Am I Being Stupid — The Checklist

(As you are reading, you probably don’t need it as much as I do)

Being around humans I’ve noticed that being stupid is easy. It so easy that not only can those people around me do, even I can do it to.

I have this problem.

I can’t tell that I’m being stupid.

At least not at the time. I can often tell that I had been stupid and that probably covers at least some small fraction of the times that it happened.

It’s sort like the TED talk where Kathryn Schulz says that being wrong feels just like being right …

… until you realize that you were wrong.

So how about if we make a self assessment, “Am I Being Stupid Checklist” that I can use in real time to notice that I’m being stupid.

• Is what am I asserting only backed up by emotion and not by data?
• Am I unable to paraphrase the argumentation being used against my position?
• Do I already have an excuse as to why Google wouldn’t back me up on this?
• Has my voice gotten louder and shriller with no apparent reason and without I having noticed it before it was pointed out?
• Am I relying on “most people believe this” as if truth were a voting matter?
• Are the people I arrived with looking increasingly uncomfortable?
• Am I feeling the urge to insult those who disagree with me along with their entire lineage?
• Am I repeating the same points over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over in way that way that would bother the department of redundancy department and also bug them and perhaps even annoy them because they would not like it or enjoy it or like it or enjoy it but rather find it annoying and maybe even verbose and annoying and maybe be annoyed.
• Are the people who agree with me politicians and media personalities, whereas the people who disagree with me are scientists, engineers, historians and Nobel prize winners?
• If I were betting actual money on the ultimate answer, would I be better on the other side?
• Am I relying on the consequence of this belief being pleasing to me as the primary reason to be believe it? (EG: I would hate to live in a world where the planet Rupert were uninhabited or worse yet wasn’t in our solar system. No, do not even think of suggesting it isn’t real.)

What else should be on my list? I’m looking for help with this.

Maybe my 2019 New Years Resolution will be to be less stupid. I’m not ready for something quite that challenging this year. But if you do talk to me about this post, I will hope to count that conversation toward my 2018 New Years Resolution.