The Washington Post - What’s behind the confidence of the incompetent?

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains why unskilled people think they know it all and tend to be overconfident.

By Angela Fritz
January 7 at 7:00 AM

 

You may have witnessed this scene at work, while socializing with friends or over a holiday dinner with extended family: Someone who has very little knowledge in a subject claims to know a lot.
That person might even boast about being an expert.

 

This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s not a disease, syndrome or mental illness; it is present in everybody to some extent, and it’s been around as long as human cognition, though only recently has it been studied and documented in social psychology. ...

 

Put simply, incompetent people think they know more than they really do, and they tend to be more boastful about it. ...

 

Even though President Trump’s statements are rife with errors, falsehoods or inaccuracies, he expresses great confidence in his aptitude.
He says he does not read extensively because he solves problems “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had.”
He has said in interviews he doesn’t read lengthy reports because “I already know exactly what it is.”

 

He has “the best words” and cites his “high levels of intelligence” in rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change.
Decades ago, he said he could end the Cold War: “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,”
Trump told The Washington Post’s Lois Romano over dinner in 1984. “I think I know most of it anyway.”

 

“Donald Trump has been overestimating his knowledge for decades,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan.
“It’s not surprising that he would continue that pattern into the White House.”

 

Dunning-Kruger “offers an explanation for a kind of hubris,” said Steven Sloman, a cognitive psychologist at Brown University.

“The fact is, that’s Trump in a nutshell. He’s a man with zero political skill who has no idea he has zero political skill. And it’s given him extreme confidence.” ...

 

Many people “cannot wrap their minds around the rise of Trump,” Sloman said. “He’s exactly the opposite of everything we value in a politician, and he’s the exact opposite of what we thought Americans valued.” ...

 

Trump's latest tweetstorm ... the Press are "crazed lunatics" ...

EDIT

Trump keeps saying 'enemy of the people' - but the phrase has a very ugly history

"The phrase “the enemy of the people” has a long history that Trump may or may not have known about. ..."

This isn't funny anymore. He is truly insane. America needs to get rid of him now. If they don't he will bring the whole world down around their ears.

The New York Times - The Wall Is a Symbol of Donald Trump’s Neediness

Seldom has a president’s ego required so much shoring up. There’s not enough concrete in creation for that job.

 

When it comes to the border and the wall, his willful estrangement from reality is so profound that network executives and newspaper editors spent part of Tuesday in strategy sessions about how to respond to his inevitable barrage of falsehoods.

Should there be a crawl of words on the bottom of the television screen that correct him in real time?

Could fact checkers work speedily enough to post rebuttals online within minutes of his misrepresentations, before they took root?

This is where we find ourselves.

Other presidents have been untrustworthy, and others have had to be called out on it.

But not like this. This is surreal. ...

 

Rikkitic:

 

This isn't funny anymore. He is truly insane. America needs to get rid of him now. If they don't he will bring the whole world down around their ears.

 

 

 

It wont bring the world down, but my god its going from bad to worse. If he was a comedian, the crowd would have left looong ago, yet the people up there dont seem to have an issue, they cannot see how laughable and idiotic it all is. If he was a CEO the employees would all be laughing as would the management, but the employees in this analogy (US public), dont see it. the management (GOP) dont see it, or worse, they go along with it. GOP should be held to account for allowing and encouraging this farce. There must be something in the Constitution that deals with damaging the country

It will start crumbling very soon. Shutdown, trade, allies and the many so on's.

Todays (3PM NZ time) will just be the same lies and drivel of the last 18 days, I hope its live I'd like to watch it.

All the US news sites are streaming it. If you don't use geo-unblocking you might have luck with CNN.com. I use a different source but I think they live stream some things.

CNN - Facts about the border you need to know before tonight's address

 

President Trump will address the nation tonight, on the 18th day of the government shutdown.

 

During the shutdown, Trump himself and administration officials have repeatedly made calls for border security. In doing so, some officials have touted misleading statistics and unclear claims.

