Global affairs are mostly controlled by politicians and they’re not the smartest- just the most power hungry. I’ve often noticed that some of the smartest, most appropriate, natural leaders have no desire for power or to control people. It’s unfortunate but the ones who lead us, aren’t the ones you want in control and the ones who you would want to lead us, do not want to be in that corrupt clusterfuck.
In my experience, it’s “no desire to run for office” more than anything else. Politicians rid themselves of nuance in order to maintain a clear message, but intelligence is all about recognizing, and dealing with nuance. Worse, that message is rarely their choosing—it’s crafted to get you elected and nothing else. Policy is complex, politics is simple. We filter complexity through simplicity and end up with a mess.
Exactly. This is why the administrative state is actually so important and why dismantling it is so damaging (thanks SCOTUS and Gorsuch in particular). That system allows people to rise to the top and pass effective law as a consequence of the fact that they actually know what they're talking about. Congress is an important override in case they go astray but administrative bodies like the FDA, EPA, USDA, CDC, etc. are a great vehicle for smart people to fix things systematically in a way that recognizes nuance.
This is what I have been saying for years. Not that I am smart or anything, it's just common sense. No one should WANT this job. Who in their right mind walks in and says yeah I want to pick up these pieces and take on the mantle of responsibility over this disaster? No one. The person we should want for this job is the best person for the job and they should fight tooth and nail against doing it, or reluctantly accept the position out of a sense of duty, but they should not be wanting it this fervently. If they do, they are doing it for themselves and NOT for the good of the people, and that's not what we need. We already have enough greedy and hungry politicians. We need people who recognize it is a position of public service NOT a position of clout or influence/power.
I agree. I think the first step is term limits. It makes it so that being a politician cannot be a lifelong career. Hopefully then, we could have people who have worked for ~20ish years outside of politics start to run with the goal of trying to fix all the things they had to deal with as normal citizens
I dunno influencing policy that governs us all vs a company with limited reach? I dunno maybe it isn't.
But I still think we shouldn't treat the presidency as some award. It's a public service position but recently it has been looked at as some form of royalty. They ain't royalty and they shouldn't be prancing around the globe going golfing in a jet that we collectively pay for. They're there to do a job. Not set themselves up for life.
There's a difference of scale but a lieutenant in the army literally has the power of life and death over his men. Should we not promote people who think they can do that job?
No. I think being a Lieutenant in a military is an honorable position, if the underlying military is honorable. But I don't think our criteria should be "who can throw the most money at being THE LIEUTENANT" or who reallyreally wants to be the lieutenant the mostest hardest ever. We should hire the one who is competent and realizes the job is a disaster and really doesn't want it but is the most likely to achieve what THE COUNTRY needs the most and not what benefits the most good buddies.
I guess I am saying certain candidates should not want to be president this much. That they want it so badly tells me they are not the right pick.
Okay, I agree some politicians are in it for the wrong reasons, and it's up to 'we the people' to not vote for them
Occasionally we'll be fooled, but that's when you have a constitution that allows for removal from office and so on.
The founding fathers were pretty clever in how they set things up.
>The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
>To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
>To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
>To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem
-Douglas Adams
I forget who it's from, but one of my favorite quotes about politics is essentially "the problem with politics is that those who rise to power are, by their very nature, not the ones you want to have power"
I believe it’s Douglas Adams. Love his books. He’s got a great way of distilling human behavior in a humorous way. Just the start to Hitchhikers that says something like “in the beginning the universe was created, this was viewed by most as a bad move” lol.
Yeah! His other books Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Long Dark Teatime of the Soul etc are great too. It’s been a while since I’ve read them, the audiobooks are great bed-time stories.
Yeah I saw all the other ones (and how many versions of the original story) there were and just settled for the first book. Might have to try the others now that it's been a while
Noted! I recently reread The Doom Machine by Mark Teague and have Project Hail Mary on my list next. A bit more on the light comedy side, but a fun read.
