You are stupid, too, so leave me alone

December 24, 2007

Freedom is the most logical way to minimize stupidity.

You are stupid if you make stupid decisions. A stupid decision is one which is not in your best interest. Your best interest is your vision of a perfect life. Different people have different perceptions of what a perfect life looks like; you may desire a lifestyle that I consider against your best interest. So a decision that may be stupid for me may not necessarily be stupid for you. A stupid decision is one that makes it more difficult for any person to make their unique vision of a perfect life their reality, whatever it is.

Everybody does stupid things. Some people may achieve their goals, but there will always be stumbles along the way. Maybe you will benefit from some stumbles, maybe you won’t. But in the end, nobody dies with a perfect score. In that sense, stupidity is as sure to life as death and taxes.

If all people are stupid, then it’s unreasonable to expect anything more from groups of people. Corporations will make mistakes, charities will make mistakes, the Federal Reserve will make mistakes, governments in general will make mistakes, and so on. The only thing we can hope for is that the people who make up those organizations will learn something from those mistakes and do better next time.

In order for us as a people to ensure that happens, we must have accountability. If a decision that you perceive to be a mistake ends up making some director filthy rich, from his perspective, everything went according to plan. Without accountability, it is in the interests of those in power to abuse that power.

The only way to ensure maximum accountability is for us as individuals keep as much control over as many decisions as possible. I will make mistakes, but at least I know that it will always be in my best interest to hold myself accountable for my stupid decisions. It’s also much easier to hold myself accountable than it is to hold someone else accountable, especially if that someone else is an abstract institution for which I don’t even know the people responsible. Furthermore, we should outsource as little of our vision creation as possible simply because each individual is unique. Nobody knows how best to achieve my vision of a perfect life better than me.

All of us as individuals will make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s in our best interest for groups of other stupid people to interfere with our learning process and the universe’s attempt to hold us accountable, even if we’re too stupid to know it, even if we feel really bad. The best thing we can do to help stupid people is to give them advice if they are receptive, then leave them alone.

Governments are the worst form of interference. Maximum freedom to make our own way in the world is the most logical way to minimize stupidity. So leave me alone.