I see dumb people

[Snys93]

   One thing I've come to understand is, "Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups". But one thing I don't is where the hell do these people come from? Well, they're everywhere! I'm not saying EVERYONE is stupid, but judging from those who take the lead in today's world they're either paid to look like morons or they are morons.

 

   Stupidity can go under several categories such as laziness, carelessness and in many cases just acting brainless. Sometimes an obvious truth can be plain to the rest of us, like stopping at a four way stop or reading a sign on a door that says push or pull. But along comes the idiot and does what he or she wants regardless of the consequences.

 

   The fast line is my favor of these. The fast line has a primary function, to pass a vehicle in the slow lane. However, the stupids see the word "fast" and ask themselves "how fast". Rather than go the highway speed limit they decide that Mach 3 is better suited for commute traffic. Then that same rocket scientist honks his horn at you, because in his tiny little mind for going too damn slow.

 

   Religion is another one. Now I don't doubt religion is a freedom of choice. You can worship to the god of canned worms for all I care. But when shall we say, does the bus stop? Many religions are guided by moral laws or tenants, beliefs that goes further than just worship. Its a way of life. For instance, the King James Bible says "thou shalt not kill" and "covet your fellows wife". But what do we see? People professing to be Christians, (meaning followers of Christ or being Christ-like) are far from holy. Priests blessing troops, bible readers pledging support for political parties, church leaders replacing facts with traditions.

 

 

   Uh, whats wrong with this picture? Can anyone tell me? Do those Bishops look forced to you? I see men who were afraid, "men of God" if you are willing to go THAT far bowing to the will of a man. Pitiful. Such faith and the millions that died because of they're fear the creature rather than the creator. People rotted in concentration camps while Pope Pius XII did nothing and hailed Hitler as the means of bringing God's Kingdom on Earth. (Forth Reich, Forth heir to the Holy Roman Empire)

 

   Maybe I'm just fuming, but if I'm making any sense at all will someone please tell me?

[Zzz]

Zzz

[Drasiana]

I find 98% of the time "stupidity" is only an arbitrary ruler people use to feel better about themselves and is either too generalized or inaccurate to make  a proper statement on the institution or form that they are criticizing.

 

For instance, an athiest proclaiming "Ha! Snakes don't talk, therefore religion is invalid!" is being just as self-righteous and willingly oblivious as a Christian saying "evolution doesn't exist because my tomatoes didn't turn into watermelons". Their flaw in comprehension come from the same place: a need to be better, which causes them to other the percieved "opponent" in attempts to make them look inferior to oneself.

 

This is also a strange phenomenon concering the hot new reality series, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

 

Yes, I'm serious.

 

You've heard the talk: gross rednecks put their daughter into beauty pageants, and it's funny, because ew fat rednecks.

 

Except...here's the thing. "Honey Boo Boo" herself recieved tons of gifts for Christmas from fans, and then immediately donated them to needy families. Her mother puts all the money they make from the show--which is a LOT--into their savings accounts, for their children's future, and refuse to buy anything they don't need. The biggest purchase they made during the duration of the show is a car, but it wasn't anything special, just something to get her family around in.

 

Yet they're broadcast as an example of "typical American stupidity" and "vanity" of all things when...what does that even mean, at this point? And to what purpose to people watch these shows, only to anger themselves about the amorphous evil "stupid people"?

 

R3d was correct when he said it was group pressure: it absolutely is. The real "stupidity" of humanity is not so much related to our IQ as it is to our constant anxiety and need to be "better" than everyone else, and make enemies where there are none.

[QualitasWolf]

I remember when I thought I was surrounded with "stupid" people.  I know the feeling extremely well, because I'm still paying for when I thought that way, not to mention a crippling Nice Guy Syndrome during my teenage years.  You don't exactly win a ton of friends, thinking you're surrounded by stupid people.

 

Both of the above posters are right.  It's not as simple as "I'm surrounded by idiots".  People are more complicated than that, and the fact is we're all capable of 'stupidity' under the right conditions, and far worse.   The drive to compare yourself to others, to say you can't understand why someone else did something because it was stupid, tends to lead to a lot of personal stupidity.  I'm saying stupid a little too much, which is a form of repetitive stupidity.

