To clarify here, I don’t feel like I’m significantly smarter than most people, but I feel like people have a hard time doing any sort of thinking about stuff. Especially when it comes to verifying “facts.”
Keep in mind that you, along with everyone else, know very little all in all.
The things you do know will be important to you, naturally. Their understanding and their importance will also feel obvious, also naturally.
So anyone not knowing these obvious important things will instinctively feel like an absolute idiot to you.
This is a mental trap. Try to avoid it. The less respect you have for others, the less able you will be to really listen to other standpoints and learn from them, leading to a vicious cycle of alienation.
Right, but when these important things are also very basic things everybody needs to know, like how to boil an egg, how to vote, how to dry wet clothes, how to treat people and items carefully and with respect, etc, I don’t have much sympathy for adults who come across as an idiot in these ways, you know?
There’s things that other people don’t know because they’re not as interested in them of course, but that’s not what bothers me, it’s all the stuff they should all know that they’re ignorant of… :-(
I couldn’t boil an egg. I don’t like them, I don’t eat them, and I have no particular need to prepare them for anyone else.
By your standards, I guess I’m an idiot?
So, sure, you may not currently know the procedure. But you could easily boil an egg if you had 60s to google it first.
Some people wouldn’t be able to figure it out. Stupidity isn’t really accurate though in my experience, I think it’s more being overwhelmed and sometimes just having an aversion in general to change and learning. People can often have really bad experiences early in life (ironically, at the hands of people like OP who categorize them as morons for their honest ignorance) that set them up to want to never leave their comfort zone, which is itself again seen as “stupid” by the same people, thus perpetuating the cycle forever.
It even goes beyond this.
Everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else. Smarter than doctors, scientists, and engineers. Definitely smarter than whatever the political or ideological “other side” is.
It’s ruining our society. When George Carlin did his bit about “how stupid the average person is”, he forgot to mention how 99% of us assume we skew into the “smarter than average” side.
I can’t have conversations with people I used to respect, relatives, old friends, or even casual acquaintances without everyone blathering on about how stupid these people are or that group is. I hate it.
Yes, but they’re literally being conditioned into it. You and me too. No one is immune to propaganda.
I used to hold people accountable for their (lack of) knowledge, but there’s literally billions being poured into subverting these people daily. You can’t really hold that against (most of) them.
Education is the obvious fix, but at least in America, the idiots are trying to destroy it. If people learned critical thinking, almost everything else would fall into place. If we stopped reinforcing learned helplessness and made people practice logic and learn consequences, society would see a huge benefit. People need to be held accountable for their ignorance. Otherwise, they won’t learn. Those who refuse to learn should rightfully be shunned, because they’re the biggest propaganda weapon out there.
Cognitive dissonance is another major reason for idiocracy. The MAGAts are so blatant about their love for it. “Wokeness” is healing from cognitive dissonance, which they’ve labeled as a virus.
I’m sympathetic and offer to help someone if they’re being a bit stupid (all of us have our moments), but if they refuse, that’s where they should be held accountable.
On the other hand I am pretty confident I am not an idiot, and if IQ tests done when I was 8 count I know I’m not. That does not mean I don’t regularly do something wrong, or learn something completely obvious. I’m sure that in those situations somebody else wonders how I lived this long.
if IQ tests done when I was 8 count
They don’t, unless you’re currently 9.
They don’t period.
If only… I’ll stick to being pretty confident I’m not an idiot then.
Yeah, I just learned how axolotl is pronounced from SciShow Kids
Teeny tiny axolotl
There is really not a lottle
of you. Not a jot or tittle
So I’ll call you axolitl
See, the fact you think the IQ tests matters in any way means your uniformed about it, which comes back to the topic at hand.
IQ tests are bullshit; it’s been proven many times.
Yet you were told they weren’t. And that informed how you think.
I could call you stupid for bringing up an IQ test.
