> A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
This is a characteristic of spite. Maybe spitefulness is stupid. But true spitefulness is a whole other level to watch out for.
I don't think so. The motivation behind spiteful actions is to purposely cause losses to others, and the gain derived from this action is rejoicing on other people's losses. This implies having and displaying power over others, and exercising this power to establish themselves even with so little gain.
As an outside observer spitefulness and stupidity may appear the same, but the stupid person may have had good intentions and no ill-will towards those they harm.
"A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a
group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring
losses."
Reminds me of people supporting the senseless bombings and genocide in the middle east.
> Reminds me of people supporting the senseless bombings and genocide in the middle east.
The genocidal arguments frame them as solutions to long-standing problems, including labelling them as a "final solution". This is clearly an attempt to frame it as something where they derive a gain.
With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy.
the 0th law of human stupidity: the urge to categorize human stupidity numbs the intellectual ability for self-reflection. Thus the categorizer is by definition not stupid, and their assignment of categories and observations obviously correct.
"A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a
group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring
losses."
Yeah, this lines up with my personal description of stupid: incapable of achieving one's own goals because of stubbornness, mean-spiritedness, pride, persistent misunderstanding, inability or unwillingness to learn. A danger to themself and others. Usually and unfortunately coupled with overconfidence.
This is stark contrast to being merely ignorant (lacking knowledge, naive or sheltered) and dumb (incapable of learning or grasping complex subjects).
Ignorance is generally fixable and with some capacity, dumbness too. But stupidity is a special kind of bad.
There are four kinds of people, those that put things into categories, and those that like matrices.
There's at least two meanings for stupid. One is someone who is not intelligent, and it's just kind of an intrinsic thing. The other is someone who does something stupid, irrespective of their intelligence. This is a conditional attribute that depends on available information / motivation / laziness.
Point being a 2x2 matrix is just an oversimplification of real life and also wtf are the axes here???
* "intelligent" is the intellectual capacity one is born with
* "stupid" is the failure to use that intellectual capacity
I know plenty of very intelligent people who have been quite stupid at times. I know that while I may have adequate intelligence I've certainly been stupid more than once (or maybe even twice).
> I know plenty of very intelligent people who have been quite stupid at times. I know that while I may have adequate intelligence I've certainly been stupid more than once (or maybe even twice).
I call those people skilled instead of intelligent.
-trump a B2 (aims to enrich himself, while overall a net negative to society)
-his voters are helpless (by voting for him, they don't actually gain anything)
-and intelligent people, including myself, are mostly sitting on the sidelines, save attending a no kings protest.
A few are valiantly fighting (filing court cases to check trumps power grabs, newsom pushing prop 50, journalists / media folks calling out the emperor has no clothes)
The only way this country gets saved from Trump is either the intelligent get off their duff and start fighting, or the helpless wake up and turn on Trump
I am sorry to say that according to the metaphor of the PDF, your resistance probably falls into either "helpless" or "stupid," since it doesn't really do anything to check Trump's power (ICE agents still freely roam and abduct people at gunpoint, SNAP will run out and judgement induced distribution is blocked by Trump) and at best do nothing to him or anyone else or help him by giving him ammunition to justify further domestic action. Or if you're just sitting on the sidelines, then under the model, you're not defined as intelligent, but helpless, whereas his supporters are stupid.
According to the model I would class legal efforts and some media efforts as intelligent or banditry (media is self serving; in the end it loves Trump for the headlines), and a protest as maybe intelligent but maybe also helpless.
Inarguably intelligent might be something like following ICE movements and warning neighborhoods when they're coming, or establishing mutual aid food systems for people whose SNAP is about to run out. Or wasting ICE time somehow through civil disobedience to reduce their effectiveness.
Full issue of the Whole Earth Review in which this appeared: https://wholeearth.info/p/whole-earth-review-spring-1987?for...
Highly recommend spending some time in the Whole Earth publication archives if you haven't had the chance.
> A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
This is a characteristic of spite. Maybe spitefulness is stupid. But true spitefulness is a whole other level to watch out for.
> This is a characteristic of spite.
I don't think so. The motivation behind spiteful actions is to purposely cause losses to others, and the gain derived from this action is rejoicing on other people's losses. This implies having and displaying power over others, and exercising this power to establish themselves even with so little gain.
Very different than deriving no gain.
Spite implies intent.
