site banner

Where are the people smarter than us hanging out?

In Paul Fussell’s book on class (I think), he says that people are really worried about differentiating themselves from the class immediately below them, but largely ignorant of the customs and sometimes even existence of the classes above them. When I found SSC, and then The Motte, and stuff like TLP, I was astonished to find a tier of the internet I had had no idea even existed. The quality of discourse here is . . . usually . . . of the kind that “high brow” (by internet standards) websites THINK they are having, but when you see the best stuff here you realize that those clowns are just flattering themselves. My question is, who is rightly saying the same thing about us? Of what intellectual internet class am I ignorant now? Or does onlineness impose some kind of ceiling on things, and the real galaxy brains are at the equivalent of Davos somewhere?

39
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

They assume that being smart means being able to distinguish between what is BS or not. Not necessarily. For example, people in early 2020 with high IQs predicting lockdowns and quartines would contain covid, because the mathematical model was convincing.

They also assume being smart means wanting to distinguish BS. People form their visible opinions for lots of reasons other than "a singleminded dedication to discovering an accurate epistemology". In fact I would say that is hardly anyone's real goal. Smart people possibly even less so than average people, since they are smart enough to see the advantages of other strategies.