If Dungeons and Dragons has taught me anything, it's that Intelligence and Wisdom are two very different stats Edit: Didn't expect so many of you to come out and comment here. Play nice folks
Wisdom is the stat that make you “shut-up” at the right time, intelligence is the stat that make you boring if you keep yapping about it, and Charisma is the stat that make you talk like CHAD THUNDERCOCK.
But as dumb as you are, Neil saying “whats the point in philosophers fighting on meanings behind words” that just shocks me, never knew smart people could be THAT dumb
@@nicholasgeere5125 lack of self awareness elaborate??? If someone were smart they'd be smart enough to think "gee maybe I shouldn't speak on a topic I know little to nothing about on my massive platform"
It's simple: one shouldn't speak outside of their area of expertise. Most of these "public thinkers" have gone to grad school, and it is a near universal sentiment among grad school students that they don't know shit about what they thought they knew. At some point during your schooling, when you see how deep the hole goes in your chosen discipline, you come to the realization that other disciplines are similarly nuanced, technical, and highly specialized. I fancied myself knowledgeable of evolutionary biology because I read several books on the topic, and so I thought I knew my shit. After going to grad school for a different subject, I dare not speak authoritatively on anything beyond the mere basics of biology, because I realized that the world of PhD expertise in evolutionary biology is so beyond anything that I know that I will inevitably sound like a complete eejit if I even tried to talk about it. So there's no reason why Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Jordan Peterson, and others should not have that same humility and restraint.
Well I think the argument would be that an intelligent person would know when they are not speaking from expertise and not try and act like they know better.
I think that tons of intellectuals are incredibly smart within one field and believe that because they understand these complex subjects within their field they can automatically understand complex subjects outside of themselves. Rather than approaching a new subject as someone who knows nothing and is ready to learn they insert their half-baked/surface-level opinions into the conversation and think that their background of previous knowledge will carry them the rest of the way.
You are so right. I saw this guy appearing on several UFO pseudo-science vids who was a "Dr." /PH.D - also "author & Broadcaster" (of some book you have never heard of). I looked him up on Wikipedia and he really did have a Ph.D - in "Ancient Chinese ceramics" - or some Professor giving talks with Ken Hamm supporting Young Earth Creationism - turns out he was a civil engineer. I mean, nobody asks a biologist to build a suspension bridge.
As someone who is seen as very intellegent, I can confirm that this is accurate. I do well in terms of Anime, video games, some art history, and other pop culture stuff, but put me in front of astronomy and...
That's the Dunning-Kruger effect in motion mah dude. You'll notice the smarter the person, the more they'll realize they actually know NOTHING. With someone like neil, he KNOWS he's smart and understands things that only a fraction of people do, but that egotism just blinds him
For real, I love this channel but this video depressed tf outta me. I get these videos are supposed to serve as conversation starters, but it some proposed solutions would have been nice. Also the irony of Wisecrack as a brand making this particular video is not lost on me.
I once had an old History teacher who apparently loved his job. If you spoke to him he would gladly give you some good dialogue. He barely taught any History - sometimes because it felt pointless to try - , but the one thing he frequently repeated to us was "never automatically believe any word anyone says, even mine." In the fascinating state public schooling is, when you basically are force fed bullet points to answer a multiple-choice all-deciding piece of paper, that still feels to this day one of the most useful things I learned in school.
It's funny because you go to any place on the internet where people think they are free-thinkers, like 4chan for example, and all they do is believe everything posted there and then repeat the talking points. Everything is like a cult now, end everyone is cult-like.
I think one of the goals of the video was exactly to work as an metacritic for all youtube channels that runs in the "intellectual" discourse. Best way to find a criteria for this is to aways analise their methodology of research for the information they share and criticise their conclusions. Scientific method applied in informal situations also work haha
Exactly what I was thinking... Like, how are you different? Shouldn't you just be happy we keep watching your videos? I heard this stupid smart person the other day who made a distinction between a mark and a smark. A mark is someone who's being duped and doesn't know it. A smark is a mark who knows they're being duped but keep coming back anyway.
@@viniciusnogueira3465 so the first homework they are assigning is to criticize the teacher? In this case to criticize their vid and use it as an example
Just noting, no one should be logging onto Twitter in the hopes of hearing words of wisdom. Twitter is basically just everyone screaming into a crowded room and hoping people agree with you
Whenever Neil degrasse tyson talks about philosophy: “Knowing enough to think you are right, but not knowing enough to know you are wrong” - Neil Degrasse Tyson
@David Orozco Except we have no way to ascertain the boundary once and for all, nor to assess scientifically which questions are worth asking, so philosophy will remain necessary. Philosophy is not just something that precedes science, only to fade when answers can be given; it's the very foundation of science. These guys seem to think, instead, that science is 100% on the path to answering all relevant questions, so that philosophy is becoming thinner and more useless.
@@andreab380 This. Science, philosophy, and even religion/faith all have a place in intellectual "searches" for the "truth." I really love how Fullmental Alchemist explores all of these concepts through its character's and their growth throughout the series: Edward/Al = Science is the only means to the truth, Leore Peeps / Ishvalans / Scar = Science is nothing if Faith says otherwise, science has caused our downfall and murdered our people Father = My philosophy to attain the truth is to remove all 'imperfections' in myself so I can be a pure, godly being. State = Suppression of religion and scientific oppression leads to a stable society You see so many characters grapple with the above 'lenses' to understanding their world and their place in it. Ed by the end of the series has to accept that alchemy (science) literally cannot solve all problems, and that it is important but not as important as his loved ones, his brother in particular. Wrath learns that a 'miracle' of the sun blinding him during his duel with Scar is what caused him to lose the fight. Scar learns that alchemy can be used to help people and that he has been a hypocrite by only 'deconstructing' with it, and once he starts to use it he was able to help save everyone. Rose from Leore learned to 'walk on her own two feet' and to not take religious prophets at face value just because they 'give you something you desire.' Its really such a wonderful fiction that hits home for our 'reality' we face even in 2020. Everyone loves to assert their framework for understanding the world is 'the best' while the others are 'less than.' It really takes an appreciation for the limitations of all frameworks and a collaboration between them to get a broader view of what "might be the truth" of a given subject.
@@pathwaystoadventure I love FMA (Brotherhood) too! Such a well-crafted plot and such high concepts for a manga/anime. And I do kind of agree with their stance on Truth as well: science, philosophy, and spirituality (I won't use the word religion, because I'm not a huge fan of organised religion) are all valuable parts of our search for the truth. It is obvious to intellectually honest scientists that science does not solve everything, at any point in time; it is rather a neverending search, and that's what's actually beautiful and useful in it.
@David Orozco Science can speculate things without knowing it for truth. Albert Einstein wasn't the man that proved relativity is a fact, it was actually some observations in astronomy years after the fact that Einstein wrote that theoretical equation that the movement in the stars did in fact prove Einstein right and therefore that the question of relativity was known.
@Flightless Boy Are you, by any chance, trying to ''thought lead'' those humble of us too thick-skulled to follow her points in the video with that comment. . . Or merely trying to encapsulate everything she said into a sole, single, Confucius - style parable of wisdom, like a mantra we can apply to all things and be done to think about it? I did take a grain of salt with this video, and that grain turned out not to be a grain, but to be a piece of honey, because these words she has said, are words I have so longed to hear as this intellectual climate of thought leaders has sucked the life dry off my bone until I'm almost at the point where I feel too numb and wary to even try to have any semblance of a kind of freedom of thought anymore.
@@JingleJangleJam listen all I'm saying is that everyone has their own agendas and points that should be taken with grains of salt because everyone has their own thoughts.not even wisecrack is free of this. In the age of information we ironically seem to be in a world of mis information. How do we know that wisecrack themselves are trying to "thought lead"? And I get it , you yourself have taken in this video with a grain of salt but some may not. People should be able they want and things like ted talks and the likes should be as well.
@@flightlessboy4040 I don't know what the point you're trying to make about her video is. In which point in the video is it that you actually disagree with her on the topics she says about? I don't mind if you have disagreeing thoughts, it is just that you have no stated them in a clear enough way, and her argument to me, seems completely untouched by the comment that you had made. She has stated clear facts. The process of democracy is tainted by disinformation, and not only that, but in your reply, you have reiterted and reinforced her own point also so it seems that you agree with her, and also think that it is ironic and we live in an age of disinformation, which was her own take...
@@JingleJangleJam I'm sorry im really just confused on what you where saying. I agree with what she is saying but I also want to point out that we also need to be careful with this video as well because she herself is painting a picture like many of these "thought leaders". My original comment was paraphrasing in a comedic way what the video was saying.
@@flightlessboy4040 Oh, well she distinguishes in her video between 'thought leaders' and 'intellectuals' and I thought she fit into the latter category because she does refer to true intellectuals like Simone de Beavoir. I apologise I got a little offended when I thought you were mocking her, because I do not think it to be the correct context, in a joke, to say that you should take a woman saying that sexual harassment of women by CEOs that happen factually frequently from overwhelming evidence shown through investigative and legal teams, that cannot help but filter into the media although it is often blurred with sensationalism - and concrete solutions never offered and acted as though they are somehow miracolously impossible to come up with on this issue (thus avoiding further substantive decision making and using the fact a woman is raped for making money by spreading sensationalism on the news that also gets people worked up and start to believe anything, like even a pedo cult could exist, and to start to totally become desensitized with this money-drive thoughtless reporting until they become desensitized to the issue rather than learn about it. I do not think it the right context to say you should take a grain of salt with a woman saying that corporate leaders who often are mixed up in sexual abuse selling info that says that women who are having depression and anxiety from being harassed (instead of us solving their social harm caused by others) should be striking ''power poses'' and blaming it upon their own lack of willingness to be happy, then I do not think you should say that a woman sho says this is blatantly horrible and wrong, is an opinion that should be taken with a grain of salt. To taker something with a grain of salt means to take said thing as being put forward, in a slanted and biased way, and to trey to get a better balance and understand the views of those whom are on the ''other side'', meaning those CEOs who put out the crap information saying a woman who is having these deep traumas with her self identity from a predatory sexual environment, should give a false solution to her dangerous social enviroment that we, as a society, lethargically allow to continue without being dissolved. I'm sure, put that way, you might find hard to disagree, although you I do not know might have been thinking of a different thing when you said what you had said, and an impression of the words someone says can often be different from the intention of who is the speaker.
it kinda is. a dwarf planet literally is just a very small planet, no other differences. pluto isn't much smaller than mercury, which is considered a planet.
I’m glad you brought up TED tickets being expensive. Around ten years ago I looked up tickets and they weren’t $5k-$10k but they were expensive enough for me to consider TED a scam.
TED talks went from interesting discussions of complex topics in a relatable manner to Silicon Valley Bros explaining something *painfully* obvious to everyone badly because they just found out about it and thus assumed no one knew. And they usually do it by badly paraphrasing someone else's research.
I agree with what you said but I would add other fact: narcissism. When everyone is telling you "how smart you are" you start to think that you can speak about everything. And that's not a very "socratic" way to find the truth, is just fame. And that's what's happening with people like Neil: they are blinded by their success. On the other hand, Elon Musk is just a jerk. Kudos!
A presidential historian said "every president is a little bit of a psycho. They have massive ego thinking they can solve the nation problem" i say we all have a little bit of that
Debates are more exciting than conversations. Debates are about winning and "destroying" the opponent, which people seem to love. But only through thoughtful and respectful (and boring) conversations can get to the heart of key issues and find workable solutions.
dafuq. A conversation is literally just two people talking. A debate isnt about "destroying" the opponent at all. What you described as a conversation is what a debate actually is.
I find debates too draining and stressful, id rather have a conversation, theres a deeper connection to be found in it, why does everything have to have drama for it to appeal to people...
My schools were full of these. They may have aced tests probably due to a trashcan memory, but when it came to common sense and cognitive skills, I am shocked they're still alive.
Same with me here. I love knowledge and can memorize stuff quickly, but I lack common sense and a thinking that makes people successful leaders and such. It's pretty hard knowing that the c students around you may become bosses and A students may become workers. It just becomes depressing to even study and makes me hate my qualities
Let's not forget that being intelligent and able to understand abstract concepts may alienate you and thus cause you to not get experience socially. It doesn't mean your naturally bad at socializing you just lack experience doing so
@@barathor not really. Even tho in the present I am rather obsessed with the notion with getting grades, or rather, studying for better job opportunities, I know that it may not be, in the end, that necessary. This is coming from the perspective of a student who was deemed "gifted" and now believes the only thing they can do is memorize stuff quickly and they better put that stuff to use in order to survive such a world, since they do not have the wits or brains to manipulate the system for their gains. Eh, personally I'd rather write, draw and be in my own imagination- not uncommon, I know. Not a perspective of a person who is always chasing victory and these are the qualities people would associate with a "weaker" pers . But it is true. The only reason I even care about grades and work now is because the scores I have achieved have put expectations on me and I cant let other people down or disappoint them - I'm too fragile for that. So yeah. The only reason I seem so "obsessed" with work maybe because of all the things I gave been taught since I turned 13. It may seem nice to achieve a high grade, but it is not some sort of insane drive of mine.
“It isn’t the 20th century: it is 1993, so it is the 19th century...” my father, David Koresh, Waco, TX edit-Korean wasn’t my dads surname... it was not koresh either but the dumb ass changed it from Vernon Howell.
@@Autistic_Internet_Slap_Fights A broken clock is right twice a day...the video can be narrated by idiots and still be completely true. It is best to evaluate content on its own merit rather than being biased by looking at who is its speaker.
People have surrendered their minds and their wills to some other entity who does not have their best interest at hand. I don't confuse smart/ genius with someone rich in book knowledge (public school teachers, police officers, retail managers etc). Those 3 examples listed have book knowledge, but they don't have the common sense of the average 2nd grader of the 1970s, nor the work ethic or sense of responsibility. More like toddlers pretending to be grownups
@@richardcranium6081 so true. I think the most important qualities humans should have is curiosity to learn, common sense, Resilience and a strong work ethic. I think all of those qualities are missing in a whole lot of people.
I had this professor in college that you could just tell he was very intelligent in his department but just wasnt able to teach properly and nost students disliked him, he always seemed like he was trying to make you feel dumb for not understanding something he was so adept at.
This is the exact reason why a great many "smart" people shouldn't be teachers. There's a massive world of difference between being smart enough to understand the curriculum yourself and being smart enough to get others to understand the subject.
That's most professors. Teaching is just a requirement to many of them. They're more interested in the recognition they get from publishing papers, not teaching.
Helen DESTROYS smart people! Sorry, I just like being a smartass. This is a good break down of the modern idea industry. I think we put too much stock in names. When Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about cosmology, I tend to listen, but I don't really care what he thinks about other topics. I think we should listen to experts when they speak on their particular field. We can't assume that someone knows a lot about everything just because they know a lot about one thing.
Ironically, the amount of focus that you have to have on _one very specific thing_ in order to get your credentials as an intellectual often leads to being clueless in other areas. While not academic, Garry Kasparov is arguably the greatest chess player to ever live, but he thinks that all artifacts over 600 years old are forged. I do not say this to mock them at all. I tried my hand in academia (I didn't get my PhD because I couldn't demonstrate written proficiency in German), but I can probably tell you more about the Cross of Gold speech than all but maybe 50 people alive on the planet (most people who study Bryan today tend to focus on the Scopes trial), because that would have been the topic of my dissertation, and once you get to a certain level, you spend an awful lot of time focusing on one thing.
@@wvu05 I'm exactly the opposite. I drive for a living and listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks about a wide range of subjects. Because of that, I have a general, broad overview of a lot of things, but am an expert in few if any. But I also don't speak on a subject with any authority unless I have a few experts and data to point to. I also end long rants or explanations with "but what do I know? I drive a truck for a living."
@@georgebynum2659 Indeed. I am not one of these people who tries to show off my credentials, but I realize that there are only a few areas where I can speak remotely credibly when having any sort of discussion, but I do realize what those limits are. My academic training is in religion, and I have some real world experience in politics (I ran for a seat in the state legislature in my late 20s and have worked on a few campaigns, some as a paid canvasser) and I have enough familiarity with a few other subjects that I can discuss the basics, but you have to know what you know and also what you don't know to avoid the thought leader trap.
The ad show up during this video is neil degrasse tyson saying: One of the great challenge of this world Is knowing enough of a subject to think you are right, but not enough about a subject to know you are wrong. XD
@@unvergebeneid I mean I feel like the point is that Neil Degrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, and that his sentiments on other subjects, like philosophy, should be seen with relevant skepticism.
This video is a good reminder to always criticize, always scrutinize and never take anything at face value, even this video. Observe the world, listen to others and make your own conclusions, while leaving some room for revising and criticizing the same conclusions you made in the past. I love this channel ❤️
@@theocean1973 I'm not sure what you are talking about. Can you elaborate? Answering your implied question though, I honestly don't remember all of the problems I have with him or his content, but one of them is that he is a bit full of himself which I dislike. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy his content though. Also, "next!" - excuse me but what the fuck?
But I'd assume that TEDx events are way cheaper. We had a few at my college, and I'm pretty sure students can't afford 5-10k (neither in dollars nor euros)
Most of them aren't paying for it themselves, their company paid for it. Still pretty absurd imo, I doubt the company gets that much value back from it.
THIS, I think is the biggest problem which we can see in play with Neil Degrasse Tyson. Very knowledgeable astrophysicist, but doesn't know a thing about philosophy. So why is he commenting on philosophy?
well you can be knowledgeable in more than one, but not in everything. And even if you are knowledgeable in one subject doesn't mean you know everything about that subject.
"We earn credibility by having a very strong point of view and never deviating from it" That right there is the real problem in a nutshell. Credibility from ideas/thinktanks/intellectuals used to be based on if they were right or wrong. Now it's moved or is moving towards them being consistent in their views, this is stupid and dangerous.
I think, that instead of people getting dumber, it is people getting way more chances to be heard. A lot has happened just because of social media and globalisation. Better media reading skills will make that go and actually, I think people are already smarter than before. Dumb people just happen to want to share their ideas before thinking about them twice. Also, a smart guy can still be smart, even after believing into something wrong for a while.
A German scientiest (forgot his name) put it that way: Not that long ago, every village had its own idiot. Everybody knew that he was an idiot, so nobody listened to him. The idiot understood that circumstance and kept his mouth shut to avoid making people's view on him even worse. Now all those idiots have access to the internet and are able to connect. Its idiots listening to idiots, so nobody amongst them is smart enough to tell the idiots that they're idiots. That's why idiots don't know that they're idiots anymore and so they don't keep their mouths shut anymore. Now that we can't ignore them anymore like we did back in the day doesn't mean that they've grown in number. There's still one idiot per village, it's just that progress gave him the ability and confidence to speak.
People have had more chances to be heard, censorship by the "gatekeepers" notwithstanding. Previously, only the "approved thoughts" (which, depending on the time could well be "the earth is flat") could be heard. But dumb people don't have any ideas of their own. They believe something because someone told them to believe it. And they are the sort of people who will respond to a detailed argument against the position of their preferred echo chamber by just typing back "wow" or maybe "that's a big wall of text." Ideas, even bad ideas, even incorrect ideas, come from smart people. Smart people may sometimes make dubious connections. But dumb people can't make connections at all.
ok so if you could prove that statement, you may have a point. (even though i don't see how being smarter has to do with being heard at all lol. but really people have always been intelligent and i doubt you could survive 1000 years ago as people 1000 years ago could not survive today if we were to somehow switch places over night. the point of the vid is that people are being wrong on purpose in order to please the corporate handlers of information.
I was reminded of this not too long ago when I saw a 20-30 year old video of an author on TV talking about his books which were turned into a TV series. Back then it was rare for an author to speak directly to the viewers about his books before the start of the program and even interviews were rare, now authors have fans tweeting at them 24/7, they do year round interviews with journalists and tv hosts, they've go their own websites, and they have sites dedicated to them sometimes even including things like wiki sites that host every detail about their franchise ever mentioned or written and every time they appear in public a fan has them on video.
The problem with the idea of a "Free Marketplace of Ideas" is that it favors the most palatable and well-presented ideas, not necessarily the true or most accurate ones.
True, though I'd still rather have a free marketplace of ideas rather than a system that censors ideas (and I can't think of a third option apart from those two). Now I think to combat the problem with it, we'd need a way to cultivate a longer attention span, incentive to want to know the truth rather than to confirm your own biases, and good education on dissecting an argument (even for people who haven't got the fortune to attend college). Oh and ofcourse the introspection to asses our own biases.
@@KarlSnarks You can't have a free market of ideas with no restriction on those ideas. We deplatform specific people who talk about crazy shit. We don't need to give a platform to holocaust deniers because "We can't censor anyone". We need intellectual security to some degree. You can't have total physical freedom because it causes anarchy and the same I would think holds true for Ideas. Some ideas are just dumb and dangerous.
@@KarlSnarks you don´t get it, the "free marketplace" is an illusion, the most prominent ideas on this space will always be the ones that benefits the corporations who offers money to this "market". it´s a rigged system, where truth is never a primary concern. I agree with you that censorship is not the solution, but the system we live in operates in a similar way just undercover
My Highschool physics teacher was a complete genius. He was a genius to the point that he would just say the dumbest, rudest shit. A staff member I was close to said “he’s so smart that he can’t interact with everyone else like a normal person.” And that seems to be a general trend among all of the mega smart people I know.
I think rude & arrogant people are stupid. i kinda think Rick & Morty made it a trend for smart people to be loud arrogant assholes. Say what you will i think smart people are more like keanu reeves or morty. Maybe i mean wise.
This is painfully true and accurate of a lot of my college professors. Had one dude that was uber smart and he said he cared about teaching too, not just research. He attended a lot of education conferences and came to the conclusion that cold calling students in a lecture hall of about 300 kids would be beneficial to comprehension. I'm normally pretty good at paying attention in class, in part thanks to anxiety. But bro's cold calling made me almost have a panic attack in class everyday. He was so smart that he didn't think to assess and adjust his teaching style
A lot of intellectuals is sharing interesting knowledge about their fields on Twitter. Problem is, you have to look for them. They don't have 50 million followers.
Maybe we should stop expecting intellectuals to be smart at everything. Yes sometimes they shove their way into a topic they shouldn’t but often we demand someone to have a statement on everything. I actually don’t care if neil is bad a philosophy. That isn’t why I love him. There are many controversial people I love. I don’t judge them harshly for being wrong because I don’t hold their takes outside their fields very high in the first place. Remember we’re all people and you probably have some stupid beliefs yourself. I don’t know.
I agree, that's just being human I guess. Maybe if we were all smart human beings we would respectfully correct each other and not just get totally haywire over some things because we are emotionally invested
Well Malcolm gladwell is famous for the 10,000 hours book but that idea's been proven wrong. The lady Helen opened with...her claim to fame was proven wrong as well. The problem is that some of these people are becoming known as public intellectuals because they are just illustrating common thought in an "intellectual" way and other people's claim to fame is legitimate but their reputation starts speaking for their work rather than their work speaking for itself.
"Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?" I dunno, Neil, why did you decide to dedicate yourself to deciding if Pluto was *this* arbitrary classification of stellar object or *that* arbitrary classification of stellar object? That seems a hell of a lot more pointless than trying to understand ourselves as an existence. Philosophers: "We're trying to understand what is right and what is wrong." Scientists: "Cool, but have you considered dedicating your time to naming all the spiders instead?"
@@browngosling3929 nope. The field of homeopathic medicine is not important. And even as a planetary scientist, I can say that the work done on social and technological solutions to climate change is more important right now than what I am doing.
@@firstnamelastname7003 nope, that’s completely subjective. You may be a planetary scientist but once again, claiming that your science is greater than herbal medicine, whether it be a science or not, is absurd. Some have been touched by homeopathy more than knowing the orbit of certain planetary objects. I’m a man of science too but it’s quite arrogant to take away meaning of anything to any individual.
@@browngosling3929 yes, of course it's subjective. Subjectivity is in the definition of the word important - there's no objective measure of it. That doesn't mean one person can't claim that one thing is more important than the other, or the word important would be meaningless. And a consensus on importance based on common values can be created. We can agree that the world not ending is important to us humans in general even if a few of us are nihilists. Gosh, pedantism is dull.
I can remember a time when I thought TedTalks were the greatest thing; but that sorta' didn't last long after I started seeing what some of these talks were about, or the qualifications of the people giving them.
They’re just a toastmasters event on steroids...I hope the pseudo-storytelling trend along with the poor use of hand gesturing in presentation that TED Talks have turned into a template fizzles out soon. I also think people get the point by now that “doing what you love and what makes you happy” is the secret to the arbitrary definition of “happiness”. If not, don’t worry - they’ll have 3 new speakers next week ready to remind you.
Only good ones I remember or see nowadays are ones about physical inventions. Like when someone was demoing his app (for tablets) for kids to learn language by some abstract visuals plus pronunciations and such. I don't remember the details, and it might not have been too useful of a thing as is, but it's tangible and something you can actually test and refine. The rest needs a lot of effort to validate and the speakers usually don't provide that validation machinery in the talk itself, which makes it suspect _even_ when I find myself agreeing, shocked, or questioning at points.
"If you torture the data enough, it would confess". We take everything, every "research" at face value without as much as questioning the bias of the researcher.
Well, sometimes a study doesn´t certify a point. A research is part of the process that we know as science. A research is not a "definitive" truth. Is dangerous that people take them like that just to "prove" their points, and that´s not the researcher´s fault. And, the other risk is that people use the bias thing to discredit researches that don´t certify their point of view or their ideologies... That leads to a lot of BS...
@@SeSdesc The reason why the CDC wants you to think its hands are tied researching gun violence is because the director of the CDC, in the early nineties, decided he was going to use his position as the CDC to spread anti-gun propaganda under the guise of "research", which lead to a ban on the CDC being allowed to produce partisan studies designed to promote specific policies. Even today, the CDC is still so biased that a ban on producing partisan studies designed to promote specific policies has kept the CDC from producing studies on the subject. Because "researching gun violence" and "partisan study designed to promote specific policies" are synonyms to them. So they just went ahead and ignored actually doing research and just declared "gun violence" a health crisis, as if we aren't in the middle of a literal pandemic. Because they're an organization of lifelong government bureaucrats attempting to gain as much power over society as they can.
@@IncredibleMD While that may very well be true, the U.S. does have a major gun problem and there's no denying that. Biased research can't be disregarded in light of what we actually see. We aren't seeing guys go into Wal Marts in other 1st world countries shooting people up. I do agree there is far too much of a Boogeyman mentality about guns (especially from those who have never even held one before), but we can't just pretend there's not a problem whatsoever.
Who takes every research at face value? - I assume an unintentional grammatical error, but I do not understand what "every research" even is. To take research at face value literally goes against what research is.
@@THE_BEAR_JEW we don't have a firearm issue in America, we have a mental health issue coupled with easy access to equalizing weapons. - Also, so many studies are confounded by adding in suicides as firearm violence. I call a firearm an "equalizing weapon" because [within reason] it doesn't matter your gender, age, mass, etc; most people can become proficient enough with a firearm with minimal work (and cost). But, I struggle to understand the mainstream argument surrounding the effect (firearm violence) and not the cause (mental health issues). - And even the root cause of mental health issues. Both sides just seem to want to argue to argue and not actually work on the actual causes.
Fridge Logic joke , lol. How could the editor possibly have matched the visuals to the audio wihtout knowing precisely what is being said at that point?
I like that idea, though I'd say that Wisecrack up to date has shown a surprising amount of academicship when using outside sources for their analysis, and in several of their analysis of popular culture I believe they acknowledge what they say as an interpretation rather than the ultimate point of view.
The whole premise of this video is self-contradicting, because a lot of stuff that she points out as "dumb" are actually points still in discussion (like everything in science, as an example). If you're calling diverging points of view on an undecided topic. Well... You ARE the pseudo-intellectual you're trying to debunk.
It’s easy to be cynical but this is the golden age of intellectualism. Most of the planet is literate. And a millions are spending their free time consuming intellectual content. And that content has the least censorship ever. No moment in history even comes close. Sure the mainstream can be crap but that’s life. Transformers outsells Casablanca. We should talk about the issues but not lose sight of what we have accomplished.
Even in the past century many people weren't educated in things we consider basic. It's a marvel that most people in modern society can read, write, do some basic math, etc. It's disheartening to know, more than ever, the opportunity to be informed is wasted by a high number of us.
People are still expected to source their information to some degree, but the issue here is that information can be bought from “intellectual figures.” Sometimes this scientists w expertise (research, phd, etc) and sometimes nothing. For example, PragerU is one of the biggest sources ppl use, but all of their content uses evidence from thinktanks owned by corporations from major industries like fossil fuels or weapons. They also promote distrust to scientific research if its “paid for by the government” aka taxpayer funds which create taxpayer owned research. If no facts are trustworthy, why not turn to anyone at all with any opinion?
@@uchewb3 There's also people like Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Neil deGrasse Tyson. They will talk on matter such as religion, politics and social issue despite having no prior understand of field or even basic reading of history. And then is theres internet commentator. Who's completely talking out of their ass. I remember when a bunch of atheist channels was talking about social justice and it was clear had no idea what they were talking about.
This video actually got me to understand a joke in Brooklyn 99 where Rosa tells Amy that nobody needs a "power pose" seminar. Now because of this video that gag makes even more sense.
A good quote I stumbled across a while back... “Show me a wise man and I’ll show you a man that’s made the most mistakes.” I take it as learning through experience, we all “mess up” along the way at some point. There’s a difference between “book smarts” and “street smarts”, I’ve seen it many times.
bravo fella, agreed. One killer fact is this "All things written (codecs) are made up by arranging various types of vibrations (keys) into a recognised pattern (cipher) so as it is decoded and interpreted correctly. Therefore it is always open to interpretation , meaning anything ever written by someone is just an opinion, or the best model so far, theory , What is a Fact ? anything known as a fact which is based on scientific theory is actually a serious deception these placebos can cause serious mental issues and physical illnesses,
@@DJ-Brownie-UK I mean… if the message is conveyed *effectively* then the meaning shouldn’t be contentious, as long as we’re talking about practical communication (e.g. poetry might be a diff story)
Hey, I just want to say that I watch your videos all the time, and noticed you quoted one of my articles on creativity at 00:12:36 That was such a cool surprise, so thank you. Totally unexpected.
Great video. A similar thing is happening in journalism: build a brand, get followers, get a book deal. Several avenues open through that such as activism, politics, etc. and as a result journalism as an institution suffers.
@@youare5907 I know right? Wisecrack doesn’t even speak in overly complex academic jargon that is completely inscrutable to anyone lacking a PhD in social sciences. You know, like Coffin does.
@@FenixIzyuze But, the scientists who conducted, verified, and replicated those experiments had to, gasp, have a dialogue and consensus about their results. Scientists are never, EVER immune to the flaws that impact all humans. That's how some of our absolute worst 'science' in history, that hurt people and robbed them of their dignity, were perpetuated. Example: Go look into IQ testing and its origins. It was SO biased around a white, middle class, American education context. So when applied to children from different backgrounds, with less educated parents, with less resources, going to schools with less funding, and on children with vastly different life experiences, they scored much lower on average. This then was extrapolated out to support racist views on "intelligence" between people of color and non-color, when in reality it was using a poor control protocol and not being aware of, or giving a shit about, the methodologies that biased the results by not considering factors in the formation of the measure. Or if you want an example of shit science in my field: Social psychology. Good read up on the Bystander Effect and the Kitty Genovese case. A misreported news article, an erroneous conclusion by a scientist, who then formed an entire theory based on this incorrect information, that later on was difficult to replicate outside of specific contexts, oh and that resulted in life long trauma and at least one suicide attempt of one of the so-called bystanders. Experiments CAN be valuable. They CAN be ethical. They CAN really attempt to grasp at the realities they are attempting to study. But we must always be vigilant against shitty science. "Consensus" absolutely should matter at times, especially with dialogue from *everyone* impacted by the study. This researcher could have just interviewed the people who were involved in this case instead of extrapolating an entire theory based on a false news story...
@@JustThatOneRandomGuy from what I gather, truth comes from a collaborative conversation that leads to a consensus rather than a conflict driven debate about who is right or wrong.
"Why are smart people so dumb?" It's because they weren't "smart" to begin with. The idea of the "genius" is one which has been perverted by modern society to mean "a person who possesses omnipotence and who is all knowing." However, that definition of "genius" is false, and it's also historically inaccurate. Historically speaking, a genius is a person who is a master at a particular area or activity. There is the philosopher, the scribe, the leader, the general etc. A person can be a genius at his own area of expertise but be a complete fool when it comes to everything else. The myth of genius as it exists today is even a thing because of a misunderstanding of what an IQ test actually does. An IQ test is designed to test your abilities on a very particular set of mental exercises, therefore, there is a statistical bias ingrained in its execution and in its results. And there is also the fact that the results of an IQ test are further skewed when we take into account that there is also a statistical bias on focusing on particular socioeconomic backgrounds which further works to define the general intelligence of the human population under a very specific and ultimately flawed way.
I agree with you until your started criticizing Iq. Actual valid IQ tests actually overcome the problems you address. They aren't biased because they extract out and test the skill that is common across all areas of knowledge and what common trait takes to learn them all. That's IQ. Crappy quick iq test don't do this.
Yeah,it’s basically “We made this test with these certain questions and these certain topics,if you fail you have a low intelligence level,regardless of any other social or emotional knowledge you may have experienced and learned from”,which is basically the main reason i hate school so much,since it’s just such a primitive way to classify people for how well can they memorize a book or two to then spit it out on a paper on a limited amount of time,and even worse is that apparently your performance on said activities represents your worth,and future;again regardless of any other aspect that you may have skills on. Power is still on the wrong hands.
The question here isn't, "Why are smart people so dumb?" The question this video essay poses is, "Why doesn't high intelligence cancel out self-interest?" The answer is, "Why would it?"
Being smart or intelligent was never about how often you can be correct tho. Rather what you can produce when knowledge is acquired. Which I believe many pseudo intellects or just other people get too lost in trying to achieve the stature of ALWAYS being correct, Rather than making positive high magnitude outcomes for others to realize the magnitude of their intellect. Example) einstein's regarded as a high grade intellectual because his findings with the knowledge he had ... had a positive impact on the world as a whole. And he displayed that's how capable his intelligence was. If you have examples of "intellects" yet their ideas only lead to self improvement or inevitably have bad outcomes for groups or others avast. The intelligence decreases. Tho technically someone who does things that are supremely terrible can be percieved as intellectual based on its definition ... I often reserve the term for those worthy of reverence through positive outcomes. Not those willing to go about negative outcomes for self with consideration of knowledge in front of them (like the hitler types ... surely he was knowledgable of the impact of his actions but still chose to do something haneous. And surely he was knowledgable of circumstances and of systems in place to gain traction. But cuz of this I wouldnt call him an intellectual because if he was fully intelligent hed know not to do what he did.) Also ... when you reject the possibility of being wrong regarding ideas that's when you open the door for unrelenting stupidity which I personally believe plagues many people in some form or another (even myself at times but I try to catch it and grow from it). At least that's how I see it. It's great to know there is a lot of things they may not know to have an openness to understand outside perspective beyond your intuitive beliefs. Especially should those outside perspectives aid your principles or ideals. And even then to have a willingness to concede the flaws/cons in your own ideals and perceptions of life if reason presents itself
@@secretname4190 He isn't doing shit, he's just some rich guy taking the honour and money of other people's work and giving money to fascist coups in South America because he wants cheap minerals. People like him is degenerating our world towards a dystopian hellscape with his greedyness and psychopathy. Yes, he was a bit poggers on a potcast once, but please don't simp him just because your favourite marvel hero is inspired by him or because he has a really good marketing team who is really good at making happenings and promoting his name. With his Bolivia comments it's clear that he's ready to do ANYTHING for power and money.
@@secretname4190 he has stated that he would support a fascist coup just to get lithium - what is your response to that? Until then I thought that he was better than most bourgeois - I kinda liked what he did. Now it seems clear to me that he is just another psychopathic fat cat.
@@secretname4190 Are you really sure? A normal and famous brand like the banana brand Chiquita is doing stuff like this through the collusion organiziation "the United Fruit Company", american firms has supported fascist coups in south america, africa and the middle east since forever; it really wouldn't suprise me if a firm like Tesla joined in on coups like this. Thereby I'm not able to just brush off Musks comment as "just a joke bro" easily. Furthermore it still stands that Musk, like any Bourgeois, exploits his workers and take the honour for what they have done. I want to be clear; when i said "I kinda liked what he did", i meant being entertaining while exploiting his workers, and these entertaining ideas are probably again other's hard work that he takes the honour for. My point is that any simping for Musk is and has always been cringe and should remain so coup or not.
@@MatthewNewman the one is a payed talking head from Republican think tanks the other is an independent idiot with a camera who I love very very much!!!
@@DonVigaDeFierro even if that is the case, which I haven't seen enough to come to that conclusion and I liked whatever I saw of him, from what I have seen of him he is not even in the same universe with the ass answering to the name ben shapiro
Fuck yeah man. More people need to watch Some News. I love that show. He is the reason I bought an AR-15, the boars are going to make their move any day now...
@@seangagnon8458 Here in Sweden the fuckers are doing their best to ruin the little fun there is in farming. My cousin recently had a large chunk of his rye field completely obliterated by hogs. I had to drive 1000 fucking miles with a high caliber hunting rifle in my trunk to help him out because 1. You never abandon a cousin in need 2. The hogs made it personal. So far I've killed 8 of them with my trusty bolt action. I've set up my office in his guest room so i'm staying here until every damn hog in the area has met an early death at my hands. All wild pigs and boars can go royally fuck themselves. P.S Good luck with the AR! There's an old saying among hunters where i live, a token of good luck if you will. Roughly translated it would go "By the powers of the Midnight Sun! May your shots end them swiftly!" If you don't want to sound like a Scandinavian He-Man you can always opt for a more American saying: fuck 'em up!
Any liberal making jokes about feral hogs is proud of how superior they feel about how ignorant they are about the reality many rural Americans live in. You're seriously going to mock a guy who lives in an area with huge herds of extremely strong and aggressive animals... for asking how he will deal with those large aggressive animals being in his yard? Are you a fucking sociopath?
I used to work with nonfiction authors. The smartest among them were the first to admit when they didn’t know enough about a given situation to comment. Others never found a topic they couldn’t comment on. The second group always sold more books. When your income and power comes from holding the attention of as many people as possible, you have no incentive to admit your limits.
That's the problem with the world. I wish the people that were in charge of publishing would hold standards like hey this person apparently talks about every subject, maybe they aren't as smart as they say they are. It's so upsetting to see the mediocre rise to the top and people allow them to
Personally, I find that people who diversify their knowledge base beyond one subject tend to be more wise than those who are obsessed with one subject. While it is true that some use this to their own personal gain, I feel that those who diversify themselves want to relate to as many people as possible because they are empathetic and want to empathize with a larger population
This is pretty amazing and super dense content. I think one thing to be aware of as a UA-cam consumer is that this content is so rich that it has to be watched and rewatched several times as to not risk oversimplifying the concepts being presented to you. It's so easy to nod along with the ideas making sense while not being able to coherently recount any of the ideas and how they interrelate if someone asked what it was that you just watched since they whiz by at breakneck speed without you even realizing it.
I found it very refreshing to discern between "opinion" and "information". When someone says that someone died, that is an information I can check easily, but when they tell me why they died, I know that is an opinion, even if that man is a coroner or doctor. His opinion is more likely to be correct, yes, but there is still room for error in interpretation. That's why research is important, it provides information, and information is better for forming decisions than opinions.
They are twisting themselves into knots trying to show how "BOTH SIDES" are equally bad. Notice how they mentioned a bunch of horrible things that thinktanks do, and every single one of the examples was conservative rightwing think tanks paid for by billionaires? But both sides are equally bad. SMMFH
Yeah that was pretty disappointing. Comparing a guy who cites, reads, links, and is very comprehensive about sources (and admitting he could be wrong) to a guy who will entertain the idea that climate change is real only as a hypothetical is... well, it's bad.
It's weird because when she cites a good case she only shows Contrapoints, which doesn't seem to follow the "both sides" thing. I mean, if she wanted to choose a more "controversial" youtuber from the "left tube" she could have chosen someone like Vaush (I don't have any particular feelings towards the guy, but I've read many more complaints about him than about hbomb).
It's not that they're dumb, it's just that some of the people seen as "geniuses" have just focused their time and effort into their crafts and uses their previous experiences as a point of reference. People see their success, and assume they're geniuses and give them the platform to speak. While you also have people who are ignorant of the topic uses these "geniuses" as a point of reference to the topic they are looking into and assume they know what they're talking about, until they research themselves. I recommend looking up Thomas Sowell's discussion on the subject.
Also worth noting that we changed the meaning of 'genius' to be more generalized. Genius originally meant someone had, or was granted, great talent or knowledge of a specific field. Pretty much everyone would have some kind of genius but there was no such thing as just being generally smarter than everyone. Eventually, some people started to fancy themselves as generally genius and people started following along with it as a form of intellectual celebrity. I think that's what it comes down to, an interest in the celebrity of the person rather than their knowledge of the field. On a side note: I think wisecrack feels personally attacked by Tyson.
Na. This is like 'grass is green,' to those who already know how the grass works. Many people have been told 'grass is orange,' for the least 30 years and have started to believe it.
"In politics we presume that all who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or state, when we are ill... We do not ask the hadsomes physician or the most eloquent one." -Socrates, Athens Greece year 400 before the birth of christ.
The quote is attributed to Plato: "In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”
Unfortunately, I do not totally agree with Wisecrack this time. First, let me just say that I like how this video explained the links and relationships between platforms such as Tedx and plutocrats, or other institutions that wield significant amount of normalizing power. We need this kind of transparency in society to make informed decisions. However, Wisecrack failed to acknowledge that it, too, is subjected to power. It is also not value-free and has its own political biases. Just because an idea doesn’t appeal to your ideological sensibilities don’t make them “dumb”. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure this UA-cam page has its own “patrons”, if you know what I mean. Also, no one has the “objective truth”. Such mindset is why extremism and tyranny exist. People are so confident they have the “objective truth” that they feel entitled to become intolerant to other ideas. This is the reason why freedom of speech, free exchange of ideas and discourses are necessary to social harmony and progress. Rather than calling these people “dumb”, why not challenge their ideas instead?
Because the point was to analyze the atmosphere around "public intellectuals", not to jump into the fray and become one. And yes, it's important to keep in mind that wisecrack are subject to bias and the influence of funding but their general decentralization on that front makes them more reliable than most. I'm not saying they're perfect or unbiased, but this piece, if viewed in an isolated manner, is probably the most honest look at thought leaders I've seen on youtube.
@@mr.burnham7687 Yes, they are. I’m not attacking Wisecrack as a whole. I’m criticizing this particular video and how, it seems to me, it’s trying to portray itself as neutral when it is not. It would have been nice if it also disclosed its biases and “patrons”. Despite that, I even commended the video for “exposing” the links of knowledge to power.
@Disruptive Bee Science will always be political. How we ask questions is political. Our methods are political. I’m not at all saying that universally proven scientific truths are invalid. I’m saying that even the question of whether or not we should colonize Mars is in itself political. We cannot get away of this reality. Like a hypothetical example, if the Earth is about to die and we have the wherewithal to evacuate to Mars but we have limited time, how do we decide who must get there first? Is this a purely scientific decision or is it political? We cannot get away with politics. Whether you like it or not, knowledge and power are interrelated.
Slightly different issue. Myth of genius questions if it even exists and this is more an examination on how it’s perceived existence in certain public individuals effects society. One is more epistemological while the other is more sociological/anthropological.
@@moresoulthanasockwithahole3493 Nobody: You: Commenting an "unfunny" joke back at my "unfunny" joke to console your lack of self confidence and horrible grammar by putting others down in the UA-cam comment section. Have a nice life, sir. :)
Just when i was beginning to wonder if something was seriously flawed with the way i was viewing the world.... this video came along and organized my thought lair. THANK YOU for this!
@@graemeguthrie8758 How does power always corrupt and why won't actual smart people just be greedy? Greedyness might be antisocial but in a hyperindividualist society like our current one greedyness can be useful to say the least.
@@graemeguthrie8758 Specious. Sounds reasonable, but is untrue, as shown by history. Also “smart” =/= infallible. No one who has ever existed is infallible.
Love that shout out you give to the brilliant natalie wynn at 1:37 If you don't know her, go check out contrapoints, she's the best. Enjoy the mouth feel
The marketplace of ideas is an oddly revealing phrase because most of the time you won't get anywhere without money on the market. Interestingly used by people on the more right spectrum.
I like Neil de Grasse Tyson. He's an astrophysicist not a philosopher. So when he talks about The Cosmos and his limited knowledge of other science fields is still pretty fun.
My problem with NDT isn’t his mind. He’s a very intelligent man. It’s his personality. He rejects ideas he doesn’t deem as worthy of his thought, which is fun and all when he’s shooting down evangelists or conspiracy theories, but is the antithesis of a scientist, who is supposed to be open to all sources of new information as it pertains to their theory. You can be brilliant and also be a dick I guess is the short take.
I guess the problem some people have with Neil is that he speaks on a very secure (maybe even cocky) manner, even if he is talking about something he knows nothing about
@@stevef5888 Why should he Be Open to conspiracy theories or Evangelical beliefs? It's fun when he shuts them down because we already know how Ridicules those ideas are.
@@CarlosRMatto I actually don't know Where NTD's knollage Stops. I just know I learned tons from him on PBS during my school years. He was on A program called Nova Science Now. Good show.
@@Gfish17 cleary you didn't comprehend steve f's comment....... He said it's fun when he's shooting down evangelicals........ But not so much when he won't bother being open to other scientific possibilities.....
Maybe these intellectuals, after a while, begin to act according to the rewards they get. There seems to be a lot of money going into supporting an idea that clicks with a lot of people. At the end of the day, the "Yes-Men/Women" are going to get better rewards from their audience. Maybe it's time to think about how we value and rewards these ideas.
UA-cam would be the perfect place to discover new ideas and different sides of arguments if they didn't change algorithms of searches to fit political narratives they agree with.
Theorectical yes, but I think there's a difference between reinforcing preconceived notions/sounding smart and using familiar talk points to cultivate discussion of issues. Wisecrack mostly does the latter.
You’re right. We call them smart because of their accomplishments in science, business, innovative technology etc. We shouldn’t assume they’re “clever” in anything outside of that.
There human they are going to error they do know everything about everything that does mean their saying what their saying for greed money and all that “ bad capitalism “ stuff ...no they say it cause they believe it and like I stated early there not perfect and they don’t know everything about everything despite what they may think
I have long since abandoned wisecrack as either it deteriorated or I developed away from it. However this video reminded me of the old days. Thank you for speaking out on the topic.
Going to University taught me this lesson the hard way. Turns out most people, in some ways, especially philosophers(Guys who are literally masters of subjectivity), are frauds. Now I can't look at "Intellectuals" without being skeptical. Thanks academics.
the problem is that some people are frauds, some people are actually knowledgeble and some people where knowledgeble in the past but stopped triyng to expand their knowledge. You never know which are you going to get.
Well, that's great really, you should never take what a person says without skepticism (no matter their degree, or how much research papers they have, or how much money they have, or how many followers, or how nice their suits are) that's why we have science to prove what is true and false... and what needs further research.
So, about deGrasse's sentence, I actually understand where he is coming from: many times such profound questions ("the meaning of the meaning" as he says) are irrelevant to many areas of science; to a physicist, exploring and debating the most intrinsic details of things would be just a waste of time as it diverges from their area of study. It's not that such questions are senseless, just that such questions would be meaningless to an astrophysicist. This kind of divergence is in fact quite well discussed in philosophy when it comes to the acquisition of knowledge (dogmatism and skepticism) and one could even include Plato and Aristotle and their famous painting in this discussion. To summarize, I believe he meant it as "it sounds ridiculous to me (as an astrophysicist)" much more than "it is simply ridiculous", which, although I do not agree, I find it understandable from his point of view. Note: not trying to "defend" him, that's why I won't talk about the other things he said, and might even be wrong in my interpretation of what he meant, since I do not know him (and his way of thinking) that well. I am talking about this specific sentence as I find it interesting the discussion of where "regular science" ends and philosophy continues.
It turns out that if you want people to remember what you say, a joke helps to strengthen the connection. Now I'm not saying this was a particular good one, but you can expect him to make fun of other fields and ideas and take them into absurd metaphors. It's pretty low hanging fruit but you've got to remember the target audience is not his fellow scientists. The good thing about philosophy is that it asks questions and uses logic to derive an answer. You could say a scientist asks questions for which the elements are known or at least suspected to exist whereas philosophers don't really care whether the elements contained in their questions exist as long as the answer makes sense.
I'm way too biased, and this platform along with MANY OTHERS doesn't give me, or millions of other people what they need in thought diversity. This comment is underrated.
Its called projection, she clearly has her own political biases but to leave them out of her video explaining political bias would require self awareness
This is a great take on the current state of shared information. As I age and as I have travelled and lived in two countries this year, I find myself frequently wondering “why is there so much doubt about the truth?” And “who do we trust for news?” and I think these very two things have resulted in the US’s current handling of the pandemic. We don’t have trust anymore for news or science. Not everyone, but a large enough portion of the population. Most people alive today never had to learn how to sort between internet news, tv news, newspaper news, specialist news, and word of mouth from friends and family. While it’s possible, it’s a new skill. And because of social media, people without power and people without expertise can have just as much screen time to a viewer as the opposite (for better or worse). Another point I thought would be discussed is the effect that power and money has on individuals. Meaning that a well-intending scientist who becomes overnight famous for a TED talk might have trouble staying academically-centered. Just a thought. And like one of your other videos about genius: many of these people are smart in one particular area but not in others. But because of being celebrity worshipped , are listened to in fields outside their own.
“why is there so much doubt about the truth?” Because ever since people found out the truth can hurt you, lying became a thing. 'Trust' Trust is what people who do not have the skills or means to do their own research but still want to have an opinion, have to resort to.
Who's the best (and worst) intellectual alive right now?
Without hesitation, Noam Chomsky
He's best
Biased Wisecrack is the worst I can think of
Omg you're beautiful.
Great topic to cover thank you for sharing
Rick Sanchez and Kreiger....what???
Worst Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. They are frauds
If Dungeons and Dragons has taught me anything, it's that Intelligence and Wisdom are two very different stats
Edit: Didn't expect so many of you to come out and comment here. Play nice folks
I think most of these talkers focus on their charisma stat
Wisdom is the stat that make you “shut-up” at the right time, intelligence is the stat that make you boring if you keep yapping about it, and Charisma is the stat that make you talk like CHAD THUNDERCOCK.
Strength: I can lift it.
Dexterity: I can dodge it.
Wisdom: I can see it.
Intelligence: I can solve it.
Charisma: I can fuck it.
You rolled at nat20 on this comment.
Truth. I prefer to be a cleric over a wizard any day... (though rogues are my faves TBH)
Everyone is dumb sometimes. Especially when they are speaking outside of their area of expertise.
The lack of self awareness in this video is absolutely wild
But as dumb as you are, Neil saying “whats the point in philosophers fighting on meanings behind words” that just shocks me, never knew smart people could be THAT dumb
@@nicholasgeere5125 lack of self awareness elaborate??? If someone were smart they'd be smart enough to think "gee maybe I shouldn't speak on a topic I know little to nothing about on my massive platform"
It's simple: one shouldn't speak outside of their area of expertise. Most of these "public thinkers" have gone to grad school, and it is a near universal sentiment among grad school students that they don't know shit about what they thought they knew. At some point during your schooling, when you see how deep the hole goes in your chosen discipline, you come to the realization that other disciplines are similarly nuanced, technical, and highly specialized. I fancied myself knowledgeable of evolutionary biology because I read several books on the topic, and so I thought I knew my shit. After going to grad school for a different subject, I dare not speak authoritatively on anything beyond the mere basics of biology, because I realized that the world of PhD expertise in evolutionary biology is so beyond anything that I know that I will inevitably sound like a complete eejit if I even tried to talk about it.
So there's no reason why Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Jordan Peterson, and others should not have that same humility and restraint.
Well I think the argument would be that an intelligent person would know when they are not speaking from expertise and not try and act like they know better.
I think that tons of intellectuals are incredibly smart within one field and believe that because they understand these complex subjects within their field they can automatically understand complex subjects outside of themselves. Rather than approaching a new subject as someone who knows nothing and is ready to learn they insert their half-baked/surface-level opinions into the conversation and think that their background of previous knowledge will carry them the rest of the way.
You are so right. I saw this guy appearing on several UFO pseudo-science vids who was a "Dr." /PH.D - also "author & Broadcaster" (of some book you have never heard of). I looked him up on Wikipedia and he really did have a Ph.D - in "Ancient Chinese ceramics" - or some Professor giving talks with Ken Hamm supporting Young Earth Creationism - turns out he was a civil engineer. I mean, nobody asks a biologist to build a suspension bridge.
true
Pretty much they’re egotistical
As someone who is seen as very intellegent, I can confirm that this is accurate. I do well in terms of Anime, video games, some art history, and other pop culture stuff, but put me in front of astronomy and...
That's the Dunning-Kruger effect in motion mah dude. You'll notice the smarter the person, the more they'll realize they actually know NOTHING. With someone like neil, he KNOWS he's smart and understands things that only a fraction of people do, but that egotism just blinds him
Not me. I'm the best of the best. Everything I say is right
Can relate
Obviously
Well.... second best, Trump is number one!
Me tooo
*.
Me after almost every single Wisecrack deep dive: "cool. Everything in the world is garbage."
Pretty much.
Time for a hard reset
Is it that everything in the world is garbage or everything in the world has both good and bad in it?
For real, I love this channel but this video depressed tf outta me. I get these videos are supposed to serve as conversation starters, but it some proposed solutions would have been nice. Also the irony of Wisecrack as a brand making this particular video is not lost on me.
@@EffectzHeroez Corona is doing its best. Give it a few more years.
Wisecrack: TED Talks are between 5 and 10 thousand dollars
Me, an intellectual watching them on You Tube for free
Lol, people pay for this piece of shit....
@@jacekcierpiszewski who? Cause I sure don't
Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well
You should do a TED Talk on it
Fred: Right? It doesn't seem very intelligent to spend ten grand for something you could get for free.
I once had an old History teacher who apparently loved his job. If you spoke to him he would gladly give you some good dialogue. He barely taught any History - sometimes because it felt pointless to try - , but the one thing he frequently repeated to us was "never automatically believe any word anyone says, even mine." In the fascinating state public schooling is, when you basically are force fed bullet points to answer a multiple-choice all-deciding piece of paper, that still feels to this day one of the most useful things I learned in school.
Underrated comment.
It's funny because you go to any place on the internet where people think they are free-thinkers, like 4chan for example, and all they do is believe everything posted there and then repeat the talking points. Everything is like a cult now, end everyone is cult-like.
wisecrack commenting on intellectualism as a commodity. ive fallen into quicksand or something. im glad they're at least self aware.
yes I agree with the criticism they are making, but even in this video you can apply the same criticism to them.
I think one of the goals of the video was exactly to work as an metacritic for all youtube channels that runs in the "intellectual" discourse. Best way to find a criteria for this is to aways analise their methodology of research for the information they share and criticise their conclusions. Scientific method applied in informal situations also work haha
Exactly what I was thinking... Like, how are you different? Shouldn't you just be happy we keep watching your videos? I heard this stupid smart person the other day who made a distinction between a mark and a smark. A mark is someone who's being duped and doesn't know it. A smark is a mark who knows they're being duped but keep coming back anyway.
I saw this as more of an explanation of the whys and how’s... not so much as a “Listen to me!” Situation...
@@viniciusnogueira3465 so the first homework they are assigning is to criticize the teacher? In this case to criticize their vid and use it as an example
Just noting, no one should be logging onto Twitter in the hopes of hearing words of wisdom.
Twitter is basically just everyone screaming into a crowded room and hoping people agree with you
twitter.com/billwurtz?lang=en enters the chat
True, same goes for UA-cam comments ;)
Interesting comment. I thought that's what Twitter was...though I never go there.
"There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them."
George Orwell
He wrote 1984 right
.... the guy who bought into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (which is, I admit, very attractive). IMHO Aldous Huxley hit closer to the truth more often.
@Nick Aries no Big Brother is watching me man idk where u live
like what? criticizing police state while at the same time collaborating with the police?
@@socratias NSA: Am I joke to you?
Whenever Neil degrasse tyson talks about philosophy:
“Knowing enough to think you are right, but not knowing enough to know you are wrong” - Neil Degrasse Tyson
@David Orozco Except we have no way to ascertain the boundary once and for all, nor to assess scientifically which questions are worth asking, so philosophy will remain necessary.
Philosophy is not just something that precedes science, only to fade when answers can be given; it's the very foundation of science.
These guys seem to think, instead, that science is 100% on the path to answering all relevant questions, so that philosophy is becoming thinner and more useless.
I did not think that that statement by Tyson was so dumb.
@@andreab380 This. Science, philosophy, and even religion/faith all have a place in intellectual "searches" for the "truth." I really love how Fullmental Alchemist explores all of these concepts through its character's and their growth throughout the series:
Edward/Al = Science is the only means to the truth,
Leore Peeps / Ishvalans / Scar = Science is nothing if Faith says otherwise, science has caused our downfall and murdered our people
Father = My philosophy to attain the truth is to remove all 'imperfections' in myself so I can be a pure, godly being.
State = Suppression of religion and scientific oppression leads to a stable society
You see so many characters grapple with the above 'lenses' to understanding their world and their place in it. Ed by the end of the series has to accept that alchemy (science) literally cannot solve all problems, and that it is important but not as important as his loved ones, his brother in particular. Wrath learns that a 'miracle' of the sun blinding him during his duel with Scar is what caused him to lose the fight. Scar learns that alchemy can be used to help people and that he has been a hypocrite by only 'deconstructing' with it, and once he starts to use it he was able to help save everyone. Rose from Leore learned to 'walk on her own two feet' and to not take religious prophets at face value just because they 'give you something you desire.'
Its really such a wonderful fiction that hits home for our 'reality' we face even in 2020. Everyone loves to assert their framework for understanding the world is 'the best' while the others are 'less than.'
It really takes an appreciation for the limitations of all frameworks and a collaboration between them to get a broader view of what "might be the truth" of a given subject.
@@pathwaystoadventure I love FMA (Brotherhood) too!
Such a well-crafted plot and such high concepts for a manga/anime.
And I do kind of agree with their stance on Truth as well: science, philosophy, and spirituality (I won't use the word religion, because I'm not a huge fan of organised religion) are all valuable parts of our search for the truth.
It is obvious to intellectually honest scientists that science does not solve everything, at any point in time; it is rather a neverending search, and that's what's actually beautiful and useful in it.
@David Orozco Science can speculate things without knowing it for truth. Albert Einstein wasn't the man that proved relativity is a fact, it was actually some observations in astronomy years after the fact that Einstein wrote that theoretical equation that the movement in the stars did in fact prove Einstein right and therefore that the question of relativity was known.
Calling Elon Musk an "intellectual" broke something deep inside of me.
feel u, but I think his laughable lies and dangerous doings were less exposed and less apparent 2 years ago
The worlds (and my) opinion of him has shifted significantly
True, but he did a lot to stop censorship.
@@imperialmotoring3789 like what? 😂
@@imperialmotoring3789 Yeah he also exploits tons of workers and works actively against worker co-ops. He did nothing
Moral of the story : take everything with a grain of salt. Even this video.
@Flightless Boy Are you, by any chance, trying to ''thought lead'' those humble of us too thick-skulled to follow her points in the video with that comment. . . Or merely trying to encapsulate everything she said into a sole, single, Confucius - style parable of wisdom, like a mantra we can apply to all things and be done to think about it? I did take a grain of salt with this video, and that grain turned out not to be a grain, but to be a piece of honey, because these words she has said, are words I have so longed to hear as this intellectual climate of thought leaders has sucked the life dry off my bone until I'm almost at the point where I feel too numb and wary to even try to have any semblance of a kind of freedom of thought anymore.
@@JingleJangleJam listen all I'm saying is that everyone has their own agendas and points that should be taken with grains of salt because everyone has their own thoughts.not even wisecrack is free of this. In the age of information we ironically seem to be in a world of mis information. How do we know that wisecrack themselves are trying to "thought lead"? And I get it , you yourself have taken in this video with a grain of salt but some may not. People should be able they want and things like ted talks and the likes should be as well.
@@flightlessboy4040 I don't know what the point you're trying to make about her video is. In which point in the video is it that you actually disagree with her on the topics she says about? I don't mind if you have disagreeing thoughts, it is just that you have no stated them in a clear enough way, and her argument to me, seems completely untouched by the comment that you had made. She has stated clear facts. The process of democracy is tainted by disinformation, and not only that, but in your reply, you have reiterted and reinforced her own point also so it seems that you agree with her, and also think that it is ironic and we live in an age of disinformation, which was her own take...
@@JingleJangleJam I'm sorry im really just confused on what you where saying. I agree with what she is saying but I also want to point out that we also need to be careful with this video as well because she herself is painting a picture like many of these "thought leaders". My original comment was paraphrasing in a comedic way what the video was saying.
@@flightlessboy4040 Oh, well she distinguishes in her video between 'thought leaders' and 'intellectuals' and I thought she fit into the latter category because she does refer to true intellectuals like Simone de Beavoir.
I apologise I got a little offended when I thought you were mocking her, because I do not think it to be the correct context, in a joke, to say that you should take a woman saying that sexual harassment of women by CEOs that happen factually frequently from overwhelming evidence shown through investigative and legal teams, that cannot help but filter into the media although it is often blurred with sensationalism - and concrete solutions never offered and acted as though they are somehow miracolously impossible to come up with on this issue (thus avoiding further substantive decision making and using the fact a woman is raped for making money by spreading sensationalism on the news that also gets people worked up and start to believe anything, like even a pedo cult could exist, and to start to totally become desensitized with this money-drive thoughtless reporting until they become desensitized to the issue rather than learn about it.
I do not think it the right context to say you should take a grain of salt with a woman saying that corporate leaders who often are mixed up in sexual abuse selling info that says that women who are having depression and anxiety from being harassed (instead of us solving their social harm caused by others) should be striking ''power poses'' and blaming it upon their own lack of willingness to be happy, then I do not think you should say that a woman sho says this is blatantly horrible and wrong, is an opinion that should be taken with a grain of salt.
To taker something with a grain of salt means to take said thing as being put forward, in a slanted and biased way, and to trey to get a better balance and understand the views of those whom are on the ''other side'', meaning those CEOs who put out the crap information saying a woman who is having these deep traumas with her self identity from a predatory sexual environment, should give a false solution to her dangerous social enviroment that we, as a society, lethargically allow to continue without being dissolved. I'm sure, put that way, you might find hard to disagree, although you I do not know might have been thinking of a different thing when you said what you had said, and an impression of the words someone says can often be different from the intention of who is the speaker.
"I won't name any names" I'll just show pictures 😂
"Pluto is a planet"
- Jerry Smith, scientist from earth
😂😂🤣🤣❤
rick and morty gang
It is tho
it kinda is. a dwarf planet literally is just a very small planet, no other differences. pluto isn't much smaller than mercury, which is considered a planet.
@@keane6 wooosh
I’m glad you brought up TED tickets being expensive. Around ten years ago I looked up tickets and they weren’t $5k-$10k but they were expensive enough for me to consider TED a scam.
TED talks went from interesting discussions of complex topics in a relatable manner to Silicon Valley Bros explaining something *painfully* obvious to everyone badly because they just found out about it and thus assumed no one knew. And they usually do it by badly paraphrasing someone else's research.
Host trying to hold back opinions on people whilst editor is going HAM. LOL.
True LMAO. Some dissonance between writer, host and editor.
@@azzor4134 yeah the talking head is trying to save theiur viewership and the writer and editor are just like "fuck that we dont respect our viewers"
Was looking for a comment exactly about this when she said legitimate people then Oliver popped up I was like yep there it is.
It’s also a subtle way to tell the truth without saying it
@@magavsdeepstate2095 this is what they have to do on this platform, I agree with you
I agree with what you said but I would add other fact: narcissism. When everyone is telling you "how smart you are" you start to think that you can speak about everything. And that's not a very "socratic" way to find the truth, is just fame. And that's what's happening with people like Neil: they are blinded by their success. On the other hand, Elon Musk is just a jerk. Kudos!
When people say this to me , l always think that l need estudy more if l want talk about some subject.
WELL I DONT. SO WHAT THE FUCK IS UP.
A presidential historian said "every president is a little bit of a psycho. They have massive ego thinking they can solve the nation problem" i say we all have a little bit of that
@@gamingislife3332 It ties into what Frank Herbert said about those who seeks power being implicitly insane...
That's a really good point you made
Debates are more exciting than conversations. Debates are about winning and "destroying" the opponent, which people seem to love. But only through thoughtful and respectful (and boring) conversations can get to the heart of key issues and find workable solutions.
fair
A debate is really nothing more than enforcing a formal structure to a conversation - not every debate is a competition.
dafuq. A conversation is literally just two people talking. A debate isnt about "destroying" the opponent at all. What you described as a conversation is what a debate actually is.
You confused an argument for a debate, and a debate for a conversation
I find debates too draining and stressful, id rather have a conversation, theres a deeper connection to be found in it, why does everything have to have drama for it to appeal to people...
My schools were full of these. They may have aced tests probably due to a trashcan memory, but when it came to common sense and cognitive skills, I am shocked they're still alive.
Same with me here. I love knowledge and can memorize stuff quickly, but I lack common sense and a thinking that makes people successful leaders and such. It's pretty hard knowing that the c students around you may become bosses and A students may become workers. It just becomes depressing to even study and makes me hate my qualities
Let's not forget that being intelligent and able to understand abstract concepts may alienate you and thus cause you to not get experience socially. It doesn't mean your naturally bad at socializing you just lack experience doing so
@@MylesKillis wow i didn't know that, thanks for sharing the knowledge
@@killme5630 why do you tend to associate studying or intellect in that matter with work? Is that all there is to life or education in your opinion?
@@barathor not really. Even tho in the present I am rather obsessed with the notion with getting grades, or rather, studying for better job opportunities, I know that it may not be, in the end, that necessary. This is coming from the perspective of a student who was deemed "gifted" and now believes the only thing they can do is memorize stuff quickly and they better put that stuff to use in order to survive such a world, since they do not have the wits or brains to manipulate the system for their gains. Eh, personally I'd rather write, draw and be in my own imagination- not uncommon, I know. Not a perspective of a person who is always chasing victory and these are the qualities people would associate with a "weaker" pers . But it is true. The only reason I even care about grades and work now is because the scores I have achieved have put expectations on me and I cant let other people down or disappoint them - I'm too fragile for that. So yeah. The only reason I seem so "obsessed" with work maybe because of all the things I gave been taught since I turned 13. It may seem nice to achieve a high grade, but it is not some sort of insane drive of mine.
The wisest man is he who knows he knows nothing
-Socrates
Peterson too...more or less.
"I'm kinda retarded" - Alex Jones.
“It isn’t the 20th century: it is 1993, so it is the 19th century...” my father, David Koresh, Waco, TX edit-Korean wasn’t my dads surname... it was not koresh either but the dumb ass changed it from Vernon Howell.
I guess that makes the smug know it all, narrating this video completely unwise.
@@Autistic_Internet_Slap_Fights A broken clock is right twice a day...the video can be narrated by idiots and still be completely true. It is best to evaluate content on its own merit rather than being biased by looking at who is its speaker.
"Humans can be literally poisoned by false ideas and false teachings."
- Alfred Korzybski
People have surrendered their minds and their wills to some other entity who does not have their best interest at hand. I don't confuse smart/ genius with someone rich in book knowledge (public school teachers, police officers, retail managers etc). Those 3 examples listed have book knowledge, but they don't have the common sense of the average 2nd grader of the 1970s, nor the work ethic or sense of responsibility. More like toddlers pretending to be grownups
Ah yes, the biden followers
Hasnt heard that name for a long time
@@richardcranium6081 so true. I think the most important qualities humans should have is curiosity to learn, common sense, Resilience and a strong work ethic. I think all of those qualities are missing in a whole lot of people.
"Korzybski was a fraud"
Robert Anton Wilson
I had this professor in college that you could just tell he was very intelligent in his department but just wasnt able to teach properly and nost students disliked him, he always seemed like he was trying to make you feel dumb for not understanding something he was so adept at.
This is the exact reason why a great many "smart" people shouldn't be teachers. There's a massive world of difference between being smart enough to understand the curriculum yourself and being smart enough to get others to understand the subject.
That's most professors. Teaching is just a requirement to many of them. They're more interested in the recognition they get from publishing papers, not teaching.
Cool story. Also irrelevant to the video.
Helen DESTROYS smart people!
Sorry, I just like being a smartass. This is a good break down of the modern idea industry. I think we put too much stock in names. When Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about cosmology, I tend to listen, but I don't really care what he thinks about other topics. I think we should listen to experts when they speak on their particular field. We can't assume that someone knows a lot about everything just because they know a lot about one thing.
Ironically, the amount of focus that you have to have on _one very specific thing_ in order to get your credentials as an intellectual often leads to being clueless in other areas. While not academic, Garry Kasparov is arguably the greatest chess player to ever live, but he thinks that all artifacts over 600 years old are forged.
I do not say this to mock them at all. I tried my hand in academia (I didn't get my PhD because I couldn't demonstrate written proficiency in German), but I can probably tell you more about the Cross of Gold speech than all but maybe 50 people alive on the planet (most people who study Bryan today tend to focus on the Scopes trial), because that would have been the topic of my dissertation, and once you get to a certain level, you spend an awful lot of time focusing on one thing.
Helen ANNIHILATES philosophers. Helen WRECKS intelligence. Helen EVISCERATES the ivory tower.
Such strong verb choices.
@@wvu05 I'm exactly the opposite. I drive for a living and listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks about a wide range of subjects. Because of that, I have a general, broad overview of a lot of things, but am an expert in few if any. But I also don't speak on a subject with any authority unless I have a few experts and data to point to. I also end long rants or explanations with "but what do I know? I drive a truck for a living."
@@georgebynum2659 Indeed. I am not one of these people who tries to show off my credentials, but I realize that there are only a few areas where I can speak remotely credibly when having any sort of discussion, but I do realize what those limits are. My academic training is in religion, and I have some real world experience in politics (I ran for a seat in the state legislature in my late 20s and have worked on a few campaigns, some as a paid canvasser) and I have enough familiarity with a few other subjects that I can discuss the basics, but you have to know what you know and also what you don't know to avoid the thought leader trap.
Preach
5:28 That kind of BS is why I stopped watching TED talks and started listening to actual reviewed books.
The ad show up during this video is neil degrasse tyson saying: One of the great challenge of this world Is knowing enough of a subject to think you are right, but not enough about a subject to know you are wrong. XD
I'm not sure if you're joking!
@@unvergebeneid I mean I feel like the point is that Neil Degrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, and that his sentiments on other subjects, like philosophy, should be seen with relevant skepticism.
@@skylersmith7 Yes exactly. That's why the irony is overwhelming!
I really fucking hate that guy
He acts like he’s the genius on all fields, stay on your fucking lane neil.
This video is a good reminder to always criticize, always scrutinize and never take anything at face value, even this video. Observe the world, listen to others and make your own conclusions, while leaving some room for revising and criticizing the same conclusions you made in the past. I love this channel ❤️
The editing did Hbomberguy so dirty Lmao
lol yeah. They did say good or bad but he was still the first to be shown.
I was like wait... WHAT DID HE DO??
ehh, he's not a saint you know?
@@Fabelaz are you referring to that whole exaggerated (no)thing from a few years ago?
Next!
@@theocean1973 I'm not sure what you are talking about. Can you elaborate?
Answering your implied question though, I honestly don't remember all of the problems I have with him or his content, but one of them is that he is a bit full of himself which I dislike. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy his content though.
Also, "next!" - excuse me but what the fuck?
Wait, so people actually pay $5k to $10k to attend a seminar that I can watch on UA-cam, whenever I want, for free!?
It’s to network with others that can afford to pay that amount for an event.
@@chipmonklarry And to feel smug about it.
But I'd assume that TEDx events are way cheaper. We had a few at my college, and I'm pretty sure students can't afford 5-10k (neither in dollars nor euros)
Most of them aren't paying for it themselves, their company paid for it. Still pretty absurd imo, I doubt the company gets that much value back from it.
@@zon3ful so basically just another "conspicuous consumption" under intellectualism cloak.
"Hey genius, stay in your lane."
Being knowledgeable in one subject does not make you knowledgeable in other subjects.
well scientist are a kid that never grow out of their room of toys
so they will continue
THIS, I think is the biggest problem which we can see in play with Neil Degrasse Tyson. Very knowledgeable astrophysicist, but doesn't know a thing about philosophy. So why is he commenting on philosophy?
well you can be knowledgeable in more than one, but not in everything. And even if you are knowledgeable in one subject doesn't mean you know everything about that subject.
@@HeckleJeckle87 because everyone has the right to comment on what they want. You just assume he is right if you want.
"We earn credibility by having a very strong point of view and never deviating from it" That right there is the real problem in a nutshell. Credibility from ideas/thinktanks/intellectuals used to be based on if they were right or wrong. Now it's moved or is moving towards them being consistent in their views, this is stupid and dangerous.
I like what you said." Truth" without data is the opposite.
We have to realize that all these people are flawed just like anyone else and if data doesn't show it they're wrong just like all the other humans
Glad to know there are still people that recognize this. If they disappear we will be in a lot more trouble like @musicnerd1023 said.
Yep. Think tanks have become fanatical political propaganda machines, instead of fact-checkers.
I think, that instead of people getting dumber, it is people getting way more chances to be heard. A lot has happened just because of social media and globalisation. Better media reading skills will make that go and actually, I think people are already smarter than before. Dumb people just happen to want to share their ideas before thinking about them twice. Also, a smart guy can still be smart, even after believing into something wrong for a while.
That is of much possibility
A German scientiest (forgot his name) put it that way:
Not that long ago, every village had its own idiot. Everybody knew that he was an idiot, so nobody listened to him. The idiot understood that circumstance and kept his mouth shut to avoid making people's view on him even worse.
Now all those idiots have access to the internet and are able to connect. Its idiots listening to idiots, so nobody amongst them is smart enough to tell the idiots that they're idiots. That's why idiots don't know that they're idiots anymore and so they don't keep their mouths shut anymore.
Now that we can't ignore them anymore like we did back in the day doesn't mean that they've grown in number. There's still one idiot per village, it's just that progress gave him the ability and confidence to speak.
People have had more chances to be heard, censorship by the "gatekeepers" notwithstanding. Previously, only the "approved thoughts" (which, depending on the time could well be "the earth is flat") could be heard. But dumb people don't have any ideas of their own. They believe something because someone told them to believe it. And they are the sort of people who will respond to a detailed argument against the position of their preferred echo chamber by just typing back "wow" or maybe "that's a big wall of text."
Ideas, even bad ideas, even incorrect ideas, come from smart people. Smart people may sometimes make dubious connections. But dumb people can't make connections at all.
ok so if you could prove that statement, you may have a point. (even though i don't see how being smarter has to do with being heard at all lol.
but really people have always been intelligent and i doubt you could survive 1000 years ago as people 1000 years ago could not survive today if we were to somehow switch places over night. the point of the vid is that people are being wrong on purpose in order to please the corporate handlers of information.
I was reminded of this not too long ago when I saw a 20-30 year old video of an author on TV talking about his books which were turned into a TV series. Back then it was rare for an author to speak directly to the viewers about his books before the start of the program and even interviews were rare, now authors have fans tweeting at them 24/7, they do year round interviews with journalists and tv hosts, they've go their own websites, and they have sites dedicated to them sometimes even including things like wiki sites that host every detail about their franchise ever mentioned or written and every time they appear in public a fan has them on video.
The problem with the idea of a "Free Marketplace of Ideas" is that it favors the most palatable and well-presented ideas, not necessarily the true or most accurate ones.
True, though I'd still rather have a free marketplace of ideas rather than a system that censors ideas (and I can't think of a third option apart from those two). Now I think to combat the problem with it, we'd need a way to cultivate a longer attention span, incentive to want to know the truth rather than to confirm your own biases, and good education on dissecting an argument (even for people who haven't got the fortune to attend college). Oh and ofcourse the introspection to asses our own biases.
@@KarlSnarks You can't have a free market of ideas with no restriction on those ideas. We deplatform specific people who talk about crazy shit. We don't need to give a platform to holocaust deniers because "We can't censor anyone". We need intellectual security to some degree. You can't have total physical freedom because it causes anarchy and the same I would think holds true for Ideas. Some ideas are just dumb and dangerous.
@@KarlSnarks you don´t get it, the "free marketplace" is an illusion, the most prominent ideas on this space will always be the ones that benefits the corporations who offers money to this "market". it´s a rigged system, where truth is never a primary concern. I agree with you that censorship is not the solution, but the system we live in operates in a similar way just undercover
No one has ever said "Free" Marketplace of Ideas. They only ever said "Marketplace of Ideas".
The powerpose didn’t get me that raise or that new job, but it did make my back feel a whole lot better for a few hours.
My Highschool physics teacher was a complete genius. He was a genius to the point that he would just say the dumbest, rudest shit. A staff member I was close to said “he’s so smart that he can’t interact with everyone else like a normal person.” And that seems to be a general trend among all of the mega smart people I know.
@DJHart not when they are arrogant
@DJHart of course it ok to be rude if you're rich :)
I think rude & arrogant people are stupid. i kinda think Rick & Morty made it a trend for smart people to be loud arrogant assholes. Say what you will i think smart people are more like keanu reeves or morty. Maybe i mean wise.
So that’s why elon likes Rick and morty
This is painfully true and accurate of a lot of my college professors. Had one dude that was uber smart and he said he cared about teaching too, not just research. He attended a lot of education conferences and came to the conclusion that cold calling students in a lecture hall of about 300 kids would be beneficial to comprehension. I'm normally pretty good at paying attention in class, in part thanks to anxiety. But bro's cold calling made me almost have a panic attack in class everyday. He was so smart that he didn't think to assess and adjust his teaching style
I mean, anyone relying on twitter for intellectualism probably needs their head examined.
A lot of intellectuals is sharing interesting knowledge about their fields on Twitter. Problem is, you have to look for them. They don't have 50 million followers.
@@primtones you’ll have that trouble in every social media,not only twitter.
Maybe we should stop expecting intellectuals to be smart at everything. Yes sometimes they shove their way into a topic they shouldn’t but often we demand someone to have a statement on everything. I actually don’t care if neil is bad a philosophy. That isn’t why I love him. There are many controversial people I love. I don’t judge them harshly for being wrong because I don’t hold their takes outside their fields very high in the first place. Remember we’re all people and you probably have some stupid beliefs yourself. I don’t know.
I agree, that's just being human I guess. Maybe if we were all smart human beings we would respectfully correct each other and not just get totally haywire over some things because we are emotionally invested
Pretty much.
Fax
100% agree high levels of expertise tends to be specific, not broad
Well Malcolm gladwell is famous for the 10,000 hours book but that idea's been proven wrong. The lady Helen opened with...her claim to fame was proven wrong as well. The problem is that some of these people are becoming known as public intellectuals because they are just illustrating common thought in an "intellectual" way and other people's claim to fame is legitimate but their reputation starts speaking for their work rather than their work speaking for itself.
This is one of my favourite wisecrack episodes you've ever put out. Well done!
"Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?" I dunno, Neil, why did you decide to dedicate yourself to deciding if Pluto was *this* arbitrary classification of stellar object or *that* arbitrary classification of stellar object? That seems a hell of a lot more pointless than trying to understand ourselves as an existence.
Philosophers: "We're trying to understand what is right and what is wrong."
Scientists: "Cool, but have you considered dedicating your time to naming all the spiders instead?"
You smooth talker.... ;)
Each field is important, the most absurd thing to do is to claim you know that one is intrinsically better than another.
@@browngosling3929 nope. The field of homeopathic medicine is not important. And even as a planetary scientist, I can say that the work done on social and technological solutions to climate change is more important right now than what I am doing.
@@firstnamelastname7003 nope, that’s completely subjective. You may be a planetary scientist but once again, claiming that your science is greater than herbal medicine, whether it be a science or not, is absurd. Some have been touched by homeopathy more than knowing the orbit of certain planetary objects. I’m a man of science too but it’s quite arrogant to take away meaning of anything to any individual.
@@browngosling3929 yes, of course it's subjective. Subjectivity is in the definition of the word important - there's no objective measure of it. That doesn't mean one person can't claim that one thing is more important than the other, or the word important would be meaningless. And a consensus on importance based on common values can be created. We can agree that the world not ending is important to us humans in general even if a few of us are nihilists. Gosh, pedantism is dull.
I can remember a time when I thought TedTalks were the greatest thing; but that sorta' didn't last long after I started seeing what some of these talks were about, or the qualifications of the people giving them.
There still a gem here and there IMO, they've always been hit or miss.
Yeah, they should be good but they’re crap
They’re just a toastmasters event on steroids...I hope the pseudo-storytelling trend along with the poor use of hand gesturing in presentation that TED Talks have turned into a template fizzles out soon. I also think people get the point by now that “doing what you love and what makes you happy” is the secret to the arbitrary definition of “happiness”. If not, don’t worry - they’ll have 3 new speakers next week ready to remind you.
Are AI TedTalks good or am I just blind?
Only good ones I remember or see nowadays are ones about physical inventions. Like when someone was demoing his app (for tablets) for kids to learn language by some abstract visuals plus pronunciations and such. I don't remember the details, and it might not have been too useful of a thing as is, but it's tangible and something you can actually test and refine. The rest needs a lot of effort to validate and the speakers usually don't provide that validation machinery in the talk itself, which makes it suspect _even_ when I find myself agreeing, shocked, or questioning at points.
"If you torture the data enough, it would confess". We take everything, every "research" at face value without as much as questioning the bias of the researcher.
Well, sometimes a study doesn´t certify a point. A research is part of the process that we know as science.
A research is not a "definitive" truth. Is dangerous that people take them like that just to "prove" their points, and that´s not the researcher´s fault.
And, the other risk is that people use the bias thing to discredit researches that don´t certify their point of view or their ideologies... That leads to a lot of BS...
@@SeSdesc The reason why the CDC wants you to think its hands are tied researching gun violence is because the director of the CDC, in the early nineties, decided he was going to use his position as the CDC to spread anti-gun propaganda under the guise of "research", which lead to a ban on the CDC being allowed to produce partisan studies designed to promote specific policies. Even today, the CDC is still so biased that a ban on producing partisan studies designed to promote specific policies has kept the CDC from producing studies on the subject. Because "researching gun violence" and "partisan study designed to promote specific policies" are synonyms to them. So they just went ahead and ignored actually doing research and just declared "gun violence" a health crisis, as if we aren't in the middle of a literal pandemic. Because they're an organization of lifelong government bureaucrats attempting to gain as much power over society as they can.
@@IncredibleMD While that may very well be true, the U.S. does have a major gun problem and there's no denying that. Biased research can't be disregarded in light of what we actually see.
We aren't seeing guys go into Wal Marts in other 1st world countries shooting people up.
I do agree there is far too much of a Boogeyman mentality about guns (especially from those who have never even held one before), but we can't just pretend there's not a problem whatsoever.
Who takes every research at face value?
- I assume an unintentional grammatical error, but I do not understand what "every research" even is.
To take research at face value literally goes against what research is.
@@THE_BEAR_JEW we don't have a firearm issue in America, we have a mental health issue coupled with easy access to equalizing weapons.
- Also, so many studies are confounded by adding in suicides as firearm violence.
I call a firearm an "equalizing weapon" because [within reason] it doesn't matter your gender, age, mass, etc; most people can become proficient enough with a firearm with minimal work (and cost).
But, I struggle to understand the mainstream argument surrounding the effect (firearm violence) and not the cause (mental health issues).
- And even the root cause of mental health issues.
Both sides just seem to want to argue to argue and not actually work on the actual causes.
short answer : they are not dumb, they just have they own agenda either its money, brand influence or political power
"I'm not going to name any names." *Editor, who just showed their faces, sweats profusely*
Fridge Logic joke , lol.
How could the editor possibly have matched the visuals to the audio wihtout knowing precisely what is being said at that point?
@@LinkEX It's a fucking joke you utter clown. it points out dissonance, that's why it's funny
the irony is thick with this one, can we have a Wisecrack meta-commentary deconstructing how Wisecrack is a perfect example of this premise?
This guy gets it
Exactly, she seems like the biggest pseudo-intellectual at wisecrack.
I like that idea, though I'd say that Wisecrack up to date has shown a surprising amount of academicship when using outside sources for their analysis, and in several of their analysis of popular culture I believe they acknowledge what they say as an interpretation rather than the ultimate point of view.
The whole premise of this video is self-contradicting, because a lot of stuff that she points out as "dumb" are actually points still in discussion (like everything in science, as an example). If you're calling diverging points of view on an undecided topic. Well... You ARE the pseudo-intellectual you're trying to debunk.
To be fair, a medium examining itself is a sign of growth towards maturity. It's surely a step in the right direction, ironic or not.
It’s easy to be cynical but this is the golden age of intellectualism. Most of the planet is literate. And a millions are spending their free time consuming intellectual content. And that content has the least censorship ever. No moment in history even comes close. Sure the mainstream can be crap but that’s life. Transformers outsells Casablanca. We should talk about the issues but not lose sight of what we have accomplished.
I’d digress. Yes, more people than ever are going to school, but I don’t think school actually makes ppl any more intelligent.
Even in the past century many people weren't educated in things we consider basic. It's a marvel that most people in modern society can read, write, do some basic math, etc. It's disheartening to know, more than ever, the opportunity to be informed is wasted by a high number of us.
People are still expected to source their information to some degree, but the issue here is that information can be bought from “intellectual figures.” Sometimes this scientists w expertise (research, phd, etc) and sometimes nothing. For example, PragerU is one of the biggest sources ppl use, but all of their content uses evidence from thinktanks owned by corporations from major industries like fossil fuels or weapons. They also promote distrust to scientific research if its “paid for by the government” aka taxpayer funds which create taxpayer owned research. If no facts are trustworthy, why not turn to anyone at all with any opinion?
@@uchewb3
There's also people like Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
They will talk on matter such as religion, politics and social issue despite having no prior understand of field or even basic reading of history.
And then is theres internet commentator. Who's completely talking out of their ass. I remember when a bunch of atheist channels was talking about social justice and it was clear had no idea what they were talking about.
@@5Chaor I too am an internet commenter with no idea what I'm talking about.
More people should see this video, honestly. Our standards for intellectuals should be higher.
"The goal of life is not to find oneself in the majority, but to escape the ranks of the insane." -Marcus Aurelius
This video actually got me to understand a joke in Brooklyn 99 where Rosa tells Amy that nobody needs a "power pose" seminar. Now because of this video that gag makes even more sense.
A good quote I stumbled across a while back... “Show me a wise man and I’ll show you a man that’s made the most mistakes.” I take it as learning through experience, we all “mess up” along the way at some point. There’s a difference between “book smarts” and “street smarts”, I’ve seen it many times.
Some people have both. I spent a decade homeless, but was trained as a philosopher.
Wait.
bravo fella, agreed. One killer fact is this "All things written (codecs) are made up by arranging various types of vibrations (keys) into a recognised pattern (cipher) so as it is decoded and interpreted correctly. Therefore it is always open to interpretation , meaning anything ever written by someone is just an opinion, or the best model so far, theory , What is a Fact ? anything known as a fact which is based on scientific theory is actually a serious deception these placebos can cause serious mental issues and physical illnesses,
I love that, Mr Kent
@@DJ-Brownie-UK I mean… if the message is conveyed *effectively* then the meaning shouldn’t be contentious, as long as we’re talking about practical communication (e.g. poetry might be a diff story)
@@straightupanarg6226 Diogenes?
I have often regretted my speech. Never my silence.
- A wise man
Hey, I just want to say that I watch your videos all the time, and noticed you quoted one of my articles on creativity at 00:12:36
That was such a cool surprise, so thank you. Totally unexpected.
Great video. A similar thing is happening in journalism: build a brand, get followers, get a book deal. Several avenues open through that such as activism, politics, etc. and as a result journalism as an institution suffers.
Peter Coffin in multiple videos: “Attention is the currency in the marketplace of ideas”
Invest in BAT now!
Pretty shocking seeing a a fan of Peter coffin here
@@youare5907 I mean, peter is right
@@youare5907 I know right? Wisecrack doesn’t even speak in overly complex academic jargon that is completely inscrutable to anyone lacking a PhD in social sciences.
You know, like Coffin does.
As a former bookseller, the concept of public intellectual peddling ideas that seem great, but has no substance is nothing new.
Journalists are "what" people.
Scientists are "how" people.
Philosophers are "why" people.
Politicians are "who" people.
And The Doctor is the "when and where" person
Time Travelers are "when" people
Dictators are "whose" people.
Businessmans are "how many" people.
Boomers are "how old" people.
@@Feefa99 man of progress (people are a means)
Capitalist 🇺🇸 are “mine” people
Communist 🇷🇺 are “ours” people
"Truth comes from dialogue and consensus, not from a weird fetishization of conflict and debate." TRUTH
glad we have experiments in science, or the "consensus" would sayed that atoms didnt exist
@@FenixIzyuze Lol you've got me there
@@FenixIzyuze But, the scientists who conducted, verified, and replicated those experiments had to, gasp, have a dialogue and consensus about their results. Scientists are never, EVER immune to the flaws that impact all humans. That's how some of our absolute worst 'science' in history, that hurt people and robbed them of their dignity, were perpetuated.
Example: Go look into IQ testing and its origins. It was SO biased around a white, middle class, American education context. So when applied to children from different backgrounds, with less educated parents, with less resources, going to schools with less funding, and on children with vastly different life experiences, they scored much lower on average.
This then was extrapolated out to support racist views on "intelligence" between people of color and non-color, when in reality it was using a poor control protocol and not being aware of, or giving a shit about, the methodologies that biased the results by not considering factors in the formation of the measure.
Or if you want an example of shit science in my field: Social psychology. Good read up on the Bystander Effect and the Kitty Genovese case. A misreported news article, an erroneous conclusion by a scientist, who then formed an entire theory based on this incorrect information, that later on was difficult to replicate outside of specific contexts, oh and that resulted in life long trauma and at least one suicide attempt of one of the so-called bystanders.
Experiments CAN be valuable. They CAN be ethical. They CAN really attempt to grasp at the realities they are attempting to study. But we must always be vigilant against shitty science. "Consensus" absolutely should matter at times, especially with dialogue from *everyone* impacted by the study. This researcher could have just interviewed the people who were involved in this case instead of extrapolating an entire theory based on a false news story...
Can someone elaborate this quote ?
@@JustThatOneRandomGuy from what I gather, truth comes from a collaborative conversation that leads to a consensus rather than a conflict driven debate about who is right or wrong.
"Why are smart people so dumb?" It's because they weren't "smart" to begin with. The idea of the "genius" is one which has been perverted by modern society to mean "a person who possesses omnipotence and who is all knowing." However, that definition of "genius" is false, and it's also historically inaccurate. Historically speaking, a genius is a person who is a master at a particular area or activity. There is the philosopher, the scribe, the leader, the general etc. A person can be a genius at his own area of expertise but be a complete fool when it comes to everything else.
The myth of genius as it exists today is even a thing because of a misunderstanding of what an IQ test actually does. An IQ test is designed to test your abilities on a very particular set of mental exercises, therefore, there is a statistical bias ingrained in its execution and in its results. And there is also the fact that the results of an IQ test are further skewed when we take into account that there is also a statistical bias on focusing on particular socioeconomic backgrounds which further works to define the general intelligence of the human population under a very specific and ultimately flawed way.
Actually, geniuses are polymaths, like da Vinci, who had 220IQ, thus defeating your fallacious inbred garbage blabber by a factor of a trillion
I agree with you until your started criticizing Iq. Actual valid IQ tests actually overcome the problems you address. They aren't biased because they extract out and test the skill that is common across all areas of knowledge and what common trait takes to learn them all. That's IQ. Crappy quick iq test don't do this.
Yeah,it’s basically “We made this test with these certain questions and these certain topics,if you fail you have a low intelligence level,regardless of any other social or emotional knowledge you may have experienced and learned from”,which is basically the main reason i hate school so much,since it’s just such a primitive way to classify people for how well can they memorize a book or two to then spit it out on a paper on a limited amount of time,and even worse is that apparently your performance on said activities represents your worth,and future;again regardless of any other aspect that you may have skills on. Power is still on the wrong hands.
@@demonposessed7413 The highest recorded IQ was 184.
There were no IQ tests when Da Vinci was drawing insane looking vaginas.
@Kaizoku Jimbei Yup. XO
The question here isn't, "Why are smart people so dumb?" The question this video essay poses is, "Why doesn't high intelligence cancel out self-interest?" The answer is, "Why would it?"
Even the smartest people get things wrong.
Being smart or intelligent was never about how often you can be correct tho. Rather what you can produce when knowledge is acquired. Which I believe many pseudo intellects or just other people get too lost in trying to achieve the stature of ALWAYS being correct, Rather than making positive high magnitude outcomes for others to realize the magnitude of their intellect.
Example) einstein's regarded as a high grade intellectual because his findings with the knowledge he had ... had a positive impact on the world as a whole. And he displayed that's how capable his intelligence was. If you have examples of "intellects" yet their ideas only lead to self improvement or inevitably have bad outcomes for groups or others avast. The intelligence decreases. Tho technically someone who does things that are supremely terrible can be percieved as intellectual based on its definition ... I often reserve the term for those worthy of reverence through positive outcomes. Not those willing to go about negative outcomes for self with consideration of knowledge in front of them (like the hitler types ... surely he was knowledgable of the impact of his actions but still chose to do something haneous. And surely he was knowledgable of circumstances and of systems in place to gain traction. But cuz of this I wouldnt call him an intellectual because if he was fully intelligent hed know not to do what he did.)
Also ... when you reject the possibility of being wrong regarding ideas that's when you open the door for unrelenting stupidity which I personally believe plagues many people in some form or another (even myself at times but I try to catch it and grow from it). At least that's how I see it. It's great to know there is a lot of things they may not know to have an openness to understand outside perspective beyond your intuitive beliefs. Especially should those outside perspectives aid your principles or ideals. And even then to have a willingness to concede the flaws/cons in your own ideals and perceptions of life if reason presents itself
its only human to get things wrong
Yet the wisest are the only ones who acknowledge those mistakes and try to improve from them.
NO WAY
To Elon Musk:
Bolivians send their regards
Really, fuck Elon Musk - what a complete psychopath.
@@secretname4190 He isn't doing shit, he's just some rich guy taking the honour and money of other people's work and giving money to fascist coups in South America because he wants cheap minerals. People like him is degenerating our world towards a dystopian hellscape with his greedyness and psychopathy. Yes, he was a bit poggers on a potcast once, but please don't simp him just because your favourite marvel hero is inspired by him or because he has a really good marketing team who is really good at making happenings and promoting his name. With his Bolivia comments it's clear that he's ready to do ANYTHING for power and money.
@@secretname4190 Elon Musk would literally support Hitler if he thought it would make him a buck, how tf don't you see a problem with that?
@@secretname4190 he has stated that he would support a fascist coup just to get lithium - what is your response to that? Until then I thought that he was better than most bourgeois - I kinda liked what he did. Now it seems clear to me that he is just another psychopathic fat cat.
@@secretname4190 Are you really sure? A normal and famous brand like the banana brand Chiquita is doing stuff like this through the collusion organiziation "the United Fruit Company", american firms has supported fascist coups in south america, africa and the middle east since forever; it really wouldn't suprise me if a firm like Tesla joined in on coups like this. Thereby I'm not able to just brush off Musks comment as "just a joke bro" easily.
Furthermore it still stands that Musk, like any Bourgeois, exploits his workers and take the honour for what they have done. I want to be clear; when i said "I kinda liked what he did", i meant being entertaining while exploiting his workers, and these entertaining ideas are probably again other's hard work that he takes the honour for. My point is that any simping for Musk is and has always been cringe and should remain so coup or not.
These guys' intellects pale in comparison to the average Rick and Morty fan
To be fair...
...You have to have a very high iq to understand...
Facts 👆
Cringe
How many reddit points do you need before you can truly get rich and morty
Big props to Bill Nye for picking up new books and reevaluating his views on the philosophy.
Having habomberguy right before ben "I don't know what I talking about" shapiro caught me out of guard.
This threw me off, kind of puts them in their own call out category or maybe I don't understand how they're determining who ends up there?
@@MatthewNewman the one is a payed talking head from Republican think tanks the other is an independent idiot with a camera who I love very very much!!!
Hbomberguy is a smug ass hack.
@@DonVigaDeFierro even if that is the case, which I haven't seen enough to come to that conclusion and I liked whatever I saw of him, from what I have seen of him he is not even in the same universe with the ass answering to the name ben shapiro
I think it was just so they can come across as fair. Ben Shapiro is the perfect example of a pseudo-intellectual.
“People are looking for rubes who make bizarre claims about feral hogs.”
*[Cody Johnston has left the chat.]*
Fuck yeah man. More people need to watch Some News. I love that show. He is the reason I bought an AR-15, the boars are going to make their move any day now...
He lives in Arkansas - our mascot (his profile picture) is the Razorback. There are indeed rural places here that do have that problem
@@seangagnon8458 Here in Sweden the fuckers are doing their best to ruin the little fun there is in farming. My cousin recently had a large chunk of his rye field completely obliterated by hogs. I had to drive 1000 fucking miles with a high caliber hunting rifle in my trunk to help him out because 1. You never abandon a cousin in need 2. The hogs made it personal. So far I've killed 8 of them with my trusty bolt action. I've set up my office in his guest room so i'm staying here until every damn hog in the area has met an early death at my hands.
All wild pigs and boars can go royally fuck themselves.
P.S Good luck with the AR! There's an old saying among hunters where i live, a token of good luck if you will. Roughly translated it would go "By the powers of the Midnight Sun! May your shots end them swiftly!"
If you don't want to sound like a Scandinavian He-Man you can always opt for a more American saying: fuck 'em up!
@@apotato6278 I like you.
Any liberal making jokes about feral hogs is proud of how superior they feel about how ignorant they are about the reality many rural Americans live in. You're seriously going to mock a guy who lives in an area with huge herds of extremely strong and aggressive animals... for asking how he will deal with those large aggressive animals being in his yard? Are you a fucking sociopath?
I used to work with nonfiction authors. The smartest among them were the first to admit when they didn’t know enough about a given situation to comment. Others never found a topic they couldn’t comment on. The second group always sold more books.
When your income and power comes from holding the attention of as many people as possible, you have no incentive to admit your limits.
That's the problem with the world. I wish the people that were in charge of publishing would hold standards like hey this person apparently talks about every subject, maybe they aren't as smart as they say they are. It's so upsetting to see the mediocre rise to the top and people allow them to
Personally, I find that people who diversify their knowledge base beyond one subject tend to be more wise than those who are obsessed with one subject. While it is true that some use this to their own personal gain, I feel that those who diversify themselves want to relate to as many people as possible because they are empathetic and want to empathize with a larger population
Hey, Hbomb is popular enough to have his face on Wisecrack for 1 1/2 seconds! We did it guys!
The Insane "Follower Cults" of some of these celebrities and public figures is the most alarming thing.
Elon Musk being the worst. People even think he is intelligent!!
"Do not walk in front of me, I may not follow. Do not walk behind me, I may not lead you. Walk beside me, be my friend" - Camus
Sartre says.... 'not really sure bruh....'
This is pretty amazing and super dense content. I think one thing to be aware of as a UA-cam consumer is that this content is so rich that it has to be watched and rewatched several times as to not risk oversimplifying the concepts being presented to you. It's so easy to nod along with the ideas making sense while not being able to coherently recount any of the ideas and how they interrelate if someone asked what it was that you just watched since they whiz by at breakneck speed without you even realizing it.
I found it very refreshing to discern between "opinion" and "information". When someone says that someone died, that is an information I can check easily, but when they tell me why they died, I know that is an opinion, even if that man is a coroner or doctor. His opinion is more likely to be correct, yes, but there is still room for error in interpretation. That's why research is important, it provides information, and information is better for forming decisions than opinions.
Did y'all really just compare hbomberguy to Ben Shapiro lmao
Thank you! Dear lord.
