Speaker 1: Get ready for September three, twenty twenty five. Allegedly, according
Speaker 1: to the thing we call a calendar, this the o'celly effect.
Speaker 1: You know that because you found it and I'm not
Speaker 1: as easy to find as I used to be. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Welcome to a Wednesday. And since I meant to do
Speaker 1: a show yesterday, which was Tuesday, Tuesday, and didn't get
Speaker 1: to it, that means we're going to try and bang
Speaker 1: out too tonight. So what is it that I want
Speaker 1: to discuss with you? Well, I'm going to save the
Speaker 1: news to the second piece, just to see if my
Speaker 1: voice holds up, because I've been sick over the past
Speaker 1: few days and I've been doing the best well past
Speaker 1: few days, jeez, past I don't even know how long
Speaker 1: two weeks. Anyway, I've been sick. I've been trying to
Speaker 1: battle with things. Had the water shut off couple of times,
Speaker 1: had the electricity down, had the internet. You know, it's
Speaker 1: been a weird month. Anyway. Does anybody want to listen
Speaker 1: to me? Bitch? Probably not. Let's get to the reality
Speaker 1: of the reality. And this is something I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: the Mandela Mandola effect affect. Okay, hopefully you can follow
Speaker 1: that because the Mandela effect. We hear about this all
Speaker 1: the time, especially in the alternative spaces, and now it's
Speaker 1: very very popular on YouTube as well among many performative
Speaker 1: you know, seemingly conspiracy oriented channels. All that good stuff. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's blow your mind with the simulation theory, all that
Speaker 1: stuff which has been discussed in alternative media spaces for
Speaker 1: years and years, except now they generated through AI sludge
Speaker 1: and you know, clearly narrated AI. I think AI is
Speaker 1: assembling the video as well, and people are pumping these
Speaker 1: things out fast and furious. So let's get back to
Speaker 1: a real discussion on it and once again kind of
Speaker 1: cap it off. Because the bottom line on the Mandela effect,
Speaker 1: that whole concept that a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: they are from a different reality or different realities collided
Speaker 1: or something to this effect, due to the fact that
Speaker 1: they have a memory they believe of Nelson Mandela dying
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties and things changed from there, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden they think, you know, mister
Speaker 1: Peanut did or didn't have a monocle, the monopoly guy
Speaker 1: did or didn't have a monocle, etc. Etc. And therefore,
Speaker 1: since their memories don't match, or kit Kat had a dash,
Speaker 1: doesn't have a dash? Does have a dash? Now, as
Speaker 1: I'm saying these things and even bringing up the weirdness
Speaker 1: of the Sinbad movie that was allegedly produced called Shazam
Speaker 1: or Couzam and was it with Shack or was it
Speaker 1: with Sinbad? Simply because Sinbad used to run around in
Speaker 1: genie pants and all all that good stuff. People think
Speaker 1: that their memories are more reliable than the reality. And
Speaker 1: this leads us to two very interesting concepts. And like
Speaker 1: I said, the Mandela effect versus the Mandola effect. And
Speaker 1: in the news, I'm going to get to one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why people that know very little always believe
Speaker 1: their own stupidity above all else any evidence, anything that
Speaker 1: could disprove it. Their confidence in their stupidity is part
Speaker 1: of their stupidity. In fact, intelligence, once it gets to
Speaker 1: a certain level, causes one to question themselves and every
Speaker 1: assertion they find and even triple or quadruple check their facts,
Speaker 1: verify things, corroborate them, etc. When you're more intelligent, you
Speaker 1: are not quite as absolute in your certainties when your
Speaker 1: assertions come through your memory. In general, anything you've learned
Speaker 1: anyway This is all about the way memory is created
Speaker 1: and how people completely misunderstand it. And that's all there
Speaker 1: is to it. See, a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: a memory is a recording. I have a memory. Therefore
Speaker 1: it is the strongest thing, and indeed you can maintain
Speaker 1: and keep certain information about particular events stored in your mind.
Speaker 1: But every time you relive or reaccess that memory, it
Speaker 1: is altered chemically and directly by the electrical responses in
Speaker 1: the brain. Literally physiologically. The recall of your memory is
Speaker 1: an effort that takes place freshly every time you do it.
Speaker 1: And guess what, that's always subject to revision and always
Speaker 1: subject to at least perception being changed due to the
Speaker 1: fact that you have new information which has been added
Speaker 1: to and altered your perception from but new experiences, new
Speaker 1: things gained over time. You may not have understood something
Speaker 1: you were looking at at the age of five, but
Speaker 1: when you get to be ten, eleven, twelve, you now
Speaker 1: can put it into a context based on new information,
Speaker 1: and you might have not realized. You know, we've all
Speaker 1: heard the jokes about I thought mommy and Daddy were
Speaker 1: wrestling and they were actually having sex because the five
Speaker 1: year old didn't quite get sex just yet in their brain.
Speaker 1: And then when they realized that at the age of twelve,
Speaker 1: they realized that at the age of five, they saw sex.
Speaker 1: And that has to be adjusted now because now it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like wrestling. It doesn't appear to be a struggle,
Speaker 1: although I guess for some people's sex is a struggle anyway.
Speaker 1: The beauty of all of this is that we now
Speaker 1: live in a society where the Mandela effect is a
Speaker 1: useful tool as well as the Mendala affect. Now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to explain that thing in just a moment,
Speaker 1: But remember cast Sunstein, right, and the white paper that
Speaker 1: came out about turning conspiracy theories on their head, turning
Speaker 1: them against themselves, weaponizing them by infiltration, by misinformation, and
Speaker 1: all of that interesting stuff. Sunstein promised literate observers will
Speaker 1: see the intentional, ironic engineering to occupy the easily amused
Speaker 1: with trivial pursuits, rewarded with even less than a plastic wedge. Right,
Speaker 1: And a mandala, by the bye, is a sacred symbol creation.
Speaker 1: You've seen these sand pictures that people put together, you know,
Speaker 1: part of a very deep, very careful, very persistent, slow
Speaker 1: moving zen arrangement of sand or rocks. In these really elaborate,
Speaker 1: interesting designs have become quite symmetrical and all that. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: it's like an old Hindu practice that has been adopted
Speaker 1: and it comes from the Sanskrit word for circle and
Speaker 1: is meant to evoke the idea of a geometric design
Speaker 1: representing the cosmos or deities in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
Speaker 1: But the symbolic meaning of mandalis okay, symbolize the universe,
Speaker 1: its wholeness, its balance. That's why the symmetrical arrangement is necessary,
Speaker 1: and our relationship with infinity as it relates to relative positions.
Speaker 1: The creation is a meditative practice and the designs are
Speaker 1: meant to aid in spiritual and psychological growth. Okay. The
Speaker 1: purpose of course is to focus on the design and
Speaker 1: moving toward the center to where you have a finite
Speaker 1: amount of space and therefore it becomes complete. The practitioners
Speaker 1: symbolically guide themselves through a process of transforming a universe
Speaker 1: of chaos and suffering into one of a beautiful arrangement
Speaker 1: or you know what people call joy. Anyway, the Western interpretation,
Speaker 1: the psychologist Carl jung Right introduced the concept to the West,
Speaker 1: interpreting mandalis as archetypal symbols representing the mind's quest for
Speaker 1: inner reconciliation and wholeness. And even you can see this
Speaker 1: in the common Judeo Christian and practices where they say,
Speaker 1: you know, if it is as above as it is below,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. The cyclical and symmetrical
Speaker 1: relationship of what if you make it this way on earth,
Speaker 1: it can be this way in heaven, or if it
Speaker 1: is this way in heaven, it can be this way
Speaker 1: on earth. And people have continued to struggle with that
Speaker 1: open ended equation. Anyway, this is just another attempt to
Speaker 1: reveal the truth to people that really don't want it.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, I'm gonna keep going with this,
Speaker 1: and once again for context, the Mandela effect is a
Speaker 1: phenomenon which is a great example of those who know
Speaker 1: nothing insisting that they have discovered more than the reality
Speaker 1: they already have no grasp on. You know, you know
Speaker 1: all the product changes movie lines. Hey, I thought he said, Luke,
Speaker 1: I am your father versus no, I am your fado.
Speaker 1: But does anyone discussing the other universe principle understand that
Speaker 1: concept or even how that would manifest itself. Do they
Speaker 1: possess any knowledge on how memory works and the ability okay,
Speaker 1: for reprocessing of fragments stored in a less than static
Speaker 1: facility in the brain. No, they don't. They also don't
Speaker 1: understand the psychological phenomena. And believe me, I'm not a
Speaker 1: big fan of most of these, you know, psychological principles
Speaker 1: that are flung out there and represented as if they
Speaker 1: were scientific, even though they are performative and interesting insights
Speaker 1: sometimes into the sociology and the way that we interact
Speaker 1: with one another. The Dunning Kruger effect is something that
Speaker 1: I think people need to look up, and if you
Speaker 1: look in the show notes, I'll make sure to include it.
Speaker 1: But there's also a terrifying theory of stupidity, and these
Speaker 1: are things that again Machiavelli understood, okay, and even Sunsu
Speaker 1: with the Art of War, understood quite well how our
Speaker 1: memories formed. That is another interesting thing. Again, there is
Speaker 1: a biochemical element to it, and there is still a
Speaker 1: mystical element to it in that people that say they
Speaker 1: understand the body, the mind scientifically, etc. Cannot explain where
Speaker 1: storage and presentation become this unshaken reality in people's minds,
Speaker 1: their memories being absolute until often they're introduced with very
Speaker 1: solid evidence that their memory is flawed. And it happens
Speaker 1: all the time in eyewitness testimony, which is why you
Speaker 1: know eyewitness testimony is a useful guide, but is never
Speaker 1: the absolute certainty when you're seeking the truth of a circumstance,
Speaker 1: a situation, a landscape, anything anyway. The Mandela effect, flat
Speaker 1: earth and the everything is Fake paradigm are the best
Speaker 1: subversions of critical thinking and any chance for the conspiracy
Speaker 1: culture and those that challenge the architecture of selective ignorance. Okay,
Speaker 1: to seek the new savior, daddy. This is what the
Speaker 1: common populist idea is. And what do they do. It's
Speaker 1: because their adult minds can't confront the complexities of them,
Speaker 1: so defaulting to becoming a child and allowing the leadership
Speaker 1: to make all decisions, in all declarations absolute for them
Speaker 1: is the way to go. And it becomes even more
Speaker 1: confusing when the leader in air quotes is somebody who
Speaker 1: doesn't have a coherent message or a logical one. We
Speaker 1: see this more prominently on the you know, left handed
Speaker 1: side of things. Apparently because they are completely incoherent about
Speaker 1: their own standards. I mean, the standard on the right
Speaker 1: nowadays is very simple. Whatever Trump says goes, and if
Speaker 1: he changed his mind, then he changed his mind for
Speaker 1: a good reason. So follow the leader. Very simple. Now
Speaker 1: that has its own problems. Not going to get into that.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the circular firing squad of the left.
Speaker 1: If you try to line up and make their alleged
Speaker 1: points of view and alleged you know of practice for
Speaker 1: morality into a straight line, you can't do it. They
Speaker 1: don't comport with one another, The cohorts do not comply
Speaker 1: with one another's logic. You have constant contradiction and subversion
Speaker 1: of the alleged core beliefs always, and I argue that
Speaker 1: that is on purpose, just like the turning of the
Speaker 1: entire leadership over to one man is also a terribly
Speaker 1: flawed circumstance on the right. But again, I'm not here
Speaker 1: to pick on the right. I'm here to pick on
Speaker 1: something else, like the confidence illusion. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: use a couple of YouTube video audios so you don't
Speaker 1: have to listen to me, because I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people have already tuned out because they've had an
Speaker 1: emotional reaction and somehow think I'm directing this at their
Speaker 1: team one way or another, at their particular compartment. But
Speaker 1: the truth is I'm directing this at ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of all people that you see anywhere, because there's only
Speaker 1: about five percent of us that are not trapped in
Speaker 1: the illusion of confidence. And the thing is, we don't
Speaker 1: get to positions of leadership when we're of a higher
Speaker 1: intellectual strength than those that are confident in their own ignorance.
Speaker 1: Let's see if these YouTube videos can help me explain
Speaker 1: this a little better for you guys, and I'll make
Speaker 1: some comments along the way. Plus I'll give you the
Speaker 1: links so you can take a listen to the whole
Speaker 1: thing yourself. And we'll just take portions of these and
Speaker 1: see what we do. The first one is called why
Speaker 1: the most Foolish People End Up in Power, and it
Speaker 1: does have a serious Machiavelli theme where they constantly refer
Speaker 1: back to the print and that Machiavellian creation. And we
Speaker 1: even have, you know, in our lexicon the idea of
Speaker 1: Machiavelli and Machiavellian strategies, styles behaviors. Maybe you'll relate to this.
Speaker 1: Maybe you won't, and maybe this will be a complete
Speaker 1: waste of time. And if you feel like that at
Speaker 1: this point, I urge you to go to probably the
Speaker 1: next podcast I'm gonna do, which is going to be
Speaker 1: about the news, and it will be a bit more
Speaker 1: blunt force trauma regarding the stupidity of things, and you'll
Speaker 1: be able to get emotionally attached to everything in the
Speaker 1: news according to your desires, just like you are right
Speaker 1: now listening to me. Anyway, enough of my voice, let's
Speaker 1: try somebody else's.
Speaker 2: Have you ever noticed how the loudest voice in the
Speaker 2: room often becomes the most influential, regardless of what that
Speaker 2: voice is actually saying. This phenomenon has deep roots in
Speaker 2: our psychological makeup. In nineties, psychologists David Dunning and Justin
Speaker 2: Krueger identified what we now know is the Dunning Krueger effect,
Speaker 2: the cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge dramatically overestimate
Speaker 2: their competence, while genuine experts tend to underestimate theirs.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that, I do realize that this is repeating
Speaker 1: part of what I said, and unfortunately we're going to
Speaker 1: have to listen to some of the same words I
Speaker 1: said before, and some of the same concepts are going
Speaker 1: to come up here. But the sad thing is some
Speaker 1: people are not even going to recognize that they're hearing well,
Speaker 1: some of the same sentiments being related to them once
Speaker 1: again in a slightly different context. So enjoy this anyway,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to point that out. They're already bringing
Speaker 1: up the Dunning Kruger psychological concept, and we're going to
Speaker 1: get into a little more of that a little later.
Speaker 1: But it does play a role in the Machiavellian thing
Speaker 1: as well, So let's continue of.
Speaker 2: How much they don't know. The fool does think he
Speaker 2: is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be
Speaker 2: a fool. Shakespeare captured this principal centuries before psychology gave
Speaker 2: it a name, but Machiavelli would have recognized it immediately
Speaker 2: as a fundamental truth about power dynamics. Modern research confirms
Speaker 2: this bias operates in leadership contexts. A twenty twenty study
Speaker 2: published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found
Speaker 2: that individuals who displayed over confidence were more likely to
Speaker 2: be perceived as leaders by their peers, regardless of their
Speaker 2: actual competence. The appearance of certainty was more persuasive than
Speaker 2: demonstrated expertise. Consider figures like George Armstrong Custer, whose supreme
Speaker 2: confidence led to catastrophic military decisions yet earned him rapid
Speaker 2: promotions and devoted followers. Or look at the tech industry,
Speaker 2: where founders who speak in absolute visionary terms often secure
Speaker 2: men mass of funding over more measured experienced entrepreneurs. We
Speaker 2: works Adam Naimann exemplified this. Despite a shaky business model,
Speaker 2: his unshakable confidence helped him attract billions in investment and
Speaker 2: occult like following. This pattern repeats globally. Japan's Masayoshi son
Speaker 2: of SoftBank, lost seventy billion dollars on failed investments while
Speaker 2: maintaining investor confidence through sheer force of personality. Russia's oligarchs
Speaker 2: rose not through competence, but through connections and confidence during
Speaker 2: the post Soviet privatization. Singapore, by contrast, built safeguards specifically
Speaker 2: designed to prevent confidence from trumping competence in leadership selection.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, researchers from Stanford and the University of
Speaker 2: Houston found that narcissism, not competence, may be the strongest
Speaker 2: predictor of who emerges as a leader in unstructured groups.
