Very often, when someone tells you that their positions derive from "reason and logic," it's a sign that they likely believe a lot of nonsense. This isn't because reason and logic have led them astray, but rather that they are in the habit of mistaking their own immediate intuitions for reasoned conclusions. There's a culture of assuming one is generally very smart, and so believing that one's first impression of a novel issue is the product of applied and careful intellect, and thus correct.

Elon Musk failing at Twitter is a good example of this. He can't grapple with complexity in fields he's ignorant of, because he has "logic and reason" on his side, and so what seems obvious to him must be true. This is also the baseline approach that defines much of what used to be called the Intellectual Dark Web, people who assumed their heterodox opinions must be true because they are masters of "logic and reason" and their heterodox opinions seem true to them.

But they are often entirely wrong, because they've stumbled into a new field they're largely ignorant of and so their first impressions have no foundation of deep knowledge on which to find stable ground. And they take their disagreement with the orthodox views not as a (defeasible) sign that they perhaps lack understanding, but instead an indicator that they have discovered a suppressed or undiscovered truth.

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@arossp see also “extralusionary intelligence”

@arossp it originated in a very particular / niche internet community, but it’s too apt not to use whenever possible

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