Smart People Dumb People

There are two basic kinds of people. There are smart people and there are stupid people. Now this is painting a picture with a broad brush, because obviously people can be divided into many groups. But broadly speaking, we all know there are smart people and there are dumb people. Both groups think they are smart. The difference is that smart people make allowance for being wrong; they know that it's possible, so they listen carefully to arguments from both sides. Whereas, dumb people insist they are always right. They aren't smart enough to recognize when they might be wrong.

In fact, there is a name for this phenomenon. It's called the Dunning–Kruger effect and I've blogged about it previously here. There is a reason that I am bringing up this subject again.

I'm not a very political person but I will say this about the current political climate: it has really put the Dunning-Kruger effect on display. There are many people willing to die for their "cause" when it is obvious from listening to them that they, to put it politely, are basing their decisions on incomplete or faulty information. They don't have all the facts and they don't want to have all the facts. It's like the old saying that goes, "My mind is made up; don't confuse me with the facts." These kind of people have always been around. I'm just surprised to learn that there are so many of them today.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
—Albert Einstein

"He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him."
—Milan Kundera

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."
—George Carlin

"Never get into an argument about a subject you know little about."
—VirtualWayne