Speaker 2: Groups led by narcissists didn't perform better. They just thought
Speaker 2: they did. Why does this happen? Our brains use mental
Speaker 2: shortcuts when evaluating others. Confidence signals competence, decisiveness suggests clarity
Speaker 2: of thought. These shortcuts served our ancestors well in straightforward environments.
Speaker 1: But okay, so again for context. There is a circumstance
Speaker 1: in which people believe things are going better or doing well,
Speaker 1: and they'll believe that regardless of what the empirical evidence displays.
Speaker 1: Whether it is Custer or it's these other guys who
Speaker 1: keep losing billions of dollars or you know whatever. There
Speaker 1: are circumstances in which people look at the results and
Speaker 1: still feel good about it, despite the fact that it
Speaker 1: is markedly and measurably worse off than the guy who
Speaker 1: actually is competent takes a more measured approach. See the
Speaker 1: emotional response. The emotional handle that they grab you by
Speaker 1: is a whole lot more effective than giving you facts
Speaker 1: and figures, and people glaze over. They just do. It's
Speaker 1: a simple reality here that we're dealing with all the
Speaker 1: time throughout history, and currently I think this explains Trump.
Speaker 1: But you know, you probably knew that if you've heard
Speaker 1: me before. Anyway, back to the history lesson. I like this.
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
Speaker 2: Become problematic in our complex modern world, where genuine expertise
Speaker 2: often involves acknowledging uncertainty. This confidence illusion explains how incompetent
Speaker 2: individuals might initially rise to power, but there's something even
Speaker 2: more insidious at play, a mechanism that helps them entrench
Speaker 2: their position throughout entire organizations.
Speaker 1: Throughout entire organizations. I like that. That's pretty interesting, And
Speaker 1: it's not always about the unstructured. Sometimes it's about quite
Speaker 1: well structured organizations as well. So we move from that
Speaker 1: into the network of incompetence.
Speaker 2: Incompetent leaders tend to surround themselves with even less competent subordinates.
Speaker 2: In the Prince, Machiavelli wrote, the first method for estimating
Speaker 2: the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the
Speaker 2: men he has around him. What Machiavelli understood was that
Speaker 2: weak leaders deliberately select weaker subordinates to ensure they never
Speaker 2: face threats to their authority. This creates a cascading effect
Speaker 2: wherein competence becomes institutionalized. Doctor Toma Camoro Primusic and organizational
Speaker 2: psychologists describes this as competence threatening. Insecure leaders feel threatened
Speaker 2: by competent team members who might expose their limitations or
Speaker 2: eventually replace them. Instead of selecting for talent, they select
Speaker 2: for loyalty and non threatening personalities. Think of it as
Speaker 2: a competence drought that spreads outward from central leadership. In
Speaker 2: Emperor Commutus's court, capable administrators were systematically replaced by flatterers
Speaker 2: and entertainers, accelerating Rome's decline. In contemporary Brazil, the Centrome
Speaker 2: political system institutionalizes this dynamic, where in competent political appointees
Speaker 2: secure positions through personal connections rather than merit. African nations
Speaker 2: like Zimbabwe under later Mugabe saw systematic replacement of capable
Speaker 2: administrators with partisan loyalists, devis dating economic consequences. Following this
Speaker 2: creates what organizational scientists call homeofully, the tendency of individuals
Speaker 2: to associate with similar others in power structures. This means
Speaker 2: incompetent leaders create islands of incompetence around themselves, insulated from
Speaker 2: conflicting viewpoints and constructive criticism. Ask yourself, have you ever
Speaker 2: worked in an organization, where asking questions was discouraged, where
Speaker 2: raising concerns was labeled as not being a team player.
Speaker 2: These are symptoms of this network effect and action. Yet
Speaker 2: even knowing all this, we still find ourselves drawn to
Speaker 2: leaders who offer simplistic answers. This vulnerability helps explain why
Speaker 2: incompetence continues to thrive despite our best intentions. Why do
Speaker 2: we often choose leaders who offer simple answers to complex problems.
Speaker 2: The answer lies in cognitive psychology and our fundamental need
Speaker 2: for certainty in an uncertain world. Genuine expertise is almost
Speaker 2: always accompanied by nuance. Real experts understand the limitations of
Speaker 2: their knowledge, They recognize complexity, they acknowledge trade offs. But
Speaker 2: these intellectual virtues can be profoundly unsatisfying to our psychological needs.
Speaker 2: For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances
Speaker 2: as though they were realities, and are often more influenced
Speaker 2: by the things that seem than by those that are.
Speaker 2: When Machiavelli wrote these words, he identified something fundamental about
Speaker 2: human psychology. We crave certainty even when certainty isn't possible
Speaker 2: or realistic. Consider what happens in times of crisis or uncertainty.
Speaker 2: People rarely rally behind the leader who says this is
Speaker 2: a complex situation with no easy answers that will require
Speaker 2: careful thought and inevitable trade offs. Instead, they follow the
Speaker 2: person confidently proclaiming I alone can fix this. The solution
Speaker 2: is simple. Look at how actual environmental scientists speak about
Speaker 2: climate change with careful caveats, ranges of possibilities, and nuanced
Speaker 2: policy recommendations, versus how popular figures on both sides frame
Speaker 2: the issue with absolute certainty. The scientific approach, while intellectually honest,
Speaker 2: struggles to compete with the psychological comfort of simple narratives
Speaker 2: or consider healthcare debates, Actual medical experts acknowledge complex trade
Speaker 2: offs in any system, while political figures offered simplistic solutions
Speaker 2: that promise everything with no downsides. Which approach typically wins
Speaker 2: public support. The simple a certain one regardless of feasibility.
Speaker 1: See now the beauty of that is you can apply
Speaker 1: it directly to exactly how the whole COVID thing was sold.
Speaker 1: We have a solution, lock it down. We have another solution,
Speaker 1: arp speed, here's your bas we have another solution. It's
Speaker 1: all gone. None of these things were true in their
Speaker 1: absolute certainty and all of the wondrous things like put
Speaker 1: on a mask, you'll be fine. Also not a certainty,
Speaker 1: not scientifically sound. It wasn't as though it was completely useless,
Speaker 1: but it had its uses, And nobody talked about the
Speaker 1: nuance right and the vaccination, nobody talked about what it
Speaker 1: was or even got into the nuances of the concoction
Speaker 1: that was being loosed on people. And even today some
Speaker 1: of the more you know, supposedly intelligent people well speak
Speaker 1: in absolute certainties about this and try to draw you
Speaker 1: into paradigms where you only have certainties for choices absolutes,
Speaker 1: and yet they're both incorrect and it seems like there
Speaker 1: is no other choice being offered all the time. And
Speaker 1: I say, apply this to anything, like they said, apply
Speaker 1: it to your workspaces where you found that asking a
Speaker 1: question is a bad thing. You're not a team player
Speaker 1: now because you're looking to explore a possibility, trying to
Speaker 1: improve something. When they have a formula that they say
Speaker 1: is the only one, that's it, everything is the only
Speaker 1: one until there's another one that comes along. Everybody's the
Speaker 1: absolute certain master of the circumstance until it is so
Speaker 1: obviously clear that disaster strikes and even then there will
Speaker 1: be people that will defend the disaster as either inevitable
Speaker 1: or the fault of someone else. There is always a deflection,
Speaker 1: there is always a diversion, but there is no never
Speaker 1: the careful examination by people who might be might be
Speaker 1: examining things outside of their own confidence and comfort zones.
Speaker 1: This is the problem we find ourselves in politically, socially, etc.
Speaker 1: Right now, we find ourselves in the midst of this
Speaker 1: as a constant, and the extremes are growing more and
Speaker 1: more starkly and uniquely available as the only options in
Speaker 1: any circumstance when there's a lot of things in between.
