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Notes -
This is all part of a ploy to get me viewing another mediocre substack.
Not today!
All that glitters is not gold.
If it's any consolation, I like your Substack and don't think it's too mediocre.
Thanks. It's a work in progress to try to question the fundamentals of belief, and the discussions it has generated show it's surprising difficult to get intelligent people to question their own cherished beliefs, which in the case of rationalists in theory should not be the case.
Only if your prior was that intelligent people should be easy to get to question their cherished beliefs. The reverse seems to be the case, it is dumb people who know they are dumb who change belief easily. Smart people do not, by and large, change their beliefs, no matter the evidence.
http://culturalcognition.squarespace.com/browse-papers/motivated-numeracy-and-enlightened-self-government.html
Raw intelligence, g, or IQ is an impediment to wisdom. It allows us to bully others with complex arguments, Euler math and factiods, which reinforces our intellectual arrogance. Being smart moves you further from Truth, not closer. It is a handicap to be struggled with, not a superpower.
This is a very Motteish, meta contrarian hipster thing to say. This seems absurd, contrary to reason and personal experience. Intelligent people are not right about everything, but I would find it hard to believe they are wrong more often than stupid people.
The upper classes are not entirely devoid of superstition and conspiracy theory, but talking to an average lower class person for even a few minutes generally exposes truly wild reptilian-level beliefs in a senseless mishmash. You are romanticizing retards
That's not what I or the research said. They are less likely to change their beliefs. Whether they are wrong more than less intelligent people depends a great deal on the intellectual fashions of their social class and the subject of debate. If it's something boring, not culture war and technical, they're probably wrong less than dumb people, if it's classifying the sexes of the human species in 2022, they're probably wrong more.
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