So, on one hand, I agree that it would be better if people were smarter on average.
On the other hand, you’re using a lot of scary labels. … Actually, after reflecting a bit, “Stupidity is a mental illness” is the only scary label. But it is a REALLY SCARY label. As in, my overton window is probably shifted, I dunno, 2 or 3 or 4 standard deviations in your direction, compared to the average person. I know about nootropics (at the very least, that they exist). And I’m sort of familiar with this community. And I still got scared reading this.
One of the issues is is that it takes something which has previously enjoyed somewhat protected status (intelligence), and puts it on a same level of importance as … … I don’t have an example. Weird.
I know a lot of people who are stupid in one way or another. I would hate to see “treatment” forced onto them because they’re not as smart as we’d like. I get the feeling that not speaking up now means being next on the list—“when they came for X I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t X, when they came for Y I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Y, and when they came for me there was no-one else to speak up for me”.
I don’t know what constitutes “stupid” for you. Is it people with, say, an IQ of 70, where their intelligence impairs them on a daily basis? Or is it people who are capable of holding down a job, but live paycheck to paycheck and vote in elections based on very questionable grounds (I don’t have proper examples for you)?
I think that because there is no definition of “stupid people” provided, this becomes scary. You’re targeting a population group, which was previously okay, but now they’re no longer okay, and this feels like you’re trying to invoke “look at these people, they need to be fixed”, and maybe I’m shaping some of that feeling myself, but I don’t see the underlying tone of doing good. This isn’t helping others, this is helping yourself. Maybe everyone benefits. But this essay reads as something that helps just you.
In short.
Promoting research into intelligence boosting drugs: Yay
Destigmatizing stupidity into favoring intelligence: Yay
Classifying stupidity as a mental illness, forcing things like the American health system onto people who are already missing one of the success factors in life: Nay.
...
And I don’t think mental illness is seen as something positive either. People with mental illnesses are dangerous, not fit for society, scary, should be kept someplace safe… I think that’s the sentiment you’ll get if you ask the average person (maybe they’re stupid too? I don’t know). Now, I don’t mean to say these traits apply to people who are stupid, I mean to say that people on average think these traits apply to people with a mental illness, and that as a result, you don’t want to be mentally ill, and reclassifying people who are stupid as mentally ill won’t go over well. Even only because people won’t actually say they can’t see the emperor’s clothes, lest they lose their job.
Honestly, I think if you want to go this way, you’d be better off trying to develop things that people can use for their kids. They’ll buy organic foods “because it’s more healthy”, so they might also buy intelligence boosters for their kids so they can go to a prestige university and do great in life.
And you don’t want to classify stupidity as a mental illness. You want it to be seen as a physical injury. You go to the hospital, they fix you, you’re better. No shrink visits, no endless talks, no getting locked up in an internment facility.
Disclaimer: I have autism. I sometimes worry that despite functioning pretty well in society, some day, people will say “hey, these people have problems integrating with society sometimes! We should cure all the autisms!” and I’ll be forcibly “cured” and have my personality (autism is a way of thinking, sometimes, so I think that this counts as part of someone’s personality) altered against my will.
Compare with the deaf people, which is BOTH a culture and a disability. Same thing goes on here. I believe that a way should be found to prevent people from being born deaf/with autism (preferrably via curing in the womb, not via abortion, but if people want to abort because their unborn child is deaf/has autism I think they should be allowed to do that because it places a higher burden on the parents). I don’t believe you should forcibly (or via social pressure) intervene in people who, for their entire lives, have been deaf/have autism in order to cure them. You should make the means available to them, but it’s their decision.
From what I’ve read, most of the protest in the deaf community currently is deaf parents insisting they have the right to deny treatment and audible education to their children—which they want to do because it will be too late for the children to get the treatment themselves when they’re adults. If it were possible for their children to get the treatment and learn spoken language once they grew up, and potentially leave the deaf community, parents would have less motivation to deny treatment to them as children.
I would hate to see “treatment” forced onto them because they’re not as smart as we’d like.
If the analogy here is with depression, that doesn’t seem a likely outcome. Depressed people don’t normally have anything forced onto them, unless they make it clear that there’s a substantial imminent risk that they’ll actually kill themselves.
I think the things that will get a mental illness forcibly treated are (1) that it genuinely makes the person who has it unable to function independently, or (2) that it puts other people at substantial risk. Stupidity has to be really severe before it causes #1; I suppose the question is whether (in a hypothetical world where stupidity is medicalized and treatable) it would often be seen as causing #2.
I do, though, very much agree that the combination of giving “stupidity” a broad enough definition that it applies to a substantial fraction of the population and treating it as a disease seems really dangerous and open to abuse.
or (2) that it puts other people at substantial risk. …I suppose the question is whether (in a hypothetical world where stupidity is medicalized and treatable) it would often be seen as causing #2.
Carlo Maria Cipolla’s definition of stupidity is clearly relevant here. (Link is from the Less Wrong Wiki.)
I know a lot of people who are stupid in one way or another. I would hate to see “treatment” forced onto them because they’re not as smart as we’d like.
Do we force people to be treated for diabetes, cancer, or gout? No; we at most work to make it possible for them to get treatment.
“Stupidity is a mental illness” is the only scary label. But it is a REALLY SCARY label.
That’s the point of this post, I think.
Mental illness is a very scary label—because it’s a terrible thing to be. And we should work hard on being able to cure mental illness.
Stupid is an equally terrible thing to be—terrible to yourself and to your friends and to society at large. We should work just as hard on making people not-stupid as we do on making them not-depressed. But we don’t actually work hard on that, and that’s a real problem.
