I think there's a clear difference between attributing it to malice as motivation, i.e. "people need to be fired", and attributing to malice as a preventative measure, "if the right people are in charge then decay won't happen", which I think leads people to be naive about the solutions.
Commenting here on the underground man article (not paid). I disagree that smart people can always think their way out to success. And actually, this goes back to something I've been thinking on lately... Is that we use IQ as measure of intelligence but why can it not be something like ... Courage? Because no one would doubt the intelligence of the underground man (doystevsky), but to me, his failing is not a lack of intelligence but a lack of courage. And I wud go with a definition of courage here as... An outwards oriented disposition, for exploration rather than exploitation. And actually I think the Man is right, that the normal man is a little stupid. But perhaps ... stupidity can be beneficial, when selectively applied? Certainly the Man could have benefited from a dose of stupidity now and then, something that that would have stopped his intellect from burning a neurotic hole right thru his own brain.
Is Courage stupidity then? I think there's overlaps. Everyone laughed at Elons stock deal.
So to conclude, I would say no, that intelligence is not really the only key to success, or even as much as you would rate it; rather, it's the opposite, too much intelligence that breaks itself down through its own self cross-examinations ungrounded in reality that leads to the type of people you allude to and the Man. And the cure, really is double down on the will to stupidity
You might be leaning a little too strongly into the “it’s just incompetence” argument though. We went through years of prominent Democrats leaders refusing to cooperate with ICE (for example). On a more cultural level, we had to suffer through years of strident claims that “no one is illegal”. This all had to have SOME effect
My question is why something as borderline positive for some ordinary voters as Southern border immigration became so toxic that they will not consider comprehensive reform to reduce irregular immigration (whihc will not be cheap to do so legally) in order to attract more of the worlds talent with merit-based immigration?
And how ridiculous can you get to ask about "immigrtion!" Fewer,no asylum seekers with bogus claims and more Elon Musks.
> Over time, my most prominent takeaway about the administrative state was how much failure was due to incompetence, and how non-ideological that failure was.
That's a naive take. This "incompetence" itself is cultivated on ideological grounds, and is allowed and even encouraged when it aligns with certain interests.
Update to Hanlons razor: Always attribute to malice what has gone on too long to be considered incompetence.
Well, I try to draw a fine line in the article.
I think there's a clear difference between attributing it to malice as motivation, i.e. "people need to be fired", and attributing to malice as a preventative measure, "if the right people are in charge then decay won't happen", which I think leads people to be naive about the solutions.
Commenting here on the underground man article (not paid). I disagree that smart people can always think their way out to success. And actually, this goes back to something I've been thinking on lately... Is that we use IQ as measure of intelligence but why can it not be something like ... Courage? Because no one would doubt the intelligence of the underground man (doystevsky), but to me, his failing is not a lack of intelligence but a lack of courage. And I wud go with a definition of courage here as... An outwards oriented disposition, for exploration rather than exploitation. And actually I think the Man is right, that the normal man is a little stupid. But perhaps ... stupidity can be beneficial, when selectively applied? Certainly the Man could have benefited from a dose of stupidity now and then, something that that would have stopped his intellect from burning a neurotic hole right thru his own brain.
Is Courage stupidity then? I think there's overlaps. Everyone laughed at Elons stock deal.
So to conclude, I would say no, that intelligence is not really the only key to success, or even as much as you would rate it; rather, it's the opposite, too much intelligence that breaks itself down through its own self cross-examinations ungrounded in reality that leads to the type of people you allude to and the Man. And the cure, really is double down on the will to stupidity
Yep. Taleb (though I disagree with part of his IQ take) suggests using income as a proxy instead.
It’s an interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
You might be leaning a little too strongly into the “it’s just incompetence” argument though. We went through years of prominent Democrats leaders refusing to cooperate with ICE (for example). On a more cultural level, we had to suffer through years of strident claims that “no one is illegal”. This all had to have SOME effect
My question is why something as borderline positive for some ordinary voters as Southern border immigration became so toxic that they will not consider comprehensive reform to reduce irregular immigration (whihc will not be cheap to do so legally) in order to attract more of the worlds talent with merit-based immigration?
And how ridiculous can you get to ask about "immigrtion!" Fewer,no asylum seekers with bogus claims and more Elon Musks.
> Over time, my most prominent takeaway about the administrative state was how much failure was due to incompetence, and how non-ideological that failure was.
That's a naive take. This "incompetence" itself is cultivated on ideological grounds, and is allowed and even encouraged when it aligns with certain interests.
Whether incompetence or malice is in play seems to be largely immaterial. We need not concern ourselves with divining which it is.
Neither one is in any way tolerable, so once it's established that one or the other is up, it's time to get cleaning.