Comment on What's the difference between ignorance and stupidity?

• AskewLord@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  inability to learn is a choice.

  they do not want to make the effort.

  whether or not that effort is worthwhile, however, is the question.

  I am learning Russian. lots of people I met recently, love to tell me how stupid it is because it’s not a ‘useful’ thing to learn.

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  • Deconceptualist@leminal.space ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    inability to learn is a choice.

    Not always. Someone close to me has issues with executive dysfunction and short term memory as a result of brain trauma. She really struggles with algebra and she’ll almost certainly never learn calculus even if she wanted to.

    lots of people I met recently, love to tell me how stupid it is because it’s not a ‘useful’ thing to learn.

    That’s a different issue entirely. If they think they’re experts at judging what’s useful, that may be the Dunning-Kruger effect.

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    • jmp242@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I think we overuse dunning kruger. “useful” is very contextual. I would agree that for many people it would take some specific and dare I say unusual circumstances where learning another language is particularly useful to them. There’s some use in that you get a bit of a puzzle to overcome, you can potentially eventually get good enough to consume content in this other language (though one thing LLMs are pretty good at is translation), maybe you get a more direct exposure to Dovstoyestky (sp?). Cool and all, but probably not going to get them a better job or help them with most life tasks.

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  • Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Cognitive impairments and differing cognitive ability are very much real things 😅 people can have an inability to learn, and/or an unwillingness to learn, but there very much are people who have the former and not the latter

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    • AskewLord@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      those people can learn plenty well.

      it just takes more time and effort.

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      • Deconceptualist@leminal.space ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        You’re dismissing entire categories of cognitive impairment. Not just the varieties of dementia, but also learning disabilities like dyslexia (reading), dysgraphia (writing), and dyscalculia (math) that can affect otherwise smart and capable people. These are measurable impairments, not just a difficulty that can be overcome with effort.

        neurolaunch.com/cognitive-disorders-list/

        It would be wise to be more careful with your sweeping statements.

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