Socially Stupid People

[LastThursday]

 

[Loba]

I have the problem of occasional social stupidity.  I work on it, though, I'm smart enough to see it.
 

[LastThursday]

I've been socially stupid to the detriment of myself and others many times.  I like to think I won't be again, but who knows? The theory in the video seems to imply that some people are consistently one thing or another - I'm not sure about that so much.

[Loba]

4 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I've been socially stupid to the detriment of myself and others many times.  I like to think I won't be again, but who knows? The theory in the video seems to imply that some people are consistently one thing or another - I'm not sure about that so much.

I agree with you there, because I've been both helpless, in the middle, intelligent and a bandit.  And a lot of it has to do with circumstance, when my circumstances were not good, I was less intelligent because adapting has never been a skill of mine.  I would place myself in the middle, but more leaning towards intelligent/helpless, with areas of stupidity certainly in some social situations or there's a few common sense things I still have yet to learn.

I like the model, if people were more permitted to move around on it depending on any given day/task it would be more realistic..

I did learn something from it which is a great way to think about an action before one does it which is: "Does this not benefit me and does another person lose out as well?"  Very simple, but something I sometimes overlook.

33 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

I’m now socially stupid whereas before, as a kid and adolescent, I considered myself quite intelligent when presenting myself to others. I’m more insecure now, more stuck in my head and anxious.

Same here, I think what happened to me is trauma and autism combined; as a small child and adolescent I came across as a little adult sometimes, and now I feel childish when compared to adults around my age - what do you think caused it for you?

Also, I bet that because one is aware of being socially stupid that it will eventually create less stupid outcomes, because stupidity is a lack of awareness - and you are aware;  I think helpless and stupid can probably look alike if you "fawn" a lot.  Do you feel like a lot of your actions are kind of automatic in a way?

I get that a lot, like I feel like my movements aren't right, and I over focus on them and worry about them - and sometimes I zone out because of it, and then my actions become more automated - which is fine for things like typing, but not so great for things that require more self awareness.

[Yarco]

I'm not sure I agree with the loss to themselves / benefit to themselves dichotomy.

Sometimes I'll inflict losses on other people even if it's neutral or negative to myself. Sometimes spite or revenge or just watching someone suffer that you think deserves it is enough of a motivating factor to make it worth it. Although I guess that could be considered a sort of intangible benefit unto itself. If you want to call that stupid, sure. Maybe psychopathic is a better categorization that doesn't necessarily fit on the chart or get taken into account.

[Preety_India]

I never want anyone to suffer in life no matter what. But I have social calibration issues. 

[hyruga]

Social calibration is indeed very important. 

I made several mistakes. For example, I have a colleague whose working time ended earlier than me but she still doing her work. 

I then asked her,"How come you can go back already but you are still not going back?" (Stupid q to ask because obviously it means she has not finished her work).

The next day, after she worked overtime, I told her,"wow you are so hardworking." (Another not so clever comment. She might not like to be labelled as hardworking. She just cannot get the job done on time)

Wrong calibration.

 

[LastThursday]

2 hours ago, Yarco said:

Maybe psychopathic is a better categorization that doesn't necessarily fit on the chart or get taken into account.

That's a good observation. Psychopaths are definitely a minority, and I can imagine psychopaths falling anywhere on the four quadrants to be fair. I think psychopathy would be orthogonal to social stupidity. As the video mentions, stupidity does not depend on conventional intelligence or social standing, and probably not on psychopathy.

Edited February 26, 2022 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

3 hours ago, Loba said:

I did learn something from it which is a great way to think about an action before one does it which is: "Does this not benefit me and does another person lose out as well?"  Very simple, but something I sometimes overlook.

Likewise. I like to excuse my past actions and just say I was impulsive and leave it at that. But I was actually socially stupid on those occasions, both unaware of the damage I was causing to myself and others. However it was never done out of spite, but more out of a lack of social awareness and calibration. I like to think I have a better handle on it nowadays and I too ask myself regularly: will this benefit others and will it benefit me?

[Preety_India]

41 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Likewise. I like to excuse my past actions and just say I was impulsive and leave it at that. But I was actually socially stupid on those occasions, both unaware of the damage I was causing to myself and others. However it was never done out of spite, but more out of a lack of social awareness and calibration. I like to think I have a better handle on it nowadays and I too ask myself regularly: will this benefit others and will it benefit me?

Dude, nice topic. 

[Twenty]

What would u do when your fate had been swapped and rumbled? 

[LastThursday]

5 hours ago, modmyth said:

What's the threshold for "acting stupidly" vs. just "being stupid"?

