Dunning, Kruger And Trump

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias of illusory superiority, a condition wherein a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities, caused by the inability to recognize a lack of ability. In other words, people with this cognitive bias lack the skills needed to recognize their lack of skills...

The psychological phenomenon of illusory superiority was identified as a form of cognitive bias in Kruger and Dunning's 1999 study, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". The identification derived from the cognitive bias evident in the criminal case of McArthur Wheeler, who, on April 19, 1995, robbed two banks while his face was covered with lemon juice, which he believed would make it invisible to the surveillance cameras. This belief was based on his misunderstanding of the chemical properties of lemon juice as an invisible ink.
_{source: Wikipedia}

I see this effect in action every day, and I do believe we're all suffering from this and other cognitive biases in varying degrees. But certain people are so confident in their mistaken belief that they're knowledgeable or skilled in one field or another, that they're annoying to say the least. I often get this feeling when libertarians or anarcho-capitalists react to my posts or are otherwise trying to convince me of the validity of their ideological convictions. Immediately I get struck with the thought: "oh my God, another simpleton who heard the term 'free market' and truly beliefs that goes hand in hand with free individuals, a free society and a free democracy...", much like McArthur Wheeler thought people couldn't see his face when he covered it with 'invisible ink', or the right wing grifters who identify Nazis as socialists just because the word 'socialist' is part of their political party's title. And it really is the extreme confidence with which they spout their nonsense that makes them at times unbearable to listen to or interact with.

In my humble opinion Donald Trump is a school-book example of an individual who suffers greatly from the Dunning-Kruger effect, which only adds to his already arrogant and narcissistic demeanor. Politicians lie in our faces for a living, of course, but the problem with Trump is that I don't believe he's lying but that he's just stupid enough to really believe his own nonsense; it's not an act with this bozo. This is bad enough when it just concerns someone you know, but we're talking about the president of America here, the world’s most dominant economic and military power. It's really frightening how this man reduces complicated problems to elementary school levels, and attacks them with the simplest solution possible. Protests? Send in the army. Immigrants? Build a wall. Economy? Cut taxes (for the rich). Climate change? Chinese hoax. Deadly virus? It'll go away eventually. Terrorists? Bomb them, and their families and innocent bystanders too. America has been down on the ranks of the world's educational systems for decades now, and the fact that this clown (no offense to real clowns intended) has won the elections and still has a large enthusiastic follower-base must be in part a consequence of that. And the same can be said about Boris Johnson in England, another far right simpleton in power. The UK and the US rank number 21 and 26 respectively on the world-ranking of 'reading score', 'math score' and 'science score' respectively, far below countries like China, Hong Kong, Finland, who comp[rise the top-three, and most western European countries.

These far right demagogues are dangerous, because far right demagoguery is the stuff from which fascism is born. Anyhow, I've said enough about that lately, so I'll just invite you to watch the below linked cartoon on the Dunning-Kruger effect, narrated by Stephen Fry. And when you watch the first short video-clip, just replace in your mind Billy Madison with Donald Trump... While voices are rising to force "Big Tech" to combat the spread of misinformation and "fake news" on their online platforms, the POTUS remains unpunished for his stupidity when he has the largest platform and audience imaginable.

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