Why Intelligent People Become Stupid? Bonhoeffer's Theory

[DonCoquixote]

If you ever wonder why people who were smart enough to gain some achievement, yet are stupid, this will explain it. Yes, this fellow is the one that warn about how no one spoke for him after he abandoned hiss friends that were against the Nazis

[NewHendoLib]

1. Cult

[highplainsdem]

18. This video is AI slop. See reply 15.

[ananda]

2. Too many of our best bridge players are GOP.

And it takes serious intelligence to play good bridge,
believe me.

[Conjuay]

3. shouldn't that read, To play Bridge WELL?

I think your point is lost.

[ananda]

14. Lost how exactly?

I do know what I'm talking about here.

[erronis]

6. A good bridge player is also ruthless and cunning. Looking for weaknesses

and going for the kill.

There is no empathy in duplicate bridge.

[ananda]

13. In fact, that's a requirement of the game.

It's against the rules to help the opponent.

[valleyrogue]

8. Bridge has all but died out in this country, so it is kind of a pointless statement to make.

Playing a card game means nothing.

Being a selfish, greedy, bigoted asshole is basically what it means to be a "conservative" (overused by millennials and Gen Z types too young to know what it really means) or a supporter of the regime.

Trump is exactly like they are, as are 99 percent of the billionaire class.

Selfish, greedy, bigoted assholes. Trump has made being a selfish, greedy, bigoted asshole a virtue.

THAT is what people of the political right, including the "libertarians," actually ARE.

[ananda]

12. And you know this how?

In the last world championship,
several of our Austin members
got first place.

I know for a fact that bridge is
flourishing in the USA.

[SWBTATTReg]

27. And this stat you're quoting is from ... where? Just curious...

Playing a card game you infer this or have grabbed it from somewhere?

[JHB]

4. Everyone is stupid sometimes. And just about everyone can be stupid about certain things.

Con men play on that. They'll identify the things that evoke a visceral reaction and switch off your rationality -- anger, fear, greed, urgency, desperate want, etc. -- and work them to manipulate you.

From street-huckster shell games to internet scams, from salesmen and their "a limited time offer"s to people saying they can help you talk to your dead relatives, they all use these tricks to get you to hand over your bucks.

Anger and fear, especially shaped into the form of righteous outrage, is addictive. The Right knows this. It's their business model, and they've been working the country over for half a century.

[Tree Lady]

5. I think part of it is group think

Surrounded by others with a set opinion they start to form that opinion.

[Sweet Rosie Red]

7. Grammar Nazis

Kill Discussion

[highplainsdem]

17. Of that video? It's AI slop from a channel of only AI slop. See reply 15.

[usonian]

19. How TF can anyone know it's slop until either watching it or getting a transcript.

I'm getting blisters getting transcripts from blind video links.

If you REALLY want to help, and save me all these blisters, BAN F***ING blind video links.

Gimme a break. By looking at the transcript I mangled, people can decide WITHOUT CLICKING THE MONEY LINK on YT.

No good goes unpunished these days, it seems.

I'll go back to Hacker News the rest of the day (between useful items done)

I didn't see you rec' the urgent Indivisible request to call and email senators to stop the DHS funding bill.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220968975

Nobody gets to gripe about AI IN CONCENTRATION CAMP.

Ciao!

[BluesRunTheGame]

20. It took me about 15 seconds to determine it was slop.

5 seconds of the op video- click through to the channel- click on videos- choose any random video. Obvious slop.

[highplainsdem]

22. They are pretty obvious, but I like to check out the channel a bit more to show more reasons it's obviously

AI. And that channel is even misogynistic, as I pointed out in reply 15.

[BluesRunTheGame]

23. I've recently stumbled onto to content where it isn't immediately obvious.

The other day I was 3 minutes into a video before it started feeling “off”. The narrator looked and sounded pretty natural. This stuff is getting scary.

[highplainsdem]

26. That's why I check for credentials (with AI there won't be any or they won't be real) and how recent the

videos are, and how frequent. These channels often poach ideas from other slop channels, too, in which case topics will look familiar. AI art is usually a giveaway, especially with constantly changing styles of art. Sometimes they'll use an assortment of AI voices. And the really sloppy ones will have plenty of misspellings, and AI glitches in the slop artwork.

