Are We Really That Stupid? (long)

[hmkpoker]

If I go out on a limb and say that the overwhelming majority of the population is stupid, incompetent and irresponsible, I doubt many people are going to disagree with me. I think I'd be far more to meet opposition if I claimed the contrary, that people are in general rational, responsible and smart. We tend to hold the rest of the population to a very low standard.

Needless to say, it's no wonder that most people consider the idea of anarchy to be impractical and dangerous. Perhaps in a world of rational maximizers, game theory would dictate that the vast majority would naturally select mutually benefitting social norms, but we live in the real world. We know people are irrational without order. Look at wild animals. Hell, the very word invokes the image of otherwise sensible people running frantically around mainstreet with guns blazing and pillaged goods in arms. People are stupid and dangerous without order. We need someone keeping us in line…well, not so much myself since I’m a very rational fellow, but everyone else is a danger to themselves and others without order.

But here's the funny thing: we are remarkably bad at gauging just how stupid most people are.

This is demonstrably true. A little while ago I conducted a common experiment in OOT. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=8093179&page=) When asked to truthfully rate one's intelligence (or any trait for that matter) relative to the group median, one would expect that a large sample size would inevitably show approximately 50-50 results, yet somehow we end up with a whopping disparity of 74%. Seems simple enough with other questions, (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=8121199&an=0&page=5# Post8121199) yet poll the intelligence question to almost any group and you'll get the same results.

We see this reflected often, especially in these forums. More than a couple times, Christians have honestly begged the question of atheists as to why they’re not running around committing violent crimes, raping women, overdosing on drugs, or killing ourselves. Many people in the politics forum fear that, in the absence of formal education, children will by default join gangs and become a danger to themselves and others. Conservatives fear that if narcotics become legalized, a huge percentage of people will become addicted and society will fall into chaos, despite the widely available information as to just how dangerous some of these drugs are.

Why are we so bad at evaluating peoples’ intelligence? Well, first we need to understand a few basics of human psychology. Human beings, having met their essential survival and security needs, have a psychological need to feel important and accomplished. This may take place in whatever realm we want, be it arts, career, athletics…whatever we deem important. Human beings also tend to perform these self-evaluations in relative heuristics; that is, we do not tend to cardinally rank the value of our achievements, we tend to rank them ordinally, relative to some other human standard. Our standards are as diverse as fields in which we do the ranking: one may rank his accomplishments by relative standing in his clique, class, grade level, age level, district, state, country, or even relative to one’s former or ideal standing in the field. We have different thresholds of acceptability too; silver medals may be unacceptable to some while honorable mention is plenty for others, but nevertheless, humans tend overwhelmingly to want to be better in their respective talents than whatever they are using as a standard. (This seems to suggest, correctly imho, that a big part of the secret to fulfillment is simply lower standards.)

Not surprisingly, when faced with a blow to our ego, we are naturally inclined to rationalize things in our favor. Someone who prides himself on being the best X in town will be annoyed when someone who is a better X moves in, and our former champion will tend to think of excuses as to why this person is not, in fact, better than him. Perhaps this new fellow is cheating in some way, or was lucky and got early training in X as a child. Or perhaps, he is simply not that good at all.

The degree to which we can rationalize is affected by the field itself; fields that are more objectively quantifiable are more difficult to rationalize than fields that are more nebulous. Any sensible person who prides himself in his running ability cannot shake the fact that someone who completes the 400m faster than he is, in fact, a better runner. But this is not so for the abstract artist or experimental musician or the poet. Such things are simply much more subjective, and anyone inclined to believe that one is better than the other for other reasons will have little difficulty doing so.

This is precisely the phenomenon we encounter with intelligence. What exactly constitutes intelligence? Is it an IQ or SAT score? Is it one’s financial success in the business world, or is it something more nebulous like how good someone is at learning new skills, or perhaps it’s an aptitude in a specific field like athletics or the arts. While each of us have our own beliefs as to which metric is truly representative of our “intelligence,” they often conflict, and tend to reflect the biases caused by our own strengths. For example, a MENSA member with an affinity for logic puzzles and math problems is very likely to dismiss those less capable than him in such fields as “less intelligent,” while another fellow who is not so good at such things but is much more financially successful than the “genius” will be inclined to say, “Genius? He’s barely getting by in his dead-end job. That’s not very smart!” Both, naturally, think they are more intelligent than the other; a logical impossibility.

The other interesting thing about intelligence is that, whatever it is, it is something we find to be almost universally important. No one likes to feel stupid. Even children with Down syndrome will stubbornly insist “I’m not thtupid, you’re thtupid!” Except in rare cases where stupidity is socially rewarded (class clowns, the town drunk, fake-breasted bleach blonde valley girls), competence and excellence are always recognized and reinforced.

It’s an unfortunately poorly defined term, because as it is used, it seems to refer to whatever aptitude the speaker has. The semantic battle for what, specifically, the word “intelligence” should refer to reflects our own desires for self-importance; we are trying to define reality in a manner that benefits us as individuals. And so naturally, when presented with lots of subjective data from many individuals, we are both inclined and capable to underestimate them. The more we underestimate them, the better we feel. The truth, that humans are in fact much more capable and continuous with each other, is a very humbling thought.

