Waning Optimism

I am by nature something of a pessimist, or at least a negative person. It has only been through the long term accretion of information and evidence that I have become optimistic about the future. It is simply by the vast amount of overwhelming evidence; from life expectancy, to decreased violence rates, expanding rights, increased democracy, improved knowledge, improved health, greater understanding etc., that I have come to the position that things are the best they have ever been and they are getting better. The alternative is to have a faith-based position, essentially a religious position, that things are bad and getting worse. I can't think of a more stupid position to have than that one.

However, I am coming to the realization that this improvement is essentially the work of my tribe in the face of constant and vast opposition. There is essentially an almost invisible group of intellectuals, academics, bureaucrats, scientists and artists who are working very hard to make the world a better place for people in the face of consistent opposition from the very people they are trying to help.

The great evil that is being faced are not the really stupid people. They are just really stupid and essentially have no voice. At worst some of them can be convinced to vote for something stupid every few years. Most of them do little harm, and their worst crime is that often they need to be taken care of when their stupidity might do them harm.

The great evil are the people with middling intelligence and knowledge, enough to know where the Middle East is and to name the Koran, but not enough to have been there or read it. The people who know that there is a central bank, and what an interest rate is, but who have never taken a college level economics class. The people who know that there is DNA, and it has something to do with genetics, but couldn't explain how evolution works in the simplest manner.

These people are the great evil because they know enough to have opinions on things about which they are not qualified to have an opinion. There is no way that the average American should think that they know enough about global politics to think they know how to deal with China, or Libya. There is no way that the average person should think they are qualified to have an opinion on a government budget. I certainly don't think I am qualified to have an opinion on these matters.

There are vasts areas of knowledge in which the sophistication of humanity's achievements and activities is only apparent to a relatively small portion of experts. These are intelligent people who have studied at great length to reach their level of expertise. Unfortunately, the average person on the street feels quite comfortable in dismissing all this intelligence and expertise because they think they know better. The truth is, they don't.

Incompetent people are incompetent to a large extent because they don't know they are incompetent. Incompetent people hugely over-rate their own abilities. Conversely experts tend to under-rate their knowledge and abilities (perhaps this is how their knowledge becomes so expert, because they check the answers). There is no person quite so completely cautious about the limits of their knowledge than a scientist talking about a subject that borders their own area of expertise.

I have been in the mire of the middling intellect, surrounded by idiots certain in their wisdom for too long. The dross of this idiocy is clogging up my mental works and killing my optimism. Oh how I wish to be able to have a conversation in which at some point I am treated to something new and useful, something kind and good, but most of all something based in real knowledge and expressed with a love of learning rather than a love of one's own self importance.