[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?