Speaker 1: You know, much like the concept of I watched a
Speaker 1: guy you know, George will say, I don't believe there
Speaker 1: are people that have a problem with a four hundred
Speaker 1: dollars disaster that doesn't exist. Now, this guy thinks that
Speaker 1: way because it doesn't exist for him, But he's trying
Speaker 1: to make a general statement about the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: Simply because you experienced it a certain way does not
Speaker 1: mean that the entirety of the world will experience it
Speaker 1: in a similar fashion or exactly the same way. Plus,
Speaker 1: he obviously don't live among the majority of us, and
Speaker 1: there is a way to determine how the majority is
Speaker 1: experiencing things like right now. If you ask people about,
Speaker 1: you know, what changed when this person was, you know,
Speaker 1: put in charge of things, or what changed when that
Speaker 1: person was put in charge of things? They will even
Speaker 1: adjust the timeline of events in order to fit the
Speaker 1: proper narrative where their savior, Daddy was the protector and
Speaker 1: the right one. The people that say the country was
Speaker 1: better when Joe Biden was there, well, besides the fact
Speaker 1: and other and other and other and other, and he
Speaker 1: was dysfunctional in this and that he wasn't the only
Speaker 1: one in charge of things, first of all, but secondly,
Speaker 1: the people that feel as though things were safer then
Speaker 1: are as ill informed as the people that think on
Speaker 1: January twentieth of this year, everything changed right away. It
Speaker 1: is not a supportable position that that leadership change caused
Speaker 1: anything to instantaneously occur, except what the mood of the
Speaker 1: easily influenced, and that does create literal changes, but only
Speaker 1: as a reaction. They're putting the chicken before the egg,
Speaker 1: and the egg before the chicken, and the horse before
Speaker 1: the cart, and mixing it all up until they get
Speaker 1: the combination they want, and those are the points of
Speaker 1: view that you won't mostly hear, especially by those that
Speaker 1: feel as though their opinion drives everything in reality. Well,
Speaker 1: I'd love to see somebody demonstrate how their opinion drives
Speaker 1: everything in reality, but it does not. Now, your opinion
Speaker 1: may drive enough influence to then shift reality because you
Speaker 1: have a massive people now acting on behalf of your opinion,
Speaker 1: and that is yet again another dangerous weapon. Anyway, let's
Speaker 1: return to this discussion quickly, and I'm going to get
Speaker 1: out of this one soon and go to another audio
Speaker 1: that I think is just as instructive, and it will
Speaker 1: be about that little psychological concept that I was talking
Speaker 1: to you about before, and again the complete works on
Speaker 1: these things will be in the show notes, also about
Speaker 1: the formation of memory, recent scientific studies, and a few
Speaker 1: other things. But I urge you to take a look
Speaker 1: at more than that, go beyond what it is I'm
Speaker 1: showing you and try to apply these things for yourself. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: I want you to think for yourself and find the
Speaker 1: answer you can relate to please, so that you see
Speaker 1: exactly how this mass manipulation is truly a unified theory
Speaker 1: that is being loosed on us from the alleged opponents
Speaker 1: out there. Like I say all the time, it is
Speaker 1: the WWE circumstance. Here's your good guy, here's your bad guy.
Speaker 1: You might like to root for the bad guy because
Speaker 1: you like the anti heroo. You got to do that sometimes.
Speaker 1: And either way, at the end of the day, the
Speaker 1: same corporation pays them, and you are just a member
Speaker 1: of the audience. You're just an observer. Sure you can
Speaker 1: change their financial fortunes because you've been given this idea
Speaker 1: that participating in that particular transaction will do what, all right,
Speaker 1: help to shape your identity. In fact, this is the
Speaker 1: way people identify themselves. I am this, I am that
Speaker 1: I fit with this group, that group, et cetera. I
Speaker 1: root for the undertaker as opposed to Hull Cogan. I
Speaker 1: root for hull Cogan. Yeah. Sure, that is a way
Speaker 1: to identify where you're at when you're in the audience.
Speaker 1: But does it really identify who you are when you're
Speaker 1: on your own and trying to make your way through life?
Speaker 1: And how does that fit with this idea that you
Speaker 1: find all the time that confidence is not rewarded confidence,
Speaker 1: which of course is you know, the longer word. At
Speaker 1: the beginning of con Man, confidence is what's rewarded, and
Speaker 1: really it's about the strength of confidence as opposed to
Speaker 1: anything that's effective, useful, or helpful to you, which is
Speaker 1: how people wind up giving away their money for nothing
Speaker 1: and et cetera, et cetera, and selling their souls literally
Speaker 1: almost you know, and not realizing it until much later
Speaker 1: that they were had. And it's to be kept in mind,
Speaker 1: especially when things are amplified unreasonably, you know, like the
Speaker 1: big threat from what might be about one hundred people
Speaker 1: in the whole country is a massive threat that needs
Speaker 1: to be worked over and fixed right away. But the
Speaker 1: fact that there's tens of thousands of others that are
Speaker 1: causing a serious problem, well you ignore them because they're
Speaker 1: on your side. Their problem is acceptable or not even
Speaker 1: a problem they're creating. Even if death, destruction, costs and
Speaker 1: things come directly out of your pocket based on their actions,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter because they're the good guys anyway back
Speaker 1: to it, and.
Speaker 2: They particularly Jarring twenty seventeen experiment, Yale researchers discovered something
Speaker 2: disturbing about how we process political information. When subjects were
Speaker 2: presented with mathematically complex policy problems and solutions. Their ability
Speaker 2: to correctly interpret the data was directly affected by whether
Speaker 2: the results aligned with their political beliefs. Even more striking,
Speaker 2: the most mathematically skilled participants showed the strongest bias, using
Speaker 2: their intelligence not to reach the correct answer, but to
Speaker 2: justify their preferred conclusion. Cognitive psychologists call this cognitive closure,
Speaker 2: our desire for definite answers rather than continued ambiguity. Studies
Speaker 2: show that when people feel threatened or uncertain, their need
Speaker 2: for cognitive closure increases dramatically. They become more receptive to
Speaker 2: black and white thinking and more willing to follow authoritarian
Speaker 2: leaders who project absolute certainty. This creates a dangerous dynamic.
Speaker 2: The more complex and frightening our world becomes, the more
Speaker 2: susceptible we become to simplistic thinking and the leaders who
Speaker 2: peddle it. It's like a psychological immune system failure. Precisely
Speaker 2: when we most need nuanced thinking, we become most vulnerable
Speaker 2: to intellectual shortcuts. Ask yourself, have you ever found yourself
Speaker 2: drawn to an explanation precisely because it was simple and definitive,
Speaker 2: even when part of you suspected the reality was more complex.
Speaker 2: That's this principle at work in your own mind. While
Speaker 2: our psychological comfort with simplicity explains part of this dynamic,
Speaker 2: there's an even more troubling dimension to consider, one that
Speaker 2: reveals why intelligence alone doesn't guarantee effective resistance to manipulative power.
Speaker 1: Right. That's fascinating there, because intelligence alone will not prevent
Speaker 1: you from being sucked into the more simplistic ideas and answers.
Speaker 1: I walked and thought it was because repetition was made
Speaker 1: much simpler by the fact that it's a much easier
Speaker 1: thing to repeat. I always thought that was the concept
Speaker 1: of play there. But there is more to it, and
Speaker 1: it's about the ethical handicap that is involved. Let's just
Speaker 1: listen to a little more of this before I take
Speaker 1: a break.
Speaker 2: Here's where Machiavelli becomes truly unsettling. He suggested that moral
Speaker 2: considerations often handicap intelligent people in power struggles, and what
Speaker 2: might be his most infamous passage, he wrote, it is
Speaker 2: necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position
Speaker 2: to learn how not to be good, and to use
Speaker 2: this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity.
Speaker 2: While intelligent people typically develop more complex moral reasoning, this
Speaker 2: can actually impede their ability to compete for power against
Speaker 2: those unburdened by such considerations. In any competitive environment, the
Speaker 2: person willing to cross ethical lines has access to strategies
Speaker 2: that morally constrained competitors do not. They can make promises
Speaker 2: they have no intention of keeping. They can undermine rivals
Speaker 2: through deception. They can exploit fears and prejudices that others
Speaker 2: refuse to touch. Consider the contrasting fates of Cicero versus
Speaker 2: Julius Caesar in ancient Rome. Cicero, brilliant and principled, ultimately
Speaker 2: lost the power struggle to Caesar, who had no qualms
Speaker 2: about crossing the rubicon literally and figuratively breaking norms his
Speaker 2: opponents felt bound to respect. In modern context we see
Speaker 2: ethical candidates struggling against opponents willing to employ deception and
Speaker 2: character assassination. In organizational contexts, University of British Columbia researchers
Speaker 2: found that psychopathic traits like lack of empathy were positively
Speaker 2: associated with rapid advancement when combined with social charm. This
Speaker 2: pattern appears cross culturally from China's Shengnu ruthless businesswoman archetype
Speaker 2: to Nordic companies, where studies show that, despite cultural emphasis
Speaker 2: on collaboration, manipulative leaders often outpace their more ethical peers
Speaker 2: in advancement speed. This creates what game theorists call a
Speaker 2: race to the bottom. When unethical tactics prove successful, others
Speaker 2: face pressure to adopt similar approaches or be left behind.
Speaker 2: Over time, this can transform entire systems, making unethical behavior
Speaker 2: the norm rather than the exception. Understanding these dark dynamics
Speaker 2: might make the situation seem hopeless, but not all environments
Speaker 2: equally reward incompetence and unethical behavior. By recognizing which conditions
Speaker 2: favored stupi, pidity, and power, we can begin to design
Speaker 2: systems that select for genuine merit instead. Machiavelli understood that
Speaker 2: different environments reward different qualities. Some contexts naturally select for competence,
Speaker 2: while others create fertile ground for incompetence to flourish. What
Speaker 2: determines which type of environment develops several structural factors. First, feedback,
Speaker 2: loops and accountability structures. In environments with clear immediate feedback
Speaker 2: about decisions, and competence is quickly exposed. Think of a
Speaker 2: surgeon whose patients consistently die or a bridge engineer whose
Speaker 2: structures collapse. These fields tend to select for genuine competence
Speaker 2: because failure is obvious and consequential. But in environments where
Speaker 2: feedback is delayed, indirect or easily manipulated, incompetence can thrive indefinitely.
Speaker 2: Systems where outcomes can be blamed on predecessors or external factors,
Speaker 2: corporate hierarchies where results can be obscured through creative accounting,
Speaker 2: or media landscapes where being entertaining matters more than being accurate.
Speaker 2: These are all fertile grounds for the incompetent to rise. Second,
Speaker 2: institutional design and power distribution. Centralized power systems with weak
Speaker 2: checks and balances create conditions where incompetence flourishes. The Soviet
Speaker 2: Union's collapse was accelerated by a system that concentrated decision
Speaker 2: making and unaccountable hands. Conversely, Germany's dual board corporate governance structure,
Speaker 2: which separates management from oversight, provides structural resistance to incompetent leadership. Third,
Speaker 2: information asymmetry and complexity. When success is easily measured and compared,
Speaker 2: merit tends to win, but when goals are ambiguous or
Speaker 2: success is subjectively evaluated, style often Trump's substance. Men judge
Speaker 2: generally more by the eye than by the hand, because
Speaker 2: it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to
Speaker 2: come in touch with you. What Machiavelli recognized here is
Speaker 2: that most people evaluate others based on surface impressions rather
Speaker 2: than deep understanding, especially in complex domains where few have
Speaker 2: the expertise to make inform judgments. Fourth, economic incentive structures
Speaker 2: systems that reward short term performance over long term outcomes
Speaker 2: create fertile ground for incompetent leadership with superficial charm. The
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight financial crisis exemplified how incentive structures
Speaker 2: rewarding immediate profits regardless of risk, fostered leadership that prioritized
Speaker 2: appearance over substance. Ask yourself in your own life which
Speaker 2: environmental factors promote competence and which enable incompetence to thrive.
Speaker 2: Understanding these structural forces can help you navigate your own
Speaker 2: path and recognize when systems are vulnerable to manipulation. Even
Speaker 2: in well designed systems, and competent leaders can still rise
Speaker 2: by employing specific psychological tactics that allow them to manipulate
Speaker 2: perception and neutralize opposition.
Speaker 1: And that to me is one of the key factors here. Okay,
Speaker 1: that right there. If you can manipulate the perception, then
Speaker 1: the results nuanced and over a period of time are
Speaker 1: not necessarily evaluated correctly. So there you go. You shift
Speaker 1: the blamee, you turn it on your predecessor, you turn
Speaker 1: it on external factors, and none of it falls on you,
Speaker 1: even though you were able to take credit for immediate
Speaker 1: gains and things like that, like that financial crisis. Those
Speaker 1: companies were doing well, their stockholders were happy, they were
Speaker 1: getting big bonuses, and then everybody said, why the hell
Speaker 1: did that happen when they were setting them up for collapse.
Speaker 1: It's because the longer term result was not known right away,
Speaker 1: and the perception was manipulated, and just by that perception,
Speaker 1: they were able to keep up the value of all
Speaker 1: those collapsed assets. Pretty simple, And this is what happens
Speaker 1: with you know, these presidential administrations and various other leaders
Speaker 1: and other parts of the world. Hey, look, this guy's
Speaker 1: in there. Things are collapsing now, not recognizing that it
Speaker 1: took time for the results of somebody else's actions to
Speaker 1: really take hold. But if things are a me idiot,
Speaker 1: things are simple, and perception is manipulated regardless of what
Speaker 1: is accounted for as results, then it all becomes irrelevant. Anyway,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into the Dunning Kruger effect just a
Speaker 1: bit before I'm all done here, and see if you
Speaker 1: learned anything as I end.
Speaker 3: This first, Joe, what the effects.
Speaker 1: Did you express? My caller schools there anyone else who
Speaker 1: happens to get on the air to Jelly dot com.
Speaker 1: Do not necessarily reflect the US, and we are not
Speaker 1: responsible for anstrue baby which might issue revel like.
Speaker 3: Through calm section.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 5: Oh chill me.
Speaker 4: Fact, Oh Sally fast Ring and from my ry mas,
Speaker 4: I ain't all the world you hardly hour back?
Speaker 6: Yah, go ahead, call it about the JAFA assassination.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, what do you want to know Tony.
Speaker 6: Baker's wild claim? Oswald girlfriend, if you knew Ruby and
Speaker 6: Barry answer weapons? Really?
Speaker 1: I imagine I could claim I have four wheels. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make me a wagon.
Speaker 6: But okay, building and trying to prevent the murder of
Speaker 6: John Kennedy Come on now has a real effort on
Speaker 6: the day of Heay assassination. Book into her claims.
Speaker 1: Go to Amazon dot com enter Judith Baker in her
Speaker 1: own words, you'll get the results for a digital copy
Speaker 1: of a book where Walt Brown utilizes her own words
Speaker 1: and the known evidence in the case to get at
Speaker 1: well a different perspective. Let's say you can get Judith
Speaker 1: Barry Baker in her own words from the author himself,
Speaker 1: signed if you request it by contacting doctor Brown at
Speaker 1: k I A S JFK at aol dot com. It's
Speaker 1: a fun book and it actually dissects the many, many
Speaker 1: fantastic claims Baker in her own words.
Speaker 6: Thank you for all the great information you like.
Speaker 7: History, real history that you were never taught in schools.
Speaker 7: Why the Vietnam War, Nuclear Bombs and Nation Building in
Speaker 7: Southeast Asia by author Mike Swanson, with new documentation never
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Speaker 7: Why the Vietnam War by author Mike Swanson. Revelation through
Speaker 7: conversation episode says we're a bar na.
Speaker 1: Soos uncle.
Speaker 5: Do you remember that time when Benjamin Fulford said that
Speaker 5: an Asian secret society was going to dispatch ninjas to
Speaker 5: take down the illuminati.
Speaker 1: Ooh that's interesting.
Speaker 7: Yeah in the latoon.
Speaker 5: Yeah did that ever work out too good?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: It didn't, did it? But here on o'chelly dot com
Speaker 5: radio network, things work out a bit better, don't.
Speaker 7: They Much better? Much clear and understanding about the programs,
Speaker 7: The programs much clearer, getting live people into it.
Speaker 1: They really have a good conversation going.
Speaker 5: Much better, much better scene. I say, forget Benjamin Fulford
Speaker 5: and his ninjas and listen to the Ocelli dot com
Speaker 5: radio network.
Speaker 7: I agree, it's straight to the point, straight talk, and
Speaker 7: I like that idea dot com Oh Chili dot com.
Speaker 4: I still mind it from my grandma. I got stakes.
Speaker 3: I have checked to go to college by some the dobe.