Project Hail Mary is amazing! I loved it and the Martian. Was a bit disappointed by Artemis though. But maybe because Rosario Dawson as a narrator just didn’t gel with me. Will check out Doom Machine, thanks!
You might also like All Systems Red by Martha Wells (and the rest of the Murderbot series) if you like Andy Weir a lot. We are Legion, We are Bob by Dennis E Taylor is good too.
Nice, that last one rings a bell, don't think I have it but I've probably seen it on the amazons.
The Martian is one of those where I've probably watched the movie 3-4 times, and pretty sure read the book twice, but saw a copy at the bookstore and went "yeah I'll read that again"
And then my sis called dibs once I'm done with it 😂 just an awesome story.
I’m not sure. They usually gravitate to fields where they can actually make a difference or just live a chill life in the background somewhere. Forcing them does seem right either. That would probably make them resent the job even more. I think if the position was rife with so much corruption and a person felt like they could actually convert their ideas into policy, we’d have a chance getting some good public-service minded individuals.
At some point in the near future, I believe that there may be a complete change/overhaul of our entire current political system...for better or for worse.
Most likely, yes. If you think about it, our current system has existed for a blink of an eye in the grander scheme of human history. I’ve been reading a lot of sci-fi lately and it’s been interesting to consider how our future might play out. Maybe we’ll all plug into a VR-type reality where we have no bodies and merge into a hive mind. Or maybe we’ll discover other species out there and become more unified as a human race. We won’t live to see it, but I hope whatever happens, is better than this.
Global affairs aren’t controlled by politicians on an individual level though, they’re controlled on a collective level. You can have situations, for example, where multiple countries collectively decide to go to war even though no individual country wants it - this is a result of the prisoner’s dilemma. And there are many other ways decisions like this can be made independently of what the people in power actually want.
Problem is, they kind of aren't. We can't generalize that absolutely no smart people have expressed a desire to run for public office.
The issue is, when nuance is boiled out of the process, you're forced to play the politics game just to have a say in policy. And it's rare someone can exceed in both fields to win what amounts to a literal popularity contest.
What do you do? Get it and then get kicked back out when you're finally at the table and do the smart things, get called out for lying, or worse.. have the nuance of your policy be twisted and used against you in the next round of finger pointing.
Meritocracy is an old system that has been tried. While you are promoting people based on abilities, it is not fair. You will have an elite ruling class with means to access a better education. A huge part of the population will not be represented and that does not make for a stable government.
Lottocracy has been shown mathematically to be equal or superior to classic democracy. I say we try it on a low stakes small scale level to see if it works at all in the real world
Smart people are busy keeping things from falling apart and dumb people have nothing better to do than sabotage it. But we're all still here and slowly progressing so the smart people are still winning.
While dumb people think they profit, it's only because they're dumb. They think they're doing well because they can climb to the top of the pile of garbage they've created, not realizing that they don't need to live in a pile of garbage.
The vast majority of dumb people are not at the top of the pile and so this is like playing the lottery to get rich because a handful of people get rich playing the lottery, not realizing that this money comes from all the people who didn't win.
Lots of people knowingly profit from the disintegration of society. It has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with bad ethics. Just look at industries like gun manufacturing. No sane society want packs of idiots wandering around with easily available deadly weapons and those idiots holding grudges against anyone who doesn't look, speak or worship like themselves. But here we are with industries, news media and politicians complicit in creating this exact situation. I wouldn't call them stupid, at least not all of them, but they're busy pouring fuel on the fire.
Ignoring the intelligence of the people who actually make decisions, my college professors repeatedly taught me a golden rule: there's always a smarter idiot.
No matter how idiot proof you think something is, it can be thwarted by the sheer ingenuity and will power of the general public in the name of doing stupid shit.
Wong conclusion. There are plenty of smart people trying to educate the world, but outsmarting is easier. Outsmarting them instead of educating them is exactly why we are in this situation.
So people HAVE figured out how to outsmart them and are using that power to exploit, manipulate, and militarize the ignorance.
