How Not to Be Stupid - Farnam Street - Deepstash
Hiring the Best in Class

Learn more about problemsolving with this collection

Conducting effective interviews

Identifying the right candidates for the job

Creating a positive candidate experience

Hiring the Best in Class

Discover 47 similar ideas in

It takes just

7 mins to read

Defining Stupidity

People think stupidity is the opposite of intelligence. In fact, stupidity is the cost of intelligence operating in a complex environment.

Stupidity can be defined as overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information.

It’s crucial information: You better pay attention to it. It’s conspicuous: It’s right in front of your nose and yet you either overlook it or you dismiss it.

33

332 reads

Seven Factors that Lead to Stupidity

Seven Factors that Lead to Stupidity

  • Being outside your normal environment or changing your routines.
  • Being in the presence of a group(social pressure).
  • Being in the presence of an expert or if you, yourself, are an expert.
  • Doing any task that requires intense focus, or fixating on a particular outcome.
  • Information overload.
  • Physical or emotional stress, fatigue. 
  • Rushing or urgency.

The probability of missing key information (stupidity) increases the more the above factors are present.

29

321 reads

Modern Life And Stupidity

Most of the factors are ubiquitous in modern-day life such as stress, rushing, and information overload. Therefore, our modern life is already susceptible to missing key information and making stupid mistakes.

All factors are present in US hospitals. Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.

29

277 reads

The Solution

The Solution

  • Recognize and know that you are in ”the stupid zone”
  • Pause. Just sit. Stop, before leaving your environment. If you can’t sit still for a minute, you don’t have the time not to!
  • Have a buddy whose job is to watch us. That is their only task, and can’t have the same responsibility as us. Have your own “pit crew”.
  • Don’t make decisions or do anything when in the stupid zone. For example, don’t sign a contract or drive.

31

266 reads

IDEAS CURATED BY

caleb_e

Never stop learning. Never stop educating yourself. When you stop learning, you stop growing & maturing!

CURATOR'S NOTE

Stupidity is not the opposite of intelligence.

Other curated ideas on this topic:

How Not to Be Stupid

4 ideas

Other People’s Mistakes

4 ideas

Other People’s Mistakes

collaborativefund.com

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Personalized microlearning

100+ Learning Journeys

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates