General discussion, page-11189

Hello @moguns

Not to flog a dead horse (I hate that expression but it works to communicate the thought), but I'm deeply interested in the Dunning-Kruger effect for a variety of reasons, and I wanted to belatedly point out that this effect is not just among low IQ people. It is independent of anyone's specific level of intellectual ability and refers to a decoupling of their ability vs their perception of their ability. So it is a relative concern rather than an absolute one.

I thought this was worth mentioning in this context because even people with considerable intellectual ability can suffer from it. We all have to look out for it in ourselves, and it pays to do so because although the consequences of letting it run amok can be amusing for others in some circumstances (like in this thread), they can also spell disaster on an epic scale for all involved, depending on context. For instance, a pilot who has a very high IQ but has been grounded for 18 months during covid, might get back on the job and allow their confidence in their intellect to cause them to underestimate the seriousness of loss of muscle memory. This would be a classic case of being less smart than one thinks, since intellect is not a replacement for muscle memory: the two domains are distinct enough that confidence in one cannot replace confidence in the other. Result - worse case scenario, plane crashes and everybody dies.