Or I could accept that people not having all the knowledge in the world is just part of being human, and that there are many things you know that I probably don’t.
Just wait until AI is leveraged into it even more so. 😅
School kids these days saying, “When I grow up”… Yeah, that’s gonna happen.
At this point, Facebook users should qualify as a vulnerable population
“Vulnerable” like those who still believe in a magic sky daddy?
In my experience, I have found the least intelligent people to also be the most vocal, which makes it look like they are overrepresented in the population.
Especially thanks to social media. E.g. there’s a video of the ISS on instagram and the comment section is filled with flat earth people and other crazies.
They’re insecure about their intelligence but too prideful to admit when they don’t know something, even to themselves.
the only cure for that condition is showing them how stupid they are, so that everyone can see
this.
I would put more but it would mess up the comedy. anyway go to a public library and look at folks on the computers. If you are old enough you will remember that going to like a 7/11 or such there always seemed to be some crazy guy talking to himself. You never see them now because they are on the internet all day.
There seems to be a shortage of critical thinking and problem solving skills, that’s for sure.
What I see that makes it worse now than in the past is the Internet. It’s easy now to find a group that agrees with your delusions and live in an echo chamber where mistaken beliefs are not challenged.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin
On average people think they are a lot smarter than the average person
Bad drivers rarely believe they are bad at driving.
Nothing does quite so good a job revealing how highly they think of themselves as sharing that Carlin quote. It’s the clarian call of the faux intellectual.
I hate Carlin. Mostly because he’s usually got a point.
George Carlin did an incredible job making a certain type of person believe being a nihilistic asshole was the height of wisdom.
I think the average person isn’t very bright. And that’s okay. Most of us don’t need to be discovering new maths or creating new works of art.
But anyone is going to perform worse when they’re stressed, distracted, afraid, hungry, or similar. A lot of people, that’s their daily life. Something like less than half of americans can afford a $1000 surprise bill. You’re not going to see anyone’s best showing when they’re worried about feeding themselves tomorrow.
Incidentally, republican policies suck and make more people scared, angry, and financially insecure.
I’ve seen a $2 and a $100 bill and even had a few, but where’d you get a $1000 bill? I’ve never seen one of those.
I really hope this is an on topic funny.
I might be getting wooshed because this is wordplay, but ‘bill’ in this context is used like ‘invoice’ or ‘expense’
Something like less than half of americans can afford a $1000 surprise expense.
I get it, I was just leaning into the 90%.
Buy 4 new tires for your vehicle. All at once. Take a look at the vimes “boots theory of economic injustice” principal. 1000 seems extreme to you, but getting through the winter in certain parts can be sobering.
The point isnt the dollar figure, it’s the principal.
principle
It’s funny because a principle actually is a dollar figure when talking about finances.
It is old money, and not printed anymore. $1000 bills do exist, however.
They’re basically a collectors item these days. They haven’t been in circulation since the 60s or so. Grover Cleveland is the president on the $1000 bill.
They’re actively driving the bus off the cliff.
Think about every scientist and official at cop28 desperately working to halt a 1.5c red line. Did the public rally around this effort? Did coal rollers stop intentionally injecting uncombusted fuel into their exhausts to pwn the libs? Did the governments of the world including the US stop subsidizing new extraction?
1.5c is gone; by the time people ‘agree’ it’s fucked and unify to stop pollution at all levels we’re going to be in dire straits.
But my blood needs Teflon in it to be nonstick
Keeps the arteries clean
It’s an easy thing to just assume people are stupid. It makes the world nice and simple and if only people would stop being stupid and start being smart (smart like you, obviously!) All the problems of the world would be solved.
For a lot of people, reality isn’t so simple. The common man is already struggling. Throughout history, the age people get married and have kids has been indicative of the stress civilizations are under, and many people aren’t having kids before they get too old to have kids because that’s the level of stress the common man is under. Global civilization is facing a demographic bomb as every continent except Africa is facing a massive reduction in population in coming decades because nobody is having kids because life is so hard.