But that’s only half the problem. Even if we are, in fact, as unintelligent as we fear, our default solutions for dealing with the problem usually make it worse. Socially, we have two basic methods that we employ through government to solve the problem, which I will group with the parties that typically employ them.

The Right is commonly associated with the punishment of victimless, potentially self-injurious activities. Take drugs for example. One does not have to go far to find an example of someone who has completely ruined his life with a drug addiction. Drugs have been ruining people’s lives since even before the first anti-drug laws. Determined to end such problems by creating a deterrent, the Right is quick to punish such activities harshly. The result is a looming threat of social punishment, and higher prices to pay for poorer-quality goods; surely fewer lives will be lost to drugs.

The problem, as we see, is that the war on drugs simply cannot combat the enormously inelastic demand (if the demand weren’t so inelastic, it is doubtful that the product would be a problem in the first place.) Those who are dissuaded from doing the drugs because of the new conditions are those with an elastic demand for drugs, and therefore ones that would be unlikely candidates to ruin their lives with them even if they were legal. Those who are not are left more likely to ruin their own lives because of the new, dangerous social consequences. As drugs create a greater burden on people’s lives, thanks to harsh punishments, high costs, and the newly created black market, the Right attempts to deal with the increase of the problem by increasing the punishments.

Surely everyone should see that the problem with this solution is that it is utterly redundant: conservatives are trying to stop activities that people know can ruin their lives by threatening to ruin their lives if they do them. Dangerous drugs, such as heroin, are known very well to be dangerous, thanks to a wide array of information. Even most recreational illegal drug users know to stay away from heroin; its danger carries with it a natural incentive to stay away.

While the Right seeks to deter stupidity, the Left seeks to ameliorate its effects. It is a sad shame that some people must struggle to find employment or health care. Those who are competent and capable of managing their money clearly have no problems, but the others, unfortunately, are not. To help those people, the Left proposes to create safety nets for those who are not capable of helping themselves. Those who spend their savings on expensive consumer products are protected in their golden years with social security. Those who cannot afford health care are given special programs. Those who are fired are given welfare checks.

The safety net suffers from a very obvious problem: it inclines one to fall. No reasonable person can doubt that if there are two identical countries, and one institutes a welfare problem while the other does not, the otherwise terrifying reality of unemployment will be more prevalent in the former. If one institutes socialized psychiatric care, we will expect to see more people going to the shrink. It enables behaviors that are otherwise too risky.

The problem with both of these approaches is the same: the proxy by which we gauge the problem must show an increase in incidence when either of these types of policies are implemented. We determine how bad the unemployment problem is by how many people are unemployed, yet any attempt to alleviate the severity of unemployment must increase its incidence. We determine how bad drugs are by how badly they ruin people’s lives, but any attempt to block them through punishment must make the problems worse. The inevitable result is a rise of unemployment, drug horror stories, bankruptcies, poverty, and crime, all of which we later have the pleasure of being bombarded with on the evening news, and make us think “wow….people are really stupid!”

The combination of our inclination to think people are stupid, coupled with our ill-advised traditional methods of dealing with it make stupidity a self-fulfilling prophecy. And unending parade of subsidies, punishments and lower standards where responsibility is sufficient incentive cannot make people more responsible; it can only breed dependence.





Cliff Notes: Human beings have a natural drive to feel important and competent. We evaluate our standings in these respects relative to other people. Because intelligence, a highly desirable characteristic, is very poorly defined, it is exceptionally easy for us to rationalize ourselves are relatively intelligent, and everyone else, reflexively, as unintelligent. This miscalculation, coupled with our typical counter-productive measures of subsidies and punishing regulations, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, and drives us away from the responsibility and freedoms that we are fully capable of.

[TomCollins]

Excellent post.

Sometimes tough love is good love.

[Borodog]

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Excellent post.

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[DougShrapnel]

hmk, you know i only read the bold parts by now i assume.

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we are remarkably bad at gauging just how stupid most people are.

[/ QUOTE ] We are remarkabbly bad at gauging anything, look at history. You can see just how bad we are. It takes time for us to understand.

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our default solutions for dealing with the problem usually make it worse.

[/ QUOTE ] Usually, seriously, we would not be here if it was so!

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The Right, conservatives are trying to stop activities that people know can ruin their lives by threatening to ruin their lives if they do them.

[/ QUOTE ] Not even close to an honest estitimation. The Right are doing what they think is best, for them. PERIOD.

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The safety net suffers from a very obvious problem: it inclines one to fall.

[/ QUOTE ] Prove it. A trapize artist is more dangerious with a net. A capitalist is more enterprising with a net. Do you think trapize artists are idoits? No they aren't else they would not survive very long. Enjoy your circus with no nets.

Horrible post. I'll read it later, right now I've only read the bold. I hope inbetween the bolds actually forms a cogent point to make sense of this gibberish.

