Reflections on Society: Dunning Kruger Effect
Something that has been on my mind for the past, like year and a half is the Dunning-Kruger effect. Here's a little Ted video explaining it:
Now for my humorous take on it. Basically what you experience with this is the less competent someone is at something & the less they know about said subject, the more confident they are. They are also less likely to realize that they are bad at the said subject. In simplest terms, the Dunning-Kruger effect is dumb people thinking smart & they don't realize that they are complete idiots. It's also where the least informed person, goes off on a huge rant, on a subject they know nothing about and is completely out of left field as far as accuracy goes.
People suffering from this vastly over-estimate their confidence I'd like to know that this is much different than someone being stupid. As I said earlier, this is when a stupid person thinks they are smart and doesn't relize that they are dumb as a box of rocks. A lot of people think that because they are good at one thing, that they are good at everything. Especially when it comes to giving bad advice. These people also lack what is called Meta-cogitation. The ability to step back and evaulate what you do. Basically a form of social awareness, or seeing how your actions impact others.
Everyone is quick to point the finger to Donald Trump on this subject. But that's too easy of a target. This has been going on for years with Hollywood celebrities. Also bad drivers, thinking they are amazing drivers. Who also somehow know all the "tricks" of the road. Speaking of bad drivers, Happy Valley... Yep, I'm here to ride that hobby horse once again! I encountered the Dunning-Kruger effect in Happy Valley so much. I encountered it at where I went to school, church, and work. Here's some wonderful examples:
The teachers at where I went to school would constantly throw out half facts acting like they understood everything. Especially in the film department. I had a teacher that would constantly ramble on about the Hollywood film industry that he never worked in. His lack of being able to recite where he learned his information was super hilarious to me. His favorite thing to say in class was how it takes 10,000 hours to become a master of something. He would say it like this "They did a study and found out that it takes 10,000 hours of practice if you want to play at carnigege hall."
This was supposed to be some bullshit motivational "fact" to have all his students wanted to work our asses off with film crap, so we could be the next Spielberg. However, I wasn't buying it. I wanted to know who "they" were that did this study. One day I asked, and after many ums and uhs I got my answer... "The New York times." Spoiler alert, it wasn't the New York Times. It is from the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Also, it wasn't really a study, but an observation of commonalities between successful groups of people.
While working as an apartment manager I was constantly battling idiot tenants in regard to what was in their lease & what was legal. It seems every renter in Happy Valley has a lawyer to fight their late fees, but yet doesn't have enough money to buy a house and not rent. At least three times a week I had to explain something about housing to someone. Of course, I was challenged. Wither it was dumb college kids, dumb college kids' dumb parents, or just dumb people of happy valley a challenge never shirk at the change to show their "knowledge". I had people attempt to quote me a lease they've never read, recite laws that don't exist, and most importantly pretend they knew what they were talking about.
Like most poorly based arguments, I fired back questions to their poorly constructed statements. Questions like "What the fuck are you talking about?" & "Are you an idiot?" Actually I never asked those questions, although I should have. What I did ask was where they heard that information Of which, no source (or a vague one was sited). I would then show them on their lease where they were wrong. Being the assholes that they are, they would still argue and try to bullshit to make their earlier statements sound valid. But it's pretty hard to argue with a legal document that they had signed. Eventually they would admit defeat and go about their daily duties of being a full time asshole.
Every-time I would start a new job I would receive job training. Happy Valley apparently doesn't believe in "formal training" and float around the phrase "trial by fire". It was basically you are thrown into a job, told to do a few things, then receive training as time goes on. Over the years I've gotten good at receiving job training this way, but overall it is a terrible way to train people.
During the first view days I'd come to something that I needed training on. I would have to consult my boss, who was usually the owner of the company. They would talk about how easy the task was that needed to be done, but would have no idea how to do it. When asked for specific instructions or to have them walk me through the task they would try to BS their way out of it, telling me that I would figure it out, or they would try to get someone else to train me (who also didn't know said task). Eventually I would get my boss to train me on said task. After watching them fail, I quickly realized that they knew as little (or less) than I did about the job I was hired for. Dunning-Kruger in full effect for clueless company owners. I'd like to note, that this happened at several companies I worked for while in Utah. - MCS1
