AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

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stand@desk
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AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by stand@desk »

AOC is pretty sure about how great the Green New Deal could be.

But critics say that it will vastly change the way of life for Americans, be trillions too expensive, and have negative consequences (living wage for those unwilling to work etc).

She often does not refute her arguments but says things like "Until someone comes along with a better plan I'm in charge."
Is she suffering from the Dunning Krueger effect?

ZAFCorrection
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by ZAFCorrection »

Possibly, but the larger point is the environmental movement in the US has been dominated by virtue signaling* for a very long time, so the new kids on the block have been sincerely taught to believe that making a huge stink is a sufficient condition to be an activist. The issue is in a pretty sorry state given that there are two sides with one thinking it is not to be even considered and the other using it as branding.

*I think accusations of virtue signaling are very much over-used but applicable in this case. My personal definition for virtue signaling is remonstrating about correct behavior while making little to no effort to enact it in one's own life. A counter-example is a lot of the SJW types are actually not virtue signaling since they often go to great lengths to follow their extreme codes of conduct.

IlliniDave
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by IlliniDave »

My take is that she is youthful and enthusiastic, and probably hasn't been done any favors by the US education system where critical thinking is arguably on the decline. This well may be the first time any of her ideas have been criticized. Her comment (CNN interview, IIRC) to the effect that being precise and factually correct isn't important when you are morally correct kind of hints that, at this point, she is working from a place of religious zeal ala what Jonathan Haidt has talked about. I have no thoughts on her intellect or how she appraises her own intellect. She gets high marks for energy and enthusiasm, but the key is whether she can temper those with experience and a better understanding of how things work without losing them. None of the above is commentary on her GND, per se, just how she puts forth arguments and responds to people that don't agree with her.
Last edited by IlliniDave on Sun Mar 03, 2019 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

IlliniDave wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 4:24 pm
My take is that she is youthful and enthusiastic, and probably hasn't been done any favors by the US education system where critical thinking is arguably on the decline. This well may be the first time any of her ideas have been criticized.
Do you mean that as a very physically attractive bartender in NYC there is a chance a lot of people agreeing with her were just blowing smoke up her dress?

IlliniDave
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by IlliniDave »

Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 4:28 pm
Do you mean that as a very physically attractive bartender in NYC there is a chance a lot of people agreeing with her were just blowing smoke up her dress?
I wouldn't put it that crudely. Was referring more to the university education system and environment where I get the impression that as long as you stick to the activist/progressive path, you don't get any push back.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Oh, I know you wouldn’t put it that crudely.

That’s why I’m here.

Campitor
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Campitor »

Dunning Kruger Effect: In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is.

I think AOC is smart in some ways, i.e., campaigning and outreach via mass media tools like twitter and instagram, but is ignorant in what she chooses to publish on these platforms. She appears to do no research and the "raw" drafts of the green new deal highlight very immature thinking such as the farting cow comments and lack a basic understanding of economics, science, and constitutional governance.

I believe the GND was AOC's dinner bell to get attention and attract more followers who gravitate toward ecological issues, monetary reparations for past injustices, government should pay for everything, and that money is somehow going to automagically appear in tax coffers regardless the economic incentives of her policies.

Listening to some of her more relaxed interviews, she often mentions feeling "embarrassed" and "humiliated" when she couldn't make ends meet. It seems this feeling of humiliation drives her to trumpet anything that gets her attention and prestige, only to feel a new wave of humiliation as her ideas are correctly challenged by the most basic fact checks and elementary principles of science and economics. And then she does what any insecure person (or politician) does: she doubles down on defending her bad ideas ergo her statement about "it's better to be morally right than factually and semantically correct."

In my honest opinion I believe she is being used by her party to see what kind of traction can be gained by appealing to far left socialists. AOC's platform can be disavowed later, and her position diminished within the party, if she winds up being too damaging to fellow democrats. She'll be up for reelection soon since House of Representative has 2 year terms. So depending on how rough she makes the waters, the democrats could groom a fellow challenger who may be more appealing to the party than someone who runs around threatening her own majority speaker and fellow democrats.
Last edited by Campitor on Sun Mar 03, 2019 8:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Seppia
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Seppia »

In the Cohen hearing she seemed by far the most prepared and sharp.
Her questions were to the point.
I don’t agree with many things she proposes but she clearly is smart and prepared for the task.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

LookingInward wrote:
Sun Mar 03, 2019 2:52 pm
As an interesting aside, this thread is the ERE forum’s 10,000th, created just 2 new minutes after “Feeling guilty while learning math.”