[hmkpoker]

I'd rebut this if there was actually a point to rebut.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd rebut this if there was actually a point to rebut.

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I love Politics grudges spilling over into SMP. I never go to Politics, so its always like a surprising plot twist.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
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I'd rebut this if there was actually a point to rebut.

[/ QUOTE ]
I love Politics grudges spilling over into SMP. I never go to Politics, so its always like a surprising plot twist.

[/ QUOTE ] No grudges, honestly. Politics is nothing more then a bunch of people arguing over should the bathroom be called a restroom, or a bathroom, a laveratory. It's just the place people go to take a [censored].
edit: circumventing cuss words

[vhawk01]

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I'd rebut this if there was actually a point to rebut.

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I love Politics grudges spilling over into SMP. I never go to Politics, so its always like a surprising plot twist.

[/ QUOTE ] No grudges, honestly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I honestly dont know if there is or not, it just seemed that way from limited experience between you two. My bad.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
hmk, you know i only read the bold parts by now i assume.

[ QUOTE ]
we are remarkably bad at gauging just how stupid most people are.

[/ QUOTE ] We are remarkabbly bad at gauging anything, look at history. You can see just how bad we are. It takes time for us to understand.

[ QUOTE ]
our default solutions for dealing with the problem usually make it worse.

[/ QUOTE ] Usually, seriously, we would not be here if it was so!

[ QUOTE ]
The Right, conservatives are trying to stop activities that people know can ruin their lives by threatening to ruin their lives if they do them.

[/ QUOTE ] Not even close to an honest estitimation. The Right are doing what they think is best, for them. PERIOD.

[ QUOTE ]
The safety net suffers from a very obvious problem: it inclines one to fall.

[/ QUOTE ] Prove it. A trapize artist is more dangerious with a net. A capitalist is more enterprising with a net. Do you think trapize artists are idoits? No they aren't else they would not survive very long. Enjoy your circus with no nets.

Horrible post. I'll read it later, right now I've only read the bold. I hope inbetween the bolds actually forms a cogent point to make sense of this gibberish.

[/ QUOTE ]

Calling posts that you haven't even read horrible and gibberish makes you look like an a-hole.

Removing negative consequences makes one more likely to engage in any behavior. If you cannot understand this, it is not hmk's problem.

Removing the consequence of falling (death) makes acrobats more likely to engage in high wire acts. Removing the consequences of staying unemployed makes people more likely to stay unemployed.

Duh.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
Removing negative consequences makes one more likely to engage in any behavior. If you cannot understand this, it is not hmk's problem.

[/ QUOTE ] I can understand this, it was my point. Removing the consequences of saying the world is not flat but indeed is round is a fantastic idea.

[DougShrapnel]

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I'd rebut this if there was actually a point to rebut.

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I love Politics grudges spilling over into SMP. I never go to Politics, so its always like a surprising plot twist.

[/ QUOTE ] No grudges, honestly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I honestly dont know if there is or not, it just seemed that way from limited experience between you two. My bad.

[/ QUOTE ] Vhawk, there is abosolutely a ton I agree with HMK about. I wish I could tell you to pop the popcorn but I doubt it will be that exciting.

[dknightx]

as an aside, i think that poll is a bad example. First of all, i believe that 80% of OOTers are smarter than the AVERAGE person ... that said, most of the people voting in that poll do not know the rest of the OOT population, so its difficult to really gauge if they are smarter then that population ... so most just compared themselves to the general population.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Removing the consequence of falling (death) makes acrobats more likely to engage in high wire acts. Removing the consequences of staying unemployed makes people more likely to stay unemployed.

[/ QUOTE ]

The analogy refers to a somewhat risky activity that is taking definately place (life), that one presumably has to undergo. Removing the risk of failure inclines one to fail.

Now if you want to take the analogy very literally you can claim that such a dangerous activity as the trapeze can only be mastered with the progressive training that a safety net must assist. Unfamiliar with the mechanics of circus stunts I'm inclined to believe this is the case, but that's not the point. My bolded statement was just a metaphoric summary of a point that Doug didn't even bother reading. Instead, he chose to nitpick the analogy. It's like arguing that people in glass houses in fact DO throw stones because of the anti-social conditioning they recieved as a child from the complete lack of privacy that a transparent house would provide.

