HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE DUNNING KRUGER-ING OURSELVES INTO IGNORANCE? People who fe

HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE DUNNING KRUGER-ING OURSELVES INTO IGNORANCE?

People who feel out of control of their lives want to feel smart and in control so they create narratives that provide them with the false comfort of understanding, when in fact, all they do is manufacture their own ignorance.

—“The question is: What is the acid test to determine when you are doing this, and how do you stop yourself from continuing in self-deception? Its a bit of a dunning-kruger paradox. — Kage Keller

Yes, well that’s exactly it, isn’t it? Which is why Socrates was so proud of saying he knew nothing. Because we never know what is true, only what is false. So retain skepticism in all things.

When you encounter an idea ask yourself the following: Is this what people really do? Because Human beings always follow the same, practical, tedious, boring, recipe:

RECIPE

1) Identify opportunities to obtain the greatest reward in the shortest time, with the greatest certainty, at the lowest cost, with the least risk.

2) justify why one’s actions are good regardless of whether they are in fact good.

3) explain history by presuming knowledge at the outset that actors did not possess until after the fact.

WHY? BECAUSE:

4) life consists of entirely mundane activities with rare exceptions, and we merely exploit opportunities then create history around them making ourselves sound good and heroic.

5) people in power are in power because it is in many people’s interest that they are in power, and that is the only reason they are in power. And almost always 1-4 above apply.

THEREFORE

6) so if you can’t explain what people are trying to do as a mundane search for benefits by the cheapest means possible, then creating stories to cover for them, you don’t know what happened.

—“So essentially what you are lining out is: the model you use to process and predict what you perceive must continuously be updated through iterative and recursive questioning of the truth?

I often think I vacillate in whether I am perceptive or delusional. I think what lead me to you, Curt, was a sense that you make accessible the means to answer that question for myself. That’s real power.”— Kage Keller