Melody Jacob

Let’s play a quick, uncomfortable game. Think of the last time you saw a wildly controversial post online. Did you instantly feel a surge of opinion? Did you instinctively know exactly which side you were on, using words you’ve read a thousand times before?

We like to think those thoughts are ours. We like to believe our rage, our validation, and our tastes are entirely self-authored. But what if they aren’t? What if your mind is just frozen in place, renting out space to a collective script?

I recently watched an interview with the philosopher and theologian Igor Sibaldi, which completely altered how I view my own brain. It forced me to pick up his book, How Not to Be Stupid: The Transformative Power of Independent Thinking.

Sibaldi doesn’t view "stupidity" as a low IQ score or a lack of education. He looks at the Latin root: stupidus—which means to freeze, to be stunned, or to come to a dead halt. Stupidity, in his eyes, is the psychological block that happens when you stop thinking for yourself and let society, habits, or fear pull you onto autopilot because conformity feels safer than standing alone.

He maps this out through 12 distinct psychological functions of the self (covering how we handle authority, communication, wealth, and our past). He argues that we might be brilliant in one function, but completely paralyzed, or "stupid," in another.

Enter the Algorithmic Herd

Reading his breakdown of these 12 functions made me look directly at our modern digital landscape. Look at social media algorithms. They are essentially automated conformity engines. They track our biases, feed us exactly what we want to hear, and reward us with dopamine when we echo the prevailing sentiment of our chosen "tribe."

By Sibaldi’s definition, algorithms are training us to be profoundly stupid. They invite us to freeze our critical faculties, stop questioning why we believe what we believe, and coast on a borrowed collective consciousness.

This directly mirrors what the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warned us about when he wrote about the "Herd Mentality." Nietzsche argued that society conditions individuals to fear standing out, replacing true personal virtue with a safe, obedient group morality. When you combine Sibaldi’s 12 functions with Nietzsche’s herd, you get the modern internet: millions of people trapped in an echo chamber, terrified of the social death that comes with independent thought, mistaking algorithmic obedience for personal perspective.

Where Sibaldi and I Part Ways

Sibaldi’s interview and his book gave me a massive paradigm shift. It made me realize how often I speak in phrases I didn't invent and defend ideas I haven't actually pressure-tested. It taught me that real intelligence isn't about knowing the answers; it’s about having the raw courage to stay in motion when everyone else freezes.

But here is where I disagree with him. Sibaldi implies that breaking free from these 12 blocks is a purely intellectual act of will—a personal hygiene of the mind where you choose to disobey the collective.

I think he underestimates the sheer weight of modern systemic design. It’s easy to say "stop being a person from a breeding farm" (as he bluntly calls it), but when our economic livelihood, our social circles, and our mental health loops are entirely hardwired into platforms designed to keep us frozen, waking up isn’t just a philosophical choice. It’s an exhausting, daily psychological war against an infrastructure designed to keep us asleep. Disobedience doesn't just take clarity; it takes an immense amount of emotional resilience that a lot of people simply don't have the bandwidth to afford.