Doug-

If you're not going to read the post, just don't comment. I made a point that I think is SMP-worthy, demonstrated it, and highlighted the central themes. If you're going to skim without reading and fallaciously nitpick things that are irrelevent to the topic, then just don't say anything.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
as an aside, i think that poll is a bad example. First of all, i believe that 80% of OOTers are smarter than the AVERAGE person ... that said, most of the people voting in that poll do not know the rest of the OOT population, so its difficult to really gauge if they are smarter then that population ... so most just compared themselves to the general population.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're missing something; the poll explicitly stated that this was OOT-specific. I agree that the average OOTer (and more importantly, the average 2+2er) is more intelligent than the average human being, at least partially for reasons outlined in my OP. I also believe that most OOTers/2+2ers are somewhat aware of this fact, and that this would have some effect on their self-evaluations. Having recieved these signals from the previous poll, the results in this (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=8095599&page=0&vc=1) poll similarly suggest that people are still inclined to overestimate their intelligence. (I'd have posted another poll saying "Do you STILL think you're smarter than the average OOTiot," but not wanting to get my * cherry popped, I refrained...I'm still pretty sure it would have been a similar result, though closer to the mean since there is more information)

If we are to believe that the majority of OOTers simply ignored signals from the rest of the 2+2 posts and compared themselves to what they think the national or worldwide average is, that means that an awful lot of people making a demonstrably dumb mistake, and simply reinforces the point.

[FortunaMaximus]

OOT?

*shrugs* That's a results skew on its own, isn't it.

Well, potential intelligence doesn't equal fulfilled intelligence. Kids aren't driven hard enough in schools. Just look at what you need to get into 99% of universities in North America.

Motivation. Pah. How do you motivate mortals? Especially those in the niche middle, 110-125 IQ (SB is retarded, but it works in a general fashion...) when you allow them to understand nihilist aspects, and popmed allows for a FTW, we're gonna die anyway mentality.

Mortal death is the biggest hindrance to this species at its current stage.

Yes, people are dumber than they have to be. But it's not quite their fault.

Enclose them, push them, push them, attack them intellectually, and they will show improvement. Find the failures faster, stream them into their proper trades. And there's a huge amount of choice even in those. Moreso than in the white collar world. it's not like I'm espousing Marxism. It's not beets and turnips and scrip. There's enough bounty and diversity in the West to make this happen.

Decent post though, hmk. Gotta push them till they break, that's all. I mean, after all... Quixotic anyway.

[mbb]

There's a fairly large body of evidence that says life favors the people who are "stupid" in the ways that you describe.

In fact, they may not be the "stupid" ones. We, who struggle to be accurate, may be stupid:

People who see themselves and their situations as better than average, even when they aren't, tend to live longer, earn more money, capture more attractive mates, enjoy more health, and etc.

People whose evaluations are less optimistic suffer dramatically. This is true even if their evaluations are more accurate.

For citations, grab a book by Martin E. P. Seligman and look in the endnotes.

[hmkpoker]

This is an excellent point, one which I touched upon briefly:

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Our standards are as diverse as fields in which we do the ranking: one may rank his accomplishments by relative standing in his clique, class, grade level, age level, district, state, country, or even relative to one’s former or ideal standing in the field. We have different thresholds of acceptability too; silver medals may be unacceptable to some while honorable mention is plenty for others, but nevertheless, humans tend overwhelmingly to want to be better in their respective talents than whatever they are using as a standard. (This seems to suggest, correctly imho, that a big part of the secret to fulfillment is simply lower standards.)


[/ QUOTE ]

I think theism is a rather excellent example of this btw; even if it is bunk that only a fool would believe in, it can be a very useful paradigm.

I don't believe, however, that intelligent people are forever doomed to misery because of the unpleasant reality that they are inclined to percieve. If you want to be happier, use your intelligence to learn how to be happier.

[madnak]

To elaborate on this - I read a study once, unfortunately I don't remember it, that indicated that people are relatively good at evaluating others, but are terrible at evaluating themselves. There were something like 14 "attributes" being tested according to various measures and scales - none were perfect, but the results were fairly consistent. Everyone considered themselves smarter, funnier, kinder, etc than they really were. There was a really enormous disparity actually.

But in terms of judging other people, we're more accurate. I'm not even sure that came from the same study.

So... People are stupid. Especially the people who say that people are stupid.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
This is demonstrably true. A little while ago I conducted a common experiment in OOT. When asked to truthfully rate one's intelligence (or any trait for that matter) relative to the group median, one would expect that a large sample size would inevitably show approximately 50-50 results, yet somehow we end up with a whopping disparity of 74%. Seems simple enough with other questions, yet poll the intelligence question to almost any group and you'll get the same results.

[/ QUOTE ] See madnaks post.

[ QUOTE ]
We see this reflected often, especially in these forums. More than a couple times, Christians have honestly begged the question of atheists as to why they’re not running around committing violent crimes, raping women, overdosing on drugs, or killing ourselves.

[/ QUOTE ] This is a very difficlut question that even atheists have a hard time understanding. For xtains to hold this agianst an atheist is preposterious. So they mean that their life would be worthless without a God. Thier Wife they would no longer love? Their son or duaghter would be nothing more than a mouch or a sloot? It's sad indeed when i hear this agruement from theists. I would not do, make of my life what I have done without God. It bothers me that the arguement they make is God is the only thing that gives their life meaning.

[ QUOTE ]
Many people in the politics forum fear that, in the absence of formal education, children will by default join gangs and become a danger to themselves and others

[/ QUOTE ] I don't know about this, but if the rest of the people that you need to excahnge goods with are uneducated, the result is very bad indeed. Education is what separates the free from the slaves.