 

When you think something someone else did is stupid - whether it's a small thing or following an evil dictator - stop and think to yourself.  How many people who follow a dictator (or, heck, a cult leader or a gang leader or any other number of things) must have thought that people who didn't follow them were stupid (in addition to the people who were simply afraid)?  How much 'evil' in the world is caused by considering yourself better than those around you, somehow more of a human being?

 

The fact is, "I'm surrounded by stupid people" is, after a point, a kind of faux maturity.  It's perfectly natural to feel that way, but part of maturing further is to accept that humans are, well, human.  We all have flaws.  We are all capable of terrible things under the right conditions.  And if we know that, accept that, and keep an eye out I think we're less likely personally to repeat that sort of action.

 

When you feel that you're surrounded by stupid people and don't understand why, it's best to look at the stupid person inside first.

[Faisul]

Most of the reaction to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo as I see it is mostly because the two central characters (the mother and the daughter) look like walking pork rinds dunked in tubs of lard. It's very easy to label people who look like blimps and pig mutants as stupid, not that I advocate that sort of stereotyping. For all I know they could be lovely people, but child pageants are fucked no matter which way you spin it, so there's that. That they're economically sensible is just more proof that the show is a modern carnival side show, "Come and See the Working Class Butter Monsters."

 

As for whether or not the world is filled with morons, the way I see it is that you have a vast majority of people who are reasonably intelligent and then you have a number of people who for whatever reason knows a lot about one thing but very little in the way of the world outside their lives and/or common sense things. People who were unfortunate and never did well in school but can fix a car with a roll of duct tape and a dildo, that sort of thing. Although I wouldn't go so far as to call them scholars they're certainly not stupid, just intelligent in a different way than I am. And then you have people with disorders of various kinds that leave them short of social skills and whatnot, but they're not unintelligent.

 

And then you have the useless walking trivia books, you know the type, the obsessive TV-troper or 4channer whose conversations mainly revolve listing each panty shot scene in every anime ever or who has regressed so far they communicate exclusively in memes, the type of creature that exists solely in a universe that begins and ends with stupid internet shit. They watch an episode of Cosmos and think they're the epitome of rationalism and will begin screeching at the mention of religion or what have you and won't hear any argument to the contrary. Their social circle consists of a squalid mass of anonymus internet honk goblins and maybe that guy that works at Costco so they never learned that talking Really Loud about friendzoning and negging and other stupid PUA shit on the bus in earshot of women is embarassing as hell. The kind of people that consider knowing a vast number of useless factoids means they're intelligent and capable of interesting conversation. If stupid people really exist, I'd nominate them for the position.

[Drasiana]

Most of the reaction to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo as I see it is mostly because the two central characters (the mother and the daughter) look like walking pork rinds dunked in tubs of lard. It's very easy to label people who look like blimps and pig mutants as stupid, not that I advocate that sort of stereotyping. For all I know they could be lovely people, but child pageants are fucked no matter which way you spin it, so there's that. That they're economically sensible is just more proof that the show is a modern carnival side show, "Come and See the Working Class Butter Monsters."

 

Believe me, Honey Boo Boo was the last place I expected to find any worldly sense or body positivity but it's actually there. Child pageants are creepy but considering people make a big deal about the family looking like walking pork rinds, I'm not sure if that is a self-contained issue. The only problem is that people are laughing at ugly people to feel smarter about themselves, which is truly baffling.

[Redeemer]

Here in Scotland, we have a high population of drug-addled idiots. Scotland's massive drug problem has lead to inbreeding (no joke, it happens more often that you would think) and mental illness, which I guess is the reasoning behind the stupidity. Try not to confuse mental illness with stupidity, because it's more common than you think. Being a student of mental health, I see a lot of stigma attached to these people. While some of it is self-induced, with drugs and alcohol (no sympathy there, there are so many self-help services around here it's a burden on the taxpayer), some of it is just plain bad luck, and it's very unfortunate.

 

Genuine stupidity, in my opinion, is ignorance and arrogance. For example, in the restaurant where I work at weekends, some people came in for food. They saw our sign, that promised something for cheaper with the purchase of any hot drink. All the same size of font, all in red, which is required in case there's any confusion. But they saw the actual number and jumped right in, trying to get this deal without a hot drink. I refused, of course, because it's my job, and they went ape-shit about it. I showed them the sign, and they claimed to already know but wanted the deal anyway because the sign was provoking them to spend money (?). Actual quote: "Yeah but you should give us it anyway, the sign was in red so that makes us want to spend, this is false advertising and lies". Eventually they paid the full price, and the man of the group got right up in my face before he left and yelled "make your signs clearer next time."

