lvxferre

I won't address everything because it's a lot of text, OK? (I did read it though.)

I think that it's more accurate to say that reasoning is a "tool" that you use to handle knowledge. And sure, without knowledge you aren't able to use reasoning, but sometimes even with knowledge you aren't able to do it either - we brainfart, fall for fallacies, etc.

Another detail is that ignorance is far more specific - a person isn't just "ignorant", but "ignorant on a certain matter". For example it's perfectly possible to be ignorant on quantum mechanics while being informed on knitting, or vice versa. In the meantime intelligence - and thus stupidity - is split into only a handful of categories (verbal, abstract, social, etc.).

To someone who knows more than us, they’d consider us stupid.

They'd consider us ignorant. At least if following the distinction that I'm emphasising.

When we talk about people being stupid or smart, we’re just reducing that complexity so we can make simplistic insults that make us feel better about ourselves, but ultimately aren’t saying anything meaningful about the human condition.

Not necessarily reducing it but I get your point, given that I think that it's simply easier to talk about ignorance and stupidity as behaviour than as something inside our "minds" (whatever "mind" means). And in both cases it's behaviour that we all engage; some more than others, but we all do.

It depends on the context. In some cases the person might be taunting you to defend your position, or simply trying to avoid some subject.

But let's say that the person says this out of the blue, and is proselytising this view that human rights should be opposed. In this situation I believe that the person thinks that they benefit from denying human rights to other people; it's mostly selfish. (And worse, stupid - the person will be likely in the short end of the stick.)

Yeah, I think that this is part of the deal.

When someone says "people are stupid", they usually are not conveying "the average person has a lower-than-average intelligence". And I don't think that they're even comparing people with some point of reference (the average, or themself, or someone else); in the context they're usually criticising some behaviour that they see as stupid. For you this behaviour would be "living below their potential", for me it's "showing blatant lack of reasoning", for @[email protected]'s (from another comment) "lack of curiosity, drive to learn and critical thinking".

Frankly, that is just a big pile of babble.

but “people” is defined [SIC] around the average person

There's no "definition" here. The closest to what you said that would make some sense would be "but "people" implies a generalisation around the average person", but it doesn't work in your argument because it does not contradict what BananaTrifleViolin said. Nor it justifies your assumption that

by saying “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence, you’re really criticizing the phrase “people are stupid”…

I genuinely think that you did not understand what the other poster said, so I'll repeat it under different words.

The comic has an implicit definition of stupidity as "lower than average intelligence" (see panel 2).

BananaTrifleViolin is highlighting that this is not the definition that people use for "stupid" when they say "people are stupid". And that leads to a fallacy called "straw man", where you misrepresent a position to beat it. Munroe (the cartoonist) is doing this, either by accident or on purpose. (It is not the first time he does this; his comic about free speech also shows the same irrationality.)

know

Wine is wine, bread is bread. Let us not conflate lack of reasoning (stupidity) with lack of knowledge (ignorance).

More like 90% of human actions are stupid, as I'm not sure if there's an even split of "the stupid" and "the smart", and plenty people mix both. (E.g. being oddly competent at something specific, only to vomit assumptions on something else.)

In special I feel like four types of stupidity became a bit too common, too harmful, too egregious. They're the failure to handle:

• uncertainty - or, "how your belief might be wrong, and you'll need to handle the case that it is wrong"
• complexity - or, "how small details have a profound impact on everything"
• undesirable possibilities - or, "how nature gives no fucks about your fee fees, and things don't become true because you roll in wishful belief"
• context - or, "how things are never isolated, and you need to look outside the thing to understand the thing"

They're intertwined, I think. And perhaps there's something more important than those, but those four are the ones that I notice the most.

What you're really saying is "other people aren't as smart as me."

I like xkcd but I feel like Munroe is being assumptive here, assuming "your expectations are based on you". Are they?

Here's the link.

Major mention, ani.social - here's a link to the relevant discussion and the outcome, from ani.social's PoV.

Now you’re really straining.

You do realise that this reads a lot like an implicit acknowledgement that you're a failure to counter any argument contradicting your claim... right? "Run to the hills!"

It's true but keep in mind that the other user is ignorant on the difference between "ignorance" and "dumbness", as this comment shows. So he'll likely distort what you said into "you think that people in the past were dumb?" like he did there.

Then you are strawmanning.

That is not a straw man. The other user is simply not cooperating on the arbitrary restrictions that you're imposing on his argument. A straw man would require him to misrepresent your position.

You are however cherry picking.

Appeal to popularity and/or authority carry a good deal of weight, actually.

Fourth fallacy / irrationality: argumentum ad nauseam. Repeating it won't "magically" make it truer.

If a smart guy sees it, and you don’t, it’s fair to conclude that the error is yours.

In this situation, you wouldn't be concluding, only assuming.

But this is obvious.

Nope.

You are merely straining to refute me.

Here's a great example of why assumptions are not reliable - you're assuming why I'm uttering something, even if you have no way to know it. And it happens to be false. [I don't care enough about you to "refute you". I simply enjoy this topic.]

The sensible conclusion is that we really do see things differently these days. That we have gained and lost.

We see things differently, but "we gained and lost" is yet another fallacy: moving the goalposts.

Also, it's rather "curious" how you skipped what I said about the Romans, even if it throws a bucket of cold water over your easy-to-contest "smart people in the past believed it!".