FLUFF: Keep it Simple Stupid...

Is it human nature to avoid thinking about challenging things and want everything simple? Do we tend to gravitate towards the easiest path? Is this reality? Is this a stupid behavior?

I am starting to believe there may be an over emphasis on the K.I.S.S. concept which is the Keep It Simple Stupid approach. It is accompanied by an increasing appearance that people actually believe there is something like the red colored Staple's Easy Button for everything. Click! "That was easy!"

If you don't plan on making big decisions, and you plan to live a rather simple life then indeed you MIGHT be able to pull this off.

The problem is that it appears that this is applied to complex topics as well. The public will gravitate to whichever explanation is simplest, requires the least amount of effort on their own part, and thus likely best fits their own world view that they already hold. Even if they are wrong... Even if the subject is not one that realistically should be looked at with a simple perspective...

Everything is not simple. Trying to simplify (aka dumb down) everything is not always a wise course of action. How can we expect people to be informed and something other than DUMB if the only mental diet we feed them is dumbed down fare?

---

Before I began writing this I found myself thinking back to a PSYCH 101 course I took in around 1990 at college. I remember really thinking the class was a joke. I kept looking around myself at other people thinking "Uhm... isn't this common sense?" With the exception of the Pavlovian Response type of discussion I honestly cannot say that I learned anything in that course that was not already a "duh, you think I didn't know that" type of topic. I kind of was under the impression others were like me. That course could have been taught in a single class rather than taking an entire semester as far as I was concerned. This means the bulk of the course was just fluff.

I am an expert on fluff. I used it masterfully in college. I had many first day syllabus day classes with the professor stating something along the lines of "Don't wait until the last minute to write your papers and don't B.S. as I can see that from a mile away."

If it was a topic I was interested in I'd write something that I don't call fluff. However, I also could wait until about an hour and a half before the paper was due on just about any paper and write an essay or paper of the proper length. Most of it was fluff. By fluff I mean intentionally writing at length about the same thing and phrasing it slightly different. Though they could see it from a mile away, they apparently could not see it when I did it. I tended to get very well received marks.

Am I proud of that? No. It to me was something I was paying a lot of money to LEARN something and I was not truly having to put much effort in at all. Decades later it is the classes that were actually challenging and not K.I.S.S. that ended up being the most rewarding and would lead to changing my life and actually teaching me or giving me the tools to teach myself. That was not the bulk of my college experience. I look at most of that as a vast waste of money and time. It has gotten worse since I was in college.

---

I do believe people like to appear intellectual. I actually encourage that. Yet, on some topics they are so involved that if you approach it as K.I.S.S. you likely will only be standing out in the proverbial mental field staring towards the forest and only speculating upon what is in that forest due to a fear to put forth the effort to venture forth into the unknown.

Just keep it simple and stick with what you know...

Bad idea... A great way to learn nothing and just bask in ego moments with no growth.

Take a risk.

Use your own mind.

Come up with your own words and thoughts. It doesn't take much to repeat things you've read, heard, or otherwise come from somewhere other than yourself. However, if this is not much in the way of thinking. It is K.I.S.S. and dumbed down. There is nothing easier than just repeating things. The challenge is to let your mind free and see where it might take you. Perhaps it will take you beyond the point where those repeating things have been.

I see this when I hear people chanting something. Usually in protest. I don't see wisdom in chants. I see repetition, control, and lack of individuality. It takes very little in the way of thought or effort to chant.

I can say that I have never been swayed to agree with people because they chant. I have suddenly come to the conclusion they are zombies, idiots, slaves, etc. because it was the only thing they show.

I could tell them to go home and just record someone chanting and put it on a loud speaker to repeat it. Not much difference.

If you feel the need to join in on ANY chant ask yourself Why? What do you think chanting will actually accomplish?

Do you think people will join in because it is the easy path and they don't want to be viewed as an outsider?

Well in that respect you would be correct. There is a tendency to want to be part of the IN CROWD. Even when the IN CROWD is a bad thing.

That is something I expect from youth, and we learn things from it. If you are a person and not just a drone that is part of the hive then eventually you will think for yourself.

You won't just repeat things...

You won't stand on the shoulders of intellectuals from the past repeating their words as though that makes you intellectual...

It doesn't require intelligence to repeat.

That requires effort and thought on your part.

If you think someone already knew the answers or that you know all of the answers then you likely haven't actually spent much time thinking for yourself.

There is no authority that is not worthy of challenge. This is how we learn. This is how we come up with better ideas.

Also... Because it feels good does not mean it IS good.

If you see a problem. The solution is often not simple, though you'll see the masses repeating the same simplified solutions that actually do not solve the problem. Why? It is easier, and some past intellectual thought it up.

In closing...

Keep It Simple Stupid is not always a good thing... much like Occam's Razor is proof of nothing. The Razor is about probability not proof.