(Bear in mind that for the duration of this post, I am adopting the definition of stupid as given in "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity." It is not quite the same as "unintelligent", and it is sufficiently well-defined that it is no longer merely an insult, either.)
Amusing, but less insightful than "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity". While it is true that you can construct cases where two stupid people may ruin one smart one's day while coming out with a net win for one or both of them, you have to go farther and show that this case dominates. I would submit that it in fact does not, and stupid people will still tend to harm themselves more than anyone around them, if for no other reason than that is the easiest outcome for them to obtain. I do not thing there is a great benefit in running in a great herd of people who are constantly causing the herd a net harm (by definition of stupid), and the herds in this case would tend to eliminate themselves.
I think it is sufficient to observe merely that being smart is hard. In the great space of all actions one may take, the vast bulk of them are bad actions that will cause harm. Rather than complicated and IMHO probably false theories about how stupid people can win in herds, somehow converting their huge set of transactions each of which is a net harm into some sort of benefit, one need merely point out that as more people become intelligent, it actually raises the bar for further intelligent actions. The low-hanging fruit has been plucked. For example, some people who were very well adapted for producing net value in the 20th century find it much more difficult in the 21st because we've successfully captured so much value already.
(Also the article falls prey a bit to the idea that a carefully constructed game play strategy can fall to a player who acts stupidly. While, again, you can construct scenarios in which this is true as was done in the article, it is the exception. In general good gameplay strategies do not fall apart when presented with a stupid opponent, they win swiftly. If you really believe this is a general property of game strategies, I invite you to download any competent chess playing program and attack it with a "random" move strategy. It is true that you may force it off the opening book relatively early, but it will still efficiently tear you apart, not react with the AI-equivalent of stunned confusion. This is a sort of low-grade AI/game theory urban legend.)
Some of the stupidest things I have ever seen were done by people who, by any reasonable measure, are extremely smart. I've never personally met anyone who was "smart" in every possible area of their lives - its not just "work/tech" smarts that count if you insist on making this evaluation.
Comments
(Bear in mind that for the duration of this post, I am adopting the definition of stupid as given in "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity." It is not quite the same as "unintelligent", and it is sufficiently well-defined that it is no longer merely an insult, either.)
Amusing, but less insightful than "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity". While it is true that you can construct cases where two stupid people may ruin one smart one's day while coming out with a net win for one or both of them, you have to go farther and show that this case dominates. I would submit that it in fact does not, and stupid people will still tend to harm themselves more than anyone around them, if for no other reason than that is the easiest outcome for them to obtain. I do not thing there is a great benefit in running in a great herd of people who are constantly causing the herd a net harm (by definition of stupid), and the herds in this case would tend to eliminate themselves.
I think it is sufficient to observe merely that being smart is hard. In the great space of all actions one may take, the vast bulk of them are bad actions that will cause harm. Rather than complicated and IMHO probably false theories about how stupid people can win in herds, somehow converting their huge set of transactions each of which is a net harm into some sort of benefit, one need merely point out that as more people become intelligent, it actually raises the bar for further intelligent actions. The low-hanging fruit has been plucked. For example, some people who were very well adapted for producing net value in the 20th century find it much more difficult in the 21st because we've successfully captured so much value already.
(Also the article falls prey a bit to the idea that a carefully constructed game play strategy can fall to a player who acts stupidly. While, again, you can construct scenarios in which this is true as was done in the article, it is the exception. In general good gameplay strategies do not fall apart when presented with a stupid opponent, they win swiftly. If you really believe this is a general property of game strategies, I invite you to download any competent chess playing program and attack it with a "random" move strategy. It is true that you may force it off the opening book relatively early, but it will still efficiently tear you apart, not react with the AI-equivalent of stunned confusion. This is a sort of low-grade AI/game theory urban legend.)
Some of the stupidest things I have ever seen were done by people who, by any reasonable measure, are extremely smart. I've never personally met anyone who was "smart" in every possible area of their lives - its not just "work/tech" smarts that count if you insist on making this evaluation.