As a study in contrasts, just look at wages vs. rent while I’ve been an adult. Minimum wage went from 11/hr to 15/hr. Meanwhile, my first 2 bedroom apartment was 350/mo, and today you can’t get anything for less than 1200. A few years before I rented, there were decent houses available for $50,000 and today the average house price nationwide is $800,000. (Not the US, obviously)
So when a bunch of the business leaders and politicians who magically seem to get richer every time something is done “for our own good” – politicians who make as much as a senior engineer on paper but all of whom seem to become fabulously wealthy regardless (huh wonder where all those extra millions came from) while the common man has suffered – get together to figure out new ways to squeeze the common man, is it really so stupid to be skeptical? “Don’t worry everyone, we’re going to make your life even harder but it’s all for your own good.”
Having the summit in Dubai is fitting – a city of extreme inequality, paid for with oil money, built by slaves, ruled by kings.
You can try to guilt and shame people into not caring about basic biological drives, but you actually can’t. Entire generations of people have been pushed so far that their family lines will end with them. It’s comfortable enough – like being in a pool of comfortably warm water right up to your neck that you can’t escape from, but when you can see people plotting to add more water to your pool the next step is you drown.
In previous eras, common people being this stressed out led to the fall of the Roman empire, the French reign of terror, the end of the Romanov dynasty in Russia or the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. While you call people stupid for not listening to their leaders, historically speaking those same leaders will be lucky to keep their heads on their shoulders.
Exactly my point, there will always be people like you to apologize and say “oh the end of civilization won’t be that bad, stop demonizing the very fucks that got us into this mess.”
Thanks.
Ah, you’re illiterate. I guess it’s easy to think everyone else is stupid if you can’t comprehend the words they say.
A moron would follow this line of thought so I’m not surprised to see you pursuing it. Your grand children will curse your name, if a woman is ever reduced to the state where they have to procreate with you.
You might be surprised, on many fronts.
Empathy for others who are not exactly like you is actually considered a virtue when you’re not in the little bubble that is reddit’s toxic, hateful political disease. Despite what you seem to think, empathy for someone who isn’t exactly like you is a key requirement of a healthy marriage.
Man, I hope I live to see my grandchildren read my book, The Graysonian Ethic: Lessons for my unborn son (He’s born now, and he’s beautiful). I bet parts of it will seem archaic, since it’s directly addressing contemporary issues, but other parts will likely be timeless. It’d be really interesting if I could see them come of age and we’d get to see what they thought of their grandparents. The world will likely be a much different place by then, and not in ways you think.
I think it’s important to consider why you think this. Try and explain what makes someone stupid.
I do tend to agree with the general statement that most people are pretty fucking stupid. If IQ were a meaningful number of intelligence, I’d wager that it’s heavily skewed left. Meaning that the common saying of “think of how stupid the average person and realize half of all people are below that” is even worse when you use the median.
For me, what makes someone stupid is lack of curiosity, lack of drive to learn, and lack of critical thinking. I think stupidity is a learned trait, and our modern society is doing its damnedest to make sure children learn it as soon as possible. Never question authority, you only need to memorize so you can pass the test, and you will be spoon fed the information.
Then soon as you get out of school, you have to get a job and occupy most of your time with work or sleep, you’ll likely get only two-three hours of time to yourself each day, meaning you’ll lack the time to break out of the cycle. And the system compounds at most jobs. Your manager is likely stupid, meaning they want you to never question authority, just do what they tell you, and ask them very little questions.
I also think the trillions of dollars that are spent on advertising strongly influences this. And being constantly bombarded with psychological manipulation encourages stupidity.
I also think stupidity is compounding in and of itself. The less you know, the more you can just make hasty assumptions, then use those assumptions as fact for your next set of assumptions.
It’s also contagious. Being around people who are less stupid than yourself makes you feel bad, so you aren’t around them much or encourage them to join you in being stupid.
