I think over the years I’ve realized that assuming people you don’t understand are stupid by default is just like a mental shortcut to avoid having to think about why people act the way that they do.
I’ve kind of gotten tired of people doing that I guess. I used to do it, so I get it, but I’ve also figured out that you can learn a lot if you don’t assume by default that people are stupid. Almost everyone is fairly intelligent in some form or another, actually.
My family is full of mostly nice and empathetic people and they raised me to be kind and even they I think kind of raised me with the idea that we’re the smart ones and some people are just stupid
But over the years I’ve slowly decided to try to understand people better instead just assuming that they’re stupid.
And some people are idiots. But they’re rarely stupid.
It takes work though to think like this. Like I said, I understand the impulse to just assume that people are stupid. It’s easy. It involves a lot less research and connecting the dots and listening to people who annoy you or even people who actively dislike you.
It’s possible I have too much of an open mind sometimes but idk maybe broadening your understanding of the world and having a bit of compassion for people that you dislike is also very worth it.
A friend of mine basically lives under a rock and just learned about the existence of AI girlfriends and his first instinct was to assume that people who use these services are just stupid.
But it’s like. No I don’t think that they are. I think that they’re lonely and most of them are fully self aware about what they’re doing. And even if they’re not, the bad guys here are the companies profiting off of their loneliness and stealing their data. Not someone that’s so starved for human connection that they become attached to a chatbot.
And maybe pointing that out makes me a stick in the mud but I feel like I’d rather be a stick in the mud than just dismiss other peoples perspectives immediately.
