A person who is somewhat upper-class will conspicuously signal eir wealth by buying difficult-to-obtain goods. A person who is very upper-class will conspicuously signal that ey feels no need to conspicuously signal eir wealth, by deliberately not buying difficult-to-obtain goods.
A person who is somewhat intelligent will conspicuously signal eir intelligence by holding difficult-to-understand opinions. A person who is very intelligent will conspicuously signal that ey feels no need to conspicuously signal eir intelligence, by deliberately not holding difficult-to-understand opinions.
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Without meaning to imply anything about whether or not any of these positions are correct or not3, the following triads come to mind as connected to an uneducated/contrarian/meta-contrarian divide:
- KKK-style racist / politically correct liberal / “but there are scientifically proven genetic differences” - misogyny / women’s rights movement / men’s rights movement - conservative / liberal / libertarian4 - herbal-spiritual-alternative medicine / conventional medicine / Robin Hanson - don’t care about Africa / give aid to Africa / don’t give aid to Africa - Obama is Muslim / Obama is obviously not Muslim, you idiot / PatriFriedman5
What is interesting about these triads is not that people hold the positions (which could be expected by chance) but that people get deep personal satisfaction from arguing the positions even when their arguments are unlikely to change policy6 - and that people identify with these positions to the point where arguments about them can become personal.
If meta-contrarianism is a real tendency in over-intelligent people, it doesn’t mean they should immediately abandon their beliefs; that would just be meta-meta-contrarianism. It means that they need to recognize the meta-contrarian tendency within themselves and so be extra suspicious and careful about a desire to believe something contrary to the prevailing contrarian wisdom, especially if they really enjoy doing so.
You might also be interested in Scott’s 2010 post warning of the ‘next-level trap’ so to speak: Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism