Shane Castle asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

I remember you having Miles say of Cordelia that she has conquered the will to be stupid (a paraphrase as I am too lazy to find it right now). I came across a rather shallow article discussing one aspect of stupidity: https://psyche.co/ideas/why-some-of-the-smartest-people-can-be-so-very-stupid Have you encountered any similar articles?

Lois McMaster Bujold
Some, in WWI analyses and the like historical examinations. Stuff on the Dunning-Kruger effect (smart people underestimating themselves, non-smart people overestimating) has been kicking around for a while, but that's rather different.

I understand the use of repurposing of standard English words into specific other meanings for the purpose of precise argument, which he does here, but it irritates me, as it seems more likely to lead to misunderstanding than the intended reverse. Otherwise, yes, I get what he's trying to say and somewhat agree.

My own related observation, which does dovetail with the article, is that stupid (in the original meaning) people fool themselves in stupid ways, and smart people fool themselves in smart ways. Examples of the latter may be found in dead-end scientific theories -- all those complex calculations for epicycles of planetary motion were not done by stupid people -- and high-end theology -- Scholasticism makes an interesting study of enormous amounts of brainpower wasted on systematic rubbish. The biggest problem with the latter category is how hard it is for anyone else to combat, since it will certainly look convincing.

Ta, L.

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