Yes, calling stupidity as a mental illness is very offending and dangerous… This can be seen as verbally attacking someone because of its aggressive lying undertones.
So, on one hand, I agree that it would be better if people were smarter on average.
On the other hand, you’re using a lot of scary labels. … Actually, after reflecting a bit, “Stupidity is a mental illness” is the only scary label. But it is a REALLY SCARY label. As in, my overton window is probably shifted, I dunno, 2 or 3 or 4 standard deviations in your direction, compared to the average person. I know about nootropics (at the very least, that they exist). And I’m sort of familiar with this community. And I still got scared reading this.
One of the issues is is that it takes something which has previously enjoyed somewhat protected status (intelligence), and puts it on a same level of importance as … … I don’t have an example. Weird.
I know a lot of people who are stupid in one way or another. I would hate to see “treatment” forced onto them because they’re not as smart as we’d like. I get the feeling that not speaking up now means being next on the list—“when they came for X I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t X, when they came for Y I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Y, and when they came for me there was no-one else to speak up for me”.
I don’t know what constitutes “stupid” for you. Is it people with, say, an IQ of 70, where their intelligence impairs them on a daily basis? Or is it people who are capable of holding down a job, but live paycheck to paycheck and vote in elections based on very questionable grounds (I don’t have proper examples for you)?
I think that because there is no definition of “stupid people” provided, this becomes scary. You’re targeting a population group, which was previously okay, but now they’re no longer okay, and this feels like you’re trying to invoke “look at these people, they need to be fixed”, and maybe I’m shaping some of that feeling myself, but I don’t see the underlying tone of doing good. This isn’t helping others, this is helping yourself. Maybe everyone benefits. But this essay reads as something that helps just you.
In short.
Promoting research into intelligence boosting drugs: Yay
Destigmatizing stupidity into favoring intelligence: Yay
Classifying stupidity as a mental illness, forcing things like the American health system onto people who are already missing one of the success factors in life: Nay.
...
And I don’t think mental illness is seen as something positive either. People with mental illnesses are dangerous, not fit for society, scary, should be kept someplace safe… I think that’s the sentiment you’ll get if you ask the average person (maybe they’re stupid too? I don’t know). Now, I don’t mean to say these traits apply to people who are stupid, I mean to say that people on average think these traits apply to people with a mental illness, and that as a result, you don’t want to be mentally ill, and reclassifying people who are stupid as mentally ill won’t go over well. Even only because people won’t actually say they can’t see the emperor’s clothes, lest they lose their job.
Honestly, I think if you want to go this way, you’d be better off trying to develop things that people can use for their kids. They’ll buy organic foods “because it’s more healthy”, so they might also buy intelligence boosters for their kids so they can go to a prestige university and do great in life.
And you don’t want to classify stupidity as a mental illness. You want it to be seen as a physical injury. You go to the hospital, they fix you, you’re better. No shrink visits, no endless talks, no getting locked up in an internment facility.
Disclaimer: I have autism. I sometimes worry that despite functioning pretty well in society, some day, people will say “hey, these people have problems integrating with society sometimes! We should cure all the autisms!” and I’ll be forcibly “cured” and have my personality (autism is a way of thinking, sometimes, so I think that this counts as part of someone’s personality) altered against my will.
Compare with the deaf people, which is BOTH a culture and a disability. Same thing goes on here. I believe that a way should be found to prevent people from being born deaf/with autism (preferrably via curing in the womb, not via abortion, but if people want to abort because their unborn child is deaf/has autism I think they should be allowed to do that because it places a higher burden on the parents). I don’t believe you should forcibly (or via social pressure) intervene in people who, for their entire lives, have been deaf/have autism in order to cure them. You should make the means available to them, but it’s their decision.
From what I’ve read, most of the protest in the deaf community currently is deaf parents insisting they have the right to deny treatment and audible education to their children—which they want to do because it will be too late for the children to get the treatment themselves when they’re adults. If it were possible for their children to get the treatment and learn spoken language once they grew up, and potentially leave the deaf community, parents would have less motivation to deny treatment to them as children.
Sometimes I worry that we’ll find a way of curing autism in the womb and then all progress in mathematics will grind to a halt.
Another reason to find a cure for stupidity first, then.
yes. Forced treatment might not end well...in terms of emotional scarring, loss sense of identity.
If the analogy here is with depression, that doesn’t seem a likely outcome. Depressed people don’t normally have anything forced onto them, unless they make it clear that there’s a substantial imminent risk that they’ll actually kill themselves.
I think the things that will get a mental illness forcibly treated are (1) that it genuinely makes the person who has it unable to function independently, or (2) that it puts other people at substantial risk. Stupidity has to be really severe before it causes #1; I suppose the question is whether (in a hypothetical world where stupidity is medicalized and treatable) it would often be seen as causing #2.
I do, though, very much agree that the combination of giving “stupidity” a broad enough definition that it applies to a substantial fraction of the population and treating it as a disease seems really dangerous and open to abuse.
Carlo Maria Cipolla’s definition of stupidity is clearly relevant here. (Link is from the Less Wrong Wiki.)
Do we force people to be treated for diabetes, cancer, or gout? No; we at most work to make it possible for them to get treatment.
That’s the point of this post, I think.
Mental illness is a very scary label—because it’s a terrible thing to be. And we should work hard on being able to cure mental illness.
Stupid is an equally terrible thing to be—terrible to yourself and to your friends and to society at large. We should work just as hard on making people not-stupid as we do on making them not-depressed. But we don’t actually work hard on that, and that’s a real problem.
Yes, calling stupidity as a mental illness is very offending and dangerous… This can be seen as verbally attacking someone because of its aggressive lying undertones.
It’s only offensive if you still think of mental illness as shameful.