[dcraw]

My brother wrote an essay on how to work with "stupid" people (which starts with recognizing they're not stupid).

https://jasoncrawford.org/how-to-work-with-stupid-people

[hinkley]

I think I could die happy if the following aphorism were attributed to me:

Never attribute to stupidity that which can be properly explained by apathy.

We treat other very smart people as stupid when we just haven’t given them any reason at all to make them give a fuck about our pet peeves, or daily pain. Everybody has days when they are just trying to make it to 5:00. Sell me on your idea. Scolding is a weapon of last resort, and some people reach for it very early.

[sundarurfriend]

> Scolding is a weapon of last resort, and some people reach for it very early.

This single fact is responsible for so much polarization and conflict in the world. It also makes one's point less convincing, and makes people less likely to choose your side.

A lot of the times, especially online, the "scolding" is done not as an attempt to bring the other person over or make them see your side; rather, it's become a social signal to one's own in-group to say "see how committed I am to our side", and gain some cachet in the group that way. Even if it muddies the water for everyone and makes the world a little bit worse in the process.

[brudgers]

I think it’s Paul Graham’s definition of a stupid person that goes something like:

  A stupid person is someone 
  who creates difficulties
  that don’t benefit anyone
  including themselves.

Thinking about a large number of other people as lacking intelligence seems to be one of those things.

[nuancebydefault]

I know a lot more people that aren't bothered to even to try to learn something new, than stupid people. It takes serious effort to change your mind if you are already 'convinced'. Some people ground their convincement by repeating the same thing over and over again. It becomes part of their identity, making the effort of seeing things from a different angle almost impossible.

[CharlieDigital]

That's a great read and very, very high EQ way of thinking about these situations.

Last 3 bullets are solid. Roughly same advice I often give to junior devs.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I spent most of my career at a company with some of the top engineers and optical scientists in the world. I'm pretty used to being the dumbest guy in the room, and I'm smarter than the average bear.

Problem-solving/designing IQ is great, but it ain't the be-all/end-all. A lot of folks with two-digit IQs are my heroes.

[jaredsohn]

Lots of useful information.

I guess you need to practice what this suggests rather than just sharing it with someone, though. If you send someone a link of 'How to work with "stupid" people' they might think you're calling them stupid instead of trying to improve communication.

[steve_adams_86]

Something I’ve come to realize is that there’s a sort of irony in thinking people are stupid. It typically means you value a specific form of intelligence, and are too biased to recognize other forms when they occur in other people.

My friend’s mom hates computers and software, but is incredibly technically competent when it comes to weaving and looms. She has fixed so many old machines, learned to do such cool stuff with them, does amazing work with dying and processing, and so on. She would strike your average tech bro as pretty clueless and out to lunch (she’s a little whacky and eccentric) but she’s so technically inclined in a different way it’s absurd.

Obviously some people are intellectually disabled and can’t do things like this, but stupid seems like a derogatory term in that context. And even then, I sincerely doubt you couldn’t find useful insight and intelligence there too.

I’d say that thinking other people are stupid is simply failing to recognize or appreciate the value other people bring.

Having said that, I’m pretty stupid so I could be wrong

[CharlieDigital]

    > Something I’ve come to realize is that there’s a sort of irony in thinking people are stupid. It typically means you value a specific form of intelligence, and are too biased to recognize other forms when they occur in other people.

There's a great book by Todd Rose titled The End of Average; great read.

Premise is exactly that for centuries, we've measured "intelligence" in such a narrow scope focused on the foundations of industry (reading, writing, arithmetic) often at the expense of other forms of intelligence like spatial (e.g. sculptors, artists), emotional, and even dextile (I think I just made up a word?).

I have more recently been thinking about what intelligence means in this era when AI is advancing so quickly in processing information in volumes far surpassing humans ever could. I think that in the future, we'll see a realignment on intelligence.