One of the most aggravating things to me in this world has to be the absolutely rampant anti-intellectualism that dominates so many conversations and debates, and its influence just seems to be expanding. Do you think there will ever actually be a time when this ends? I'd hope so once people become more educated and cultural changes eventually happen, but as of now it honestly infuriates me like few things ever have.
So to further simplify, stupid people are unwitting test subjects that the rest of humanity sometimes benefit from because they do dumb shit no one else would have thought to try.
Yeah pretty much.
I’m only using the word “stupid” here because the thread is about intelligence and anti-intelligence. But more generally, I think there is a reason that it’s easy to plot political ideologies (even outside the two-party system of the US) somewhere on a progressive/conservative spectrum. I believe Progressiveism and Conservativism form the same dichotomy as Mutation and Rote Replication in the context of DNA. In the stock market and economy it’s referred to as Greed and Fear. In philosophy and game theory it’s called Exploration and Exploitation. These are all the same phenomenon to me, one takes a step forward the other takes a step back, sometimes you need a bit more of one to survive, other times you need a bit more of the other.
I’m reminded of an episode from Stargate when one of the Asgardians, Thor I believe, was able to stop replicators from attacking his home world with the help of one of the main Earth characters, Sam. Thor needed someone of a less evolved/“stupider” species to help with the problem after none of the Asgard scientists could find a way. He said with compliment, “It was your stupid idea,” and Sam smiled back.
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