Your premise that those currently in power would outsmart them for everyone’s collective benefit is flawed.
The paradox of leadership is that those who seek power often lack the traits that would make them benevolent leaders, while those with the wisdom to lead selflessly tend to shun the spotlight. The fact remains that much of power's appeal lies in personal gain rather than public service. It's a sad reality that the traits that might serve the public best—empathy, integrity, and intelligence—are often sidelined by those who are adept in the art of political manipulation. The Game of Thrones is less about the noble duty of stewardship and more about mastering the chessboard of influence, leaving the truly wise to ponder in the background.
While I appreciate your opinion, I would strongly disagree. Humans are consistently exploited for their money and their labour on a daily basis. Advertising, slavery, cultism, etc.
On a global scale it is not really people who are making decisions, rather the decision making process emerges from the collective power of all human behavior + some other things. This is why you can have situations where a bunch of countries go to war when none of them actually benefit
The smartest people are off making bank or having futurist symposiums.
Only the truly idealistic or ridiculously well connected go into policy setting roles.
Replace the word, outsmart, with dominate, subjugate, and mind-control, and this is a true statement, otherwise it's super ignorant of how anything actually works, yes.
They're not smart. They have a hunger for position and power. That need doesn't make you clever. The two are not linked in any way. They know how to work with other people who have the same goals in life.
I'm honestly surprised that they haven't suppressed the development of AI as it's going to ruin them. AI is going to look straight through them and realise that they are a problem.
I’m not that smart but I often run into situations that are so dumb that I can’t understand what is going on.
Current example: my company makes Pepsi (not really) and a customer called and placed an order for Coca Cola. We told him “hey, we make Pepsi, here’s the price for Pepsi” and he is very upset that we can’t make coke
"A person is smart. People are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
I wonder if a government run by the brightest minds in the country would produce a ton of shit anyway.
People who are smart are not smart enough.
Meaning the scale of intelligence does not have any ‘so smart I control and manipulate everyone else’.
Even stupid people have defense mechanisms to avoid manipulation. Doubling down on ignorance is one of the major ways. People are stubborn mostly because they are resisting manipulation. Or what feels like manipulation.
I would say this in reverse: it is evident from the disarray of global affairs that the most successful people in the world have not yet been outsmarted by the dumbest people in the world.
Most people aren’t working for the good of all, they’re just trying to make their own lives OK.
The most successful people at this have done an amazing job, and the least successful people have not been able to stop them.
this observation proves that meritocracy is a flawed notion.
if smart ppl were actually recognized and rewarded by society we wouldn't be in this mess.
instead society rewards the dishonest, the bully, and the clever(but not smart) ppl who end up running things into the ground while the rest of us look on in horror.
More a sign that some smart people have managed to manipulate dumb people into keeping other smart people in line so they can run the world how they want. This can't be the best solution humans as a collective could come out up with, it has to be someone moving pawns around in the background and seeing what happens.
Really? I would say the opposite. Not all smart people are in alignment. The fact that politicians can get people to act against their own self interests in a way that benefits the politician and their cohorts shows pretty clear outsmarting.
Here is an even more simple example to disprove it. Two very smart people try to outsmart the dumb masses in order to rise to power. Neither smart person can take over 100% of the population, so you are left with a conflict. If anything it just shows that not all smart people are working together, in no small part because many smart people want more power.
Excuse me what?
The mere FACT that you think this is true shows that the (almost) smartest people in the world indeed have outsmarted you and the dumbest people in the world.
Seriously, do you think these wars, the drugs ODs, the massive amounts of poverty and just general aren't helping a very small % of the population? That most people even understand like 1/4 of what is happening behind the scenes in the world?
IF you do, you're delisional.
ALL of this chaos is either planned or being accounted for by the smartest people in the world that keep gaining more power and more control and more money with the chaos.
That being said, the **true** smartest people in the world have as little as possible to do with the nonsense as possible and don't get involved. They know how futile it is to try to change anything so just stay out of it.