[ QUOTE ]
Human beings, having met their essential survival and security needs, have a psychological need to feel important and accomplished. This may take place in whatever realm we want, be it arts, career, athletics…whatever we deem important. Human beings also tend to perform these self-evaluations in relative heuristics; that is, we do not tend to cardinally rank the value of our achievements, we tend to rank them ordinally, relative to some other human standard. Our standards are as diverse as fields in which we do the ranking: one may rank his accomplishments by relative standing in his clique, class, grade level, age level, district, state, country, or even relative to one’s former or ideal standing in the field. We have different thresholds of acceptability too; silver medals may be unacceptable to some while honorable mention is plenty for others, but nevertheless, humans tend overwhelmingly to want to be better in their respective talents than whatever they are using as a standard.

[/ QUOTE ] This is fairly good.

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(This seems to suggest, correctly imho, that a big part of the secret to fulfillment is simply lower standards.)

[/ QUOTE ] But this is misleading. The secret to fulfillment is correct asignment of standards. Many times it's lowering what you previously thought, but it's not always. Other times is increasing what you have taken for granted

[ QUOTE ]
Not surprisingly, when faced with a blow to our ego, we are naturally inclined to rationalize things in our favor. Someone who prides himself on being the best X in town will be annoyed when someone who is a better X moves in, and our former champion will tend to think of excuses as to why this person is not, in fact, better than him. Perhaps this new fellow is cheating in some way, or was lucky and got early training in X as a child. Or perhaps, he is simply not that good at all.

The degree to which we can rationalize is affected by the field itself; fields that are more objectively quantifiable are more difficult to rationalize than fields that are more nebulous. Any sensible person who prides himself in his running ability cannot shake the fact that someone who completes the 400m faster than he is, in fact, a better runner. But this is not so for the abstract artist or experimental musician or the poet. Such things are simply much more subjective, and anyone inclined to believe that one is better than the other for other reasons will have little difficulty doing so.

This is precisely the phenomenon we encounter with intelligence. What exactly constitutes intelligence? Is it an IQ or SAT score? Is it one’s financial success in the business world, or is it something more nebulous like how good someone is at learning new skills, or perhaps it’s an aptitude in a specific field like athletics or the arts. While each of us have our own beliefs as to which metric is truly representative of our “intelligence,” they often conflict, and tend to reflect the biases caused by our own strengths. For example, a MENSA member with an affinity for logic puzzles and math problems is very likely to dismiss those less capable than him in such fields as “less intelligent,” while another fellow who is not so good at such things but is much more financially successful than the “genius” will be inclined to say, “Genius? He’s barely getting by in his dead-end job. That’s not very smart!” Both, naturally, think they are more intelligent than the other; a logical impossibility.


[/ QUOTE ] These are really good thoughts, IME.

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But that’s only half the problem. Even if we are, in fact, as unintelligent as we fear, our default solutions for dealing with the problem usually make it worse

[/ QUOTE ] I cannot overestimate how incorrect, or incomplete I believe this thought to be.

And then the rest is a skyscraper built on flimsy ground. I attemped to get the gest of the post by reading the bold only, sorry for that. You bolded, IME, the worst parts of a very good, well thought out post, that I enjoyed reading.

[John21]

Like you alluded to - how do we define intelligence?

Is it awareness and access to information (like spellcheck):

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m301/skylanepublishing/morans.jpg

Or the capacity of abstract reasoning to imply inferences:
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m301/skylanepublishing/182348_a0ebba58-abb1-475d-842f-5a35.jpg

But all in all, a very well thought out and very well expressed post.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]

Now if you want to take the analogy very literally you can claim that such a dangerous activity as the trapeze can only be mastered with the progressive training that a safety net must assist. Unfamiliar with the mechanics of circus stunts I'm inclined to believe this is the case, but that's not the point. My bolded statement was just a metaphoric summary of a point that Doug didn't even bother reading. Instead, he chose to nitpick the analogy. It's like arguing that people in glass houses in fact DO throw stones because of the anti-social conditioning they recieved as a child from the complete lack of privacy that a transparent house would provide.

[/ QUOTE ] Thank you for trying to understand the point.

[Borodog]

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Now if you want to take the analogy very literally you can claim that such a dangerous activity as the trapeze can only be mastered with the progressive training that a safety net must assist. Unfamiliar with the mechanics of circus stunts I'm inclined to believe this is the case, but that's not the point. My bolded statement was just a metaphoric summary of a point that Doug didn't even bother reading. Instead, he chose to nitpick the analogy. It's like arguing that people in glass houses in fact DO throw stones because of the anti-social conditioning they recieved as a child from the complete lack of privacy that a transparent house would provide.

[/ QUOTE ] Thank you for trying to understand the point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, the irony.

[hmkpoker]

This is a very interesting point. I'd love if someone could provide a link to this. I'm still inclined to believe that our natural self-serving biases reflexively make us underestimate others, even if it is to a small degree (simply because it definately cannot make us overestimate them)

This may very greatly affect or even refute the first half of my post. I am not sure how to respond to this yet. I'll have to read up on this and think about it.

