Swede’s Photographs<p>Good morning. ☕☕☕</p><p>6 September 2025</p><p>Okay, I’m stuck. No idea what to talk about this morning. I read somewhere that the trick is to just start writing—then the good, bad, and questionable juices will flow, and away we go. Or not.</p><p>Throughout the day, thoughts come to me that would make decent primers for discussion, if I’d just write them down. But I usually don’t. So here I sit, trying to force my brain to think on command.</p><p>Here’s Charlie, right on cue, reminding me it’s mealtime—or at least three minutes away. That’s always good for a short paragraph. I intend to stand and head that way on the minute. I need to top off my coffee anyway. I’ll do it then.</p><p>I often use an analogy to describe the different thought capabilities of people: we’re not all issued the same tool kit. Whether by birth or experience, people’s ability to understand things varies. It’s remarkable if you’re self-aware enough to notice. I’ve known people who pick up on things much faster than I do, with a capacity for recall that boggles the mind. And then there are those who fail to recognize the obvious—the ones who make you think (hopefully not out loud), “Wow.”</p><p>The thing is, stupid people don’t know they’re stupid. There’s a missing layer of self-awareness. Scientifically, it’s called the Dunning–Kruger Effect—a “psychological bias where people with low ability or knowledge in a domain overestimate their competence. They lack the metacognitive skill to recognize their own limitations, which leads to inflated self-assessment.” — Microsoft Copilot</p><p>As David Dunning and Justin Kruger put it:</p><p>“People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains.” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999)</p><p>And Bertrand Russell, with his usual precision:</p><p>“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”</p><p><a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/morning" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>morning</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/sunset" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>sunset</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/intelligence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>intelligence</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/dunning_kruger_effect" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>dunning_kruger_effect</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/dogs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>dogs</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/photography" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>photography</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/SelfAwareness" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SelfAwareness</span></a></p>