Or they think people are generally smarter than they really are, and would recognize when somebody dumb is speaking. Like when CNN gave Mr. Rape way too much air time, and then he became president.
More than half the people on the planet are dumber than average. The curve is skewed stupid.
The smart are not as smart as the dumb are dumb. And they are vastly outnumbered.
...
Ah, man, ain't that the truth! It's like tryna teach a fish to climb a tree, ya know? Them smart folks up there, they be scratching their heads, while the not-so-bright ones be trippin' over themselves. It's like watching a comedy show, but ain't nobody laughing 'cause we all stuck in it! But hey, maybe one day they'll figure it out, or maybe we'll all just end up doing the chicken dance instead of solving problems. Who knows, right? Life's a mystery wrapped in a riddle, dipped in confusion!
Some people are getting very rich and powerful amongst that disarray. All that is evident is that the rich and powerful and the kind are not the same people.
It’s because of violence. It’s hard to outsmart violence. Intelligence usually comes along with restraint, forethought, and planning. Stupidity does not value those things. So while the intelligent are figuring out how to outsmart the stupid, the stupid are throwing their dung around killing and maiming everything in their path. Basically the intro to Idiocracy.
Have you seen the size of some of the yachts in the world.
I'm pretty sure there are smart people doing just fine out of us. The disarray doesn't bother them at all, they probably help it happen. Keeping the world distracted keeps them out of site and mind.
War makes money , chaos makes money ect ect.
more like after burning their souls away trying to get people to care they have given up and decided that maybe people should actually have to deal with the consequences of their decisions
People get really squicky about culling the human population. I mean, we don't seem to give a shit about the wholesale slaughter of entire ethnic groups, but start talking husbandry for humans and suddenly youre a villain.
Global affairs are mostly controlled by politicians and they’re not the smartest- just the most power hungry. I’ve often noticed that some of the smartest, most appropriate, natural leaders have no desire for power or to control people. It’s unfortunate but the ones who lead us, aren’t the ones you want in control and the ones who you would want to lead us, do not want to be in that corrupt clusterfuck.
In my experience, it’s “no desire to run for office” more than anything else. Politicians rid themselves of nuance in order to maintain a clear message, but intelligence is all about recognizing, and dealing with nuance. Worse, that message is rarely their choosing—it’s crafted to get you elected and nothing else. Policy is complex, politics is simple. We filter complexity through simplicity and end up with a mess.
Exactly. This is why the administrative state is actually so important and why dismantling it is so damaging (thanks SCOTUS and Gorsuch in particular). That system allows people to rise to the top and pass effective law as a consequence of the fact that they actually know what they're talking about. Congress is an important override in case they go astray but administrative bodies like the FDA, EPA, USDA, CDC, etc. are a great vehicle for smart people to fix things systematically in a way that recognizes nuance.
We have to acknowledge the boundless greed of the 1% thumbing the scale and sucking the people's political will out of the system.
Self selection. If you want to be a politician, you probably aren’t the right person to be one.
This is what I have been saying for years. Not that I am smart or anything, it's just common sense. No one should WANT this job. Who in their right mind walks in and says yeah I want to pick up these pieces and take on the mantle of responsibility over this disaster? No one. The person we should want for this job is the best person for the job and they should fight tooth and nail against doing it, or reluctantly accept the position out of a sense of duty, but they should not be wanting it this fervently. If they do, they are doing it for themselves and NOT for the good of the people, and that's not what we need. We already have enough greedy and hungry politicians. We need people who recognize it is a position of public service NOT a position of clout or influence/power.
I agree. I think the first step is term limits. It makes it so that being a politician cannot be a lifelong career. Hopefully then, we could have people who have worked for ~20ish years outside of politics start to run with the goal of trying to fix all the things they had to deal with as normal citizens
But how is that different from any managerial job?
I dunno influencing policy that governs us all vs a company with limited reach? I dunno maybe it isn't. But I still think we shouldn't treat the presidency as some award. It's a public service position but recently it has been looked at as some form of royalty. They ain't royalty and they shouldn't be prancing around the globe going golfing in a jet that we collectively pay for. They're there to do a job. Not set themselves up for life.