EDIT: I don't think it can refute my point for the reasons in the first paragraph of this post.

[Borodog]

FWIW, I remember seeing the same study in the popular media. And frankly, I don't think it affects the argument at all.

That a person might be able to more accurately evaluate any other individual person than themselves does not change the fact that the person must elevate himself relative to the entire population if he overestimates himself. If he then denies he is overestimating his own intelligence, he then must in some sense devalue the rest of the population as a whole relative to himself, even if he does not do so with any one individual.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know about this, but if the rest of the people that you need to excahnge goods with are uneducated, the result is very bad indeed. Education is what separates the free from the slaves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just because someone is uneducated does not mean he is dumb. It is more important that people are smart than educated, and it takes a critical eye to realize just how bad a job education does at making people smart.

[ QUOTE ]
But this is misleading. The secret to fulfillment is correct asignment of standards. Many times it's lowering what you previously thought, but it's not always. Other times is increasing what you have taken for granted

[/ QUOTE ]

I know, I'm not speaking in absolutes. I'm speaking in tendencies.

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I cannot overestimate how incorrect, or incomplete I believe this thought to be.

And then the rest is a skyscraper built on flimsy ground. I attemped to get the gest of the post by reading the bold only, sorry for that. You bolded, IME, the worst parts of a very good, well thought out post, that I enjoyed reading.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is funny, because I think my argument in the second half was a lot better. I anticipated that the first part would be recieved better just because I know no one wants to read an AC rant. Excepting special conditions (like young children), I think it is very reasonable to believe that any interference to a problem for which we have evolved both the incentive and a more effective means of dealing with must carry with it a tendency of futility.

Your criticisms of my assertions make no sense.

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The Right, conservatives are trying to stop activities that people know can ruin their lives by threatening to ruin their lives if they do them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not even close to an honest estitimation. The Right are doing what they think is best, for them. PERIOD.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no exclusivity between my point and yours. It is like countering an evolutionist's assertion about reproductive incentives by saying "No, human beings have sex because it feels good!"

The safety net is something I'm not going to get into here.

[John21]

You've made some very good points.
But I'd like you to consider one point in particular.

We know from our very limited experience with feral children, that they are in no way an asset to the 'herd'. A considerable amount of energy is expended to teach the individual to communicate, interact and abide by the standards within the group. Now the individuals responsible for instilling this information are very unlikely to receive any direct benefit from the energy they expend, yet the individual receiving the fruits of their labor will.

From a utilitarian standpoint, why should the first group (parents) expend any energy at all?

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Now the individuals responsible for instilling this information are very unlikely to receive any direct benefit from the energy they expend, yet the individual receiving the fruits of their labor will.

[/ QUOTE ]

False. Parents have an inherent incentive to teach their children.

You will note that almost all children are fluent in their native tongue before they so much as step foot in a classroom, and most of their linguistic training comes from mommy and daddy spending time interacting with them. Being uneducated does not make somebody "feral" for [censored]'s sake.

*sigh* If state-mandated education started at infancy, everyone here would be saying "What! No schooling until the age of five! Do you honestly expect parents to teach their children how to talk?!"

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
*sigh* If state-mandated education started at infancy, everyone here would be saying "What! No schooling until the age of five! Do you honestly expect parents to teach their children how to talk?!"


[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't go that far.

[ QUOTE ]
False. Parents have an inherent incentive to teach their children.

[/ QUOTE ]
When you have interviewed 500+ parents who derived some sort of 'utililarian benefit', let me know. (I'm assuming a benefit would not be defined by having the kids live with you after they're 18.)

[hmkpoker]

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When you have interviewed 500+ parents who derived some sort of 'utililarian benefit', let me know. (I'm assuming a benefit would not be defined by having the kids live with you after they're 18.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Evolution has rendered us with an instinct to protect children, especially our children. If you seriously doubt that parents have an instinctive predisposition to love their children, I'm stopping this conversation here.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

When you have interviewed 500+ parents who derived some sort of 'utililarian benefit', let me know. (I'm assuming a benefit would not be defined by having the kids live with you after they're 18.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Evolution has rendered us with an instinct to protect children, especially our children. If you seriously doubt that parents have an instinctive predisposition to love their children,

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm okay with the love part; I'm just questioning its relation to utilitarianism. I know I felt good buying my kids new snowboards, and matching apparel - just not quite sure how the herd benefited.

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I'm stopping this conversation here.

[/ QUOTE ]
Great mind? - yes. Great at weaving her philosophy into a compelling story? - yes. Effective at communicating? Well, Ayn hit two out of three.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
This is a very interesting point. I'd love if someone could provide a link to this. I'm still inclined to believe that our natural self-serving biases reflexively make us underestimate others, even if it is to a small degree (simply because it definately cannot make us overestimate them)

[/ QUOTE ] I'm not sure we are underestimating others; overestimating ourselves makes more sense. You've seen these studies, in addition to doing them, correct (e.g. 80% think they are above average or better in leadership, only 4% think they are below average...and so forth)?

