Why So Many People Are Idiots. And Why There Seems To Be So Many More Idiots.

 Yet once more. I delve into the morass of a swamp of a quicksand pit that is human stupidity. As it says in the quote I will post below. The quick and intuitive kind of "judgment" is natural. But I am a hard ass. I don't like people all that much, and don't give a fuck if people get upset by my articulating uncomfortable truths. But we all are born with perhaps not an inner child but instead, an inner idiot.

The second style of judgment is basically science. So. My theory is those fucking morons who are anti science sort of know that science minded people are right. But they resent them too. They are too fond of their inner idiots, and have let their inner idiot take over so much of their functioning in the world that they are hostile to the other system. That is why they fight science.

Science reminds them they are lazy and stupid. And they know that is true, but hate being reminded of it. Just like a lot of white Republicans really hate being reminded they are basically racists. That shit is related!

Anyway. Before I get to the quote. I have been thinking a lot lately about the critical scene from "Mad Men." The one where Don Draper explains in a pitch meeting to Lucky Strike executives what the purpose of advertising (and the commercial economy it services,) really is. It exists to assure people that they are ok. And every and any thing that threatens that sense of being ok? Must be opposed.

That is modern life. Read the blurb below, and after that? Class Dismissed!

"Explaining gullibility

Gullibility occurs because we have evolved to deal with information using two fundamentally different systems, according to Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman.

System 1 thinking is fast, automatic, intuitive, uncritical and promotes accepting anecdotal and personal information as true. This was a useful and adaptive processing strategy in our ancestral environment of small, face-to-face groups, where trust was based on life-long relationships. However, this kind of thinking can be dangerous in the anonymous online world.

System 2 thinking is a much more recent human achievement; it is slow, analytical, rational and effortful, and leads to the thorough evaluation of incoming information.

While all humans use both intuitive and analytic thinking, system 2 thinking is the method of science, and is the best available antidote to gullibility. So, education tends to reduce gullibility and those who receive scientific training in critical, sceptical thinking also tend to be less gullible and less easily manipulated.

Differences in trust can also influence gullibility. This may be related to early childhood experiences, with the idea that trust in infancy sets the stage for a lifelong expectation the world will be a good and pleasant place to live." Gullible.