Speaker 4: By Nam stuff that weird. I'd be doing it well
Speaker 4: your Moby, that ship within your dime.
Speaker 3: As a g doub.
Speaker 1: Well dot com radio network. So after that break, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that, you know, people can take into their minds
Speaker 1: some of what was being discussed there. And I don't
Speaker 1: think all of it will hit you at once. You
Speaker 1: might have to listen to this more than one time.
Speaker 1: And again I'm using the assistance of a couple of
Speaker 1: better explainers that I found regarding some of the stuff
Speaker 1: I was reading up on. So this is about the
Speaker 1: Dunning Krueger effect, Okay, and again I just want you
Speaker 1: to listen to it objectively and see what you can
Speaker 1: apply it to. I'm not aiming at any particular political party, religion, nothing.
Speaker 1: I just want you to take this in and see
Speaker 1: what you can do with it, because I see a
Speaker 1: lot of things being hijacked by the most incompetent and
Speaker 1: idiotic people, and I gotta tell you, there's nobody on
Speaker 1: any one side any equation that seems to be immune
Speaker 1: from these particular practices, issues, realities, pieces of human psychology
Speaker 1: that do make us a little more subject to manipulation
Speaker 1: than I think anybody really wants to admit anyway, the
Speaker 1: Dunning Kruger effect.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety nine, social psychologists David Dunning and Justin
Speaker 2: Krueger published a groundbreaking study that would forever change our
Speaker 2: understanding of human cognition. Their research identified a cognitive bias
Speaker 2: that now bears their names, the Dunning Kruger effect. This
Speaker 2: phenomenon explains why the least skilled individuals in a domain
Speaker 2: often dramatically overestimate their abilities, while true experts tend to
Speaker 2: underestimate theirs. As Dunning himself put it, the first rule
Speaker 2: of the Dunning Kruger club is you don't know you're
Speaker 2: a member of the Dunning Krueger Club. Today we'll dive
Speaker 2: deep into this psychological phenomenon that affects us all to
Speaker 2: some degree. We'll explore its origins, mechanisms, real world examples,
Speaker 2: and most importantly, how to recognize and overcome it in ourselves.
Speaker 1: Now, this is again from Let's See philosophy. Coded is
Speaker 1: the name of the is the name of the YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot more to it than just what
Speaker 1: they have on their channel. It's just a matter of
Speaker 1: these simple explainers do help to uh, to codify what
Speaker 1: it is I'm trying to relate to you. And I
Speaker 1: read up on this Dunning Kruger thing and they did
Speaker 1: a good job explaining what this study showed and how
Speaker 1: the bias is developed. And think about this. Just you know,
Speaker 1: this is just my words, but think about how often
Speaker 1: you have marveled at someone who's clearly uninformed about something
Speaker 1: making a statement when you have information better than what
Speaker 1: you hear coming out of their mouth. And they're absolutely
Speaker 1: convinced of well they're expertise, their knowledge level, their complete
Speaker 1: understanding of a circumstance. I mean, I point out all
Speaker 1: the time about the JFK thing. The guy that once
Speaker 1: said to me, I read all the books on the case,
Speaker 1: so I know the case. And then when I asked him,
Speaker 1: how many is that, by the way, and he said three.
Speaker 1: That is a remarkable example of someone who has convinced
Speaker 1: themselves that they have a great level of expertise. But
Speaker 1: it's literally part of the problem. See, if you're too
Speaker 1: stupid to understand that you're ill informed, you're a also
Speaker 1: too stupid to understand that your information is not absolute already.
Speaker 1: Like they both walk hand in hand. The idea that
Speaker 1: you think you know everything about something okay, is a
Speaker 1: serious red flag that shows that you know next to nothing.
Speaker 1: People that actually have knowledge on something understand the limitation
Speaker 1: of their knowledge. They know they have some of the knowledge,
Speaker 1: they know they have a great deal of the knowledge.
Speaker 1: They might even be aware that they're an expert, but
Speaker 1: the idea that they know everything does not enter their
Speaker 1: mind because they have a concept of exactly how expansive
Speaker 1: the universe of information is and how they could not
Speaker 1: possibly contain it all within their minds, their memories. And again,
Speaker 1: your memory is subject at all times the revision. But
Speaker 1: it's not always good revision. Sometimes there are biases that
Speaker 1: are built up that tell you that something is possible
Speaker 1: or more likely because you have experienced it that way,
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily the way it is represented on mass.
Speaker 1: You know, it's pretty simple and yet rather complex because
Speaker 1: those that have expertise don't necessarily automatically, you know, possess
Speaker 1: the confidence to represent that they have that expertise, and
Speaker 1: even when they do, as a matter of fact, the
Speaker 1: more expertise someone claims to have with absolute certainty without
Speaker 1: ever entertaining a single question. When you've got a guy
Speaker 1: who doesn't entertain a single question but claims to be
Speaker 1: an expert, you're dealing with a dangerous individual who limited
Speaker 1: their information to a certain point and didn't continue it.
Speaker 1: Education is a continuous process and learning the entirety of anything.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's a crack or a particular
Speaker 1: body of literature or anything else. These things are not limited.
Speaker 1: There is always additional information which can be gleaned. There
Speaker 1: is always additional perspective that is possible. There is always
Speaker 1: an experience that you have not had. So someone recognizes
Speaker 1: that nuance, it usually means they are more intelligent, but
Speaker 1: since they don't present themselves confidently as the end all
Speaker 1: and be all expert, they're not accepted that way. And
Speaker 1: the more strength behind the I know how to do this.
Speaker 1: I'm the guy, I'm the man. I get it. The
Speaker 1: more you hear that there is somebody focused on the
Speaker 1: I who has no idea about the nuance or the
Speaker 1: expansive nature of the actual circumstance, situation, problem, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And that's the overall issue here where the bias swings
Speaker 1: both ways and causes destructive results because people get behind
Speaker 1: these confident people far too often, and the most confident
Speaker 1: people are not necessarily those who have the knowledge, intelligence,
Speaker 1: or the solutions anywhere near them, because they do not
Speaker 1: understand even the beginning of the landscape that they claim
Speaker 1: to know entirely. Anyway, back to this explanation in the video,
Speaker 1: just part of it, just part of it, And each
Speaker 1: of these things are like, you know, twenty minutes long
Speaker 1: or twenty five minutes long or whatever. But I'm not
Speaker 1: playing the whole thing. I'm just playing a couple of
Speaker 1: clips to give you an idea of what it is
Speaker 1: that needs to be considered here.
Speaker 2: The people most susceptible to it are typically the least
Speaker 2: likely to recognize it in themselves. The discovery of the
Speaker 2: Dunning Krueger effect began with an unusual.
Speaker 1: Bank robbery in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: MacArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and broad Daylight
Speaker 2: with no disguise, robbed them, and walked out. When arrested
Speaker 2: later that night, Wheeler was genuinely shocked to learn that
Speaker 2: surveillance cameras had captured his image. But I wore the juice,
Speaker 2: he protested to police. Wheeler had covered his face with
Speaker 2: lemon juice, believing it would make him invisible to security cameras,
Speaker 2: based on his understanding that lemon juice could be used
Speaker 2: as invisible ink. This remarkable case caught the attention of
Speaker 2: psychologists David Dunning, who was fascinated by Wheeler's profound misunderstanding
Speaker 2: and complete confidence in his flawed logic. It led Dunning
Speaker 2: to question, how could someone be so incompetent that they
Speaker 2: didn't even realize their incompetence. He partnered with then graduate
Speaker 2: student Justin Krueger to investigate this phenomenon systematically. In their
Speaker 2: seminal study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Speaker 2: Dunning and Kruger assessed participants on humor, grammar, and logical
Speaker 2: reasoning skills. After each test, participants were asked to estimate
Speaker 2: how well they performed compared to others. The results were
Speaker 2: striking and consistent. Those who scored in the bottom quartile
Speaker 2: dramatically overestimated their performance, believing they outperformed sixty two percent
Speaker 2: of their peers when they had actually only outperformed twelve percent. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: top performers consistently underestimated their relative performance. As Dounning observed,
Speaker 2: if you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent. The skills
Speaker 2: you need to produce a right answer are exactly the
Speaker 2: skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.
