[kdamken]

What makes a person stupid? If I have a friend who squanders their money while I save and build up wealth, are they stupid? What if they have a much happier and more fulfilling life than I do?

If you have a difficult job (like brain surgeon), but are terrible at most of the other parts of your life, does that make you stupid?

Are slow readers stupid? What if they invent a product or start a business that makes them a lot of money?

“Smart” and “stupid” are such harsh, black and white terms. They leave no room for the many shades of gray in between.

We all think we’re smart, even if we say we don’t. No one wants to be the dumb kid.

I feel like being “smart” usually just means you can think and process information a little bit faster than others. But like having a super fast cpu installed, it’s really a matter of what you do with it. You could write a bestselling novel on a slower computer. You could have a super computer and just go on Facebook all day.

It seems like every time I feel like I’m smart, I see someone who I thought was dumber who is more successful or happier than me, and I wonder if I was that much smarter in the first place.

[mikeash]

One thing that really fascinates me is that stupidity is one of the few genetic handicaps that society considers acceptable to criticize and blame people for.

If a person gets hit by a bus because they have some muscular disorder which causes them to fall in front of it, we would have nothing but sympathy for them. If they get hit by a bus because they're too stupid to remember to look for traffic, most people would criticize them harshly for being stupid.

What's really amazing is that there's a cutoff point. If someone has an IQ of 90, you can blame them for all their stupid actions. I'd go so far as to say that not only can you, but it's expected. But if the person has an IQ of 70 suddenly everything changes, people become sympathetic, and blaming them for their own stupidity is super taboo.

To be clear, I'm not trying to pretend that I'm superior in this respect. I do this just like most of the people I see. But when I start thinking about it, I really can't figure out how it makes any sense.

[dEnigma]

We blame people for acting stupid, not for being stupid. As you mentioned, someone with an IQ of 90 or higher should have all the mental capacity to go about their day without causing chaos or running in front of a bus. But when they choose to act stupid, inconvenience others and possibly even endanger people, we have every right to blame them for that. If on the other hand a person has an IQ around 60 we can't expect them to navigate our complex society without any hiccups and consequently we try to help and understand instead of putting the full blame on them.

[mikeash]

Perfect example. Somehow we see it as a people who "choose to act stupid," as if they can just will their brains into being more capable than they are.

[Sangermaine]

You're leaning very hard into absolute genetic determinism of any and all actions, as if an otherwise intelligent person couldn't just be careless or not be paying attention and be hit by a bus (to use your example).

"Mentally handicapped" is generally considered to be where someone's capabilities are hindered to the point that they can't function in a normal autonomous way and perform basic life tasks. "Acting stupid" applies to people who don't have such a level of hindrance but are instead not reasonably utilizing the adequate faculties they do have.

So, back to your example: if you lack the capability to cross a street on your own, or to even understand what that means and why it can be dangerous, no one faults you if you are harmed. If you are capable of crossing a street and appreciate the danger but choose not to take proper care when doing so (e.g., you step out onto the street while texting and are struck by a bus), people fault you.

You seem to be making unsupported assumptions and conflating all sorts of things when it's really not complicated: was the person capable of understanding the situation and acting on that understanding?

[mikeash]

You're right that smart people can sometimes act stupid, but there are so many situation where we blame people for their inherent intellectual failings.

For example, smart people frequently describe the lottery as "a tax on stupid people" in a sneering way. When people get taken by an obvious scam, we often place as much if not more blame on the victim as we do on the scammer. Or look at the Darwin Awards for numerous examples of people basically saying that others deserve death for being dumb.

Sure, there are examples where a smart person is negligent, we describe that as "stupid," and we rightfully blame them for the consequences. But there are many more examples where a dumb person doesn't understand that what they're doing won't work, it fails predictably, and we say they deserve it. Lotteries, scams (but I repeat myself), avoiding insurance or banks, and much more tend to fall into this category.

If someone got robbed because they had a bad leg and couldn't run away, we'd sympathize. If they got robbed because they had a bad brain and couldn't detect that this smooth-talking stranger was scamming them, we'd tell them they should stop being so stupid.

[dEnigma]

It's a fact that people sometimes choose to act stupid. I have chosen to act stupid in the past; and when I was reprimanded, I knew exactly why, and how I could've avoided it. I'm not talking about people who are less capable in their mental faculties. Of course nobody should blame someone who is actually mentally handicapped for "stupid actions", or for "acting stupid". That's exactly the difference I was talking about.

[mikeash]

Why do you assume that a fairly stupid person is choosing to act stupid, but an extremely stupid person is not? "Mentally handicapped" is an arbitrary line we draw in the continuum of intelligence.

[dEnigma]

I didn't realize an IQ of 90 was "fairly stupid" nowadays. I actually meant that as an example for a "smart enough" person. Of course one has to draw the line somewhere, and of course there will be false positives and false negatives; but what else can one do? It's the same for e.g. illness; at which point does a doctor allow a patient to stay home from work? He has to draw the line somewhere. There will be cases when he's too strict and a genuinely ill person is forced to work or use a vacation day; and there will be cases when he's too lenient and a perfectly healthy, simulating person can relax at home. I wouldn't argue that we should give everyone unlimited sick days without a proper diagnosis, which, again, might include false positives/negatives.

[bendbro]

I bet it isn't arbitrary. It isn't possible to train IQ70s in a human lifespan, cost effectively, but it is possible to do so for IQ90s.

[tgb]

If you assume that most "stupid" people could avoid these situations if they tried harder and that social pressure to not "be stupid" causes people to act harder to not appear stupid, then it makes sense. (Both of those assumptions may be suspect, but the logic is okay.) This also makes sense of your IQ cutoff observation: some people may not be able to compensate for it with any amount of work or may not be able to understand social pressure.

[alain_gilbert]

From the text:

  "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."

I think all of your examples give the person some gain, or causes good to others.

[nine_k]

This looks like a hint on a whole possible matrix:

- Personal gain, others' gain: "good businessman".

- Personal gain, others' loss: "evil".

- Personal loss, others' gain: "benefactor" / "saint".

- Personal loss, others' loss: "stupid".

[AstralStorm]

Number 3 is called helpless for a reason. Even saints typically attempt to maximize gain, helpless do not - they tend to minimize loss instead.

In fact I would say many if not most people are helpless. This is part H1. Part H2 is the benefactor.

Likewise part I1 which is upper left triangle of I would be the inventor, scientist or good reformer. (They benefit but society benefits more). Bottom right of I would be good businessman. (Their own benefit is higher than society.) Top right B2 would be exploitative businessman. (Society loses a bit but the businessman gains a lot.)

As per political systems, capitalism attempts to promote rightmost two quadrants. Socialism (not Stalinism) attempts to penalize bottom half.

Essentially the full graph would be a square with a 45º rotated square inside. The stupid have two categories too - unnecessary cutting corners and messing up for minimal immediate gain with net loss (shortsighted) - top right of stupid quadrant - and plain old danger to society.

[lloeki]

The textual definition is slightly off: there are stupid people who cause no loss to anyone but themselves†. Think of stupid people doing stupid things you can see on gifs and youtube where their attempt at doing something ranges from extremely unlikely to completely impossible to achieve in a very obvious way combined with a strong likeliness that Things Go Wrong in a very immediate and physical way. So the value on the Y axis (loss to other) can be zero.

I posit a better definition of stupidity that includes a lack of foresight of "obvious"†† damaging consequences would be more appropriate. A corollary would be Einstein's possibly apocryphal definition of insanity.

† OK unless the guy lives in the most remote area, there will probably be emergency services involved.

†† What's obvious to one may not be obvious to another, and it's a common mistake to conflate lack of knowledge with lack of foresight. We should strive to be kind in our expectations, yet the fact remains that some people are profoundly stupid to the point of being survivally challenged.

[BeetleB]

Based on that description, stupid people are very, very rare.

This is a classic case of "There are almost no irrational people." Or phrased in a way my mentors would put it: If you call someone irrational, you are being lazy and not trying to understand them.

[worldsayshi]

I find it very difficult to buy the idea that a person is characteristically stupid. People does things like described by the definition all the time. It's called mistakes. Some people are ignorant sure. But my guess is that even the most ignorant person is not an idiot most of the time.

[yetihehe]

This is stated in article too.

> When confronted for the first time with the Third Basic Law, rational people instinctively react with feelings of skepticism and incredulity.

> Most people do not act consistently. [...] We can calculate for each person his weighted average position in the plane of figure 1 quite independently from his degree of inconsistency.

[worldsayshi]

Yeah well it's also stated that

> The only important exception to the rule is represented by the stupid people who normally show a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all fields of human endeavours

[jondubois]

I thought this article was written by Nassim Taleb initially but it sounded too harsh even for him.

Like the author of this article, Taleb also discusses stupid people in several of his books... Often drawing attention to "the educated idiot" which is basically a person who is highly educated, knows a lot of stuff and who is perhaps productive or successful in society but they get caught up in social thinking trends (group think) instead of coming up with their own conclusions - So in essence, you could say that these people don't actually think; they just mindlessly follow popular opinion - Therefore they're idiots.

For example, if I did not see any irony in what I've just written above, then it's possible I could be an idiot too; mindlessly paraphrasing a thought leader...

[Rzor]

Mindlessly because you said so. You could've just agreed with him and be thoughtful.

Let's say you have an ideal world where everyone reaches their own conclusions. Could you not have consensus then?

[jondubois]

Yes I think that reaching consensus is great if it is reached through individual critical thinking.

Unfortunately, people have a tendency to accept ideas via mere osmosis; if something is repeated often and with a loud enough voice, eventually most people will accept it as fact.

Most people tend to blindly trust things that are popular (loud voice). It's flock behavior.

[du_bing]

Is it true that the article is written by Taleb? Where do you get the information?

[paulajohnson]

"If I have a friend who squanders their money while I save and build up wealth, are they stupid?"

No, they are probably "helpless". If they actually have a more fulfilling life then they may be "intelligent".

The distinguishing feature of "stupid" people in this typology is that they are the ones who cause grief to others with no gain to themselves. This is not the same as being unintelligent; the intro to the article points out that nobel laureates are just as likely to be stupid as anyone else.

[kdamken]

Seems like such a strange way to define stupidity to me, and why I wasn't a fan of how the paper defined things. Why does it depend on causing grief to others?

I think the CPU analogy is more apt. Some people have faster processors, some have slower ones, but what actually matters is what you do with it.

I know "smart" people who are living at home with their parents doing nothing with their lives, and I know "stupid" people who own successful businesses. That's my problem with the terms, and why I think it depends way more on what you do with your circumstances, rather than the circumstances you were born into.

[Chris_Jay]

What alternative names would you propose?

[kdamken]

I don't have a good solution. I just know I don't like how the article defines stupid/intelligent, and that "stupid/smart" have a lot more (often hurtful) connotations than what they really mean.

But then you have the problem of going down the PC rabbit hole where you can't say anything about whether someone is smart or not, and have to live in a pretend world where everyone is the same intelligence even though they're not. So that's no good either.

[dragontamer]

> What makes a person stupid? If I have a friend who squanders their money while I save and build up wealth, are they stupid?

By the definition of the article, they're likely "helpless" actually.

A stupid person, by the definition of the article, is somebody who manages to consistently destroy gains in most situations. They either hurt the opponent without any gain to themselves, or hurt the opponent while simultaneously hurting themselves.

I think the "colloquial" use of the word "stupid" lines up to the definition of "Helpless" in this article. "Helpless" people hurt themselves while the opponent typically takes advantage of them.

> Are slow readers stupid? What if they invent a product or start a business that makes them a lot of money?

That makes them either a Bandit (someone who is taking money from other people without giving much in return), or Intelligent (someone who manages to take money but do so in such a way to benefit the opponent).

---------------

This "stupid" article is all about four different kinds of people:

1. Intelligent people -- Both sides of a transaction benefit.

2. Bandits -- They benefit, the opponent loses.

3. Helpless -- They tend to lose, while the opponent benefits.

4. Stupid -- Both sides lose, somehow.

The article suggests that most people are either a Bandit or are Helpless... and furthermore, that a good system needs to be designed to consider the effects of "Stupid" people who manage to screw both themselves AND opponents over.

[xelxebar]

This is an analogy that I've run across in my own thinking, too. I feel like it's an example of Fundamental Attribution Bias or something.

Instead of thinking of people as static personalities with properties like smart vs. dumb or agressive vs. passive, I try to think of people as minds reacting to some local environment. It's just personal anecdote, but I'm told that my ability to read people is really on point, and I attribute that to avoiding "personality profiles" in my thinking as much as possible.

[gbaygon]

The definition of stupidity is "being lack of intelligence", and the definition of intelligence is "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills".

So maybe a stupid person can only be detected by observing said person during a period of time and measuring the ability to learn from mistakes and update behavior. If the variation on behavior is zero we can say we spotted a stupid person. But, if the variation is positive we are dealing with somebody "learning" and maybe we can "help".

[swayvil]

Consider the term, "idiot".

The literal meaning (greek?) is "one who lives in a private world of their own".

[phyllostachys]

You can also consider the case where you have a super fast CPU but are using poor algorithms. That's why I think the terms 'smart' and 'stupid' are fairly useless in practice.

[warent]

Well said!