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Thinking Is for the Weak and Stupid
by Martin Regnen
Bruce G. Charlton provides a great explanation why intelligent people don't just have stupid ideas sometimes, they are making all-out war against common sense and normalcy. You should read the whole thing, but here is a short summary from the conclusion:
Because evolved ‘common sense’ usually produces the right answers in the social domain, yet the most intelligent people have personalities which over-use abstract analysis in the social domain, this implies that the most intelligent people are predisposed to have silly ideas and to behave maladaptively when it comes to solving social problems.
Ever since the development of cognitive stratification in modernizing societies, the clever sillies have been almost monopolistically ‘in charge’. They really are both clever and silly – but the cleverness is abstract while the silliness is focused on the psychological and social domains. Consequently, the fatal flaw of modern ruling elites lies in their lack of common sense – especially the misinterpretations of human psychology and socio-political affairs. My guess is that this lack of common sense is intrinsic and incorrigible – and perhaps biologically-linked with the evolution of high intelligence and the rise of modernity.
What can we do? Well, we vastly outnumber and outgun our cognitive elites, so if we wanted to it wouldn't be all that difficult to just remove them from power and/or kill them all (in a reversal of the typical misanthropic eugenicist's calls to kill everyone with an IQ lower than himself), but I wouldn't really recommend that. I'm not sure who originally said this, but if you think sociology professors have crazy ideas about the world, try talking to someone who dropped out of eighth grade. Putting average or stupid people in charge would be an improvement in many areas, but not all and might actually be a net loss. Besides, we already tried killing millions of people in order to make the world a better place already, and that didn't work out too well. So what other options remain? Convincing really smart people to pay more attention to everyone else's ideas is a pretty hopeless task, as Udolpho points out in his commentary on Charlton's post:
Here we find the hubris of the educated (in some cases over-educated) man: because his reasoning powers have gifted him with status and prestige, it is unthinkably humbling to suggest to him that his ideas in other spheres (notably politics) are inferior to those of the common individual far below him in status and measurable intelligence. How can a man who only follows his own dumb instincts, who can barely talk or write effectively, come up with a better conception of society than an academic or pundit who is respected by his equally intelligent peers! (In fact we find this hubristic force at work among elites who are far from demonstrating a particularly high cognitive ability, notably actors and musicians.)
I'm not gonna try to come up with any grand schemes to try to fix the world, but an older Udolpho post about how loathsome computer geeks are reminded me of something that each of us can do in our daily lives.
Our cognitive elites are basically nerds on a larger scale. Even the ones who aren't nerdy in their private lives - most of the people who succeed in politics, business etc. have both high IQ and good social skills, and quite a few even had good athletic ability in their youth - basically engage in the worst nerd behavior of substituting thinking (which they are good at) for the normal social instincts which they lack. While the nerd merely irritates those near him (especially single women), though, our masters impose their nonsensical and harmful ideas upon the world.
My proposed solution is to mock and humiliate nerds at every opportunity. By relentlessly picking on nerds we can stigmatize the overuse of abstract reasoning for situations where it doesn't work well. If we do this enough, the perceived worth of reasoning powers will decline and the status of common sense will rise. At some point even really smart people will be less ashamed to follow what little common sense instincts they have instead of suppressing them with brainpower. There's no risk that the elites will fight back, either - no one likes nerds except for other nerds, after all, so no one will rise to their defense.
So, pick on a nerd today! It'll be a tiny step towards a better world.
Instincts
I agree with your observation that there is something naturally repulsive about "nerdy" attitudes (and by that, I refer at least to the stereotypical nerd). And it's more than an attempt by... well, we'll go with the high school scenario: it's more than an attempt by the football team to maintain social superiority over the Math Club.
In high school, I was nerdy in the sense that I liked class. I was also nerdy in the sense that I was socially awkward around girls. I was not nerdy in the sense that I sought out some sort of subculture for the socially awkward. I made friends from several different cliques; I learned how to socialize with most of the subcultures we had at our school.
My point, however, isn't that I did something special. Quite the opposite--my point is that my natural human desire for social interaction coupled with my inability to truly commit to any one clique, and the result was that I started seeing social trends that transcended the various groups by which I was surrounded. I started to understand other people in a way of which no one else seemed to be capable (remember: high school).
