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this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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Technology
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Can someone please paraphrase the following which I didn't understand?
Somebody raised to believe they have high IQ is more likely to fall for this than somebody raised to think less of their own intellectual capabilities. Subjective validation is a quirk of the human mind. We all fall for it.
But if you think you’re unlikely to be fooled, you will be tempted instead to apply your intelligence to “figure out” how it happened. This means you can end up using considerable creativity and intelligence to help the psychic fool you by coming up with rationalisations for their “ability”.
And because you think you can’t be fooled, you also bring your intelligence to bear to defend the psychic’s claim of their powers. Smart people (or, those who think of themselves as smart) can become the biggest, most lucrative marks.
The author's suggesting that smart people are more likely to fall for cons that they try to dissect but can't find the specific method being used, supposedly because they consider themselves to be infallible.
I disagree with this take. I don't see how that thought process is exclusive to people who are or consider themselves to be smart. I think the author is tying himself into a knot to state that smart people are actually the dumb ones, likely in preparation to drop an opinion that most experts in the field will disagree with.
They aren't saying that this is exclusive to people who consider themselves smart. They're saying that they're more likely to fall for the trap by engaging with the assumption of not being susceptible to being tricked. Although I think the author does conflate smart people with people who think of themselves as smart inappropriately.