 

We've set the record straight on some of these. Here are the facts that you need to know before tonight's address:

 

Only 12 non-US citizens on the terror watch list were stopped at the border last year.

Vice President Mike Pence misleadingly claimed that nearly 4,000 terrorists were caught trying to enter the US last year. The truth is just 12 individuals who are not US citizens and are on the terror watch list were encountered on the southern border between October 2017 and October 2018. The vast majority tried to enter through airports.

The majority of hard narcotics the US seizes come through ports of entry.

 

The Trump administration gave a border security presentation last week. It cited a "dramatic spike in illegal drugs at the southern border" as a reason to build a physical wall. However, the majority of hard narcotics seized by Customs and Border Protection come through ports of entry either in packages, cargo or with people who attempt to enter the US legally.

 

About 800 people with gang ties were stopped at the US border.

 

The same security presentation said "6,000 gang members" were "apprehended at the southern border and removed by ICE." The way this number is presented appears to be misleading. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed or deported 5,872 gang members in fiscal year 2018, per its latest numbers. And the latest statistics for fiscal year 2018 (which do not include the month of September) show that Border Patrol apprehended 808 people affiliated with gangs at the border and across the nation. The way this category is worded could leave readers under the impression that 6,000 gang members were arrested solely at the Southwest border.

 

A lot of people crossing the border with criminal records committed nonviolent crimes.

 

The border security presentation stressed that "17,000 adults at the southern border with existing criminal records" were arrested in fiscal year 2018. This was in a section of the presentation claiming that officials are "fighting an influx of dangerous people." But it should be noted that large portions of the immigrants being arrested at the Southwest border committed nonviolent crimes, like illegal entry or re-entry and driving under the influence of alcohol.

 

While border apprehensions increased in October and November, they didn't surge in an unprecedented fashion as the administration is claiming.

 

Pence claimed Tuesday that 60,000 people were attempting to enter the county illegally. The Trump administration has also repeatedly pointed to recent figures to back up its claim that there is a border crisis. But of the 62,456 individuals who were apprehended or deemed inadmissible at the southern border in November, 10,600 presented themselves at legal US ports of entry and were ultimately deemed inadmissible, according to CBP statistics. Same goes for the 60,722 figure for October. It includes 9,771 who showed up at legal US ports of entry and were subsequently deemed inadmissible into the country.

 

It looks like it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbbOmqPdmMc

Don't forget your vomit bucket.

Rikkitic:

 

It looks like it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbbOmqPdmMc

 

Don't forget your vomit bucket.

 

 

 

I'll bring a bucket to store the truth in. Ill get a thimble and shave the top 90% off

tdgeek:

 

Rikkitic:

 

This isn't funny anymore. He is truly insane. America needs to get rid of him now. If they don't he will bring the whole world down around their ears.

 

 

 

 

It wont bring the world down, but my god its going from bad to worse. If he was a comedian, the crowd would have left looong ago, yet the people up there dont seem to have an issue, they cannot see how laughable and idiotic it all is. If he was a CEO the employees would all be laughing as would the management, but the employees in this analogy (US public), dont see it. the management (GOP) dont see it, or worse, they go along with it. GOP should be held to account for allowing and encouraging this farce. There must be something in the Constitution that deals with damaging the country

 

It will start crumbling very soon. Shutdown, trade, allies and the many so on's.

 

Todays (3PM NZ time) will just be the same lies and drivel of the last 18 days, I hope its live I'd like to watch it.

 

 

 

I was hoping the networks would put a small delay on it. Just enough time to add in a bottom scroller with fact checking of his speech on it. Either that or pop-up video style bubbles popping in to the video.

geekIT:

 

 

You gotta go back to 1945. Find Donald Trump's father, grandfather, and all other antecedents.

Nuke 'em!

Rikkitic:

 

 

 

You gotta go back to 1945. Find Donald Trump's father, grandfather, and all other antecedents.

 

Nuke 'em!

 

 

 

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.