The less you care about "the respect" others show towards you, the less power idiots can exert over you.
I don't think this is generally true. Do you mean:
"The less you care about "the respect" idiots show towards you, the less power idiots can exert over you."??
Calling my statement A, and yours B, both are true. A is probabilistically true (i.e., in most cases) iff the majority of people are idiots (and assuming a normal distribution of "impact someone can have on you"), B is 'strictly' true, well as far as strictly holds in social dynamics.
If you are a really good idiot oracle, i.e. if you're adept at quickly discerning someone's idiot attribute (or the lack thereof), you should follow B (which is a subset of A , "forall X ..." versus "forall X where P(X)"). If you're not, you shoul...
Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are: