People aren't (that) stupid - Also: A heuristic tool for gauging a stranger's intelligence

[dick brain]

Nah. That's a shit heuristic. There's a whole fuckload of other axes, like optimism, anthropocentrism, specialization of knowledge, communicative ability, uniqueness of lived experience, etc. Not to mention who you associate with. And how strict an individual's standards are, like whether they define "dumb" as the lower third of the bell curve or just as anything less than "smart".

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

Nah. That's a shit heuristic. There's a whole fuckload of other axes, like optimism, anthropocentrism, specialization of knowledge, communicative ability, uniqueness of lived experience, etc. Not to mention who you associate with. And how strict an individual's standards are, like whether they define "dumb" as the lower third of the bell curve or just as anything less than "smart".

Perhaps I was unclear.
First off: I'm talking about intelligence. So things like expertise, lived experience, etc. are out of the question (though we could talk about a related effect with regards to expertise in the Dunning Kruger Effect).
Apart from that, maybe a rephrasing from a different frame of reference would be more clear:
The dumber you are, the more the obvious seems profound. The smarter you are, the more the profound appears obvious.

If someone states something obvious as if it's some unique and profound insight, you'd probably conclude that guy's pretty dumb. What I'm saying is that he most likely doesn't think he's dumb and is saying the obvious thing because he didn't think others were capable of that "insight" themselves. His impression of what would be obvious/profound to you comes directly from what is obvious/profound to him.
Now generalize.

 

[Osmosis Jones]

What I'm saying is that he most likely doesn't think he's dumb and is saying the obvious thing because he didn't think others were capable of that "insight" themselves. His impression of what would be obvious/profound to you comes directly from what is obvious/profound to him.
Now generalize.

That's a lot of specificity and assumptions to create a generalization from. Exchanging gaps in knowledge does not make either party stupid or even appear stupid in the absolute. You're contriving a situation in which an individual has made a deterministic conclusion about another individual that is apparently being obtuse. What you're trying to illustrate has nothing to do with the intelligence of either party. Seeing the profound as obvious and vice versa isn't a heuristic for intelligence, it's barely a heuristic for observancy and awareness and literacy. You're saying learned experience isn't a factor and then presenting a scenario wherein learned experience is the only factor determining the perspective and experience for your hypothetical individuals. In order for A to feel that B is stupid, A would have to have knowledge B does not yet have, i.e. learned experience. What makes someone intelligent is their ability to learn first and foremost, secondly their willingness, and thirdly their ability to form and express well constructed arguments, discussions, or conclusions.

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

In order for A to feel that B is stupid, A would have to have knowledge B does not yet have

This is where your interpretation fails.
I'm not talking about someone just discovering a particular fact and reiterating it to a room full of people who already know it. I'm talking about a group of people, all having been presented the same set of relevant facts, and someone blurting out the most obvious (and perhaps least well thought out) conclusion derived from them under the assumption that others wouldn't be able to glean that particular insight.

 

[Osmosis Jones]

interpretation

It's not an interpretation. It's an immutable fact of your hypothetical scenario. In order for one person to be more impressed upon by a given fact, they would implicitly have to be working with less prior knowledge or understanding. An individual's present grasp of a given subject doesn't determine their intelligence. Einstein wasn't dumb or an idiot before he learned math and science, and at one time or another throughout his learning, he may have come to rather obvious and well studied conclusions with enthusiasm and pride. I'm not misinterpreting what you're putting down at all, you're confounding knowledge and intelligence. Blurting out a simple and obvious conclusion and feeling smug doesn't make you unintelligent, it just makes you look like an ass. To assume more is adding specificity when you're trying to generalize.

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

I'm not misinterpreting what you're putting down at all, you're confounding knowledge and intelligence.

That's the thing: I'm not. You're imposing that conflation on me.
I'm talking about insights derived from already established facts. This is, by any reasonable definition, intelligence and not knowledge.

Blurting out a simple and obvious conclusion and feeling smug doesn't make you unintelligent, it just makes you look like an ass.

It's a heuristic. It's not supposed to apply in all cases. But, as I already said, their impression of what level of insight others are capable of comes, first and foremost, from how profound that insight appears to them. A blatant example would be something like "Republicans are right about some things, but Democrats are right about some things too" as if hyper-reductionist "good guy/bad guy" impressions are somehow the norm.

 

[Osmosis Jones]

"Republicans are right about some things, but Democrats are right about some things too" as if hyper-reductionist "good guy/bad guy" impressions are somehow the norm.

