Crazy, Stupid...People

how does one make it 50 some years without knowing that??

reply to post by kat2684


That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm 57, and there are bits of info that got by me somehow, and I get P'd off at myself, saying, "How could I have lived this long without hearing about this or that?" It's only been a few years that I found out that it takes the moon 28 days to orbit the earth just once. With my level of curiosity how could I have missed this????

Others, though, could care less that they don't know anything.

reply to post by EllaMarina


Not so much trivia, that is understandable....

I just find it depressing that someone who makes over double my pay...would ask me "what country Africa was in"....I just can't imagine someone never stumbling across, that it is a continent....in 50 years, its not so much an intelligence thing as it is a....do people pay attention to things outside their little bubble.

reply to post by kat2684


Wow, I thought thinking Africa itself is a country was silly.
I too think a lack of curiosity may be to blame, as well as the fact that some people never had a reason to pick the knowledge up if they encountered it.
(I think I'm feeling a little defensive due to always forgetting the locations of all the central states and feeling dumb about it.)

Smart people have done a lot more harm to us on the whole than stupid people. That's because they think they know what is good for the rest of us. You can actually trust stupid people more than you can smart people because stupid people maintain a pattern and don't like to deviate from it. Get them doing something useful and they'll keep doing it.

Now there is endless controversy over IQ scores, most of it engendered by left wing liberals who can't stand the thought of someone being somehow "unequal" to someone else (except for themselves, of course), so they'll go out of their way to say that differences in IQ are the result of culture and nothing else. So they come up with "social IQs" and all sorts of alternative methods of measuring intelligence that deviate from the standard Stanford-Binet IQ test. I came across Someone's Counterbalance IQ test years ago that was slanted toward African Americans. It asked questions such as, "If you add another child to the welfare roles, how much money do you get?" as a multiple choice test. (Now isn't that question itself racist?) His point was obvious, but he didn't understand that asking factual questions like that does not constitute measurement of IQ.

But the fact of the matter is that the average IQ is 100. That means half the population has an IQ lower than that. And 100 isn't all that high. These people will never be doctors or lawyers. They'll never be physicists, college professors, or stock traders. We, as a species, were never bred for brains. The idea was for "equality of opportunity," but we've changed that to "equality of achievement." When you add stupid people into the mix, this cannot be achieved.

We were bred to do menial tasks on the farm. to live in tribal-sized social groups of 100 or so people in an agrarian economy. When we actually did that there was plenty of room for the IQ 100 and less people to be productive members of society. There was plenty of work in the fields. