Somehow I grew up with the idea that everyone makes decisions just like I do, with balanced consideration. That's not to say that I only review pros and cons. There's a study that shows people with some mental damage? brain damage? I forget. Anyway, they list pros and cons all day but can't make a decision.
When I make a decision, it's something along the lines of what makes me happy. For example, choosing appointment dates. First I check if I'm busy on any dates, or if I have other things to do, or a test the next day, etc. And once I've narrowed it down to maybe two dates, I'll pick the one that I'm inclined towards at that moment. That's how I make decisions.
(Or maybe something like "hmm do I want to go for classes or skip them for a health checkup hmm".)
Any and all decisions I make are decisions that I think will minimise negative impacts to myself. As in physical harm, psychological trauma, damage of image or reputation, so on and so forth. That's natural, isn't it? Not taking that into consideration is stupid. That constitutes a bad decision.
Yes but as I've said, the assumption that everyone makes decisions like that is very wrong. I noticed recently that I've been getting extremely frustrated with everyone around me, and that's because they do stupid things. Like saying "no" just because. Like sticking with habits and not considering the benefits of changing.
When you make a choice to say either "yes" or "no", you should probably consider the question as something that you might either agree or disagree with. You should take a quick moment with picture the events following "yes" and the events following "no". It's very fast. A few seconds maybe.
And when you neglect to consider both scenarios, you're just stupid.
Let me explain.
Everything I do involves a healthy or unhealthy amount of self-analysis. Why do I use this particular pen? Because I'm used to it, it writes well, it's available everywhere, I haven't found another pen that I like more, and so on.
A deeper self-analysis would be my reaction to prejudice. A woman is raped. The man says she was asking for it. My response is instant dislike. The man is guilty of assault and misogyny. Guilty guilty guilty. Sentence him and put that criminal away. Then I would ask myself whether my verdict is a balanced verdict. Have I been affected by social justice posts? Have I been influenced to the point where I automatically think of rapists as guilty without any other consideration?
I treat all possibilities as a viable answer and eliminate them slowly. I then reach a conclusion about the man, my behaviour, and myself. Sometimes I make a mental note to look at things from more angles. Sometimes I forcibly adjust my attitude to things so that I won't make poor decisions like lashing out.
I am of the opinion that if you don't do this, then any conclusion you reach will be more shallow than if you were to analyse your reasons behind your conclusion as well as how valid those reasons are. Self-analysis grounds you in reality, when you look at yourself from a detached and unemotional and unbiased point of view.
Think about raving mad people. For example, people who commit violence without any particular reason. People who get angry and then start hitting their wives. Even if they understand their motivations (after they cool down, I guess), they probably wouldn't ask themselves where the motivation came from, why the motivation took that particular form, and so on. They wouldn't turn inwards and judge themselves coldly.
Few people do, I realise. Mostly because they just can't bear to criticise themselves that harshly. You know your own vulnerabilities the best, after all, and when you criticise yourself it hurts the most.
Back to the point that neglecting to actually consider both options (actually treating both as viable, instead of just a fleeting thought) is stupid.
By missing out on that consideration, you miss out on a whole big chunk of self-understanding and self-growth. Would you play a game without understanding the rules? The game is life, and the rules exist in yourself and humanity. The stakes are high. Can you afford not to look within and find the rules?
Because those motivations and the reasons behind them are pretty much universal. It's hard to admit, but even with different consciousnesses, humans are repetitive and boring. Swap one bully for another, and the one being bullied will still consider suicide. Those deep, hidden reasons are why we think stealing is bad, hurting other people is bad, but helping someone is good.
Some would call it morals, but I call it the inevitable product of society. A certain kind of society produces a certain kind of people. You always have rebels, the outliers of statistics, but the large majority mimic each other.
People raised in Chinese-speaking environments speak Chinese. People raised in English-speaking environments speak English. Unless it's proven to be a hereditary trait, I tend to attribute it to "nurture" in the "nature versus nurture" debate.
(Unless you take a street kid and raise him in a good family, but impress upon him every day that he was once a street kid. Psychological things. He thinks of himself as a lesser being and follows that stereotype, consciously or not.)
Anyway, back to the good decisions assumption. There are tons of people who actually make decisions that are very bad for themselves. I'm not talking about taking drugs because you honestly care about nothing more than your current happiness, I'm talking about taking drugs because everyone else is doing so and you take it for some stupid "fitting in" reason without considering the very serious consequences of drugs!!!
Politicians who beg a demographic to vote for them via ineffective and offputting techniques because they fail to understand how their potential voters think!! A parent making threats that the child knows that they can't fulfill because he fails to see that it is utterly ineffective and is in fact lowering the child's respect for him!!!
Why do they make those stupid decisions? Why do they actively ruin their own potential? (Again, people who actively recognise that they are harming themselves but continue doing so because they don't care about it/ultimately wants to die/part of a bigger plot are excluded, because they understand the full implications/consequences/results and so on.)
Answer: it's a vicious cycle. They don't make proper decisions. They miss out on self-understanding, and universal understanding of human nature. They go on to make more bad decisions.
The realisation that not everyone makes sense was quite shocking to me. The depth of the blatant and unchallenged idiocy going on around the world made me sick. (Okay, I took a moment to take a deep breath and to tell myself to "check my privilege".)
This widespread unchallenged idiocy is fostering and reinforcing the widespread unchallenged idiocy. The next generation learns from the current and the world never really progresses. That's why it took so long to abolish slavery. That's why there are still people today who think blacks are inferior. That's why there are stupid people who think gay marriage is evil.
The whole point of the post is this: I had a shocking realisation that a lot of people are stupid (not in terms of IQ, in terms of good decisions and logical ability etc). So I made a post about what I think isn't stupidity, and how to achieve the status of Not An Idiot.
And if you agree with my point that this whole mess is caused by a lack of thinking and understanding, I hope that you will try your best to mimic my logic/develop better ways of not being obtuse/make you and your life suck less.
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