This again exemplifies an established fact or opinion and whether the subject has the wherewithal and awareness to draw that conclusion. Concluding that this person is unintelligent based on the single assertion is a terrible heuristic for intelligence. Your example does not exemplify someone who is unintelligent, but unaware of others' opinions and aloof. If you consider everyone who arrives at conclusions too quickly to be unintelligent and that is where you draw your conclusion, that's an uninformed and obtuse conclusion. You're talking about a heuristic for intelligence but only exemplifying a heuristic for understanding, knowledge, and familiarity.

I would not call someone unintelligent for being impressed by, let's say, 2+2=4. Now, if they insisted that 2+2 cannot equal 4 and refused to move forward with a discussion, that's a lack of intelligence. They either refuse to learn or cannot learn due to a deficit in intelligence.

Your examples are not that of someone who is unintelligent. That's a far reaching conclusion. At best, the subject has become more familiar with a topic and gained more knowledge in order to draw a conclusion that is now plainly obvious to the rest of us.

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

This again exemplifies an established fact or opinion and whether the subject has the wherewithal and awareness to draw that conclusion.

An adherence to black-and-white thinking and lack of nuance is a signifier of low intelligence. This isn't even my opinion. This is part of what defines intelligence.

single assertion

As with most heuristics, a single instance is a weaker signal. The more independent instances you observe, the stronger the signal gets.

You're talking about a heuristic for intelligence but only exemplifying a heuristic for understanding, knowledge, and familiarity.

Capacity to understand is a big part of intelligence. The heuristic operates with only the requirement of a baseline level of knowledge and familiarity. The example I provided might not accurately indicate a lack of intelligence if the person making the statement had only very recently been exposed to the concept of political parties. But the probability of that is so vanishingly small it can be discounted for the purposes of any heuristic.

I would not call someone unintelligent for being impressed by, let's say, 2+2=4

If that someone knows what the quantities "2" and "4" are and knows how addition works, being impressed by the statement "2+2=4" is very very dumb. And to not assume a person beyond a certain age would know these things is also rather dumb.

 

[Osmosis Jones]

Capacity to understand is a big part of intelligence. The heuristic operates with only the requirement of a baseline level of knowledge and familiarity. The example I provided might not accurately indicate a lack of intelligence if the person making the statement had only very recently been exposed to the concept of political parties. But the probability of that is so vanishingly small it can be discounted for the purposes of any heuristic.

Firstly, you confess that your heuristic for intelligence is not so, and is only a good heuristic for the things that presume factors such as intelligence, but more acutely it displays an understanding or knowledge or lack thereof, as I was trying to state. Secondly, you're continuing to bring this back around to politics in specific, an area of life and thought that is highly subjective and expansive in nature, and most conclusions therein are based directly on life experience and understanding of the subject matter. Someone who has paid no attention to politics may draw 'obvious' and 'stupid' conclusions, especially as they begin to understand the nuances of the subject matter, as you've stated. Someone who does not already understand or know the ins and outs of different political parties or ideologues isn't unintelligent as a matter of fact. It would be safe to assume they are ignorant and sheltered, but assuming automatically they are unintelligent is wasteful both on your part and theirs.

Your 'heuristic' is entirely about gauging someone's knowledge and willingness to engage with you on an equivalent level of intellect. It tests if the person you're speaking with has not the same capacity, but the same content in their mental library. The only way to gauge intelligence is by observing whether someone has the ability to grasp the subject matter and form well constructed conclusions regardless of how 'obvious' it may be.

Someone who has an inability to grasp specific nuanced and complex subjects may be unintelligent. This is succinct and logically sound. Checking if someone has drawn conclusions that you already have drawn is a terrible heuristic for intelligence and only compares catalogued knowledge.

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

you confess that your heuristic for intelligence is not so, and is only a good heuristic for the things that presume factors such as intelligence, but more acutely it displays an understanding or knowledge or lack thereof

No. It assumes a baseline level of knowledge which you should assume of any person. With that basic knowledge assumed, the independent variable of intelligence is now the thing being measured.

Checking if someone has drawn conclusions that you already have drawn

Maybe you're confused on this. My argument has nothing to do with a particular conclusion already having been drawn. A previously drawn conclusion can still be profound and a novel conclusion can still be obvious. It's about the perceived level of profundity when that conclusion is finally drawn.
In a situation where you're informed "all X's are Y," the conclusion that any given X is an example of a Y is obvious. It can still be "novel" in the case that it's your first time dealing with X and Y, and someone might explicitly come to that conclusion faster than you if your focus is on another aspect of the situation. But to come to that conclusion thinking it's somehow profound is an indicator of stupidity.