If "unenlightened self-interest." is a selfish version of stupidity, I agree...
many stupidities are simply people thinking that their interest is to do something that finally is stupid, and should have been easily guessed as so. someone said (who?) "people often don't act reasonably, but they have good reasons to do so". people investigating on criminals and on sociopath finally seems to show that their are nor parasits, not the pretended selfish genius, just mentally restricted people... sociopath are simply unable to understands others, like deafs cannot hear noise... which make them look powerful in some case, but mostly reduce their abilities to be happy. most criminals simple over estimate their competences, are unable to see their errors, to learn from their failures, to control their emotions, their acts... they play chess like a 5 years old kid, with 1 depths analysis. Quite efficient to hunt cockroach, not to win chess. many stupidities seen about denial, is simply inabilities to accept losses (like gamblers, traders, corps, voters) leading to accumulations of debts. In some cas it is the opposite, fear of evident debt, that could help payback greater losses later... the non-entrepreneur spirit... 2012/11/6 James Bowery <[email protected]> > Never attribute to mere stupidity that which can be explained by > unenlightened self-interest. > > > On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 3:39 AM, Alain Sepeda <[email protected]>wrote: > >> >> >> 2012/11/6 Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> >> >>> >>> >>> Cold fusion has been suppressed. Not by powerful people at oil >>> companies. Not by evil people trying to preserve academic funding. No, it >>> has been suppressed by stupid people. Very Stupid People. >>> >>> "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Friedrich >>> Schiller >>> >> >> Great quotes... >> >> whether you hesitate between Machiavellianism and stupidity, best bet is >> on the latest (quote used by Madelin a French politician ) >> >> Roland Benabou theory even says that the best reason to fall into denial >> is to be involved in the question (to have something to lose, or to accept >> to have lost). innovation specialist clearly state that to make innovation >> you have to be alien, stubborns and have similar friends network... >> >> note also, that following other controversies I observe that part of the >> reason to reject roughly dissenters is that there is more and more >> dishonest rhetoric used by people with agenda (politic, religion, enviro, >> big biz). The attorney/media culture... >> and as explain wiki on hyperskepticism, arguing is impossible without >> some honesty on both side... >> there is one moment where either you let it go, or became corrupted on >> equal level... >> then it became a second natural behavior... >> It is also much more comfortable and one have a limited budget of >> "controvery" one can manage. >> >> For LENR I see two bad behaviors, liked to lasiness: >> - the one that say, that they don't understand how it can work, thus it >> is false (it is stupid to say that it cannot work, because QM allow >> manything we cannot compute, like WL claims) >> - the one that see that they cannot find a way using QM to make it work, >> thus think that QM is false... >> >> in fact, I feel that we don't have yet enough data, not enough knowledge >> in using QM, to exclude QM is compatible with LENR... and since it is much >> more compatible with known facts than other theories, QM can be the first >> bet... and anyway, first job is to gather data. >> >> note also that at low energy (low stakes) ad hominem, precaution, >> conformism, is a good heuristic... >> but when stakes get higher, crazy, corrupted, honest or rational people >> can get as much genius, dishonest and stupid... only way to guess the truth >> is to read yourself the data, but since you are not competent normally, >> what you win on reducing group effect , you lose it on misinterpretation... >> a kind of heisenberg inequality... >> This mean that there is no good way to get the truth, other than to make >> experiments... human profiling filtering is not reliable at high energy. >> > >
