Liliana Burbidge’s Reviews > The Psychology of Stupidity > Status Update

• He can’t understand that luck is the spin that assholes put on probability.
• not only does the incompetent person overestimate his own level of competence, he also fails to recognise competence in those who possess it.
• First of all, we’re all equipped with a bullshit detector called negativity bias. This is a tendency that leads us to give more weight, attention and interest to negative things

• They depend on familiar, habitual routine actions, which they execute automatically in response to internal or environmental factors.
• Stalin once said, “ The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic.” As a rule, people are more receptive to anecdotes than to scientific reports stuffed with figures.

• The fool takes his beliefs for truths graven in marble, whereas all true knowledge is built on sand.
• Fighting against stupidity only makes it stronger. The more you attack an ogre, the more souls he devours.
• The ignorant man affirms, the scientist doubts, the wise man reflects - Aristotle

• “Good sense is the most equitably distributed thing in the world”, wrote Descartes.
• As George Brassens song goes, “The plural is useless to mankind; whenever / More than four are gathered, you’ll find a band of fools.” He also declared: “Glory to the man who, lacking lofty ideals/ Contents himself with not being a nuisance to his neighbours.” Alas! Our neighbours don’t always return the favor.