[usonian]

25. I didn't even look at the video. Copied the link and got the transcript in order to skim.

Looks like I transcribed my last video for DU.

And I'll delete the GD thing.

Nice action we're all taking today.

Meet you in the concentration camp.

[usonian]

24. I didn't even look at the video. Copied the link and got the transcript in order to skim.

[highplainsdem]

21. You can tell it's slop looking at the channel. AI art, often in different styles. Recently created channel

with lots of videos. Lots of different and often.weird topics. No credentials for any expertise in the subjects.

A transcript won't show if it's AI.

I wish AI videos could be banned here, but it isn't my board, and there's no automated system to block AI videos before they're posted.

All I can do is check out what looks like AI slop when I see it here.

I didn't see you rec' the urgent Indivisible request to call and email senators to stop the DHS funding bill.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220968975

I have now - gave it the 5th rec it needed to reach the Greatest page. Hadn't seen it earlier. This isn't the only place I post, and I can't spot every thread posted here.

Especially today, when I spent a long, long time reading every word of a paper on technofascism, before posting it here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220969186

[BluesRunTheGame]

10. AI slop from an AI slop channel.

[highplainsdem]

16. Yes. See reply 15.

[meadowlander]

11. I do think in some cases that neurodiversity can be a double-edged sword.

I'll qualify this massively by saying obviously not every stupid person you meet is neurodiverse and not every neurodiverse person is stupid.

But if you're looking at the specific question of how someone who is very accomplished and bright in one field can hold views that are almost mind-meltingly stupid in another, this is a not uncommon autistic trait. It's like your brain invests all of its energy in one field and doesn't bother with others - like Sherlock Holmes being able to identify every kind of mud in London but not knowing or caring that the earth rotates around the sun.

This seems to me to be one of Elon Musk's issues and maybe Ben Carson as well.

The other potential explanation is that autistic peoples' brains are wired and hypercharged to find connections. This might serve them well in certain types of careers but then they can't turn that off when they go home at night and start deep diving into conspiracy theories on the internet. They tend to be more socially isolated as well and to lack access to feedback from friends and family when they start falling down a rabbit hole.

Other characteristics of this style of thinking besides hyperfocus include black and white thinking, focus on details while struggling to see the big picture, and a tendency to ruminate on repetitive thoughts without being able to break out of them. We're seeing more and more of this in the wider culture as we all adapt to new technologies being largely developed by autistic people.

And being so accomplished in one area feeds your ego and makes you overconfident and prone to assume that your genius will extend to every field and not just the one you've been hyperfocused on for years.

So it makes sense to me how autistic people or people with an autistic thinking and/or relational style can fit this pattern.

[highplainsdem]

15. Please don't post AI slop, which is what that channel is. It appears to be entirely generated by AI, and

could be from a foreign content farm, or from a cynical individual trying to monetize their use of unethical, illegally-trained AI tools. They're even peddling merch on Amazon.

Everything on that channel is just AI clickbait, from "If You Hate Being Wrong, You Probably Have These 7 Traits" to "This Video Only Appears When You Are Ready To Wake Up" to "The Truth Behind the Man Women Desire — But Can Never Confess."

Pure slop. Please delete it. It's unlikely whoever has that channel has any expertise. If they did, they wouldn't be setting up AI slop channels.

Whoever has it is also a.misogynist, or hoping to appeal to misogynists with titles like these:
The Brutal Truth About Female Nature That Men Ignore
Why Your Mother Is the Root of Your Weakness
The Dark Art of Controlling Her Mind
She Programmed Your Mind Before You Ever Had a Choice

[FullySupportDems]

28. Smart people can believe stupid things, frequently for emotional reasons

Last edited Sun Jan 25, 2026, 10:30 PM - Edit history (1)

That's how I see it, when brilliant people are bigots, as an example. Smart people can convince themselves of stupid things. And calling them stupid has no effect, because they know they aren't stupid, with degrees and test scores to prove it, so it bounces off them.

Also, a smart person is not necessarily a good person. Or honest.

Adding later:
Of course now reading that was AI imagination, I feel stupid. It feels like that's full circle.