Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast Episodes
Based Camp: Garden Gnomes are Destroying Academia
In this enlightening conversation, Malcolm and Simone critically dissect the nature of intelligence and the hierarchy of knowledge. Drawing on historical anecdotes and personal experiences, they lay bare the institutional bias, gatekeeping, and hurdles that prevent truly novel ideas from taking root within academia and society. From the stifling of innovation to the ironic role of performative intelligence, they bring to light some hard truths about our education system and the ways in which it determines who is seen as smart. As they navigate through academic consensus and fashionable ideas, join them for an honest exploration of how we shape, share, and value knowledge.
Transcript:
Malcolm: [00:00:00] when somebody comes up with a genuinely novel idea, .
Malcolm: Their idea is often treated like an insane cult. Wow. And, and you see this within academia today. The difference we have today is that ironically the academic system has more a monopoly on what's considered truth than the church ever had. And so it is very hard for new ideas to form. And when a new idea does form, people are punished.
Malcolm: Severely
Would you like to know more?
Simone: Hello,
Malcolm: gorgeous. Hello, Simone. I am excited to be chatting today. What are we talking about? Well, you're
Simone: being like Professor Malcolm because we have a quote to discuss. This is like homeworky. It sounds like.
Simone: It reminds me of my honors classes in college
Malcolm: the article was called The Mid Wit Menace, on a sub stack by somebody called Millennial Woes. And I don't think it's that much of a red sub either.
Simone: All right.
Simone: Because he has convinced himself by embracing fashionable ideas that he's very wise, he will not accept that [00:01:00] anybody is wiser than him unless they also embrace those fashionable ideas. In his mind, that is the only thing that could prove the person to be as wise as him, let alone even wiser.
Simone: But a person wiser than him would never adopt those b******t, fashionable ideas. So they would never appear in the mid wit's perception as wiser than him. Thus, the mid midwife is trapped in his midwifery.
Malcolm: I think this quote is describing a very real phenomenon in our society.
Malcolm: Hmm. With how people judge what intelligence is. Yeah. When they are creating this organically formed hierarchy that determines truth within our society. Okay. So if you say something that is very antithetical to the accepted truth of society. People will look at you as an idiot, right? Mm-hmm.
Malcolm: Mm-hmm. So it is very hard to say something that is genuinely innovative or [00:02:00] move things forwards without being looked at as an idiot. It actually can become dangerous to say things that move things forwards. Mm-hmm. And this mindset is particularly true in academia. I've worked in academia for a while, and
Malcolm: The hierarchy in intelligence is determined by an individual's ability to memorize, obscure things that other people who are widely agreed upon as smart have written or said determines a person's position was in this local hierarchy. Not their ability to override those things or come up with new ideas that counter those things.
Malcolm: Makes a lot of sense because the people at the top of this hierarchy, they're the people who everyone else is quoting, right? And so they have a vested interest in ensuring that you are not just disrupting the hierarchy. This is something even famously like Einstein got into when he got older, where he would.
Malcolm: Sort of snipe [00:03:00] at people's careers if th
Published on 2 years, 5 months ago