason, or basis. They do it because they cannot understand they are stupid.

What's worse is that these are the people the stupid people are advocating.

We have fallen far as a population. Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams...etc, may not have all been the best educated, but they were smart. They were intelligent. They had logic. Now we think that the dumber the person, the better. It started with Reagan and rolled through to GW.

Why the battle against intellectualism? Because the stupid people are too stupid to understand they are too stupid to understand.

http://www.demsfightinwords.com/wordpress/?p=2837

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
 
kranky

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
156
106
Isn't the Dunning-Kruger effect about skills? Not sure how that can be extrapolated to opinions.
 
Zebo

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Every child is told how wonderful they are maybe? Teach to lowest common denominator? We don't have HS chess teams anymore? Who knows...maybe you're just really smart and people were always stupid but have no frame of reference such as time.
 
M

Mursilis

Diamond Member
Mar 11, 2001
7,756
11
81
LegendKiller said:
This seems to be a very real problem. Too many on the right are too stupid to understand what their own intellectual shortfalls are.
Click to expand...

You start out with a valid point, but immediately turn it into a partisan troll post. Nice work. It's not as if the Left doesn't have the same issue, promising all sorts of "free" lunches and creating senses of entitlement and dependency. Just look at Greece for an example of left-leaning idiocracy.
 
StageLeft

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
Mursilis said:
You start out with a valid point, but immediately turn it into a partisan troll post. Nice work. It's not as if the Left doesn't have the same issue, promising all sorts of "free" lunches and creating senses of entitlement and dependency. Just look at Greece for an example of left-leaning idiocracy.
Click to expand...
Or France. Today yet more protests about the government trying to raise them a mere 2 years.
 
Doc Savage Fan

Doc Savage Fan

Lifer
Nov 30, 2006
15,456
389
121
Mursilis said:
You start out with a valid point, but immediately turn it into a partisan troll post. Nice work. It's not as if the Left doesn't have the same issue, promising all sorts of "free" lunches and creating senses of entitlement and dependency. Just look at Greece for an example of left-leaning idiocracy.
Click to expand...
The Dunning-Kruger Effect in action right before our very eyes! I can't stop laughing at the OP!
 
Thump553

Thump553

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
12,839
2,625
136
Mursilis said:
You start out with a valid point, but immediately turn it into a partisan troll post. Nice work. It's not as if the Left doesn't have the same issue, promising all sorts of "free" lunches and creating senses of entitlement and dependency. Just look at Greece for an example of left-leaning idiocracy.
Click to expand...

You raise an excellent point (especially regarding France and Greece) but in the USA the overwhelming majority of the anti-thought, govern by faith or doctrine illogical candidates seem to come from the tea bag sector-and they feverently argue that their weaknesses are virtues.

I'm personally worried because one of these won the GOP nomination for Attorney General in my state and I'm greatly concerned too few people know how truely wacky and out of touch she is. I mean, how many voters know the names of the Attorney General candidates, much less what their positions are?
 
GroundedSailor

GroundedSailor

Platinum Member
Feb 18, 2001
2,502
0
76
LegendKiller said:
This seems to be a very real problem. Too many on the right are too stupid to understand what their own intellectual shortfalls are. You see it on this forum every day. You see it in candidates such as Palin, O'Donnel, Angle...etc. You see these idiots shout from the rooftops without any logic, reason, or basis. They do it because they cannot understand they are stupid.

What's worse is that these are the people the stupid people are advocating.

We have fallen far as a population. Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams...etc, may not have all been the best educated, but they were smart. They were intelligent. They had logic. Now we think that the dumber the person, the better. It started with Reagan and rolled through to GW.

Why the battle against intellectualism? Because the stupid people are too stupid to understand they are too stupid to understand.

http://www.demsfightinwords.com/wordpress/?p=2837

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Click to expand...

Another manifestation of the so called culture wars, nicely explained in Thomas Frank's book What's The Matter With Kansas.

Not thinking for themselves and following sound bites created by spin masters they lose the cognitive ability to judge whats logical or what's good for them.

Its sad that the US has such a large voting population that cannot see beyond their noses because they've lost the ability to do so...

..
 
B

brandonb

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2006
3,731
2
0
Funny, I have the exact same thoughts about those on the left, and those on the right (to a lesser degree)... I'm smarter than everybody. Everybody is stupider than me! Let me create a post about it on Anandtech!
 
Jaskalas

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
35,787
10,086
136
GroundedSailor said:
Its sad that the US has such a large voting population that cannot see beyond their noses because they've lost the ability to do so...
Click to expand...

Devolution of humanity is a cruel side effect of a comfortable life. Intelligence has been supplanted by vices and entertainment. Why not? Idividual survival is no longer dependent on intelligence and we've apparently no easy adaptation towards collective survival.

We'll reap the immediate rewards of a great society, and then later watch helplessly as it turns into the great nightmare. Beware the comfort of modern life, it betrays you even now.
 
C

CycloWizard

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
12,348
1
81
It appears that the OP suffered from the Dunning-Kruger effect while attempting to apply the Dunning-Kruger effect:
Dunning and Kruger themselves quote Charles Darwin ("Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge") and Bertrand Russell ("One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision."
Click to expand...
 
M

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,746
6,762
126
Mursilis said:
You start out with a valid point, but immediately turn it into a partisan troll post. Nice work. It's not as if the Left doesn't have the same issue, promising all sorts of "free" lunches and creating senses of entitlement and dependency. Just look at Greece for an example of left-leaning idiocracy.
Click to expand...

Maybe you are too stupid to see that what you say is just more stupid garbage fed to you by your handlers, no?
 
G

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
I find it fascinating the OP is convinced only the right side of the spectrum suffers from this issue.
 
M

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,746
6,762
126
Jaskalas said:
Devolution of humanity is a cruel side effect of a comfortable life. Intelligence has been supplanted by vices and entertainment. Why not? Idividual survival is no longer dependent on intelligence and we've apparently no easy adaptation towards collective survival.

We'll reap the immediate rewards of a great society, and then later watch helplessly as it turns into the great nightmare. Beware the comfort of modern life, it betrays you even now.
Click to expand...

You sound like you think you know something. From where I sit in ease and comfort I would say you have made some stupid assumptions about evolution because you know nothing about it. You can't evolve into a couch potato in a single generation I don't think. You don't get stupid when you relax.

I think you might have the competitive disease, the need to feel superior to others because you worship ambition and fancy and pat yourself on the back as a hard worker and have a need to inflate your own self worth in your own eyes by living up to your own sick ideals.
 
M

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,746
6,762
126
Genx87 said:
I find it fascinating the OP is convinced only the right side of the spectrum suffers from this issue.
Click to expand...

Well it isn't the left that makes fun of intellectualism, is it, or votes for weed whackers like GW who swore, after he lost an election to a yahoo he'd never be out Bubbaed again. Come on. I can't imagine an independent and reasonable alien pinning this tail on the donkey. This is definitely an elephantiasis of the head tail.
 
ConstipatedVigilante

ConstipatedVigilante

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2006
7,670
1
0
Moonbeam said:
Maybe you are too stupid to see that what you say is just more stupid garbage fed to you by your handlers, no?
Click to expand...

If you can't see that the European socialists are all about creating dependence and entitlement, then I feel very sorry for you. This effect is exhibited by both sides, by the way. Stupid people follow every leader.
 
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