Has anyone read Pino Aprile's book "In Praise of the Imbecile: The Intelligent Made the World, the Stupid Live in It" (Elogio dell'imbecille: Gli intelligenti hanno fatto il mondo, gli stupidi ci vivono alla grande)? I couldn't find an English translation, but from what I've read, it seems the author is trying to argue that imbecility is an evolutionary advantage and make sense of that thesis, which makes me think the author himself may be imbecile
Discussion
No but I read In Praise of Folly which that one must have been thematically inspired by. It was a little stale in some parts by modern standards but by the end I judged it quite good.
Im enjoying this one too, it's helping me build a critique around that thesis of the imbecility being the natural and advantageous state of humanity
If something was giving evolutionary advantage then it survived. As a rule of thumb
Yes, his thesis is around how intelligence was an advantage at some point in our evolution, but now we have hypertrophied it, and imbecility is becoming an advantage... It's quite a flawed thesis
We work better as a group and perhaps imbeciles were easier to control and go on as the group so they survived. It would suggest we need sheeple to continue our existence. You cannot build anything with contrarians only
Hmm, I'm not sure so whats the ratio of intelligence to imbecility? something like 1 intelligent per 9 imbecile ones seems rather arbitrary. The author makes an interesting argument that imbeciles take advantage of the intelligence of others, and therefore intelligence actually makes everyone dumber. However, I find this theory to be flawed. In my view, when intelligence achieves something new, it simply leads to more questions and new challenges, the process never ends.
The author does make some valid points, about how evolution prefers imbeciles, such as how imbeciles tend to have higher reproductive rates, and how the Neanderthals, who were the "most intelligent" hominids due to their larger cerebral volume, ultimately went extinct because their bigger heads made childbirth riskier for females, while other hominids with smaller heads had more successful reproduction.
But as I read this, I can't help but feel the author is trying too hard to make the data fit his overall theory.