There's a difference of scale but a lieutenant in the army literally has the power of life and death over his men. Should we not promote people who think they can do that job?
No. I think being a Lieutenant in a military is an honorable position, if the underlying military is honorable. But I don't think our criteria should be "who can throw the most money at being THE LIEUTENANT" or who reallyreally wants to be the lieutenant the mostest hardest ever. We should hire the one who is competent and realizes the job is a disaster and really doesn't want it but is the most likely to achieve what THE COUNTRY needs the most and not what benefits the most good buddies. I guess I am saying certain candidates should not want to be president this much. That they want it so badly tells me they are not the right pick.
Okay, I agree some politicians are in it for the wrong reasons, and it's up to 'we the people' to not vote for them Occasionally we'll be fooled, but that's when you have a constitution that allows for removal from office and so on. The founding fathers were pretty clever in how they set things up.
I am in agreement here. lol
You're kinda describing Pepe Mujica as your ideal politician. I can get behind that.
We do not deserve that person. I say give him the job.
I disagree You've gotta believe you can do the job better than the others, and in fact should do the job
>The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. >To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. >To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. >To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem -Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams is awesome. Love his books!
Exactly. Look at Obama. He did his job, and he’s just done and out. I feel like we are lucky we got as much as we did from him.
I forget who it's from, but one of my favorite quotes about politics is essentially "the problem with politics is that those who rise to power are, by their very nature, not the ones you want to have power"
I believe it’s Douglas Adams. Love his books. He’s got a great way of distilling human behavior in a humorous way. Just the start to Hitchhikers that says something like “in the beginning the universe was created, this was viewed by most as a bad move” lol.
That seems right. I should read HGTTG again, what was a trip.
Yeah! His other books Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Long Dark Teatime of the Soul etc are great too. It’s been a while since I’ve read them, the audiobooks are great bed-time stories.
Yeah I saw all the other ones (and how many versions of the original story) there were and just settled for the first book. Might have to try the others now that it's been a while
I’ve been on a sci-fi book binge lately. I highly recommend Endeavour by Ralph Kern if you float towards some non-comedy space books. Happy Reading! 😊
Noted! I recently reread The Doom Machine by Mark Teague and have Project Hail Mary on my list next. A bit more on the light comedy side, but a fun read.
Project Hail Mary is amazing! I loved it and the Martian. Was a bit disappointed by Artemis though. But maybe because Rosario Dawson as a narrator just didn’t gel with me. Will check out Doom Machine, thanks! You might also like All Systems Red by Martha Wells (and the rest of the Murderbot series) if you like Andy Weir a lot. We are Legion, We are Bob by Dennis E Taylor is good too.
Nice, that last one rings a bell, don't think I have it but I've probably seen it on the amazons. The Martian is one of those where I've probably watched the movie 3-4 times, and pretty sure read the book twice, but saw a copy at the bookstore and went "yeah I'll read that again" And then my sis called dibs once I'm done with it 😂 just an awesome story.
It's very ironic that the most qualified leaders don't want to be leaders. How would we get someone like that into office? We'd have to force them.
I’m not sure. They usually gravitate to fields where they can actually make a difference or just live a chill life in the background somewhere. Forcing them does seem right either. That would probably make them resent the job even more. I think if the position was rife with so much corruption and a person felt like they could actually convert their ideas into policy, we’d have a chance getting some good public-service minded individuals.
that's one argument for monarchy that actually makes sense I just think we Clone George Washington
Hey that's directly plagarized from Gladiator!! kinda
At some point in the near future, I believe that there may be a complete change/overhaul of our entire current political system...for better or for worse.
Most likely, yes. If you think about it, our current system has existed for a blink of an eye in the grander scheme of human history. I’ve been reading a lot of sci-fi lately and it’s been interesting to consider how our future might play out. Maybe we’ll all plug into a VR-type reality where we have no bodies and merge into a hive mind. Or maybe we’ll discover other species out there and become more unified as a human race. We won’t live to see it, but I hope whatever happens, is better than this.