There is a massive difference between not knowing something, and choosing to not know something. Just about every person in the world has access to the greatest source of information that has ever been created. There are free courses on just about every topic you could ever desire to learn, fingertips away.
There is also a massive difference between knowing something and rote memorization. Being able to follow the logical chain of facts is very important, so is being able to critically think about a topic. I think being “bored” is great at combatting stupidity in this way. Spending time with no stimulation is great for engaging your brain in actual thoughts. Consider dedicating time to just thinking: no audiobooks, music, podcasts, video games, movies, TV shows, social media, books etc. Just sit and be bored for a while. Meditation is a great entry into this.
90% of people feel like that
If you define “stupid” as “lacking critical thinking skills”, then I agree.
I work in customer service. I wouldn’t say that 90% of ALL people are stupid, but an astounding number of the people I have to deal with have … unique ways of thinking, so to speak.
The most recent example was an olderly man who was absolutely furious because a box of candy he bought for his wife “tasted absolutely disgusting”. We’re talking about something similar to this but I won’t link our actual product as I don’t feel comfortable sharing that information.
Either way, those are friggin’ bath bombs. It says so on the effing package. Just because they’re labeled “vegan” doesn’t mean that they’re edible FFS!
So I have a story for this, one I’m not proud of mind you, but it happened. One time in a lush store they had these bath bombs that were literally modeled to look like cupcakes, I remarked that they almost looked edible. A STORE EMPLOYEE replied with this.
SE: They are edible.
Me: what? No they’re not
SE: oh yeah they’re totally edible go ahead and take a bite
Me: wait really?
SE: yeah!
So I take a bite of the cupcake looking thing and immediately the bitter ass taste of soap fills my senses, my eyes are watering and I spit it out into the trash. I kid you not this was like a punch in the face, I was sweating, I felt a huge headache coming on and my nose was on fire. Again I’m not really proud of this but in my defence, I was a dumbass teenager and someone who I reasonably thought I could trust told me something to mess with me and I took the bait.
The employee was nowhere to be seen after that, obviously he saw my gullible ass actually did it and got out of there with a pep in his step and a smile on his face. As for me, I had a pounding headache and slightly lavender scented breath for the rest of that day.
I feel like this is a situation where going full Karen would be an acceptable response.
Meh, I was sixteen at the time and way more concerned with my friends laughing their asses off nearby
Honestly not the most egregious mistake I’ve seen, my local candy shop uses those exact bags and the font + color + shape of objects + “vegan” label suggest they’re edible. Were they sold near the candy or near the bathroom products?
Bathroom products. In fact, they’re currently located between the TP/paper towel section and the liquid soap dispensers & refill bags.
Granted, they DO look like white chocolate or something similar, but the product placement, package and the fact that it did not taste like food should have been rather obvious hints to maybe check the package again instead of driving all the way back to the store to yell at the employees. At least he had the decency to be embarrassed about it instead of starting the usual “you lost a customer, I’ll never shop here again” shouting match, which is a big plus.
PS: he got a refund, but only because he was polite as soon as he realized his mistake. Normally, any sort of hygiene product is excluded from refunds, especially when it has bite marks.
omg you had an angry older customer actually admit a mistake? what’d you do, place a loaded gun on the counter as you were talking??
Yeah it happens once or twice a year, if you’re lucky … =P
But joke aside, I think he was just too embarrassed to be angry.
to be fair I can’t read bath bomb from the photo but I can read fruity and older folks tend to have worse eyesight to the point they just don’t read small print.
Yes and you can check how much a state spends per student and see why.
Idiots from Florida come in at $9k per student where students from NY/NJ get $12-$15k and the difference shows. If you’re hiring out of Florida expect them to suck and have less skill than 70% of the country.
Idaho and Montana have got to have some of the dumbest and most held back areas I have ever seen. Even their construction practices come from the dark ages in some cases.
