There was an interesting article in The Washington Post recently about the Dunning-Kruger effect, which suddenly has become popular. It should not be confused with the Dummy-Knucklehead effect, which was prevalent in the late 1950s and early 1960s and manifested itself mainly among young people sniffing airplane glue so they could fly a foot or two higher than their model airplanes. The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon where totally incompetent people have total confidence in their competence. Sounds like a Catch-22 to me.
Can anybody out there think of why this has become popular? Anybody name someone still in the limelight who exhibits this on a daily basis? Sure. I knew you could. None other than the self-proclaimed genius and Savior of All Mankind, Donald J. Trump, who stated that he doesn’t read because he solves problems “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I have.” Or he doesn’t read lengthy reports because “I already know exactly what it is.” Back in 1984, he told The Washington Post that it would take him about an hour-and-a half to learn enough to end the Cold War because “I think I know most of it anyway.” In 1999, Dunning and Kruger put data to what Socrates and other philosophers have known for centuries: “The only true wisdom is that you know nothing.” So what it boils down to is that incompetent people think they know more than they actually do. Steven Sloman, a cognitive psychologist at Brown University says about Trump, “He’s a man with zero political skill who has no idea he has zero political skill. And it’s given him extreme confidence.” (See the above reference to Catch-22).
Dunning and Kruger set up tests on many different subjects, such as grammar, logical reasoning and humor, and had individuals take them (the tests, that is). Afterwards, they asked each of the test-takers how they thought they did. No matter what the subject was, the people who did the worst thought they were the best performers, believed they knew what they were talking about, and believed they knew as much as the experts (which is why I’m an internationally-recognized, highly- paid know-it-all humor columnist). Further testing showed this effect remains constant whether the tests covered math skills, wine-tasting, chess, medical knowledge among surgeons (Scary! Somebody out there slicing you up in the operating room had to be last in their class, but thinks he or she is the best), and firearm safety among hunters.
This D-K effect somewhat reminds me of The Peter Principle, which back in the late 1960s, stated that a person gets promoted up to his or her level of incompetence. It can happen in the work-force, military, and more. A person is doing a good job at something, say in the work-place for example, so receives a promotion. The person does a good job in the new position and is promoted again, and again, until he or she reaches a position where the work is past the skill limits, or knowledge. The person is lodged in that spot, and either screw everything up and gets fired or stays there forever. Or, if the position is high up the corporate ladder, the person screws things up until retirement. If they person stayed in the previous spot doing a good job, everything would’ve run smoothly.
Then the Dilbert Principle comes along and runs counter to the Peter Principle. The D-P states that rather than competent people getting promoted to a level where they’re incompetent, people who are already incompetent are promoted to move them up and out of the system to keep it from getting screwed up. To me, it looks as if the result in both principles is the same: Everyone in a higher position of competence is incompetent (dare I make reference to Catch-22 again?).
• On to something more urgent: Putin’s War on the Ukraine. There are people out there who naively think that if the Ukraine had made a deal with Putin not to join NATO, he would have let them be. How dumb is that? Putin wanted the Ukraine back and would have invaded it no matter what he promised or what the deal was. How these people can be so gullible to believe anything Vladdy boy says is beyond me. Not surprisingly, they’re the same people who believe Trump.
I’ve been exchanging E-mail with employees at a Ukrainian software company who intend to keep their business operational as long as possible. They sent me links to four websites they recommend for anyone who wants to help the Ukrainians in their battle to remain free. Here are the links:
savelife.in.ua/en/donate
novaukraine.org
www.ukrainenow.org/i-can-host
www.change.org/p/no-fly-zone-for-ukraine-now
I checked the sites and each offers a different way to help, only the first concerning cash donations. If you feel like doing something, these suggested sites come right from the Ukrainian people in the middle of the fight.
If you’re still in a contributing mindset and want to help avert a major humanitarian crisis here in the U.S., poor Trump is begging for donations to buy himself a new plane. I would personally buy him a Sopwith Camel and launch him west over the Pacific. That’s just my humanity manifesting itself.