They are twisting themselves into knots trying to show how "BOTH SIDES" are equally bad.
Notice how they mentioned a bunch of horrible things that thinktanks do, and every single one of the examples was conservative rightwing think tanks paid for by billionaires? But both sides are equally bad. SMMFH
Yeah that was pretty disappointing. Comparing a guy who cites, reads, links, and is very comprehensive about sources (and admitting he could be wrong) to a guy who will entertain the idea that climate change is real only as a hypothetical is... well, it's bad.
@@springss1861 that's not what either of those words mean
It's weird because when she cites a good case she only shows Contrapoints, which doesn't seem to follow the "both sides" thing.
I mean, if she wanted to choose a more "controversial" youtuber from the "left tube" she could have chosen someone like Vaush (I don't have any particular feelings towards the guy, but I've read many more complaints about him than about hbomb).
It's not that they're dumb, it's just that some of the people seen as "geniuses" have just focused their time and effort into their crafts and uses their previous experiences as a point of reference. People see their success, and assume they're geniuses and give them the platform to speak. While you also have people who are ignorant of the topic uses these "geniuses" as a point of reference to the topic they are looking into and assume they know what they're talking about, until they research themselves. I recommend looking up Thomas Sowell's discussion on the subject.
Also worth noting that we changed the meaning of 'genius' to be more generalized. Genius originally meant someone had, or was granted, great talent or knowledge of a specific field. Pretty much everyone would have some kind of genius but there was no such thing as just being generally smarter than everyone. Eventually, some people started to fancy themselves as generally genius and people started following along with it as a form of intellectual celebrity. I think that's what it comes down to, an interest in the celebrity of the person rather than their knowledge of the field.
On a side note: I think wisecrack feels personally attacked by Tyson.
So they're just skilled people.
@@SleepyMatt-zzz more like arragont
@@MonkAndra all scientist (99%) are like tyson
Or, you know, born into extreme wealth like Musk.
This almost feels like a “grass is green” kinds vid, but getting this stuff highlighted is always good
it gets even better when someone crafts a word for it... maybe that's what we need rn
Its a good video because it links all these ideas into a wider narrative, rather than focusing on the individual problems.
Na. This is like 'grass is green,' to those who already know how the grass works.
Many people have been told 'grass is orange,' for the least 30 years and have started to believe it.
"name one genius that ain't crazy"-Ye
Love him
Very true
"In politics we presume that all who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or state, when we are ill...
We do not ask the hadsomes physician or the most eloquent one."
-Socrates, Athens Greece year 400 before the birth of christ.
The quote is attributed to Plato: "In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”
Unfortunately, I do not totally agree with Wisecrack this time. First, let me just say that I like how this video explained the links and relationships between platforms such as Tedx and plutocrats, or other institutions that wield significant amount of normalizing power. We need this kind of transparency in society to make informed decisions.
However, Wisecrack failed to acknowledge that it, too, is subjected to power. It is also not value-free and has its own political biases. Just because an idea doesn’t appeal to your ideological sensibilities don’t make them “dumb”.
Furthermore, I’m pretty sure this UA-cam page has its own “patrons”, if you know what I mean.
Also, no one has the “objective truth”. Such mindset is why extremism and tyranny exist. People are so confident they have the “objective truth” that they feel entitled to become intolerant to other ideas.
This is the reason why freedom of speech, free exchange of ideas and discourses are necessary to social harmony and progress. Rather than calling these people “dumb”, why not challenge their ideas instead?
Because the point was to analyze the atmosphere around "public intellectuals", not to jump into the fray and become one. And yes, it's important to keep in mind that wisecrack are subject to bias and the influence of funding but their general decentralization on that front makes them more reliable than most. I'm not saying they're perfect or unbiased, but this piece, if viewed in an isolated manner, is probably the most honest look at thought leaders I've seen on youtube.
@@mr.burnham7687 Yes, they are. I’m not attacking Wisecrack as a whole. I’m criticizing this particular video and how, it seems to me, it’s trying to portray itself as neutral when it is not. It would have been nice if it also disclosed its biases and “patrons”. Despite that, I even commended the video for “exposing” the links of knowledge to power.
@Disruptive Bee Science will always be political. How we ask questions is political. Our methods are political. I’m not at all saying that universally proven scientific truths are invalid. I’m saying that even the question of whether or not we should colonize Mars is in itself political. We cannot get away of this reality.
Like a hypothetical example, if the Earth is about to die and we have the wherewithal to evacuate to Mars but we have limited time, how do we decide who must get there first? Is this a purely scientific decision or is it political?
We cannot get away with politics. Whether you like it or not, knowledge and power are interrelated.
“Anyone can put text in quotations and have it be considered true”
-Johnathon Jinglehiemer
Wait, didn’t Wisecrack do a video on this already? “The Myth of Genius,” right?
This had different thesis, though.
Yes, you can and should analyze a topic in different ways
This is more about the corporatisation of ideas
Slightly different issue. Myth of genius questions if it even exists and this is more an examination on how it’s perceived existence in certain public individuals effects society. One is more epistemological while the other is more sociological/anthropological.
@Josh Turner omg bhahaha
Nobody:
This comment section: *Q U O T E S*
Yeah everyone trying to act smart lol
For the clout
Nobody:
You: atill using unfunny nobody jokes in 2020
@@moresoulthanasockwithahole3493 Nobody:
You: Commenting an "unfunny" joke back at my "unfunny" joke to console your lack of self confidence and horrible grammar by putting others down in the UA-cam comment section. Have a nice life, sir. :)
i know right? i scrolled through the comments hoping that someone would say something smart that make me think but there’s only quotes.
Just when i was beginning to wonder if something was seriously flawed with the way i was viewing the world.... this video came along and organized my thought lair.
THANK YOU for this!
We live in a deluded culture. When you replace knowledge and reason with drama and lies, you get things like "thought leaders."
Q: Why are smart people so dumb? A: Power and Money, just like always.
There's a huge misunderstanding on what an intellectual is.
That’s a paradox... if your “smart” you know Power will always corrupt you. Actual smart people aren’t greedy...
@@graemeguthrie8758 Pure facts.
@@graemeguthrie8758 How does power always corrupt and why won't actual smart people just be greedy? Greedyness might be antisocial but in a hyperindividualist society like our current one greedyness can be useful to say the least.
@@graemeguthrie8758 Specious. Sounds reasonable, but is untrue, as shown by history. Also “smart” =/= infallible. No one who has ever existed is infallible.
Love that shout out you give to the brilliant natalie wynn at 1:37
If you don't know her, go check out contrapoints, she's the best. Enjoy the mouth feel
She's a leftist goddess and I want her to step on me.
@@LucasDeziderio fuckin bless
Honestly I think she's cringe nya
He's a dude, bro.
@@Sykdude and you get the award for biggest bigot trash. Must feel good!
The Marketplace of Ideas caters primarily to those who have most to spend!?
Imagine my shock.
It’s like America is a pseudo democratic corporate dictatorship!
@@lllool8404 corporate plutocracy
@@lllool8404 I think you mean oligarchy
The marketplace of ideas is an oddly revealing phrase because most of the time you won't get anywhere without money on the market. Interestingly used by people on the more right spectrum.
Stuck on dark souls? Power Pose! Posture is key!
Me stuck on Sekiro: Ah poop.
Ironic, mentioning talking UA-cam heads, when you’re being exactly that...
I mean...yeah
When did they claim they weren’t one? You act like you’re making some profound point
Mc Dallywacker it’s not profound, it’s amusing
I like Neil de Grasse Tyson.
He's an astrophysicist not a philosopher. So when he talks about The Cosmos and his limited knowledge of other science fields is still pretty fun.
My problem with NDT isn’t his mind. He’s a very intelligent man. It’s his personality. He rejects ideas he doesn’t deem as worthy of his thought, which is fun and all when he’s shooting down evangelists or conspiracy theories, but is the antithesis of a scientist, who is supposed to be open to all sources of new information as it pertains to their theory.
You can be brilliant and also be a dick I guess is the short take.
I guess the problem some people have with Neil is that he speaks on a very secure (maybe even cocky) manner, even if he is talking about something he knows nothing about
@@stevef5888 Why should he Be Open to conspiracy theories or Evangelical beliefs?
It's fun when he shuts them down because we already know how Ridicules those ideas are.
@@CarlosRMatto I actually don't know Where NTD's knollage Stops.
I just know I learned tons from him on PBS during my school years.
He was on A program called Nova Science Now. Good show.
@@Gfish17 cleary you didn't comprehend steve f's comment.......
He said it's fun when he's shooting down evangelicals........ But not so much when he won't bother being open to other scientific possibilities.....
Maybe these intellectuals, after a while, begin to act according to the rewards they get. There seems to be a lot of money going into supporting an idea that clicks with a lot of people. At the end of the day, the "Yes-Men/Women" are going to get better rewards from their audience.
Maybe it's time to think about how we value and rewards these ideas.
1:09 wait, what’s wrong with hbomberguy?
I really hope that's what she meant when she said (good) and bad
UA-cam would be the perfect place to discover new ideas and different sides of arguments if they didn't change algorithms of searches to fit political narratives they agree with.
@@MimOzanTamamogullar I think UA-cam's demographic explains this
@@MimOzanTamamogullar Found this new, www.omnicoreagency.com/youtube-statistics/#:~:text=UA-cam%20Demographics,in%20the%20U.S.%20use%20UA-cam.
Couldn't Wisecrack be accused of almost everything in this post?
Indeed, except of not rocking the boat.
Welcome to philosophy.
Theorectical yes, but I think there's a difference between reinforcing preconceived notions/sounding smart and using familiar talk points to cultivate discussion of issues.
Wisecrack mostly does the latter.
Michael cera?
@ I think they're pretty self-aware about it, and try to do their best not falling too much for the temptations they talked about (money)
"Why are smart people so dumb?"
Because intelligence is subjective insofar as it relates to the topic being discussed.
You are not intelligent and that's not subjective
You’re right. We call them smart because of their accomplishments in science, business, innovative technology etc. We shouldn’t assume they’re “clever” in anything outside of that.
It's not subjective at all, it's relative to the world you live in aka reality. And also if you're a polymath it's different.
@@RomanZolanski123 you can be clever and still don't have any valuable knowledge.
There human they are going to error they do know everything about everything that does mean their saying what their saying for greed money and all that “ bad capitalism “ stuff ...no they say it cause they believe it and like I stated early there not perfect and they don’t know everything about everything despite what they may think
I have long since abandoned wisecrack as either it deteriorated or I developed away from it.
However this video reminded me of the old days. Thank you for speaking out on the topic.
This video has helped my finally understand why I never liked Ted talks.
Bolivia: elects Evo Morales*
Elon Musk: so you’ve chosen death. SKREEEE!
Elon musk was joking.
@@Next_Great_Depression no
Going to University taught me this lesson the hard way. Turns out most people, in some ways, especially philosophers(Guys who are literally masters of subjectivity), are frauds. Now I can't look at "Intellectuals" without being skeptical.
Thanks academics.
I study philosophy in Italy, and I have generally met great professors with vast knowledge and rigorous methods. Maybe it's an American thing ahaha
The moment when someone is claiming himself as intellectual, he becomes an idiot
the problem is that some people are frauds, some people are actually knowledgeble and some people where knowledgeble in the past but stopped triyng to expand their knowledge. You never know which are you going to get.
Its quite a shitty thing. Philosphy being a fradulent thing is a great fear of mine.
Well, that's great really, you should never take what a person says without skepticism (no matter their degree, or how much research papers they have, or how much money they have, or how many followers, or how nice their suits are) that's why we have science to prove what is true and false... and what needs further research.
So, about deGrasse's sentence, I actually understand where he is coming from: many times such profound questions ("the meaning of the meaning" as he says) are irrelevant to many areas of science; to a physicist, exploring and debating the most intrinsic details of things would be just a waste of time as it diverges from their area of study. It's not that such questions are senseless, just that such questions would be meaningless to an astrophysicist. This kind of divergence is in fact quite well discussed in philosophy when it comes to the acquisition of knowledge (dogmatism and skepticism) and one could even include Plato and Aristotle and their famous painting in this discussion. To summarize, I believe he meant it as "it sounds ridiculous to me (as an astrophysicist)" much more than "it is simply ridiculous", which, although I do not agree, I find it understandable from his point of view.
Note: not trying to "defend" him, that's why I won't talk about the other things he said, and might even be wrong in my interpretation of what he meant, since I do not know him (and his way of thinking) that well. I am talking about this specific sentence as I find it interesting the discussion of where "regular science" ends and philosophy continues.
It turns out that if you want people to remember what you say, a joke helps to strengthen the connection. Now I'm not saying this was a particular good one, but you can expect him to make fun of other fields and ideas and take them into absurd metaphors. It's pretty low hanging fruit but you've got to remember the target audience is not his fellow scientists.
The good thing about philosophy is that it asks questions and uses logic to derive an answer. You could say a scientist asks questions for which the elements are known or at least suspected to exist whereas philosophers don't really care whether the elements contained in their questions exist as long as the answer makes sense.
Wisecrack: Paid speakers and book writers
Me: Ok
Wisecrack: UA-camrs
Me: Is this irony? Is this what irony looks like?
Thank god I wasn't the only one who spotted the irony here.
I'm way too biased, and this platform along with MANY OTHERS doesn't give me, or millions of other people what they need in thought diversity. This comment is underrated.
Knowing you're stupid is the first step
Its called projection, she clearly has her own political biases but to leave them out of her video explaining political bias would require self awareness
This is a great take on the current state of shared information. As I age and as I have travelled and lived in two countries this year, I find myself frequently wondering “why is there so much doubt about the truth?” And “who do we trust for news?” and I think these very two things have resulted in the US’s current handling of the pandemic. We don’t have trust anymore for news or science. Not everyone, but a large enough portion of the population. Most people alive today never had to learn how to sort between internet news, tv news, newspaper news, specialist news, and word of mouth from friends and family. While it’s possible, it’s a new skill. And because of social media, people without power and people without expertise can have just as much screen time to a viewer as the opposite (for better or worse).
Another point I thought would be discussed is the effect that power and money has on individuals. Meaning that a well-intending scientist who becomes overnight famous for a TED talk might have trouble staying academically-centered. Just a thought. And like one of your other videos about genius: many of these people are smart in one particular area but not in others. But because of being celebrity worshipped , are listened to in fields outside their own.
💯 facts
“why is there so much doubt about the truth?”
Because ever since people found out the truth can hurt you, lying became a thing.
'Trust'
Trust is what people who do not have the skills or means to do their own research but still want to have an opinion, have to resort to.