Do Not Glorify Stupidity

[truthspeaker]

I disapprove of the following

Comments

[marphod]

...

At best, the author is conflating egoism and poor communication skills with intelligence. Which has some level of correlation, but that isn't causation.

Wow.

Stupidity is useful in management? Well, I never! (loses monocle)

[topologist]

I haven't read the book (and certainly don't want to glorify stupidity either), but there is valid point to be made that intelligence past a certain point is not conducive to success. If you're extremely smart, you can effectively price yourself out of the market and make it difficult to find (and, since you'll get bored, keep) a job. When I was first applying for jobs, for example, I was told by quite a few companies that they don't like to hire people with PhDs (and at the corresponding premium) because they'll get bored and wander off. Now, obviously education != intelligence, but the analogous situation still holds. After a certain point, career success depends on networking and luck rather than any sort of ability or skill.

All of that is a bug, though, not a feature. Don't encourage stupidity.

Re: Stupidity is useful in management? Well, I never! (loses monocle)

[happyfunpaul]

Mostly agreed. At first I thought the blurb was going to into the better-known argument "there are different types of intelligence* besides stereotypical 'smarts', and some of them are (more) important predictors of success." But then the blurb took an illegal left turn into the Stupid Zone.

* for example, Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence", Robert Sternberg's "Practical Intelligence" and "Creative Intelligence", and Howard Gardner's seven types of intelligence, especially "interpersonal".

[cos]

That blurb seems written to be deliberately contrarian to get attention, but is very very vague about the actual reasoning and advice in the book. IMO, the smart position on this book given only this blurb is to withhold judgement.

[dougo]

It sounds like satire (especially the "#1 expert in the world on stupidity") but I'm too lazy to investigate.