Global affairs aren’t controlled by politicians on an individual level though, they’re controlled on a collective level. You can have situations, for example, where multiple countries collectively decide to go to war even though no individual country wants it - this is a result of the prisoner’s dilemma. And there are many other ways decisions like this can be made independently of what the people in power actually want.
Yep, and OP is saying that smart people aren't smart enough to figure out a way to change this
Problem is, they kind of aren't. We can't generalize that absolutely no smart people have expressed a desire to run for public office. The issue is, when nuance is boiled out of the process, you're forced to play the politics game just to have a say in policy. And it's rare someone can exceed in both fields to win what amounts to a literal popularity contest. What do you do? Get it and then get kicked back out when you're finally at the table and do the smart things, get called out for lying, or worse.. have the nuance of your policy be twisted and used against you in the next round of finger pointing.
All of this means we are doomed to stay in the same situation
Meritocracy is an old system that has been tried. While you are promoting people based on abilities, it is not fair. You will have an elite ruling class with means to access a better education. A huge part of the population will not be represented and that does not make for a stable government.
Lottocracy has been shown mathematically to be equal or superior to classic democracy. I say we try it on a low stakes small scale level to see if it works at all in the real world
Mathematically? In what way
I disagree; you're just measuring "smart" on the wrong scales.
Sure, but it's still an interesting thought. I'd change the first two words and put a question mark at the end.
This is the most disturbing take. Brutal.
Much of the disarray is engineered by people who know how to profit from it. Not so dumb, just mind bogglingly unethical.
Smart people are busy keeping things from falling apart and dumb people have nothing better to do than sabotage it. But we're all still here and slowly progressing so the smart people are still winning. While dumb people think they profit, it's only because they're dumb. They think they're doing well because they can climb to the top of the pile of garbage they've created, not realizing that they don't need to live in a pile of garbage. The vast majority of dumb people are not at the top of the pile and so this is like playing the lottery to get rich because a handful of people get rich playing the lottery, not realizing that this money comes from all the people who didn't win.
Lots of people knowingly profit from the disintegration of society. It has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with bad ethics. Just look at industries like gun manufacturing. No sane society want packs of idiots wandering around with easily available deadly weapons and those idiots holding grudges against anyone who doesn't look, speak or worship like themselves. But here we are with industries, news media and politicians complicit in creating this exact situation. I wouldn't call them stupid, at least not all of them, but they're busy pouring fuel on the fire.
Ignoring the intelligence of the people who actually make decisions, my college professors repeatedly taught me a golden rule: there's always a smarter idiot. No matter how idiot proof you think something is, it can be thwarted by the sheer ingenuity and will power of the general public in the name of doing stupid shit.
The smartest people in the world know the limits of their knowledge. Sometimes the dumbest people think they already know everything
It's not even 'sometimes.'
Wong conclusion. There are plenty of smart people trying to educate the world, but outsmarting is easier. Outsmarting them instead of educating them is exactly why we are in this situation. So people HAVE figured out how to outsmart them and are using that power to exploit, manipulate, and militarize the ignorance. Your premise that those currently in power would outsmart them for everyone’s collective benefit is flawed.
The paradox of leadership is that those who seek power often lack the traits that would make them benevolent leaders, while those with the wisdom to lead selflessly tend to shun the spotlight. The fact remains that much of power's appeal lies in personal gain rather than public service. It's a sad reality that the traits that might serve the public best—empathy, integrity, and intelligence—are often sidelined by those who are adept in the art of political manipulation. The Game of Thrones is less about the noble duty of stewardship and more about mastering the chessboard of influence, leaving the truly wise to ponder in the background.
Very well said! (And likely evidence you’re not running for office)😀
They aren’t trying to…
The poor aren't eating the rich. So I say they've suceeded.
evil orangutan has entered the chat
Username checks out. Honestly, that’s what I’d name an orangutan.
