cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/2313987

I have noticed that alot of people think the majority of people are stupid based on the things they read online or maybe even experience in real life but I think that there is better explanation than just assuming people are stupid.

A common example people bring up to show that other people are stupid is mentioning how a lot of people believe in conspiracy theories ( such as Qanon or Flat earth) and point out how they are objectively false therefore the people that believe it are stupid.

However when you examine these beliefs in more depth there is obviously some amount of internal logic that is used to justify these beliefs to themselves and others in the group.

You can go to flat earthers forum and they can give huge amounts of “evidence” about how light shouldn’t be visible after 50 kms if the earth was round or how in Qanon there are probably people who have whole boards detailed with connections between how and where democrats participate in satanic rituals but my point is that all conspiracy theories tend to form one cohesive narrative like a collective story that are building.

To be able to make a story that is this detailed it definitely required some amount of forethought and reasoning to make it so everyone in the group reaches the same collective understanding.

This then might lead you to ask why are people susceptible to these ideas and what makes them stick. Well I think that it boils down to three different things.

  1. Our collective feeling that things aren’t going well
  2. Our general distrust in current authorities
  3. Our collective belief that an authority is good/necessary

When you look at how people tend to be influenced into accepting these beliefs it also follows this same general pattern.

  1. People feel that some part of their life isn’t going well and that current institutions aren’t helping them anymore.
  2. A guru/influencer shows up and offers advice (sometimes good advice) to fix their problem
  3. People then start trusting these gurus/influencers and seeing them as authorities
  4. Finally these people take what these gurus/influencers say at face value and build internal lore for their community that makes sense to them given that they accept what the new authority says as fact.

If you want to tackle the root of what makes people susceptible to these ideas you have to tackle those three things or else people will fall into those same traps just with different authorities saying different things.

Also as a semi-related point there are a million and one things that an individual can choose to focus on and become knowledgable about so whilst some people spend that mental capacity on understanding tech or politics others spend that mental capacity on flat earth theory or UFOs.

Main point:

So all of this is to say I think that people aren’t stupid and that we should not treat them as they are such instead if we understand that they are capable of complex reason but they are starting with different base knowledge it’ll be easier to empathize with others. Also if we want society to be less susceptible to this we need to fix one or all of the three things I mentioned that makes us susceptible.

  • Kwakigra@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Everyone has the capacity to behave in a less stupid way, but not everyone has the ability to be aware of and change their behavior or the desire to if they have that ability. That’s given anyone really has a grasp of the optimal epistemological system, which I’m not sure has been established yet. It’s frustrating to see someone who is clearly very intelligent blow their abilities on a highly unlikely and completely baseless hypothesis which could be possible if all their invented variables turn out to be true, but that’s the way many people prefer to live. For myself, I haven’t always been aware of my stupid behaviors and there are probably things I’m doing now which are stupid because my biases have obscured things for me which are clear to others. Many people just assume nothing they do is stupid because if they did it it couldn’t have been stupid no matter what, and if things don’t go their way it must have been a secret conspiracy which foiled them because they couldn’t have been wrong. There’s a lot more going on with stupidity that just “innate intelligence” if that even exists.