Human greed is a moderator of stupidity

“We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. ” [1, also 2]

Stephen Hawking

In my opinion “stupidity” is largely caused by “flock behaviour” which defines as smart what the majority of the peer group does. Interestingly, “greed” and “stupidity” strongly interact. While “greed” may promote the understanding of ideas which gives access to more resources or social status (~ “power and wealth”), “greed” may suppress the understanding of ideas which blocks the access to resources or social status, or – even worse – promotes the access to resources and social status for others. In addition, while “stupidity”, which lacks the understanding of the long-term, harmful consequences of one’s behaviour, promotes “greed”, while “intelligence”, which understands the long-term consequences of one’s behaviour, may regulate one’s short-term greed in favour of long-term benefits. Unfortunately, human life span is limited, and without the addition of empathy long-term consequences beyond one’s owns life span may not be taken adequately into account.
Since human are “social animals”, who mostly live in complex and large societies, the access to power and wealth largely depends on the support by other individuals. Their support is strongly dependent on whether the individual is perceived as a member of one’s peer group, which depends on multiple criteria, among which are also shared social norms. An individual who does not blend into one’s peer group, eg by violating social norms or not serving the interest of the other group members, will be forced out of the group and, therefore, lose access to resources and social status. Therefore, it is often in the interest of an individual to keep or increase one’s access to power and wealth to do something even irrational which is approved by one’s peers, eg by following social norms, and not to do something which is rational, but is not approved by one’s peers. In this context, Prof. Mats Alvesson’s definition of “functional stupidity” [3] is relevant which means that individuals in organizations act in a way which promotes their interests in the short term with support by organizational norms and values, but harms the interests of the organization in the long term.
Therefore, to fight “stupidity” one has to fight “greed” first, ie only if people give up striving for more power and wealth, they will be able to accept facts or change their behaviour according to facts, which blocks their  own access to power and wealth or promotes access to power and wealth for others, and act against non-sensical social norms. (To use Mats Alvesson’s terminology this could also be called “dysfunctional intelligence”).
Closely related is also the following quote:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. [4]

Upton Sinclair

Refs:
[¹]  https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/stephen_hawking_447569
[2] https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/science/stephen-hawking-greed-and-stupidity-are-what-will-end-the-human-race-xNA9_p9ZkEubbQPb3BBh6A
[3] https://profilebooks.com/the-stupidity-paradox.html
[4] https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/upton-sinclair-quotes

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