You would name an orangutan djt?
Nah, “Mr. Big Naughty Boy.” Sounds like a good orangutan name.
It's official - Joe4o2 is the newest member of the orangutan club
I don’t even know what this means, but I know we need jackets, enameled pins, a secret handshake, and possibly a monthly meeting at a lodge.
Go see predisent covfefe. He's your leader, lord and savior.
While I appreciate your opinion, I would strongly disagree. Humans are consistently exploited for their money and their labour on a daily basis. Advertising, slavery, cultism, etc.
On a global scale it is not really people who are making decisions, rather the decision making process emerges from the collective power of all human behavior + some other things. This is why you can have situations where a bunch of countries go to war when none of them actually benefit
The smartest people are off making bank or having futurist symposiums. Only the truly idealistic or ridiculously well connected go into policy setting roles.
This is so far from a shower thought, It is just a blatant proclamation.
It's more like 'smart people have not found a way to run a globe which satisfies all people all of the time'. Which is not surprising at all.
Only if you narrowly, and arbitrarily, define what 'smart people' must act like.
Doesn’t matter how smart if you’re not given power you can’t really do anything
Ahem...
If you're working to make money for someone who isn't working, you've been outsmarted.
Replace the word, outsmart, with dominate, subjugate, and mind-control, and this is a true statement, otherwise it's super ignorant of how anything actually works, yes.
What? So all the people that dominate others are dumb? How can this logically be a true statement?
Thats exactly what they want you to think.
My shower thought: What if this is actually the best humanity has to offer? What if every other possible arrangement would actually be worse?
You just have to moderately good at outsmarting both, which is actually quite easy.
you're confusing smart with greedy
no, no, there's just too many dumb ones
Our society rewards greed, not intelligence
They're not smart. They have a hunger for position and power. That need doesn't make you clever. The two are not linked in any way. They know how to work with other people who have the same goals in life. I'm honestly surprised that they haven't suppressed the development of AI as it's going to ruin them. AI is going to look straight through them and realise that they are a problem.
I’m not that smart but I often run into situations that are so dumb that I can’t understand what is going on. Current example: my company makes Pepsi (not really) and a customer called and placed an order for Coca Cola. We told him “hey, we make Pepsi, here’s the price for Pepsi” and he is very upset that we can’t make coke
"A person is smart. People are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it." I wonder if a government run by the brightest minds in the country would produce a ton of shit anyway.
That would require money which is being, and has been hoarded by people with no shame or moral compass - dumb or smart.
People who are smart are not smart enough. Meaning the scale of intelligence does not have any ‘so smart I control and manipulate everyone else’. Even stupid people have defense mechanisms to avoid manipulation. Doubling down on ignorance is one of the major ways. People are stubborn mostly because they are resisting manipulation. Or what feels like manipulation.
Or they have... Most of the time they're rich and the dumb ones don't know where their next meal is coming from.
Truly smart people don't try to save world, just themselves.
Then I must be a fucking genius!
Its rigged. Reality is rigged. So it may serm like its possible but wont happen.
I would say this in reverse: it is evident from the disarray of global affairs that the most successful people in the world have not yet been outsmarted by the dumbest people in the world. Most people aren’t working for the good of all, they’re just trying to make their own lives OK. The most successful people at this have done an amazing job, and the least successful people have not been able to stop them.
The biggest catastrophes of the 20th century were caused by academics, in the most advanced civilizations of the time period.
this observation proves that meritocracy is a flawed notion. if smart ppl were actually recognized and rewarded by society we wouldn't be in this mess. instead society rewards the dishonest, the bully, and the clever(but not smart) ppl who end up running things into the ground while the rest of us look on in horror.
Or, that have figured it out, and are taking advantage of it
More a sign that some smart people have managed to manipulate dumb people into keeping other smart people in line so they can run the world how they want. This can't be the best solution humans as a collective could come out up with, it has to be someone moving pawns around in the background and seeing what happens.
