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Replying to @EricRWeinstein
If you're ignorant, you're ignorant. It's nothing to be proud of. Pride in ignorance dooms a society to failure in competition with others less benighted. Ignorance is no sin; it's the natural state of man. But to boast of it, and to revile those who don't, is self-destructive.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @EricRWeinstein
When Commodore Perry's black ships arrived in Edo Bay, the Japanese didn't revile and disdain the vastly more knowledgeable Westerners who sent them there. Instead, they devoted themselves to the desperate task of becoming vastly more knowledgeable themselves. The moral is clear.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @EricRWeinstein
Those who know vastly more than you may (and often do) condescend to you, and treat you with contempt. It's ugly. But your best response is still to learn everything you can from them, quickly. For knowledge is power, and ignorance is weakness. And weakness invites exploitation.
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When the industrial West came to China, the prideful ignorance of its leaders doomed their nation to a submissive and demeaning position for more than a century. They thought themselves above learning from Western barbarians. The contrast with Japan is striking and instructive.
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