Good question. I think there's a notion of repetition here. I have a friend whose sister is consistently socially stupid with regards to money, and damages both herself and her relationship with her family because of it. In this case she is "being stupid". Maybe I mishandled my finances by lending a large sum money to someone who wasn't able to pay it back, and in the process I damaged both myself and the relationship I had with them. In that case I was "acting stupidly". Arbitrarily, I would say more than two times and you're probably "being stupid" - because you really should have learned from your stupidity the first two times.

5 hours ago, modmyth said:

Or acting stupidly in some areas (but not in others, as we all tend to).

Yeah that's totally possible I'd say. The video kind of implies someone being stupid is being stupid in all areas, so I don't agree with that. Maybe you're good at throwing community parties that keep morale high (socially intelligent), but stupid with finances say.

6 hours ago, modmyth said:

It seems like it would be a bit more effective to conceptualize it on a spectrum

I guess the whole concept in the video hinges on actions being labelled either positive, negative or neutral. I would say most actions are either one or the other, some are both. There are definitely situations where there is short term negativity but long term positivity. Perhaps there are actions that are cumulatively bad, like ingesting heavy metals in your food or putting CO2 into the atmosphere, or behaving in ways that are socially tolerated but only for a while. I don't know, it's binary in a lot of instances, but less so in others.

[LastThursday]

8 hours ago, Preety_India said:

Dude, nice topic.

Thanks. I came across the video and it just clicked with me. It's simple, but effective in categorising how people behave.

[Loba]

16 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

I can totally relate and agree on the awareness part — it is necessary as a first step. Good thing, we’re aware of this!

Whwt caused it? Similar to yours. It may have been a combination of many factors — trauma, asperger (likely), lifestyle, ADD, possibly more.

Yes, pretty automatic, feels like a mindless robot sometimes. My body these days is generally rigid, stiff, tense, it also feels like the body has lost intelligence and awareness of movement. A sedentary lifestyle contributes a lot to that.

Anyhow, not trying to get stuck in this perspective. Exercising regularly would be another good step to change this situation for us. 

 

Yeah, I totally relate to everything you wrote and have been starting to exercise more to try and fix it.  I'm starting off with a pedal machine and 5 lb dumbbells and plan to increase this slowly - been working out 1/2 hr a day, plan to move up to 1 hr a day.
I think that is the solution to a lot of it.

14 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Likewise. I like to excuse my past actions and just say I was impulsive and leave it at that. But I was actually socially stupid on those occasions, both unaware of the damage I was causing to myself and others. However it was never done out of spite, but more out of a lack of social awareness and calibration. I like to think I have a better handle on it nowadays and I too ask myself regularly: will this benefit others and will it benefit me?

I'll have to start doing that more, sometimes in my case there was spite, but it was like a stupid-spite, where I wasn't even aware that the other person might have opinions, motivations, ect - in a spiteful manner, one tends to forget these things and that is a form of stupidity for sure.
I hate doing stupid things.  I will work on it even more.

 

[Human Mint]

Lots of stupid moves in my life (socially speaking). You start to work on your stupidity once you realize it backfires. The big challenge for me is to accept that i am more stupid than i think and to move in life not worrying about it as it is something bad, but learning from it. Monumental attachment creates stupidity.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Human Mint

[Roy]

Great video. I've been trying to cross from helpless to intelligent, it's tough.

[LastThursday]

@Roy that's the problem with generalised models, they don't translate easily into practice.

[Carl-Richard]

Putin's failed invasion is stupid.

[somegirl]

Interesting.
So stupid people constantly cause harm to others and to themselves. 

I'm glad (for my own personal reasons) that it is said in a video that eloquency, level of education, gender etc has nothing to do with how intelligent someone is. Someone can be eloquent in their speech, but actually stupid. It kinda helped to know that.

I would also not agree that someone is constantly one thing. Maybe they have one dominant side, but it's unlikely that anything in this world would be "always".

[LastThursday]

3 hours ago, Human Mint said:

The big challenge for me is to accept that i am more stupid than i think

I suspect accepting it is easier than knowing what to do about it. It's like you have to constantly be on guard against stupidity. Most of the time we probably behave like bandits, working in our own self interests, but not caring or understanding how it affects others. Sometimes it's a win-win sometimes not.

21 minutes ago, somegirl said:

I'm glad (for my own personal reasons) that it is said in a video that eloquency, level of education, gender etc has nothing to do with how intelligent someone is.

I guess it's a very specific type of intelligence and stupidy that's being talked about - more of a game theory idea of intelligence and stupidity.

33 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Putin's failed invasion is stupid.

I would agree that war at a macro level is stupid. Diplomacy would be more intelligent as that intentionally looks for a win-win.