Yes there is, to some extent. The trick is to start with observations, not interpretations. If you ask a really angry guy "Why are you angry?" chances are the reply is "I AM NOT ANGRY", possibly combined with a punch to your nose. Instead, ask "Why are you slamming with doors?". That starts the discussion with something that is harder to deny, and doesn't directly relate to the person, but only to his behavior, which he can change. Because of that, you are less likely to be punched, and it is more likely that you will get the answer "Because I am angry", which can be followed up with a discussion about the why, about whether he likes to be angry, and about the fact that you don't like it, either. If you want to be really inoffensive, start with "I don't like the noise of those slamming doors", but that feels a bit too indirect to me.
Similarly, don't say the mass market are morons, say they behave like morons or, even better, that they come over as morons on the Internet (my theory is that that is because people do not see facial expressions there) That not only is more polite, but likely also closer to the truth. At least, I haven't met someone who is like a real life Internet troll.
I've seen that described as a good way of dealing with children. IMHO, that pre-qualifies it as appropriate for aggressive Internet commenters.
Personally, sports bore me and I find the hero worship disgusting, but I recognize that I lose the ability to relate with a lot of people because of this disinterest. I wish more people were interested in computer science, political-economics, and defense policy, but most aren’t. While at times I want to scream, “stop worrying about bread and circuses,” I understand peoples desire to find common ground with others. [1]
I hate this super-condescending attitude.
Even if you do happen to be smarter than the average bear (which, don't pat yourself on the back yet: there may be things these "morons" know way more about than you do), it's still asshole-ish to assume that everyone else just be completely dismissed...
Everybody's got strengths. From the perspective of that strength, everybody else can be seen as hopelessly weak. The politically strong may think everybody else is naive. The socially strong could everybody else is maladroit. The physically strong think everybody else is puny and inconsequential. The artistically strong think everybody else are embarrassingly lowbrow. And so on.
It's irritating regardless, but I find this easier to forgive in people who are not crowing about how smart they are. It somebody is actually smart, they can recognize the limitations of pure IQ, and how embarrassingly self-limiting it is to think you have nothing to learn from anybody else.
It's not like smart people don't also believe wrong things, make mistakes, and generally fuck up. Isaac Newton thought all sorts of things we now recognize as idiocies. America's founders were somehow unable to see the glaring contradiction between practicing chattel slavery and congratulating themselves on how devoted they were to liberty and the equality of man. On a cosmic scale, we are all morons. It's just that, limited by time and our meat-based brains, we are terrible at noticing how little we notice.
Strength, be it physical, intellectual, or any other kind, doesn't justify being arrogant. Smart people should know that.
I think you're being overly harsh, nobody mentioned "dismiss[ing]" "everyone else"; yet I agree with the parent that conversations with such broad participation seem to be less interesting/'more dumb'/however-you-prefer-to-phrase-it.
You even hinted at some of the reasons this might be the case; i.e. that different people have knowledge of different things (i.e. 'there may be things these "morons" know way more about than you do'). The more people are included in a conversation, the less common ground there is to work from. People certainly can make accurate, fact-checked, carefully-worded contributions; yet they may be less likely to spread for a few reasons, e.g.
- Being more difficult to understand for members who aren't as well-versed in the subject, compared to slogans, soundbites and memes.
- Being more difficult to produce, compared to off-the-cuff remarks and guestimates.
- Being realistic can be less attention-catching and thought-provoking for those who don't already know a subject, compared to baseless hyperbole
- Those who don't already know about a subject, and try to contribute with e.g. anecdotes or quotes from others, may be unable to tell accurate information from inaccurate.
It's unlikely that such contibutions will spread very far, so the content which does reach any particular individual will tend to be less useful bu good at spreading (e.g. "viral" videos of cats).
These sorts of factors can lower the usefulness of a discussion. At a certain point, the quality or depth becomes low enough that those with a vested interest will often split off to a more focused/dedicated area for discussion. This leaves the original "mass market" conversation even more impoverished.