Speaker 2: This creates a double burden of incompetence. Not only do
Speaker 2: people lack the skills to perform well, but they also
Speaker 2: lack the metacognitive ability to recognize their deficiency. At its core,
Speaker 2: the Dunning Kruger effect stems from a metacognitive deficiency of
Speaker 2: failure to accurately assess one's own knowledge and skills. This
Speaker 2: metacognitive blind spot creates an illusion of superiority that can
Speaker 2: be remarkably resilient to evidence. The effect operates through several
Speaker 2: psychological mechanisms. First is the unknown unknowns problem. When we
Speaker 2: venture into unfamiliar territory, we lack awareness of the full
Speaker 2: scope of knowledge or skills required. We don't know what
Speaker 2: we don't know.
Speaker 1: I like how theknown unknowns comes up here. It's a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. Yet the same skills required to understand that
Speaker 1: you're incompetent are the same skills required to be competent.
Speaker 1: So that's the funny part of this. It's amazing, Like
Speaker 1: I said, it really is. If you think about it,
Speaker 1: those that are so convinced that they have only the
Speaker 1: right answers, see, this explains certain things, doesn't it If
Speaker 1: you think about it carefully, If you think about those
Speaker 1: that speak with absolute certainty about how they know certain
Speaker 1: things happened and everything else, and then you discover the
Speaker 1: complete fallacies built into this these assertions, then you recognize
Speaker 1: why it is they're so wrong. Because they don't recognize
Speaker 1: that they're wrong. They don't have the skills to recognize
Speaker 1: that they're wrong. So therefore they don't have the skills
Speaker 1: to recognize that they're wrong. It's a beautiful thing. This,
Speaker 1: to me explains quite a bit why people end up
Speaker 1: defaulting and following individuals who just appear to be confident
Speaker 1: in them competence. And yet again it is exactly the
Speaker 1: opposite circumstance. Those who are not confident in their competence
Speaker 1: are usually much more competent. I mean, it's precisely the
Speaker 1: the you know, black is white and up as down
Speaker 1: circumstance here that we find in human psychology. This is
Speaker 1: why we're so confounding as a species, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean relatively speaking. Anyway, let's go back to this explanation
Speaker 1: just a little more, because I'm almost done with the
Speaker 1: Mandela effect Mandela affect.
Speaker 2: Presentation today, Dunning explains, the skills you need to produce
Speaker 2: the right answer are exactly the same skills you need
Speaker 2: to evaluate if an answer is right. If you lack expertise,
Speaker 2: domain you also lack the ability to recognize expertise, including
Speaker 2: the absence of it in yourself. Second, is confirmation by us.
Speaker 2: Once we form a belief about our abilities, we selectively
Speaker 2: attend to information that supports that belief while discounting contradictory evidence.
Speaker 2: A novice who believes their skilled will remember their successes,
Speaker 2: attribute failures to external factors, and interpret ambiguous feedback positively.
Speaker 2: Third is the difficulty in accurately calibrating self assessment. Even
Speaker 2: when trying to be objective, humans struggle to evaluate themselves
Speaker 2: without reference points. In the absence of clear feedback or comparison,
Speaker 2: we tend to rate ourselves above average, a phenomenon known
Speaker 2: as the above average effect or illusory superiority.
Speaker 1: This is also why poor people don't always recognize is
Speaker 1: that they're poor. They always say they're middle class or
Speaker 1: upper middle class, and it's like, clearly they're not. It's
Speaker 1: exactly that projected image of oneself. Their inability to understand
Speaker 1: what their actual position is, what their power to affect
Speaker 1: things is, what their financial status even is, which should
Speaker 1: be a numerically empirically understandable thing. I mean, reconcile this
Speaker 1: in your mind. There are many people that I know
Speaker 1: listen to this show that think it's absolutely insane to
Speaker 1: believe that we have a medium income in this country
Speaker 1: of like one hundred and fifty thousand or a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty thous whatever it is, one hundred and something thousand,
Speaker 1: that's like that should be the average. The majority of
Speaker 1: people well below that average do not recognize how far
Speaker 1: below average they are. I do, because I know I'm
Speaker 1: well below that. You know, I'm probably like what to
Speaker 1: I guess, I'm probably what less than a quarter of
Speaker 1: average income wise?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I recognize that. I'm not exactly sure how to amplify that,
Speaker 1: because that's never been the thing I knew how to do.
Speaker 1: But oddly, I do recognize that other people that are
Speaker 1: making you know, fifty sixty thousand and seventy five, they
Speaker 1: think they're doing okay. But if you're saying comparatively, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm of this class, then you're using a comparative measurement.
Speaker 1: You're measuring yourself against the standard. And like I said,
Speaker 1: once again, unless you're in you know, the triple figures
Speaker 1: of the thousand dollars annual income, you're not even close
Speaker 1: to average. That's the weird thing. I don't even know
Speaker 1: people that are close to that average, which makes me
Speaker 1: question those numbers. And there you go. You see how
Speaker 1: the bias loop begins. I'm using myself as the example
Speaker 1: as best I can, but I'm sure that some people
Speaker 1: can relate to this. And you know, it's no wonder
Speaker 1: that I'm struggling as I do and having difficulties when
Speaker 1: I had just the smallest amount of my income cut away,
Speaker 1: because people would think that it's a very tiny amount
Speaker 1: of income that was cut away from me recently, But
Speaker 1: it is what it is. Anyway, I just used myself
Speaker 1: as an example because it is the most accessible thing.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, I want you to consider where
Speaker 1: you fall into these paradigms. I want you to consider
Speaker 1: where others fall into these paradigms, so that you can
Speaker 1: more accurately measure what's going on around you and why
Speaker 1: it is that some people have the confidence in particular paradigms,
Speaker 1: in particular collective understandings, in particular groupings that people do
Speaker 1: volunteer themselves too. Why is it they're doing it? And
Speaker 1: why is one even better than the other? And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: to me, there isn't us and them. There is a
Speaker 1: more simplified way to look at this, but most people
Speaker 1: will not join the us that I think is most relevant.
Speaker 1: And again, I have a very nuanced view of this.
Speaker 1: I understand that, you know, people may have differences of
Speaker 1: opinion about various things, but it's not about opinion. It's
Speaker 1: about how about what is best for self preservation and
Speaker 1: self elevation. And you can't get people to agree on
Speaker 1: that either, even with empirical evidence in front of them
Speaker 1: about what has actually worked, what was working at a
Speaker 1: certain time. They decide that other factors, aside from the
Speaker 1: ones that you note are most relevant, are more relevant.
Speaker 1: And what is that about. It's about this confirmation bias,
Speaker 1: this overconfidence in certain things. And we do have our
Speaker 1: histories to look back on and say, you know, well,
Speaker 1: during this particular time of history, these were the conditions.
Speaker 1: Therefore this was the result. But people adjust the timelines
Speaker 1: and ascribe blame in different ways. So you don't even
Speaker 1: get a universal answer there. You don't even forget about
Speaker 1: universal you don't even get a majority answer there. These
Speaker 1: things shift back and forth based on perceived collective grievances,
Speaker 1: whether they are actually relatively important or not. I may
Speaker 1: have to do my news show tomorrow because this is
Speaker 1: going a little longer than I thought, but I think
Speaker 1: it is necessary once again to continue with this. So
Speaker 1: let's continue on the Dunning Krueger effect just a bit longer.
Speaker 2: As philosopher Bertrand Russell aptly noted, the whole problem with
Speaker 2: the world is that food us and fanatics are always
Speaker 2: so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Speaker 2: This insight captures the essence of the Dunning Kruger effect.
Speaker 2: Confidence and competence are often inversely related at the extremes
Speaker 2: of the knowledge spectrum. While popular culture often portrays the
Speaker 2: Dunning Kruger effect as a simple inverse relationship between confidence
Speaker 2: and confidence, the actual relationship is more nuanced, rather than
Speaker 2: a linear relationship. Researchers have identified a characteristic curve that
Speaker 2: maps the journey from novice to expert. The journey begins
Speaker 2: at what some call Mount Stupid, the peak of confidence
Speaker 2: experienced by absolute beginners who have gained just enough knowledge
Speaker 2: to feel informed, but lack awareness of the vast terrain
Speaker 2: they haven't yet explored. As Mark Twain wisely observed, it
Speaker 2: ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
Speaker 2: That's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
Speaker 2: After this initial peak comes the Valley of despair, when
Speaker 2: continued learning reveals the true scope of the domain, causing
Speaker 2: confidence to plummet. This is the critical juncture where many
Speaker 2: give up, unable to reconcile their self image with a
Speaker 2: newly discovered reality of their limitations. Those who persevere begin
Speaker 2: the gradual climb up the slope of enlightenment.
