Why so many politicians are so stupid

I learned a new term today.  It feels so great to put a name to what we see going on around us. We don’t hav to wonder how the sun rises each day now that we know about astronomy.  To those who have never heard of it before, I introduce you to The Dunning-Kroger Effect.  It’s the perfect diagnosis for the disease of political wokeness and other forms of stupidity and willful blindness. .  

Example:

“Oh no!  Kate Brown is suffering from Dunning-Kruger! She needs to get help for this disorder before she harms anyone else.”  

You can feel free to fill in any name in place of Oregon’s current governor - people who refuse to consider their own incompetence or facts and logic when dealing with problems.  

Imagine people operating in fields where their bad decisions have no immediate or personal consequences?  Being surrounded by those who depend upon the same environment for their living? Only working with people who have the same proclivities and are likely to suffer from the same condition?   Objectivity is replaced by subjective truths. Nothing to tell the Dunning-Kruger sufferer that their thinking is erroneous or their skills are inadequate. 

What a nightmare!  What is the cure for DKE?  That is something the CDC should look into as it seems to be of pandemic proportions now.

Wikipedia:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is the cognitive bias whereby people with low abilityat a task overestimate their ability. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. The Dunning–Kruger effect is usually measured by comparing self-assessment with objective performance. For example, the participants in a study may be asked to complete a quiz and then estimate how well they did. This subjective assessment is then compared to how well they actually did. This can happen either in relative or in absolute terms, i.e., in comparison to one's peer group as the percentage of peers outperformed or in comparison to objective standards as the number of questions answered correctly. The Dunning–Kruger effect appears in both cases but is more pronounced in relative terms: the bottom quartile of performers tend to see themselves as being part of the top two quartiles. The initial study was done by David Dunning and Justin Kruger. It focuses on, logical reasoning, grammar, and social skills. Since then, various other studies have been conducted across a wide range of tasks. These include skills from fields such as business, politics, medicine, driving, aviation, spatial memory, exams in school, and literacy.

Many debates surrounding the Dunning–Kruger effect and criticisms of it focus on the meta-cognitive explanation but accept the empirical findings themselves otherwise. This is often done by providing alternative explanations that promise a better account of the observed tendencies. The most prominent among them is the statistical explanation, which holds that the Dunning–Kruger effect is mainly a statistical artifact due to the regression toward the mean combined with another cognitive bias known as the better-than-average effect. Other theorists hold that the way low and high performers are distributed makes it more difficult for low performers to assess their skill level, thereby explaining their erroneous self-assessments independent of their meta-cognitive abilities. Another account sees the lack of incentives to give accurate self-assessments as the source of error.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is relevant for various practical matters. It can lead people to make bad decisions, such as choosing a career for which they are unfit or engaging in behavior dangerous for themselves or others due to being unaware of lacking the necessary skills. It may also inhibit the affected from addressing their shortcomings to improve themselves. In some cases, the associated overconfidence may have positive side effects, like increasing motivation and energy.