I award @stand@desk a Cadillac Eldorado and @LookingInward a set of steak knives.

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Seppia
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Seppia »

I don't think the Mao comparison is fitting, I would have picked something more realistic like Vlad The Impaler, Countess Bathory or, why not, the Prince of Darkness Satan himself :lol:

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I suspect the "green new deal" ideas (which I really haven't looked into) might be pie in the sky in the same way that some of the ideas espoused by the hard-core, far right wing politicians are. For example, the people that Utah elects that want to sell all federal lands to private individuals. Never going to happen, doesn't make sense, but they keep banging away at it anyway. As a strategy, having a politician far out to one end of the spectrum helps to frame the conversation in that direction. Republicans have been very good at this for a while (for example, all the politicians that constantly remind us that there should be no restrictions on guns whatsoever) so as a liberal strategy-wise it is good to see the far left wing doing something similar on climate change (I'd rather everyone meet at common ground in the middle but this just isn't how politics works anymore).

As a side note, get some better sources. ZeroHedge quoting some nobody's Twitter comments is biased garbage, though I suppose I should be thankful it isn't someone rambling on YouTube.

Curmudgeon
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Curmudgeon »

AOC is an Economics graduate who doesn't understand basic economics, an elected official who wasn't aware of what the 3 branches of government were, a first-year representative who thinks "[she's] the boss" because no one else has introduced anything as ludicrous as the Green New Deal.

AOC is the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

stand@desk
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by stand@desk »

PETA has challenged AOC and all her staff to go Vegan.

Let's see if she can walk the talk! :)

Tyler9000
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Tyler9000 »

I know Jacob generally frowns on memes, but I found this one particularly insightful on this topic: https://i.redd.it/ppj2w3l9l5k21.jpg

Basically, the core problem with AOC is not simply that she lives on Mt. Stupid, but that she seems to take way too much joy in looking down from the peak on all the rubes in the valley.


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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

I was not just being crude when I brought up her physical attractiveness.

I remember going to see Obama during the 2012 campaign. I have never voted, but I wanted to go to observe the spectacle. And on all four sides of me in the crowd were young white women shouting “You’re perfect! You’re perfect!” Screaming like it was Beatlemania.

And during his speech, he said that he found it deplorable that Mitt Romney had suggested that indebted young people should remain living with their parents. “Everyone should be entitled to a home!” he cried, and the crowd erupted. Now, I was still six figures below zero at the time, and even then, this seemed offensive to me.

Get a good looking person to promise ponies and unicorns and for the earth to open up and ejaculate rainbows, you will get votes.

IlliniDave
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by IlliniDave »

If this has legs, no wonder people think she's good at asking questions about financial shenanigans. Hope it all turns out to be an innocent misunderstanding.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opin ... sio-cortez

Lucky C
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Lucky C »

First of all, ZeroHedge is an awful place to start to have an unbiased discussion if you want to get to the truth of the matter. Not sure if you're a climate change denier, stand@desk, but you know Patrick Moore is one right? ZH uses "Dr." Moore (PhD in Forestry) as an "expert" on any climate issue because although he co-founded Greenpeace he is now aligned with conservative views on climate change denial. This is a good use of authority bias by ZH, because the uninformed will think that this guy is one of the top experts since he co-founded Greenpeace and has the title of doctor, but he's not a climate scientist and actively goes against what the science says! In the future, it would be more helpful to begin a discussion like this by citing a more reputable publication.


Anyway, observing AOC over the past year or so, It seems to me that she is clearly able to learn at a fast pace. Before she was elected, I was cringing at the inaccuracy of some of her arguments. However when she was criticized and corrected, she did not respond with denials that she ever said those things, cries of fake news, etc. She course corrected.