I doubt anyone looked at me and truly thought "one of us", and yet I managed to not become "one of them".
And in response to some of the other commentators: Never forget the power of individual responsibility. You can blame whomever you'd like (if you think that will do you any good, you have much to learn); but never forget there were only two kids who pulled the triggers at Columbine.
Your silly.
Why don't you grow up and realize that those in charge aren't in charge because of some magical 'meritocracy' that exists in your master-worshiping mind.
They are in charge because they are, drumroll, equipped with the kind of mind that can get in charge.
And social intelligence is number f-ing one on the list of abilities to get in charge.
But they are mean to slave-animal!
But you take it, don't you?
But they steal from slave-animal!
But you take it, don't you?
But they are running the country into the ground for their own benefit!
But you take it, don't you?
America is a MARVEL of SOCIAL ENGINEERING.
You have it backwards, fool.
Trained monkey said:
***************************
You can blame whomever you'd like (if you think that will do you any good, you have much to learn)
**************************
Worked swell for the Feminists.
...what?
To clarify my subject line: "...huh?"
There's no advocation that social intelligence isn't "number f-ing one on the list of abilities to get in charge". Had you bothered to read, you would have read:
I learned how to socialize with most of the subcultures we had at our school.
That's the money-shot, really: it's something that is learned. Perceived. Platonism, not nominalism. And Martin seems to advocate teaching--we almost certainly disagree on the methods, but could probably agree upon the lesson itself.
I don't think I've ever been under the impression that the US are a meritocratic society, and I certainly did not aim to convey that above.
It seems that (and it deeply pains me to say this) we would agree on the concept of social engineering the US.
I do not understand your remark apropos feminists. Can you give me some detail?
Haters gonna hate
but Martin is pretty lol sometimes
Two words...
... plastic surgery
No average cockbite would come up with that, sorry but I'll save the nerds so we can have more hot looking chicks thanks, rather then a musician from bumfuck nowhere who is useless when it comes to making chicks even hotter.
Martin is just jealous...
... that man nerds are starting to get REALLY good at social skills and getting chicks he could never get.
http://www.charismaarts.com
http://www.fastseduction.com/
The Game by Neil strauss
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Penetrating-Secret-Society-Artists/dp/0060554...
I'd like to compare neils list of chicks to martin who's aiming to be the world's #1 douchebag
I fully approve of all that
I think it was Michael Blowhard who summarized Neil Strauss, Roissy etc. as nerds running non-nerd behavior in emulation. I think it's good if nerds learn to loathe their nerdy behaviors and start acting like normal people, even if they have to put a lot of hard work into it.
Of course, picking on them encourages them to act normal, too. See - there are so many ways in which hating nerds is good for society! No wonder we have evolved deep, powerful and seemingly universal nerd-hating instincts.
Picking on them only produces...
"Of course, picking on them encourages them to act normal, too."
No picking on them causes tragedy like columbine and virginia tech, grow up and stop being an adolescent douchebag and hand your nerdy friends a copy of the game, and pointing them to the good pickup/social skills websites, de-nerding oneself takes time and that person has to be ready to change their life, some will never get it, while others will.
Your job is to notify them in friendly non-dick manner and act as suppor where you can, the world has enough assholes thinking they know it all when this is not the case. Nerds have negative traits, but lets not wear rose colored glasses because "normal" people are often some of the most vicious people you will ever meet because they are normal and don't have any genuine bonafide tragic life experiences like say, seeing people they know shot to death in a wartorn country, or experiencing the suicide of their kid after they were bullied at school. It's all fun and games thinking you're "hot shit" wiseman when all of a sudden it happens to you in YOUR LIFE to people you know and love, only then do douchebags realize the wisdom of the nerd elect.
Many nerds have suffered a hell of a lot in their life, it takes a real adult to see that nerds are just as human as anyone else. Treating them as subhuman only gets you Virginia tech and columbine, sorry but THIS is why you are a douchebag, you can't even understand how your own strategy is NOT a sound strategy.
Yeah, right
Worrying that if I pick on a nerd I'll lead him to shoot a bunch of people is worrying about a ridiculously tiny probability, probably far below being killed by lightning or bee stings, and certainly way below being shot or stabbed to death by a non-nerd who was never picked on but just happens to be short-tempered. I've never known anyone who died at the hands of a nerd. That's why you need to bring up shootings that are many years old as examples.