As an outside observer spitefulness and stupidity may appear the same, but the stupid person may have had good intentions and no ill-will towards those they harm.
But the stupid usually have what they think are good intentions.
Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from enemy action.
Omnis enim ex infirmitate feritas est
--Seneca
The modern nuance on "infirm" makes that seem more relevant. aside from the unintentional cruelty..
I saw that movie, and I don't recall seneca ever talking about infirm ferrets. I know for a fact that eminem wasn't in it.
https://youtu.be/0pSVV_LxqRg?t=23s
"A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."
Reminds me of people supporting the senseless bombings and genocide in the middle east.
> Reminds me of people supporting the senseless bombings and genocide in the middle east.
The genocidal arguments frame them as solutions to long-standing problems, including labelling them as a "final solution". This is clearly an attempt to frame it as something where they derive a gain.
Reminds me of Trump supporters.
I like this quote:
kinky.
the 0th law of human stupidity: the urge to categorize human stupidity numbs the intellectual ability for self-reflection. Thus the categorizer is by definition not stupid, and their assignment of categories and observations obviously correct.
-- Kurt Gödel
The number of responses here lends statistical support to the first basic law.
"A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."
Yeah, this lines up with my personal description of stupid: incapable of achieving one's own goals because of stubbornness, mean-spiritedness, pride, persistent misunderstanding, inability or unwillingness to learn. A danger to themself and others. Usually and unfortunately coupled with overconfidence.
This is stark contrast to being merely ignorant (lacking knowledge, naive or sheltered) and dumb (incapable of learning or grasping complex subjects).
Ignorance is generally fixable and with some capacity, dumbness too. But stupidity is a special kind of bad.
But, ummm, if nature abhors a vacuum? And all these things provide "opportunity" for improvement? Maybe the special bad is by design.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110420000627/http://wwwcsif.cs...
There are four kinds of people, those that put things into categories, and those that like matrices.
There's at least two meanings for stupid. One is someone who is not intelligent, and it's just kind of an intrinsic thing. The other is someone who does something stupid, irrespective of their intelligence. This is a conditional attribute that depends on available information / motivation / laziness.
Point being a 2x2 matrix is just an oversimplification of real life and also wtf are the axes here???
> One is stupid in the same way one is red-haired; one belongs to the stupid set as one belongs to a blood group.
But we also have self-awareness. Stupid can be de-stupefied through learning. Whereas you can't really change your race or blood type.
Don't you feel yourself getting stupider with age ? Try and correct that by learning. Now imagine that some people are actually born that way
That's not a word. I think the phrase you were thinking of was "dumberer"
I think we're well served by distinct language:
I know plenty of very intelligent people who have been quite stupid at times. I know that while I may have adequate intelligence I've certainly been stupid more than once (or maybe even twice).> I know plenty of very intelligent people who have been quite stupid at times. I know that while I may have adequate intelligence I've certainly been stupid more than once (or maybe even twice).
I call those people skilled instead of intelligent.
That is not the "stupid" used in this context.
(the reader cries in despair)
So in this metaphor, is
-trump a B2 (aims to enrich himself, while overall a net negative to society)
-his voters are helpless (by voting for him, they don't actually gain anything)
-and intelligent people, including myself, are mostly sitting on the sidelines, save attending a no kings protest.
A few are valiantly fighting (filing court cases to check trumps power grabs, newsom pushing prop 50, journalists / media folks calling out the emperor has no clothes)
The only way this country gets saved from Trump is either the intelligent get off their duff and start fighting, or the helpless wake up and turn on Trump
I am sorry to say that according to the metaphor of the PDF, your resistance probably falls into either "helpless" or "stupid," since it doesn't really do anything to check Trump's power (ICE agents still freely roam and abduct people at gunpoint, SNAP will run out and judgement induced distribution is blocked by Trump) and at best do nothing to him or anyone else or help him by giving him ammunition to justify further domestic action. Or if you're just sitting on the sidelines, then under the model, you're not defined as intelligent, but helpless, whereas his supporters are stupid.
According to the model I would class legal efforts and some media efforts as intelligent or banditry (media is self serving; in the end it loves Trump for the headlines), and a protest as maybe intelligent but maybe also helpless.
Inarguably intelligent might be something like following ICE movements and warning neighborhoods when they're coming, or establishing mutual aid food systems for people whose SNAP is about to run out. Or wasting ICE time somehow through civil disobedience to reduce their effectiveness.