Don’t even get me started on the South and Midwest as a whole.
Geniuses are rare and intelligence scores are bullshit.
Put money into schooling and fund teachers. You will solve your “everyone is stupid” problem for sure.
Gop wants people dumb, it’s by design.
Put money into schooling and fund teachers. You will solve your “everyone is stupid” problem for sure.
Completely agree with this.
Problem is, the goverment doesn’t want smart asses.
Effing US News had an article where they rated Florida as the best for college education. But looking at their criteria, it was because college there is cheap and easy to graduate from. It really seemed a poor choice of criteria and good only for starting online arguments.
I think what upsets me the most is that people refuse to learn from past mistakes.
It’s a lot easier to deny that you’re wrong than to learn something new.
easier to a fool a man, than it is to convince him he’s been fooled.
To paraphrase George Carlin, by definition half of the population is below average intelligence. But nobody thinks they’re in that bottom half.
This is interesting to me though. Didn’t most people (at least in developed countries) take tests in school? Get grades? I would think if you did below average on those you kind of…should know that you’re in the bottom half?
I get that it’s possible to make changes after schooling, and grades are only somewhat reliable (in that they also rely on effort) but still.
You ever see the people who get As in school take an aptitude test? They don’t always get high scores.
And aptitude tests themselves are flawed and usually only measure certain quantities or qualities of intelligence, and are not really a great marker for general intelligence (this is including IQ tests which have a very racist origin and history)
Not to mention grades are about doing the work and having the discipline and organizational skills. There are plenty of people who are very intelligent, but lack both of those. US testing metrics (is that the right word?) are heavily flawed. This isn’t even bringing up the racist aspect of most institutions, including educational being headed up and formulated by white people.
I’m curious. Do you think “educational” being headed up and formulated by a black person would increase scores overall? Just within black children scores?
IQ tests were first developped because it seemed obvious not all students performed equally. On average a student that is good in a given discipline will also tend to do well in other unrelated disciplines. On average is the keyword here, outliers exist.
I think gifted students can easily tell what side of the curve they’re on, even though they might not want to acknowledge it. It is not even avout the grades, because gifted students also often learn early on that they can get away by doing the minimum amount of work and still get passing grades. So they’re not necessarily top of classes.
Gifted students get told they’re fast learner all the time, and they notice how everyone else seem to be progressing in slow motion. They know.
I think it gets harder to self-evaluate the closer you are to the average, since most of your peers will be more or less just as intelligent as you. Then, the dullest you are, and the less you can identify competense and the more likely you are to be over-confident.
I think in the end, most people will end up believing they’re above average because we tend to notice dumb people a lot. Ironically it is probably students who are just slightly above average who will have the most self-doubts, because they feel different from their peers, yet they can probably tell more gifted students are around.
Source: 50% my ass, 50% being surrounded by incredibly smart people who shared their personal experiences with me.
Stupid? Maybe if verifying “facts” is your sole metric. I know people who aren’t very media savvy who fall for some stupid propaganda, but they could empty my car’s engine bay and put it back together again and have it cranking the same day. Or you can drop them in any body of water in a 250km radius and they’ll know what fish can be caught there and be able to hook an edible-sized one in half an hour or less. We don’t all have the same skill sets, but we ain’t all “stupid”.
I’d argue given enough time and effort almost anyone can become a domain expert in specific things and do incredible stuff. What distinguishes smart people from simpler folks usually boils down to them having a very easy time processing new stuff, which includes the ability to filter noise and fact check.
I don’t like the term “stupid”, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of evidence supporting the idea that human intelligence is compartimented. Humans with high IQs tend to outperform in average at most of what they try. Low IQ probably means you will work harder and have to specialize to achieve the same degree of competency. This just my hot take, I’ve fallen into this rabbit hole before and read a lot on the origin of IQs tests. In the end, intelligence alone does not determine a person’s worth anyway.