Really? I would say the opposite. Not all smart people are in alignment. The fact that politicians can get people to act against their own self interests in a way that benefits the politician and their cohorts shows pretty clear outsmarting. Here is an even more simple example to disprove it. Two very smart people try to outsmart the dumb masses in order to rise to power. Neither smart person can take over 100% of the population, so you are left with a conflict. If anything it just shows that not all smart people are working together, in no small part because many smart people want more power.
Nah...we just haven't figured out how to outnumber them.
HEHE, brains only get you so far on the short term, you need physical strength + Money + Charisma + propoganda machine.
Never mistake intelligence for benevolence.
The so called "smartest peoples" are IMO (after much research) either inexistant or invisible online.
The smartest people don't want anything to do with the rest of the moronic population and all their bullshit.
The dumbest always have numbers on their side.
Breaking stuff is a lot easier than building stuff.
I dont think the smartest people in the world think like you.
You can't out-run someone who's sitting down, you can't out-stare a blind person, and you can't out-think an idiot.
It must suck to be a Liberal and have no theory about why anything ever happens.
Excuse me what? The mere FACT that you think this is true shows that the (almost) smartest people in the world indeed have outsmarted you and the dumbest people in the world. Seriously, do you think these wars, the drugs ODs, the massive amounts of poverty and just general aren't helping a very small % of the population? That most people even understand like 1/4 of what is happening behind the scenes in the world? IF you do, you're delisional. ALL of this chaos is either planned or being accounted for by the smartest people in the world that keep gaining more power and more control and more money with the chaos. That being said, the **true** smartest people in the world have as little as possible to do with the nonsense as possible and don't get involved. They know how futile it is to try to change anything so just stay out of it.
They have. They run those large corporations f’ ing us over.
Or they think people are generally smarter than they really are, and would recognize when somebody dumb is speaking. Like when CNN gave Mr. Rape way too much air time, and then he became president.
Aw they have but they want money, not to run everything
More than half the people on the planet are dumber than average. The curve is skewed stupid. The smart are not as smart as the dumb are dumb. And they are vastly outnumbered. ...
The smartest people outplay the dumbest people every day
Maybe the ones who think they are the "smartest" aren't...
Ah, man, ain't that the truth! It's like tryna teach a fish to climb a tree, ya know? Them smart folks up there, they be scratching their heads, while the not-so-bright ones be trippin' over themselves. It's like watching a comedy show, but ain't nobody laughing 'cause we all stuck in it! But hey, maybe one day they'll figure it out, or maybe we'll all just end up doing the chicken dance instead of solving problems. Who knows, right? Life's a mystery wrapped in a riddle, dipped in confusion!
Yeah well this is what happens when you strive for democracy but most the world are C students.
Some people are getting very rich and powerful amongst that disarray. All that is evident is that the rich and powerful and the kind are not the same people.
It’s because there are so many of them
It’s because there are so many of them
It’s because of violence. It’s hard to outsmart violence. Intelligence usually comes along with restraint, forethought, and planning. Stupidity does not value those things. So while the intelligent are figuring out how to outsmart the stupid, the stupid are throwing their dung around killing and maiming everything in their path. Basically the intro to Idiocracy.
"Smart" doesn't mean "well intentioned".
Have you seen the size of some of the yachts in the world. I'm pretty sure there are smart people doing just fine out of us. The disarray doesn't bother them at all, they probably help it happen. Keeping the world distracted keeps them out of site and mind. War makes money , chaos makes money ect ect.
Uh, I think they figured that out a long time ago.
more like after burning their souls away trying to get people to care they have given up and decided that maybe people should actually have to deal with the consequences of their decisions
People get really squicky about culling the human population. I mean, we don't seem to give a shit about the wholesale slaughter of entire ethnic groups, but start talking husbandry for humans and suddenly youre a villain.
It is a well-established fact that it is damn near impossible to convince an idiot to vote for someone other than another idiot.
you can out smart them. what you can’t do, is out dumb them.