I can't take anyone seriously who talks about "normal" people. We are not "normal" people! We are normal people.
While you're probably not going to produce another shooter...
...,ironically, your strategy in the long run is going to increase the nerdiness of nerds and increase the number of nerds.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: picking on nerds (outside of a friendship context) only causes them to be defensive, bitter towards mainstream society, demonize normal people, and thus cluster into nerd exclusive social circles and not getting the social contact with normal people that they need to help them overcome their nerdy awkwardness in the first place.
I've never heard of or experienced a nerd transforming into a normal person because of belligerent social bullying. When a nerd is bullied in that manner they don't stop and think "Oh. I must be doing something wrong. I better shape up." At worst they think "I'm a miserable loser" or at best "Bah! Another normy/muggle/mundane/*insert disparging term for normal people here* being an asshole to me because I'm "different!" Well screw him! Nerd Pride!"
If you want to "cure" nerdiness, the best solution is socialization of nerds within social circles of normal people. Ricky Raw gives a beautiful example of this concept:
"For example in high school I had a friend Stan who was the most popular guy in school, the best player on the basketball team with lots of alpha male swagger and swimming in girls. I remember I’d occasionally see him hanging out with this chubby Indian kid who was really nerdy. Sometimes we’d meet up after school and I’d see him parting ways with the guy before coming over to us. Eventually he introduced the guy to us. His name is Marshall. I figured if Marshall was cool with Stan, he must be cool too, so the rest of us occasionally started talking to him as well.
As the months went on, Marshall seemed to get less nerdy. Whenever he did something socially awkward, Stan would immediately check him, firmly but in a reassuring way. Stan would mock him on some of his clothing choices, but in the way male pals bust on each other (that’s how guys constructively criticize, especially at that age). The social proof seemed to help the kid out too, as I started seeing him with more and more friends every month.
One day I remember asking Stan how he even started becoming friends with Marshall in the first place, as he seemed to have nothing in common with our circle of friends. Marshall’s main circle of friends always remained a small group of somewhat geeky but nice guys. Stan told me “He offered to tutored me and helps keep me on the team. He’s a cool guy.” I was surprised because of how they related in public. You’d never know Marshall was tutoring Stan. They seemed totally at ease with each other and acted like equals. At that moment, I understood Marshall’s hustle and really admired the hell out of it. He didn’t just hate on the popular guy from the sidelines, but when he got an in with him, he didn’t kiss his ass either. He got the mentoring and the social proofing, while keeping his dignity and self-respect, and reaped the social benefits from it. He learned a lot and his confidence shot up too."
http://therawness.com/becoming-a-renaissance-man-part-3/
Now you might be thinking/saying "but the jock picked on him!" However, notice that it wasn't overly beligerent, and it was in the context of a friendship, rather than some random asshole coming along and humiliating him.
Also, I don't think that the PUA community (Roissy, Strauss, etc.) should be held up as a model of nerds acheiving normalcy, but rather as another example of nerdy social incompetence. Sure, they score chicks, but they do it within the context of warped worldview. There is some "beer in their bathwater", but the bathwater safely outnumbers the beer 10 to 1.
Clueless about the community...
"Also, I don't think that the PUA community (Roissy, Strauss, etc.) should be held up as a model of nerds acheiving normalcy, but rather as another example of nerdy social incompetence. Sure, they score chicks, but they do it within the context of warped worldview. There is some "beer in their bathwater", but the bathwater safely outnumbers the beer 10 to 1."
It's clear you do not understand the community, I would advise you to check out http://www.charismaarts.com/ and read the writings of Wayne Elise.
There are bad aspects of the community no doubt, but all communities have their douchebags. It really sounds like you haven't read "the game" by neil strauss, and the writings of Wayne, there's a section where he gives a good speech and you should read it, I'll try to see if I can find it and post it.
Au Contraire
Though I haven't read "The Game" yet, or read Wayne's writings, I am familiar with many parts of the community: Roissy, Roosh V, David D, Tyler Durden, Mystery, etc.
To sum up my criticisms of them: a lot of them espouse a worldview that is basically summed up as: "all women are secret whores, so you might as well fuck 'em and leave 'em." as well as an emphasis on surface level improvements to oneself.