 

Another example: I was in a group for uni the other day, some guy I don't know it sitting across from me. Myself and another girl begin talking about Game of Thrones, the TV series, and the guy immediately interrupts me, all angry, "Don't tell me any spoilers!" I apologise, explain I haven't read the books and ask what he's seen, to which he replied, "The whole first season." I paused for a second and informed him that the second season isn't out yet, and the things we were talking about were things he should have remembered. He just asked me to stop talking about it anyway, no further explanation (?).

 

Most people ACT stupid as a response to embarrassment, which could have been the case in my second example there. But mostly, it's just arrogance, at least over here. I despise this country simply because of the people. Through high-school, I was picked on for being one of the smarter kids (and a ginger olol), but I guess that's how it is in most schools. To be clever is to be different, unique and sometimes brave, and that's something that many seem to dislike.

[Milkyway64]

Dras beat me to what I wanted to say, that being, stupidity is most of the time just a hasty judgement for people they don't want to or don't want to take time to understand.

 

There are far more stupid actions than stupid people.

[Thu'um]

stupidity is most of the time just a hasty judgement for people they don't want to or don't want to take time to understand.

Pretty sure this is kind of it right here. How many of us have been to quick, or to fast to say or assume something and then end up looking like a retard. Like a when you mispronounce a word and people correct you and laugh. While I try an' laugh too, its a minor stab. Especially if they go out of their way to tell you. What i really find to be stupid; however, is when people speak on matters they clearly don't understand yet they feel certified to do so. Like that 12 year old kid who talks politics and says Obama is a Muslim    But then we're all stupid in some subject matter. I'm not going to tell general milky how to play Metriod, and i think he won't take the time to explain Redwall to me. But the lack of knowledge on such subjects isn't stupidity. Stupidity is when you act with out knowledge on a subject as if you thought had some. Or Maybe that's arrogance. 

 

We all know i'm no Casanova when it comes to spelling, am i stupid? Hm, i'd like to think that i'm not. Or rather i'm not knowledgeable. But hell, the day i start trying to correct people's spelling you guys can call me an idiot.     

[Snys93]

We all know i'm no Casanova when it comes to spelling, am i stupid? Hm, i'd like to think that i'm not. Or rather i'm not knowledgeable. But hell, the day i start trying to correct people's spelling you guys can call me an idiot.     

   No, god no. Were not saying that. Misspelling is a mistake but it doesn't necessarily cost peoples lives. People say that Hitler was insane when he was just dumb thinking Darwin's theroy of evolution applied to his the Arian race, murdering millions of Jews, homosexuals and political prisoners and foolish enough to take on ALL the Allied powers from each direction on the map.

[RingtailedFox]

Most of the reaction to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo as I see it is mostly because the two central characters (the mother and the daughter) look like walking pork rinds dunked in tubs of lard. It's very easy to label people who look like blimps and pig mutants as stupid, not that I advocate that sort of stereotyping. For all I know they could be lovely people, but child pageants are fucked no matter which way you spin it, so there's that. That they're economically sensible is just more proof that the show is a modern carnival side show, "Come and See the Working Class Butter Monsters."

while i've never seen an episode of Honey Boo Boo, what you've described is more like the average American... perhaps a bit overweight, but still smart enough to set enough money aside for future events (college, retirement, an emergency/rainy day fund)... and I think that's smart.

As for whether or not the world is filled with morons, the way I see it is that you have a vast majority of people who are reasonably intelligent and then you have a number of people who for whatever reason knows a lot about one thing but very little in the way of the world outside their lives and/or common sense things. People who were unfortunate and never did well in school but can fix a car with a roll of duct tape and a dildo, that sort of thing. Although I wouldn't go so far as to call them scholars they're certainly not stupid, just intelligent in a different way than I am. And then you have people with disorders of various kinds that leave them short of social skills and whatnot, but they're not unintelligent.

you're describing a "savant"... someone that many not have good social skills or know many "normal" topics, but will excel in one or more specific "favourite" areas... like the Rain Man... autistic people often have this ability, for example.

