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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026

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You never encountered opinions that let's say Trump voters are uneducated stupid heliolites or that all Christians are science deniers or some version of this argument?

Roughly speaking, yes. With those examples, my interpretation of the claim is that stupid people are (sometimes) seen as less valuable, less worthy, lesser.

Anyway, the main problem I see with the argument (as I understand it) is that when people attack Christians, or Trump voters, or whomever as "stupid," the point is to insult and degrade them. It doesn't matter whether or not they are stupid. So I don't see how the proposed "epistemic framework" would make a difference. In a hypothetical world where "stupid" is no longer seen as an insult, people would just find another way to insult and degrade their out-group.

It is both. They are ignorant because they don't want to learn The Scienceā„¢. And they do not want to learn because they are intellectually lazy bigots. This is a standard pathos + false ethos attack that James Lindsay described quite well. He described it as an ultimate Ad Hominem battery of attacks - you do not have scientific consensus, plus you probably also have some unresolved trauma and also your opinons are very close to what fascists and racists say.

So it is a blend: you are white supremacist fascist, Jones level MAGA conspiracy supporter. religious bigot who suffers trauma from priest child diddling and sexual repression. It is all one neat dehumanization package.

Of course there are other strains of this, e.g. old school eugenics intellectual progressivism - something very close to maybe current Grey tribe technocratic elite often with Fabian Socialist bent: most people are just stupid and they simply do not know what is good for them. We are the intellectual utilitarian avant-garde who will establish benevolent technocratic permanent beurocracy, where we will use psychological tricks, nudging, propaganda, economic and tax incentives and other means to make sure that the the sub 100IQ plankton can live their lives in moderately prosperous society. Of course they will fight us, but it is because they are stupid and barely above some animals intellectually. Also we are not using words like good and evil outside of tongue-in-cheek. The population is just object of our power, they ae barely sapient and incapable of good/evil. And the best of us who achieved true Gnosis of utilitarian calculus are literally beyond Good and Evil in Nichean sense.

It is both. They are ignorant because they don't want to learn The Scienceā„¢. And they do not want to learn because they are intellectually lazy bigots.

Those attacks might very well be common, but they present a different issue. It's arguably wrong to devalue someone for being stupid; it's pretty reasonable to devalue someone for being an intellectually lazy bigot. As far as I can tell, the OP isn't proposing an epistemic framework to accommodate intellectually lazy bigots.

Besides, the sort of attacks you describe belong in the same category as stupidity. It's irrelevant whether the person is actually a bigot. The point is to insult and degrade the person.