Personally, I like:
Dr. Paul Dobransky
http://www.doctorpaul.net/
Manhood 101
http://manhood101.com/
and Stephan Nash
http://www.datingsecretsformen.com/
the best because they all advocate holistic approaches to improving oneself instead of just teaching you to get good at pulling and fucking lots of chicks.
So much Bullshit...
""all women are secret whores, so you might as well fuck 'em and leave 'em." as well as an emphasis on surface level improvements to oneself."
I'm sorry but THAT is NOT what the whole community is about, some people in the community are like that, you can't avoid that in ANY group of people. There will always be dicks and assholes. Anyone who has access to amazon can search for "leave her better then you found her" in the book The game by neil strauss, this is absolute proof you haven't read anything much about the community. Nor the big speech in the book by Wayne Elise himself.
Or like pages 431 and 432... it's quite obvious you are bullshitting out your ass, there are many different people in the community and you can't simply peg them all as the same, they aren't.
Anyone interested can go here
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Penetrating-Secret-Society-Artists/dp/0060554...
And do a book search to see the above poster is full of shit.
Can you read?
I already said that I never read "The Game" or Wayne Ellis. There is no "secret evidence" you discovered that proves I never read these works: I just said it in the post I wrote..
Also, I completely stand by my original assertion that the learning how to fuck chicks mentality is far more pervasive in the PUA community than the learning to be a better/well-rounded/mature man approach. The links I gave are some community associated members who teach the latter.
"worrying about a
"worrying about a ridiculously tiny probability, probably far below being killed "
God man you are just riduclously clueless, the point of the post is to not cause needless suffering, while the chances of getting shot may be low. The chances of causing lifelong depression, anxiety and mental illness in said nerds is high, you may not know it either you could be contributing to someones suicide and not know it. If you ever have kids I hope to god you have an experience that pulls your head out of your ass.
My post went "woosh" right over your head, I guess that is to be expected from someone without serious life experiences.
"I can't take anyone seriously who talks about "normal" people. We are not "normal" people! We are normal people."
Only dumb people disregard an argument because of aesthetics, let me guess you'd fault a sound argument because someone made a spelling mistake too. Totally irrelevant to the gist of my post.
"There you go again"
You do realize you're trying to apply logic to a complex social situation here, right? Bruce Charlton's entire point is that this isn't something that works well. Instead, he favors using evolved instincts which we spent millions of years honing and which work better than reasoning in these cases. And our evolved instinct for handling nerds is...
Bruce is naive
"Bruce Charlton's entire point is that this isn't something that works well."
But this does not prove it's OPPOSITE is better, nor even a solution, that is what is lost on you.
And why it "doesn't work" is because nerds are outnumbered by people dumber them them by like 80 to 1, it's a population quality issue, where nerds are surrounded by monkeys and trolls who can't think themselves out of a wet paper bag.
Human history does NOT bear out charlton's thesis that "averageness is better", the man has no historical evidence backing him up whatsoever, all great civilizations have risen and fallen with the tides of the demographic decisions of the worlds people and their actions.
The problem is that most of humanity are just not that bright, period, when genetic engineering and AI come online all this will be moot and Charlton will be first in line to get his children intelligence enhancement drugs/therapy and augmentation, once the science and biotech is there people like you will go extinct very quickly. Nerds are aiming to rid the world of inferior aspects of minds of douchebags like yourself.
The thing you are completely missing here is that to survive over the long term you need abstract reasoning and logic applied to complex systems, it isn't the average bumfucks who are going to enable spacetravel and possibly delay or extend the sun's life before it collapses, it's those dear little nerds.
Bruce's whole post is naive, short-sighted and based on his naive understanding of intelligence.
Damn, where's Highduke when
Damn, where's Highduke when you need him?
My proposed solution is to mock and humiliate nerds at every opportunity. By relentlessly picking on nerds we can stigmatize the overuse of abstract reasoning for situations where it doesn't work well. If we do this enough, the perceived worth of reasoning powers will decline and the status of common sense will rise
yeah, fuck those stupid smart people, always designing computers,cars and medication. Don't they know that dumb people are smarter? That's why democracy is a good idea, because the common man is qualified to determine the direction of a nation, the same way random people on the street are qualified to operate on my brain.
I'm not gonna try to come up with any grand schemes to try to fix the world, but an older Udolpho post about how loathsome computer geeks are reminded me of something that each of us can do in our daily lives.