And then you have the useless walking trivia books, you know the type, the obsessive TV-troper or 4channer whose conversations mainly revolve listing each panty shot scene in every anime ever or who has regressed so far they communicate exclusively in memes, the type of creature that exists solely in a universe that begins and ends with stupid internet shit. They watch an episode of Cosmos and think they're the epitome of rationalism and will begin screeching at the mention of religion or what have you and won't hear any argument to the contrary. Their social circle consists of a squalid mass of anonymus internet honk goblins and maybe that guy that works at Costco so they never learned that talking Really Loud about friendzoning and negging and other stupid PUA shit on the bus in earshot of women is embarassing as hell. The kind of people that consider knowing a vast number of useless factoids means they're intelligent and capable of interesting conversation. If stupid people really exist, I'd nominate them for the position.

Ehh... i know a lot of "useless" trivia alongside my booksmarts, but i don't obsess about it... but this is just odd. you're describing a "meme parrot"... yes, they exist... yes they are VERY common in real life, too... i agree with you that these are the definition of "stupid people", but please don't lump "smart with general trivia" in with "meme parrots"... after all, "smart with general trivia" can land you big bucks on gameshows like Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, and Family Feud!

[DZComposer]

It's not so much that a gerenal population is "stuipid" as it is that they are susceptible to subtle manipulation. It's a psychological thing. Hitler was a genius in this regard. Nazi Germany didn't get to where it was during the war overnight. It took many years of small policy changes. People who weren't paying attention, being most of the population, never saw it coming. Many never realized it until after the war.

Also, people are willing to bow to authority. There is a famous psychological study called the Milgram Experiment. It went down like this:

Test subjects were put into a waiting room with people who were actually part of the experiment pretending to be other test subjects.

The researchers would take one real test subject and one fake one out of the waiting room. They were shown a machine. It was claimed that the machine would administer an electric shock to whichever of the subjects ends up in the next room. The other subject would use an intercom to ask the person in the room a question. If the answer was correct, move on to the next one. Wrong answers or refusals to answer are punished by a shock from the machine. Each wrong answer was met with a more powerful shock. Both were told at this time that the experiment could be stopped at any time.

The fake subject is always chosen to recieve the shocks. As he is being led into the other room, he mentions having a heart condition. The person explaining everything reassures the fake subject that everything will be fine. They go into the room for a while. The person explaning everything then returns and sets up the shocking machine for the real subject and then leaves, repeating that the experiment can be stopped at any time.

A new person enters, who we will call Dr. Hardass. He is intentionally chosen to look like someone who is very intimidating. Dr. hardass explains that he will be monitoring the experiment and recording the results. I should mention at this point that the machine is fake. The "intercom" merely plays back recordings to the test subject. No one is really shocked.

Dr. Hardass instructs the test subject to begin with the questions. The answers are correct for a while, but then wrong answers come. Every time, Dr. Hardass makes sure to instruct the real subject to shock the fake subject. Sounds of pain come through the intercom, getting worse each time. At a point, the intercom mentions the heart condition. Dr. Hardass tells the subject not to worry. If the subject asks to stop the test, Dr. Hardass will start talking about how important it is to get the data and that the entire foundation of his research depenmds on it. This continues until either the subject quits or the fake subject "dies." The vast majority of subjects ended up "killing" the fake subject, despite the fact that they were made fully aware they could stop at any time, Dr. Hardass is able to convince them to continue.

The did tell the subjects in the end that everything was fake, but it did mess up some of the subjects (PTSD). Because of this, the experiment was controversial.

EDIT: Milgram Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdb20gcc_Ns

[Thu'um]

DZ has a point, I recall watching a movie called the wave, based on a true story about people.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKQLbFfRF4s

 

He basically shows tricks them, they ask how people could believe in Hitler and all that. But they end up supporting this movement he creates, and when people start getting hurt they're all to rolled up into it and the forsake the good of the few for the good of the whole.   

[psy_commando]

D'aw, DZ beat me to the Milgram experiment.. I heard so much about that during my philosophy courses !

There's also the Standford Experiment that's interesting, but a little more controversial (the vid also features a short summary of the Milgram experiment) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih8NfDPtWSU

 

About calling people idiot, I think that besides trying to boost one's ego, its also a way of trying to discourage the "idiot" along with any other potential "idiots" from repeating a behavior one didn't like for pretty much any reasons. Pretty much like peer pressure, but it could work between two person too. Like, telling your brother he's an idiot for eating the last slice of pizza or something like that.