Evolution gives no benefits to those who underestimate others. For those who overestimate themselves, in terms of efficacy and ability... optimistic, self-assured, who believe they are self-reliant...well these traits would be selected.

It's not that others are bad, it is that we ourselves are great.

[siegfriedandroy]

****random nonsensical drivel deleted by wacki*****

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
This is a very interesting point. I'd love if someone could provide a link to this. I'm still inclined to believe that our natural self-serving biases reflexively make us underestimate others, even if it is to a small degree (simply because it definately cannot make us overestimate them)

This may very greatly affect or even refute the first half of my post. I am not sure how to respond to this yet. I'll have to read up on this and think about it.

EDIT: I don't think it can refute my point for the reasons in the first paragraph of this post.

[/ QUOTE ]

The argument is still probably valid. But I think it's an interesting point. At any rate, an evaluation of intellect is going to be relative as well as subjective. Obviously compared to a brilliant scientist, most people are "stupid." But compared to my dog, most people are really, really smart.

It doesn't much matter - even if people in general are utter morons, then the reasoning still applies. And I'd say that moreover, if people really are that dumb, then the likelihood of people being able to come up with a viable social "system" is essentially nil in the first place.

[Exsubmariner]

[ QUOTE ]
Why are we so bad at evaluating peoples’ intelligence? Well, first we need to understand a few basics of human psychology. Human beings, having met their essential survival and security needs, have a psychological need to feel important and accomplished. This may take place in whatever realm we want, be it arts, career, athletics…whatever we deem important. Human beings also tend to perform these self-evaluations in relative heuristics; that is, we do not tend to cardinally rank the value of our achievements, we tend to rank them ordinally, relative to some other human standard. Our standards are as diverse as fields in which we do the ranking: one may rank his accomplishments by relative standing in his clique, class, grade level, age level, district, state, country, or even relative to one’s former or ideal standing in the field. We have different thresholds of acceptability too; silver medals may be unacceptable to some while honorable mention is plenty for others, but nevertheless, humans tend overwhelmingly to want to be better in their respective talents than whatever they are using as a standard. (This seems to suggest, correctly imho, that a big part of the secret to fulfillment is simply lower standards.)


[/ QUOTE ]

This is cultural. We live in a culture which is obsessed with accomplishment. Western culture back to the Greeks has been this way. Things are different in other cultures around the world. There is both internal backlash and external backlash to the logical repercussions of being so oriented on achievement. What you are describing is specifically related to western culture, and not necessarily universally true.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure we are underestimating others; overestimating ourselves makes more sense. You've seen these studies, in addition to doing them, correct (e.g. 80% think they are above average or better in leadership, only 4% think they are below average...and so forth)?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a matter of degree. I am willing to concede that we overestimate ourselves more than we underestimate others. However, it stands to reason that the same mechanisms responsible for our self-overestimation must result in the underestimation of others. If we-

- have a natural drive toward feeling important
- judge our importance as relative to others
- have an imperfect or malleable estimation of others' worth that is at all subconsciously influenced by the aforementioned drive

...then it stands to reason that our tendency in the evaluation of others must lean toward underestimation. Our natural evaluation mechanisms purposefully vary our evaluations, and these variations cannot lean toward overestimation, so underestimation is the only alternative. This is the same argument I used to explain to borodog that handgun availability must result in higher incidence of suicide. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Board=politics&Number=76269 18&Searchpage=1&Main=7621686&Words=suicide+Borodog &topic=&Search=true#Post7626918)

[ QUOTE ]
Evolution gives no benefits to those who underestimate others.

[/ QUOTE ]

Overestimation of the self and underestimation of others are complementary, not exclusive. Both serve to achieve the same end (which, while psychologically rewarding in the short term, is impractical).

[Propertarian]

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...then it stands to reason that our tendency in the evaluation of others must lean toward underestimation. Our natural evaluation mechanisms purposefully vary our evaluations, and these variations cannot lean toward overestimation, so underestimation is the only alternative.

[/ QUOTE ] I'm willing to concede that we probably have a tendency to underestimate others, but it doesn't logically follow from the permises you listed that we are actually underestimating others; it could still be all overestimation of oneself. I'm much more inclined to believe that our view about ourselves is flawed, because of the huge ammount of bias involved in that evaluation.

[ QUOTE ]
Overestimation of the self and underestimation of others are complementary, not exclusive. Both serve to achieve the same end (which, while psychologically rewarding in the short term, is impractical

[/ QUOTE ] It may be impractical society wide, but is not impractical for the individual involved, unfortunately. Think about it: is high-self-esteem and high self-efficacy (things that are very attractive to the opposite sex-and lead us to work harder and better) more likely to come about if we believe we are better than others or if we believe we are not?

Just like individually rational decisions lead to outcomes that irrational collectively, individual fitness enhancing mechanisms can lead to a loss of collective fitness.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
This is cultural. We live in a culture which is obsessed with accomplishment. Western culture back to the Greeks has been this way. Things are different in other cultures around the world. There is both internal backlash and external backlash to the logical repercussions of being so oriented on achievement. What you are describing is specifically related to western culture, and not necessarily universally true.


