Intellectuals Are Fucking Idiots

sylware

Isn't that the "silver tower" syndrom?

otterley

> Engage with reality as much as possible. That means less time on this site and more time in the world. Less time watching human faces on a screen and more time seeing human faces in person. > The more time you spend with real people out in the world, the less you will emotionally rely upon abstract intellectual models to infuse your life with a sense of connection and purpose. > Hold all of your opinions lightly. Be proud of your ability to change your mind. Actively seek out evidence of your own ignorance and failings. Amen, brother.

myst

Master Mazu sat on the chair. Baizhang stood up and rolled up his sitting mat. Mazu stood up and went back to his quarters.

nottorp

Believable statements with an anti climate change statement squeezed in the middle :)

nephihaha

I see this all the time. I was trying to explain recently to someone how a person can be highly intelligent and a fool at the same time. It is as if the brain takes skills from one area to build them up in another. Many intelligent people lack social understanding, and some are extremely cut off and cruel in their view of the wider population. Some intellectuals are highly totalitarian in their thinking. Academia itself also functions as a kind of subculture, with its own customs, traditions and quirks. I'm not just thinking of the strange fraternities, processions and whatnot in old universities, but the way academic papers are worded or even titled.

tagaziel

> That technological innovation is exponential and carbon capture can likely be made economical relatively soon. Stopped reading at this point. The point about not updating views as new evidence trickles in is fair - it's a problem with self-proclaimed intellectuals across the political spectrum, from the most terminally online tankie to the most vicious neoliberal who sold their mother on the free market to profit from her organs). However, immediately going on to glaze over the fossil fuel industry's non-existent technology that's supposedly going to save us all illustrates the point of the article remarkably well. Congrats, I guess?

pizzaiolo

"Intellectuals are idiots, listen to me instead"

Betelbuddy

Wait until you hear about the ultimate fraud...Economists. Look at the EU central bank and their rising on interest rates despite rising prices not proving rising demand....but they live by their model... You get a war as external shock that makes oil scarcer while the economy is already contracting...so they hike rates, what will not create oil but crushes demand on top of a supply collapse...

trilogic

Best article read this year. Give this man an Oscar for his courage. Many have tried but have been crucified, I am puzzled HN set this one in main page.

motionlessveloc

This is written by the author of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck", so gratuitous cursing is his schtick. The book is actually more interesting than you'd think from the title, but (IMHO) the profanity still distracts from the message, and like most self-improvement books you could probably condense the 200+ pages into 10.

thendrill

I can vouch for that too. I used to work with nuclear scientists in the IAEA. They all knew the difference and the details of sievert and gray... But holy shit they were gullible idiots. They were without backbone and 0 real life experience. Most of them were the kind that got into school and they just stayed there after their PDHs. In short it was like a group of lamb ready for the slaughter by Politicians and other industrialists. They were all basically researchers for hire. Pay to Play. The worst of all was that they were really useful idiots and did not event realize that they are selling out. I have so many scary stories....

croes

> That technological innovation is exponential and carbon capture can likely be made economical relatively soon. Sounds like the other predictions that were wrong. > Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye

sgjohnson

> Or consider the fact that over 91% of hedge fund managers can’t beat the market, despite the fact that the entire purpose of hedge funds is to explicitly create better returns than the market. This isn't strictly speaking true. While some hedge funds have the goal of beating the market, most of them have different investment philosophy. Not that long ago most of them were meant for what the name implies - hedging. The idea being that hedge funds optimized for consistency, not higher returns. Market up 20%? Your hedge fund might yield something like a 10% return. Market down 20%? Your hedge fund might be down only like 5%.

ElProlactin

Intelligent people can be wrong. Massive revelation here. What's interesting is that the author apparently never considers the possibility that some of the people he holds up as case studies didn't actually believe their "models" were right but had other motivations for their actions. McNamara is the perfect example of this. It's pretty well established now that he knew the US was never going to "win" in Vietnam but he kept going for other reasons, such as a deep sense of loyalty to President Johnson. From this perspective, the numbers (picking the "right" ones and manipulating them) were used to support a narrative. They weren't evidence that McNamara actually believed his "model" was working. Applying this to Blue Zones: intellectuals can be opportunists. They might realize the data is bad and the conclusion is not as well supported by it, but that there's a story ("model") that is appealing and can be packaged and sold. Edit: I should also add that there's a semantic dimension to this post. Robert McNamara was not an "intellectual"; he was a technocrat. So it seems like the author is defining "intellectual" as any person who is considered "intelligent", but I guess "Intelligent People Are Fucking Idiots" wasn't as good a headline.

skybrian

You can find examples of deluded people everywhere. It would be more defensible to claim that some intellectuals are idiots.

AndrewThrowaway

Intellectuals in soft sciences are fucking idiots. In physics/engineering and similar real life instantly shows how wrong you are. You can't really go far in your career believing something that is not true and tested. In something like "relationship studies" you can live in your ivory tower for decades. Your only feedback loop is your own students and disciples who just want to live in the same ivory tower. You can have some crazy theory like "human relationship output is dependent on socioeconomic outputs". And discuss that theory for decades, get your phd and stuff like that and your only judges are the same people in the same field.

oulipo

One of the most famous one is the doctor who proved that it's better to wash your hands before an operation, and all the other existing doctors who never did that previously shunned him, because it would prove they "did their job poorly" before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

nayroclade

Ironically this article itself is a model of "life in 2026" based on examples cherry-picked to support the author's viewpoint. I wonder if he as open to being proved wrong about this exact thesis as he encourages his audience to be?

jackmott42

This article kind of lost the plot after a little bit, it started descending into its own criticisms with flippant dismissals of climate change being a real concern, dismissal of people's motivations without evidence, assurances based on vague predictions that climate engineering will suddenly become viable. Started to feel a little uncomfortable given the themes and the mention of pol pot at the beginning, almost like he is calling for more genocide of intellectuals so he can keep rolling coal or something.

kabakabakaba

> Do you think this is really about climate change? No, these are empty human beings I found it a ironic to make such a confident psychological diagnosis built on zero contact with the people involved