The science has spoken, folks – your stupid makes us stupid, with broad implications to futurology, climate change, and scifi. If you take nothing else from this essay, take this: stop being stupid – your stupid is an existential threat to life on Earth.
Need more info? Let’s get after it. ‘Stupidity’ is a subjective term, but I think we can agree on this definition from Italian economist Carlo Cipolla: ‘A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.’ Examples of this ‘Law of Stupidity’ abound, including areas of climate change, scifi community, and futurology. Long-time readers of this blog will be familiar with those topics.
But we’re learning more about the damage of stupid. Acta Psychologica published an article this month on ‘The emotional impact of baseless discrediting of knowledge.’ Their point, per the article, “baseless discrediting of the knowledge of people with marginalized social identities is a central driver of prejudice and discrimination. Discrediting of knowledge may sometimes be subtle, but it is pernicious, inducing chronic stress and coping strategies such as emotional avoidance.”
Human progress needs to re-think its systemic survivorship bias – forcing big thinkers (e.g. – Socrates, Galileo, Tesla, and Marie Curie) to survive lifetimes of baseless discrediting of knowledge. Not only have we lost the next Einstein and Oppenheimer to sweatshops and cotton fields, but we sacrificed countless others to ‘epistemic injustice,’ or the ‘ systematic distortion or misrepresentation of one’s meanings or contributions; undervaluing of one’s status or standing in communicative practices; unfair distinctions in authority; and unwarranted distrust.’
This stupidity is dangerous – stupidity drives people to hurt others, even as it hurts themselves. Stupidity is a force multiplier for evil, and even well-intentioned people who engage in manipulation become the villains they sought to defeat (e.g. – ‘zero tolerance’ policies, forced lobotomies, and ‘Every Child Succeeds’).
Our Appointment In Samarra
Systems designed to democratize and equalize information have been taken over by ‘effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion.’ If fixing the future hurts the pocketbooks of the powerful / evil people of this world, they have no qualms about weaponizing stupidity against us (e.g. – antivaxxers, Flat Earth, climate change deniers). Being stupid against stupidity is, in itself, stupid. The Internet was to be our horse to escape death in Baghdad, not realizing we had an appointment in Samarra.
Stop it. Your stupid is making us stupid – it’s a luxury we can no longer afford. You know what I’m talking about.
- ‘You can’t know about cars, you’re a *girl*.’
- ‘Boys don’t cry.’
- ‘Men never remember and women never forget.’
Whether we’re talking climate change, sci-fi culture, racism, or other futurology-related topics.
Our role – in the avoidance of this boring dystopia we hurtle toward – is to ‘liberate the stupid.’ The weaponized incompetence, the learned helplessness? We know you’re doing it. You know you’re doing it. Maybe you have a reason – maybe you tried to help and you were punished? I get it.
But seriously. When it comes to being stupid? Stop it. Your stupid is making us stupid – it’s a luxury we can no longer afford.