[/ QUOTE ] Western culture may place a higher emphasis on these things than other cultures, but what he is saying is true in every "culture" I know of. The main difference between is what brings people status (although this is strikingly similar world-wide as well; it almost always at least includes money, job prestige, and power for males, and personal appearance and $ for females); competition for and concern about relative status is universal.

As you brought up, their are social norms against competition for relative status in some areas in some cultures. But this does not remove status seeking altogether; at best it just shifts the object of status.

A good "rule of thumb", btw, is that when something persists despite social norms against it and concerted attempts to eliminate it, that thing is due to nature and not nurture.

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
The argument is still probably valid. But I think it's an interesting point. At any rate, an evaluation of intellect is going to be relative as well as subjective. Obviously compared to a brilliant scientist, most people are "stupid." But compared to my dog, most people are really, really smart.

[/ QUOTE ] The bottom line is that most people rate themselves as "above average" relative to other humans in most areas (all "positive" things that I have seen data for this is true), but, by definition, most people cannot be above average on this metric-the total that is above average is less than 50%. Which means that people MUST by overestimating themselves compared to others and/or underestimating themselves compared to others.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm willing to concede that we probably have a tendency to underestimate others, but it doesn't logically follow from the permises you listed that we are actually underestimating others; it could still be all overestimation of oneself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming the premises I provided and with a basic knowledge of psychology, the chances of this are infinitely small.

The brain has more than sufficient incentive (self-esteem), capacity (subconsciously-malleable heuristical reasoning), and opportunity (constant action) to do something. If you want to defend that the brain does not do this at all, good luck.

[ QUOTE ]
It may be impractical society wide, but is not impractical for the individual involved, unfortunately. Think about it: is high-self-esteem and high self-efficacy (things that are very attractive to the opposite sex-and lead us to work harder and better) more likely to come about if we believe we are better than others or if we believe we are not?

[/ QUOTE ]

Underestimating others does the same thing. Who's happier, someone who believes he is in a world with higher standards, or someone who believes the standards are low?

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]
Underestimating others does the same thing. Who's happier, someone who believes he is in a world with higher standards, or someone who believes the standards are low?

[/ QUOTE ] I agree-that comment applied to both.

But, which would you rather be: the best saxophone player in a small town or the best one in NYC? Which is more impressive to most people: High GPA at Princeton or a high GPA at tiny town USA tech?

[Propertarian]

[ QUOTE ]

The bottom line is that most people rate themselves as "above average" relative to other humans in most areas (all "positive" things that I have seen data for this is true), but, by definition, most people cannot be above average on this metric-the total that is above average is less than 50%.Which means that people MUST by overestimating themselves compared to others and/or underestimating OTHERS.


[/ QUOTE ] Fixed My Post.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
You've made some very good points.
But I'd like you to consider one point in particular.

We know from our very limited experience with feral children, that they are in no way an asset to the 'herd'. A considerable amount of energy is expended to teach the individual to communicate, interact and abide by the standards within the group. Now the individuals responsible for instilling this information are very unlikely to receive any direct benefit from the energy they expend, yet the individual receiving the fruits of their labor will.

From a utilitarian standpoint, why should the first group (parents) expend any energy at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

John21,

Parents care for their children because their genes benefit from that care, and the genes have programmed the parents to derive psychic benefits from providing it. Utilitarian standpoints are only useful when they are applied to the correct entities. Those entities are the genes, not the individuals.

[FastPlaySlow]

So what is a way for the masses, the unintelligent, learn to be above average? What seperates the above average intelligent person, from your typical person who believes they are above average, but are in reality not?

Wikipedia? /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Underestimating others does the same thing. Who's happier, someone who believes he is in a world with higher standards, or someone who believes the standards are low?

[/ QUOTE ] I agree-that comment applied to both.

But, which would you rather be: the best saxophone player in a small town or the best one in NYC? Which is more impressive to most people: High GPA at Princeton or a high GPA at tiny town USA tech?

[/ QUOTE ]

Undoubtedly, being the best saxophone player in NYC is preferable to being the best one in a small town. It is strictly better. But this is not representative of the kinds of choices we have to make in real life. IRL, we encounter things like you would rather be the best saxophonist in a small town, or be a merely good saxophonist in New York? This is a lot different. And it's pretty well known that high school kids who are first in their class are in for an unpleasant shock when they get into the Ivy leagues; they have not changed, but the standards have.

[Propertarian]

Once again, I agree. And, the importance of relative status leads most people to derive more utility from being a big fish in a small pond than a medium sized fish in a big one.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Once again, I agree. And, the importance of relative status leads most people to derive more utility from being a big fish in a small pond than a medium sized fish in a big one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo. This is why I think small, intimate communities are so phenomenally useful psychologically; everyone is the best at something. They also reflect the tribal conditions in which we evolved.