One of Cohen's claims at his hearing was that Trump fraudulently valued his assets higher or lower depending on the circumstances. Others questioned Trump inflating his net worth but the whole time I was thinking, is anyone going to ask about him deflating the value of his assets? Finally AOC comes in with that line of questioning at the end, opening up a new line of investigation into Trump's alleged insurance fraud. Maybe he'll even be able to fulfill his promise of showing us his tax returns! AOC was the one of the few congresspeople that was able to gather information beyond what Cohen already stated in the first half hour.

By default I would expect any 29 year old "new hire" with no relevant experience to be awful at their job, no matter what the profession. The relevant thing to look for is the capacity to learn. When Trump was elected, many (including myself) wanted to give him a chance because although he has no relevant experience, he could at least learn how to be a capable president. But he's in his 70's and thinks he knows everything without listening to anyone, so that did not go so well. AOC on the other hand appears to be capable of learning!

As for the Green New Deal, it makes sense to try for something that seems extreme even if you don't believe it has a chance of passing, and not just for personal political reasons. An extreme proposal has the anchoring effect, so any subsequent proposals that may have been seen as too extreme in the past would now seem more realistic. Having it written out as a full bill also gets the discussion going more broadly compared to it being a talking point during a campaign that may not have had much coverage. Now we have a debate of Green New Deal vs. No Green New Deal where there was no such debate before. We might eventually end up compromising on some "Half of a Green New Deal" that has some investments into more efficient energy and infrastructure improvements with good ROI but without the extreme parts that could bankrupt us. Only 3 - 7% of proposed Congressional bills and resolutions become laws. The other >90% aren't completely wasted time; they can be beneficial to political evolution even if they get killed immediately.

Campitor
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by Campitor »

The anchoring effect works both ways. An over the top proposal typically results in an equally extreme counterproposal. Those familiar with these strategies will not be swayed by either. However, this style of negotiation can and does incite strong emotional reactions within the respective teams which can cause gridlock and kill any hope of a deal. And it also causes the extremists in each political party to push out the boundaries which makes it harder to reach a middle of the road compromise. Hello climate deniers and cow fart police.

AOC was a groomed candidate (as most are). She's good when on script but makes a lot of mistakes when off script - hence the accusation that she is the anti-Trump. Is she smart? Probably so. But her style of politicking is odd - she seems more interested in fracturing the democratic party than proposing legislation. It seems that she, and other freshman democrats, are trying to force existing moderate congressmen into a more extreme left-wing platform which is in clear opposition to the desires of the moderates' constituencies. She may win the battle but lose the war. This is similar to Newt Gringich's agenda which pushed a more right-wing platform but led to a 2-term Bill Clinton presidency as they fielded weak candidates who only appealed to far right Republicans.

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jennypenny
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Re: AOC suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect?

Post by jennypenny »

In 2013 when the Obamacare exchanges were scheduled to go into effect, Ted Cruz decided to filibuster to try to prevent the process from going forward. That action would normally get a lot of support from Republicans but the word was out that the exchanges were a mess and HHS was totally unprepared. Republican members of Congress with more experience and political savvy were against Cruz's actions because they wanted the exchanges to open and fail without any Republican input. Basically, they wanted the story to be about Obamacare and not Republicans. Cruz, Lee, et al didn't listen and they dominated a new cycle that should have been all about the mess at HHS.

Now in 2019, the Democratic party is desperately trying to win back the White House but AOC and her green new deal are dominating the news cycle ... and she isn't even a candidate in 2020. The Democrats were having trouble finding their talking points with the apparent collapse of the Mueller/Russia narrative, and AOC and her frosh cohort stepped into the void. She practically scooped Jay Inslee's whole campaign platform.

AOC's heart might be in the right place but she's hurting Democrats' chances in 2020. She's putting 2020 candidates in a bind because they'll all be forced to weigh in on her green new deal. That might not seem like a bad thing to many here, but think about how they'll be asked about it at press events ... "Do you support AOC's green new deal?" If they say yes, they'll appeal to the base but turn off moderates. If they say no, they'll have trouble getting the nomination.

Historically, younger voters don't reliably show up to vote on election day. If the Dems pick a platform and candidate that appeal to AOC's younger/more progressive demographic the most, they risk typical low voter turnout amongst younger voters and low turnout from unenthused moderates. If Dems pick someone like Biden, they could have the same issue they had last time with Sanders supporters refusing to support Clinton because she was too 'establishment' in their eyes.

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