When someone says “I believe xyz exists ”, I would expect evidence of XYZ existing. That the majority of humanity happens to share that belief is irrelevant to whether or not XYZ actually exists.
Without evidence, those beliefs are not based in rational thought. Humans are complicated, emotions, social coercion and all manner of other messy bullshit affect how we see and perceive the world.
Intelligence doesn’t make one rational, nor does it predict the kind of things one comes to believe. Most fake news, (false) conspiracy theories, etc, are succeeding because they’re presented in a way that bypasses analysis and reasoned thinking- by going straight to the primal emotions.
Which is why, for example, “Think of the children!” Is the rallying cry of Republican assholes pushing anti-LGBTQ bullshit; it bypasses reasoning for the easy and immediate emotion.
When somebody who’s smart believes something that seems dumb to you, doesn’t that suggest that you might be wrong and/or misunderstand what they said?
With you on that but also feel that in general judging others doesn’t ring as being very smart to me. I was bullied a lot growing up, judged etc. And that taught me how people’s judgemental remarks can affect others which helped me avoid that train of thought myself.
I eventually became judgemental myself, for a while and realized that I was a very… angry and sad person.
I think the biggest game-changer for me was being taught gratitude. I went from hyperfocusing on everything wrong about my life, and others to training myself to instead search for what’s nice about life, and others.
So personally? Being judgemental toward another human being doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do as it will just bring down others AND myself
But also… none of us handpicked to be born in our particular bodies. None of us hand-picked and chose the circumstances we would grow up in in life, nor the variables that would change us and mold us, genetics and so many factors form a person. So judging a person that just happened to grow in a different body and think differently than myself? What good does that do? If I was born in their body instead of mine then I would think exactly the same way that they do so I am absolutely no better, none of us are. Sure people do bad things and have annoying traits but at the end of the day being mad at them and judging them does nothing because we would be exactly the same in their shoes. Want to be angry at something or judge someone I guess place that judgment at fate, the cosmos, the universe, just in general things that are out of our control and we do not understand. But people in general aren’t really good or bad we are just a product of trillions of factors that we had absolutely no say in nor control of. It’s not like people can just… exit human existence for a bit become enlightened and then enter our bodies again now thinking exactly the way others think they should… they just got what they got, and our that way because this life made them that way really.
Humans are very concerned with dominance games. (See 99% of movies and games for massive evidence). We want to put the other guy down and establish ourselves as up. Contriving a justification for that is trivial. Any rationale is just another tool for that.
Humans are very concerned with having a consistent story for explaining their world. Any assertion that contradicts that story is gonna require shouting down. Which generally leads back to the prior paragraph.
Intelligence doesn’t trend to an objective “perfection of the brain”, nor does it give you more access to universal awareness. You’ll still be limited to a human’s perception. Someone with 190+ IQ can still believe in false conspiracy theories due to the nature of the human brain. They may be able to easily solve a problem and deduce the nature of patterns, but will still fall to human cognitive biases.
When somebody who’s smart believes something that seems dumb to you, doesn’t that suggest that you might be wrong and/or misunderstand what they said?
When someone says “I believe xyz exists ”, I would expect evidence of XYZ existing. That the majority of humanity happens to share that belief is irrelevant to whether or not XYZ actually exists.
Without evidence, those beliefs are not based in rational thought. Humans are complicated, emotions, social coercion and all manner of other messy bullshit affect how we see and perceive the world.
Intelligence doesn’t make one rational, nor does it predict the kind of things one comes to believe. Most fake news, (false) conspiracy theories, etc, are succeeding because they’re presented in a way that bypasses analysis and reasoned thinking- by going straight to the primal emotions.
Which is why, for example, “Think of the children!” Is the rallying cry of Republican assholes pushing anti-LGBTQ bullshit; it bypasses reasoning for the easy and immediate emotion.
With you on that but also feel that in general judging others doesn’t ring as being very smart to me. I was bullied a lot growing up, judged etc. And that taught me how people’s judgemental remarks can affect others which helped me avoid that train of thought myself.
I eventually became judgemental myself, for a while and realized that I was a very… angry and sad person.
I think the biggest game-changer for me was being taught gratitude. I went from hyperfocusing on everything wrong about my life, and others to training myself to instead search for what’s nice about life, and others.
So personally? Being judgemental toward another human being doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do as it will just bring down others AND myself
But also… none of us handpicked to be born in our particular bodies. None of us hand-picked and chose the circumstances we would grow up in in life, nor the variables that would change us and mold us, genetics and so many factors form a person. So judging a person that just happened to grow in a different body and think differently than myself? What good does that do? If I was born in their body instead of mine then I would think exactly the same way that they do so I am absolutely no better, none of us are. Sure people do bad things and have annoying traits but at the end of the day being mad at them and judging them does nothing because we would be exactly the same in their shoes. Want to be angry at something or judge someone I guess place that judgment at fate, the cosmos, the universe, just in general things that are out of our control and we do not understand. But people in general aren’t really good or bad we are just a product of trillions of factors that we had absolutely no say in nor control of. It’s not like people can just… exit human existence for a bit become enlightened and then enter our bodies again now thinking exactly the way others think they should… they just got what they got, and our that way because this life made them that way really.
Humans are very concerned with dominance games. (See 99% of movies and games for massive evidence). We want to put the other guy down and establish ourselves as up. Contriving a justification for that is trivial. Any rationale is just another tool for that.
Humans are very concerned with having a consistent story for explaining their world. Any assertion that contradicts that story is gonna require shouting down. Which generally leads back to the prior paragraph.
Intelligence doesn’t trend to an objective “perfection of the brain”, nor does it give you more access to universal awareness. You’ll still be limited to a human’s perception. Someone with 190+ IQ can still believe in false conspiracy theories due to the nature of the human brain. They may be able to easily solve a problem and deduce the nature of patterns, but will still fall to human cognitive biases.