[lbo-talk] stupidity is most dangerous in people with high IQ

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Fri May 17 07:19:11 PDT 2013


Carrol: " I think it is an accurate abstraction,"

[WS:] So when it fits your story, it is "accurate", but when it does not, it is not (witness your diatribes against using the work "left").

The usefulness of abstraction lies in its explanatory power - but if it obscures more than it explains - it is not only useless, but it becomes a noise making apparatus and thus it is dangerous. A belief that there is a unified "world capital' with unified interests that are attained most of the time is the worst kind of conspiracism that there is. A claim that there is a cabal of a few hundred puppet masters secretly pulling strings more believable than this crap.

For anyone who came to any understanding how complex systems work, it is hard to avoid a conclusion how indeterminate those systems are. That is to say, even in the ideal world of mathematics its is impossible to find *the* best solution or outcome, as many different solutions are possible. A good view on this has been provided by Paul Ormerod in his book "The death of economics" http://www.jayhanson.us/_Economics/TheDeathOfEconomics.pdf. and also by Kenneth Arrow (Arrow's Impossibility theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem). So even if the "best outcome" cannot be found in the work of mathematical abstraction, one can only imagine how messy it becomes in the real world plagued not only with measurement errors, but also subjective perceptions, conflicting interests, coincidences, unpredictability, plain stupidity, inflated egos

and the like.

A fear of circumstances beyond human control is as old as humanity itself.

It is the reason for magic and religion that gave an illusion of control - or at least understanding- of what is unpredictable, uncontrollable or inexplicable. Of course, our modern "rational" world does not believe in magic anymore, so we have to invent "rational" magic and its shamans.

Hence the demand for the consultants who crunch their numbers to create an illusion that decision makes whom they serve are "rational" and "know what they are doing." This is understandable - these managers and decision makers do not want to appear clueless and impotent to the public.

What I find surprising, though, is that the critics of these managers and decision makers not only swallow this illusion of control raw, but elevate it to even higher level by purporting its near omnipotence and infallibility - that even the managerial class itself would have problems believing. This goes well beyond the ordinary fear of the uncontrollable.

I see two possible explanations of that - psychological and functional.

The psychological explanation is that people with high IQ often have a certain form of mental disorder manifested in the compulsive seeking of order and regularities where none exist. This has been nicely portrayed in films like "A beautiful mind" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film) or "Pi" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_(film) . In this particular case the relatively high intelligence of these individuals is a disadvantage rather than advantage in the same way as a high power engine is a disadvantage in a vehicle with faulty brakes. If I ride a 50cc moped and my brakes fail, I can still manage to avoid crashing by braking with my feet, but when I drive a 1000+ hp sportster and the brakes fail, the crash is nearly certain. Ditto for high IQ individuals who fail to balance their System 2 rationality with System 1 sense of reality - they are lost in their own abstractions and often crash like protagonists in "A beautiful mind" and "Pi".

The functional explanation is that people who had high hopes of achieving "systemic changes" - as many lefties did - but realized that their hopes failed to materialize want to make sure that this was not due to their own faults or mistakes. To do so, they portray their adversaries as far more powerful and in control than they actually are, to create an illusion that they were overwhelmed by a force majeure that was impossible to overcome.

It is easier to accept a failure when you believes that there was nothing that could be done to win, than when you suspect that you fucked things up by your inflexibility, dogmatism, intransigence, partisan bickering, and inability to work with others.

Those two explanation often work in tandem. They also point out to why so many people find it so irritating to be around many lefties - they are highly intelligent and on the correct side of the issues - but mad as hatters.

-- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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