I like to make fun of my dog sometimes for being dumb. Affectionately. I’ll say things like “That’s not for you dumb dumbs!” when he tries to eat food that will clearly end up giving him a stomach ache and making him nauseous.
A few years ago I did this in front of my girlfriend’s mom. She laughed and told me to stop making fun of him. Perhaps due to my instinct to be disagreeable, my response was “What’s wrong with being dumb?”.
My dog doesn’t care about intelligence. He just cares about cuddles, love, being part of the pack, food, naps, and some good sniffs. And I for one endorse those values. So I’ll ask the question again: what’s wrong with being dumb?
Well, intelligence is a useful characteristic. As a society, by rewarding intelligence with higher social status, we incentivize things like scientific discoveries and new technologies. And by punishing a lack of intelligence — dumbness — we prevent people from injecting bleach into their veins. Or at least reduce the number of times that it happens.
But that’s looking at things through a macroscopic, society-oriented lens. What if we zoom in and, to stereotype, look at a dumb farmer named Frank?
Frank is dumb. You can reward him for being smart all you want, but that’s just not gonna get him to take any community college classes. He is content with his life. It works for him. He enjoys his job, loves his family, owns his home, and just isn’t interested in change.
He does do some dumb things that are instrumentally harmful though. For example, he doesn’t believe in medicine and hasn’t seen a doctor in 30 years. Seeing a doctor would, let’s assume for the hypothetical, extend his life by 10 years. But in practice, you’re just not gonna change his mind. So why badger him about it? Why piss him off and frustrate yourself along the way? And similarly, he’s not gonna be winning any Nobel Prizes or inventing new technologies, so why push for those community college classes?
We have a confusing situation here. If we look through the macroscopic, society-oriented lens, it probably does make sense to reward intelligence and punish dumbness. But if we zoom in and look at things from an individual level, rarely does it make sense to do any of that.
Maybe it’s not confusing though. Maybe there’s no dilemma. There are just two different answers. If you have some sort of God’s eye view and are able to set the norms of society, it’d make sense to reward intelligence and punish dumbness. But if you are Frank’s cousin, there’s no point in doing either. That’s what seems like it’d make sense to me, but I’m not sure.
What’s wrong with being dumb?
I like to make fun of my dog sometimes for being dumb. Affectionately. I’ll say things like “That’s not for you dumb dumbs!” when he tries to eat food that will clearly end up giving him a stomach ache and making him nauseous.
A few years ago I did this in front of my girlfriend’s mom. She laughed and told me to stop making fun of him. Perhaps due to my instinct to be disagreeable, my response was “What’s wrong with being dumb?”.
My dog doesn’t care about intelligence. He just cares about cuddles, love, being part of the pack, food, naps, and some good sniffs. And I for one endorse those values. So I’ll ask the question again: what’s wrong with being dumb?
Well, intelligence is a useful characteristic. As a society, by rewarding intelligence with higher social status, we incentivize things like scientific discoveries and new technologies. And by punishing a lack of intelligence — dumbness — we prevent people from injecting bleach into their veins. Or at least reduce the number of times that it happens.
But that’s looking at things through a macroscopic, society-oriented lens. What if we zoom in and, to stereotype, look at a dumb farmer named Frank?
Frank is dumb. You can reward him for being smart all you want, but that’s just not gonna get him to take any community college classes. He is content with his life. It works for him. He enjoys his job, loves his family, owns his home, and just isn’t interested in change.
He does do some dumb things that are instrumentally harmful though. For example, he doesn’t believe in medicine and hasn’t seen a doctor in 30 years. Seeing a doctor would, let’s assume for the hypothetical, extend his life by 10 years. But in practice, you’re just not gonna change his mind. So why badger him about it? Why piss him off and frustrate yourself along the way? And similarly, he’s not gonna be winning any Nobel Prizes or inventing new technologies, so why push for those community college classes?
We have a confusing situation here. If we look through the macroscopic, society-oriented lens, it probably does make sense to reward intelligence and punish dumbness. But if we zoom in and look at things from an individual level, rarely does it make sense to do any of that.
Maybe it’s not confusing though. Maybe there’s no dilemma. There are just two different answers. If you have some sort of God’s eye view and are able to set the norms of society, it’d make sense to reward intelligence and punish dumbness. But if you are Frank’s cousin, there’s no point in doing either. That’s what seems like it’d make sense to me, but I’m not sure.