Speaker 1: Again. Philosophy Coded is the name of the channel. I
Speaker 1: want to give credit once again, and there will be
Speaker 1: links to the videos from which these audios were derived
Speaker 1: and played, And then I'm commenting on in the show notes,
Speaker 1: along with some other relevant articles about the creation of memory,
Speaker 1: the scientific study of it, and a little bit about
Speaker 1: the Mandila effect, which again is just the foolishness that
Speaker 1: is part of this paradigm as well. My memory is certain.
Speaker 1: Therefore here we go. There used to be jippy peanut butter.
Speaker 1: There never was. I don't understand that at all. There was.
Speaker 1: And the weirdest thing when I went through a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of these Mandela effect videos also, and just to
Speaker 1: kind of do some background study before I decided to
Speaker 1: speak on this, was the fun fact that there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of people out there that swear up and
Speaker 1: down that Governor Connolly and Nellie Connolly were never in
Speaker 1: the car for the JFK assassination. It's because people removed
Speaker 1: that which was less relevant in their brains from the equation.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to talk about Governor Connolly and his wounds
Speaker 1: until you got into nuances, until you wanted to discuss
Speaker 1: the magic bullet et cetera, et cetera. So what was
Speaker 1: most important and most striking. They kept the bullet points,
Speaker 1: they kept the cliff notes, but they didn't read the
Speaker 1: full context. They didn't read the book. So oh, Nelly
Speaker 1: Connolly and Governor Connolly suddenly appeared out of an alternate dimension,
Speaker 1: which is easier for them to explain than their lack
Speaker 1: of competence in recall memory, than their lack of an
Speaker 1: ability to retain more facts than were relevant to the
Speaker 1: immediate emotional response. And therefore they swear up and down
Speaker 1: that there was nobody in the middle seats, and even
Speaker 1: say that one of the cars that's displayed at one
Speaker 1: of the uh, you know, one of the what do
Speaker 1: you call it, a duplicate cars that they display like
Speaker 1: the one at the Ford Museum, which is not the
Speaker 1: JFK car, but it's just like it, it's a you know,
Speaker 1: duplicate of it. Well, there's no middle seats there because
Speaker 1: they were jump seats. They were added. They're they're not
Speaker 1: something that's always, you know, up and ready to go.
Speaker 1: It's like saying, hey, there was no top on that car.
Speaker 1: They couldn't have a top that day. Well, that's because
Speaker 1: they don't display it with a top. It dummy. They
Speaker 1: could have had a top on it. There was a
Speaker 1: bubble top. That wouldn't have stopped things. But again, now
Speaker 1: we got to go into nuances, and it means you
Speaker 1: didn't study this thing. You know. It's like people, it's
Speaker 1: a revolutionary war seventeen seventy six, that's it. No, there's
Speaker 1: more to it. And there were allies for both sides,
Speaker 1: and there was the help from a foreign entity and
Speaker 1: da da da da da, And how did they pay
Speaker 1: for the war? Look, you can oversimplify things and by
Speaker 1: the time you pare it down enough. You know, if
Speaker 1: you peel a potato and then you continuously try and
Speaker 1: peel it down to the easiest to carry potato possible,
Speaker 1: you might end up with a French fry. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you can only get a French fry
Speaker 1: from the potato. I don't know how else to explain this.
Speaker 1: But like I said, this philosophy code of channel does
Speaker 1: a pretty good job of taking us through some of
Speaker 1: these nuances. And I like this discussion of the curve
Speaker 1: and how there is not a simple you know. And
Speaker 1: again people go, well, if it's one, it's reaction. It's
Speaker 1: you know, the reaction is as strong as the initial event. No,
Speaker 1: none of this is true. Have you ever played a
Speaker 1: game of pool? You know, you hit that cue ball
Speaker 1: really fast and hits the other ball. There is a
Speaker 1: transmission of force from one ball to the other, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't carry over equally. You know, use your head.
Speaker 1: And yes, the geometry is there, but there's more to it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's about the spin of the ball. Now,
Speaker 1: you can make a ball go around another ball as
Speaker 1: opposed to jumping over it, or you can make it
Speaker 1: jump over. It depends on the strike, the exactness of
Speaker 1: the strike, the effect caused on the initial ball before
Speaker 1: it ever strikes the other ball. Again, things nobody thinks
Speaker 1: about if they're just looking at ball, hits ball, ball
Speaker 1: goes So there you go. Anyway, enough of my commentary,
Speaker 1: a little bit more of this, and then we'll close
Speaker 1: this sucker out for the night, and I do have
Speaker 1: a news program. Maybe I'll have to add to it,
Speaker 1: but I got an extensive news program already. I might
Speaker 1: have to break it in two, you know, one all
Speaker 1: Trump news and then everything else. I don't know something
Speaker 1: like that anyways, But forget that for now. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing politics. I'm doing psychology right now and seeing if
Speaker 1: people can get the various, nuanced and layered messages that
Speaker 1: I'm placing in this particular podcast. I doubt it, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it'll be very popular, but what the
Speaker 1: hell got to give it a try, and also by request,
Speaker 1: because people support me, and when they do support me,
Speaker 1: I want to reward that with directly taking on subjects
Speaker 1: that they want taken on. So there will be a
Speaker 1: news program before we get to the Friday night call ins,
Speaker 1: and hopefully that comes off without a hitch this week.
Speaker 1: We'll see. But let's continue with this Dunning Krueger effect.
Speaker 2: Endem With dedicated practice and learning, they eventually reach the
Speaker 2: plateau of sustainability where high competence is matched with appropriately
Speaker 2: calibrated confidence.
Speaker 1: This is along the slope of enlightenment, by the way,
Speaker 1: from Mount stupidity. Then you begin to climb up to
Speaker 1: the slope of enlightenment, so anyway.
Speaker 2: What's particularly interesting is how experts often exhibit a slight
Speaker 2: under confidence relative to their actual abilities. This expert's uncertainty
Speaker 2: stems from their comprehensive understanding of the complexity and nuance
Speaker 2: within their field. They're acutely aware of the boundaries of
Speaker 2: their knowledge and the vastness of what remains unknown. As
Speaker 2: Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman once said, I think
Speaker 2: it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to
Speaker 2: have answers that might be wrong. This intellectual humility is
Speaker 2: a hallmark of true expertise, a far cry from the
Speaker 2: over confidence of novices. While most experimental evidence for the
Speaker 2: Dunning Kruger effect comes from laboratory settings and academic skills,
Speaker 2: the phenomenon extends far beyond these contexts, permeating virtually every
Speaker 2: domain of human endeavor. In professional settings, the effect manifests
Speaker 2: as the unskilled and unaware employee who consistently overrates their
Speaker 2: performance and contribution. One study found that ninety five percent
Speaker 2: of managers believed they performed in the top fifty percent
Speaker 2: of their peer group, a statistical impossibility. This inflated self
Speaker 2: assessment often leads to resistance to feedback, limited professional growth,
Speaker 2: and interpersonal conflicts. In healthcare, the effect can have life
Speaker 2: threatening consequences. Medical students with the lowest skill levels often
Speaker 2: overrate their clinical abilities, potentially leading to dangerous over confidence
Speaker 2: in clinical decision making. One study found that doctors who
Speaker 2: were most confident about their diagnoses were not more accurate
Speaker 2: than their peers, but they were less likely to consult
Speaker 2: references or seek second opinions. In politics, the effect helps
Speaker 2: explain why some of the most vociferous voices on complex
Speaker 2: policy issues often demonstrate the least nuanced understanding. Those with
Speaker 2: rudimentary knowledge of economics, climate science, or international relations may
Speaker 2: express absolute certainty in their positions, while experts in these
Speaker 2: fields typically acknowledge the limitations and uncertainties inherent in their domains.