Stupid is better than smart

http://christianowens.com/post/3016971050/be-stupid

by grumo • 15 years ago

8 15 15 years ago

If you (re)define a word to be sufficiently broad, it's particularly difficult to find positive aspects to it.

Tim17763• 15 years ago

Glorification of the stupid is nihilistic. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. So reason is required to produce the values on which human life depends.

In "The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism", Jay Gonen described the typical Nazi mentality as being a contradictory mix of brutality and intellect. He analyzed these "brilliant morons" in Freudian terms, but according to Leonard Peikoff, in his book "The Ominous Parallels", the roots of Nazi stupidity glorification are actually to be found in the philosophy of Kant who famously attacked reason.

gjm112• 15 years ago

> Kant who famously attacked reason

[citation needed]

Yes, Kant wrote books called "Critique of pure reason" and "Critique of practical reason", but they were not attacking reason.

You needn't take my word for it. Here is an excerpt from the article on Kant in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is online but written by experts and very good indeed):

"Kant's main goal is to show that a critique of reason by reason itself, unaided and unrestrained by traditional authorities, establishes a secure and consistent basis for both Newtonian science and traditional morality and religion. In other words, free rational inquiry adequately supports all of these essential human interests and shows them to be mutually consistent. So reason deserves the sovereignty attributed to it by the Enlightenment."

"Famously attacked reason", forsooth!

Tim17763• 15 years ago

If you study this a little deeper, you will discover that it is improper to cast Kant in the role of being a champion of reason.

On the contrary, Kant made no secret of his motive for writing those books. His aim was to make a metaphysical domain for religion.

His method was to drive a wedge between the natural world and the human mind.

In the Preface to the Second Edition of the "Critique of Pure Reason", he says "I must, therefore, abolish knowledge, to make room for belief."

To understand Kant's main gimmick, see "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" by Ayn Rand.

il• 15 years ago

Actually it's smart to take risks. The expected value of foundig a startup is sufficiently high to make it a rational decision in most cases. I recently read an article which stated that most successful entrepreneurs are actually highly risk averse- they only take carefully calculated risks.

sabat• 15 years ago

The world is full of smart people doing all kinds of smart things. Thats smart.

That's.

JosefK• 15 years ago

Like baloons...

stupid has the one hell of a hangover.

Either he's trying to make the style mirror the content intentionally, or he just doesn't care much for standard English. I disagree either way.

pedrokost• 15 years ago

I disagree. One doesn't have to be either smart or stupid. One has to be smart and know when its best to act stupid.

And yes, one can outsmart stupid, by being smart and stupid as required.

ThomPete• 15 years ago

I think the saying go.

It's better to be lucky than smart.

I would replace stupid with ignorant.

icegreentea• 15 years ago

"Stupid" is not brilliant. "Don't be stupid" is a heuristic used where an idea does not conform to 'known' patterns. It's about someone else telling you that whatever you came up with does not appear to mesh with their understanding of reality. Those who ignore "don't be stupid" and succeed, not because they were stupid and there's something inherently positive about being stupid. It's because the heuristic was wrong this time. Someone applied it wrong, or maybe their understanding of the world is false.

When the heuristic is correct... well... the -other- saying goes 'if I had a nickle for every fool...".

For example, stupid has hangover. Smart has hangover too. The question is, is the hangover worth it. If it's worth it, then you're not actually stupid. You are in fact smart, and accepted the label 'stupid' that someone else gave you. On the other hand, if I got a hangover, a 5 hour hole in my memory, lost my wallet, and ended up in a hospital... probably actually stupid (happened last year). Cause that really wasn't worth it.

smoyer• 15 years ago

So ... is that stupid for certain values of smart? Or is it smart for certain values of stupid?

I agree with the basic premise: Think outside the box. Don't get stuck in a mental rut. And most importantly, don't let others with no vision bring you down. But I think the validity of your message was undermined by how you said it.

superchink• 15 years ago

In case not everyone is aware, this is a campaign for Diesel. I first saw this as a storefront display in Santa Monica saying "BE STUPID" in big bold letters, which led me to a quick search and to: http://www.diesel.com/be-stupid/

Clever campaign. I don't know of many clothing companies that have marketing slogans that get discussed on HN.

zazi• 15 years ago

Doesn't make sense to me. This sounds like the opposite of what John Stuart Mill said about Socrates and the fool.

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."

- John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)

Stupid is better than smart

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