Ever heard of Brett Stevens? His writings changed my life. But i also know he is an intelligent, abstract thinking nerd, and is thus loathsome. I should know better- from now on i will only read less-intelligent writers who are superior by virtue of their inferior intelligence and percipience.
intelligent people don't just have stupid ideas sometimes, they are making all-out war against common sense and normalcy
Common sense and abstraction are not opposites. The structure of reality is both mechanistic and abstract, but this is beyond the common man who can only see the what is immediately in front of him. Abstract interpretations of reality allow for another level of cognition which can facilitate healthy social structure, whereas 'social instinct' is ego-driven and hence, detrimental.
That nails it right on the head
Smart people are good at designing computers, cars and medicine; they are terrible at designing social policy. That's exactly the core of the problem.
Man martin can't stop incriminating himself.
"they are terrible at designing social policy"
No one in the whole of human history has been good at designing social policy. Anyone WITHOUT scientific evidence is bad at designing social policy, nerd or not. I really wouldn't want religious nutcases designing social policy, unless you believe the founding fathers of the US seperation of church and state was a bad thing.
The founding fathers, all of them were FUCKING NERDY GUYS, (i.e. reading history and all that) and many of them were also socially aware. Jefferson was definitely nerdy and he's probably one of the greatest human beings who've ever lived.
That doesn't help
You do realize that I have no use for your founding fathers or the system they produced, right? I think they were a bunch of paranoid thugs who freaked out over nonexistent dangers.
Woosh
"You do realize that I have no use for your founding fathers or the system they produced, right? I think they were a bunch of paranoid thugs who freaked out over nonexistent dangers."
Yeah jefferson talked about such nonexistent dangers like "I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
What's the national debt at in the US? Oh shit was their a massive financial bailout to the BANKS?
You might have a point if there was no historical evidence in favor of these people being exceptionally prescient.
Hmm...
See http://www.corrupt.org/news/americas_revolutionary_spirit_threat_or_menace
I was honestly not aware that the American Revolution was intended by Jefferson and his ilk as a revolution against banks and loans, though.
Great, a link from one of
Great, a link from one of your fails to another one of your fails. Thanks!
I'm guessing that this is partially in jest
It is pretty clear that there is a wide gap between the socially and intellectually adept, at least in American culture. I would tend to argue that those in power actually tend toward the former, because their ideas are not novel and there is a great deal of emphasis on petty drama and politics, with ideology serving as a mask for what is, in essence, a career, not a vocation or cause. When those with more abstract ideas enter into that realm, they can not operate because they do not know how society functions on its most basic levels, or even why power players do and say the things that they do. That is why "politics as usual" isn't even politics, much less a working governance.
It's about being blind to certain things. Very few people are predisposed to be both analytical in an abstract and practical sense, so it makes sense that whoever has the best grasp on how the world operates will have a grasp on the world. Ideology does not enter into it.
I'm half-convinced that the "ridicule nerds" part is just to be contrarian though. After all, it IS one of those "nutty" intellectual ideas, so I don't see how anyone-least of all you-could take it seriously. Unfortunately, people probably won't get that.
It's about being blind to
It's about being blind to certain things. Very few people are predisposed to be both analytical in an abstract and practical sense, so it makes sense that whoever has the best grasp on how the world operates will have a grasp on the world. Ideology does not enter into it.
We need both kinds of people. Carpenters and philosophers. But we don't need philosophers telling carpenters to use less nails or carpenters telling philosophers to use less logic.
I agree with this
The intellectually adept, and the socially adept, insofar as they are (supposedly) distinctly different people (as opposed to a scale with two extremes, with aspies on one end and jocks on another, and most others falling somewhere in between), both have roles to play in society. Socially intelligent people devising social policy sounds reasonable to me.
I wouldn't say those in power are nerds at all. I think they're more your oversocialised sort if anything. Contrast that with an aspergic Ron Paul-ite. Maybe Martin might understand what I'm getting at here. Furthermore, really nerdy nerds lack some of the root social skills to get decent jobs.
Don't you have a crappy
Don't you have a crappy bar-band to be performing in? The world surely couldn't do without you and your "common sense". Wacky and silly ideas are what drive civilization and make cultures unique. Hail the socially awkward lunatics! May our downfall be absurd!