Short Read: Why some of the smartest people can be so very stupid

Sacha Golob | 7 minutes

Stupidity is a very specific cognitive failing. Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of what is happening and a resulting tendency to force phenomena into crude, distorting pigeonholes.

Snippets

We are a nation full of people doing jobs where the real job is to look like you are doing the job.

- Rusty Guinn, In Praise of Work

Our belief of how the world should exist and operate is shaped from looking backwards, not forward, so it makes sense that new paradigms that change everything — face resistance in our minds.

- Jeff Booth, The Greatest Game