Re:Stupidity is a specific cognitive failing
by hnskrall on Monday August 09, 2021 @12:45PM
(#28119128)
This is something that was briefly touched upon in The Smug Style in American Liberalism where Knowledge and Knowing aren’t the same, but in general people are incredibly uncomfortable in hearing this - on HN and elsewhere. Too many confuse Knowing with Knowledge. Knowing isn’t a metric of intelligence, merely conformism without any critical thinking.
The problem isn't deferring to expertise so much as believing that such deference makes you more intelligent or even knowledgeable.
For instance I know that I should not put diesel in my car. I know that it will fuck it up. The reason I know this is that it's literally in the manual. And the only reason I trust the manual is that it was written by the people who built the car. I defer to their expertise.
But not for one second do I believe that it means I know why I shouldn't do that. Or how a combustion engine works. Or that I can diagnose and repair my car's engine if it breaks down.
Haig may have known everything about the previous generation of warfare, that doesn't necessarily make him intelligent. It makes him knowledgeable.
Now, he was also likely intelligent enough to apply his knowledge of then conventional warfare to various then conventional situations. And this likely made him excellent at his position. In so much that he was appointed a leader of his nation's army during WWI.
But he lacked the intelligence to achieve anything novel. He lacked the speed of thought to see where the current situations couldn't apply to his breadth of knowledge. He lacked the ability to deduce where his knowledge could be adapted to this new situation.
That's why "smart" people seem "stupid". Because they're likely knowledgeable, not intelligent. Every single person I've considered intelligent, it wasn't because they knew a lot of facts. It's because they're always a couple thoughts ahead of most people. They're able to see what others are getting to, sometimes before the others even know they're about to get there.
Intelligence is a multiplier. It's not a thing on its own. That's why most decent intelligence tests test abstract reasoning.
We also make the mistake of confusing success for intelligence. That if someone is successful, they must be intelligent. That's not the case. Success is multi-faceted and there is no one thing that will make you successful.