As an analogy, let's say you're considering which of two datastructures to use in some project; imagine trying to debate their relative merits and solicit opinions on their complexity tradeoffs by posting to a generic "Computer Users" group on Facebook, amid the background noise of questions about what's the best MP3 player, how to change the colour of the Windows taskbar, and where to get a keygen for Photoshop.
When I worked as a retail salesman, you'd see it all of the time. From people pushing expired coupons to return fraud to outright theft, people degrade in that sort of environment.
At this point in human history with the analytics we all have available it's pretty easy to see that the vast majority of people favor bite-size disposable content over longwinded discourse.
Look at the success of businesses that pander to the ever-more-frivolous. The Cheezburger network probably has more money spent on/in it than the New Yorker.
We don't have to hate the proles, but let's never delude ourselves in to thinking they don't exist.
Masses usually act like morons. That's a well known phenomenon, old enough to become jokes in movies, and the entire audience (a mass) to get it.
When people are acting smartly, they each do different things, and don't form a mass at all.
See also: corporations, nations.
The exception being young people who have the potential to be intelligent but lack life experience.
As much as you'd like to believe that people are smart somehow - the average IQ is 100. 100 is really, really dumb.
It's better to say that experts are better at some things and crowdsourcing is better at others. Though that's neither snarky nor pithy.
- Terry Pratchett, Jingo
> it's still asshole-ish to assume that everyone else just be completely dismissed...
Devil's advocate: If you're above average intelligence, you're smarter than a majority of the populace by definition. Why would you not then dismiss the thoughts and ideas of those less educated?
One person's condescension is another person's logic.
It doesn't matter if you are the greatest geinus to ever live - if you are looking for a reason to believe what you already want to, being smart just means you find it.
"You can always design a cryptosystem that you yourself cannot break."
Humility and an open mind are probably worth more than intelligence in this way.
But your opinion does not carry the same weight as a fact. Quite a few people I've encountered don't understand that.
Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.
Put another way: someone who believes the stated Devil's Advocate position is by definition someone who doesn't understand the nature of intelligence, doesn't understand themselves, and doesn't understand other people. They might be making logical choices based on those misunderstandings, but correct logic based on false axioms is just as wrong as incorrect logic based on true axioms.
Doesn't mean you should uncritically accept their ideas, but it does mean you should at least give them some weight.
Anecdotally, I gravitate towards above average intelligence people for friendships and romantic relationships.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/07/06/has-being-si...
You are the first person I've ever heard that called asking for evidence "superstitious". You might want to look up the definition of that word. Goddammit indeed.
Try not to get too touchy-feely in your reply, just give me the studies you are referring to.
Absolutely there is. We have a measuring stick with which we can measure the validity of one's beliefs: empirical evidence.
If you believe X, and scientists say we have sufficient empirical evidence that confirms that belief, and the mass market doesn't believe X, that makes the mass market a bunch of morons. This is inarguable.
Incidentally, most "morons" disagree with you on matters where they can find a scientist on their side, or on issues of morality, or on inconsequential matters (like the origin of life, which is interesting to most but doesn't affect any practical decision.) Few "morons" jump out of windows in defiance of gravity, and those who do no longer bother you on Twitter.
Also, scientists err, falsify results, cherry-pick them, etc. Of course, so do "morons"...
For ~120 years, science "knew" that an element existed inside all ignitable substances that was released during burning. When the air was fully saturated with phlogiston, the burning stopped. Just put a candle in a jar and watch what happens. The theory's sound, right?
120 years is a few lifetimes, who knows what revelations will drop before the 21st century winds down?
(Sorry, I just couldn't resist. It seemed apropos to the overall conversion. :)
Take the median of
1 2 5 5 5 5 8 9 11 23 58 46 48 37 28 67 39
(also median would be a bad way to get an average for this set.)
Just like Usenet and countless other online communities, what starts a a small group of fairly privileged and elite eventually degrades in to garbage as the reach increases. This is not so much an overall size issue but a relative one. I saw it happen to very small online communities in the 90s. In some respects, I watched it occur on a community I ran nearly 10 years ago.
Facebook's aggressive censorship along with non-public networks give each user a white washed micro-community. Public forums, such as Twitter and Instagram, do not.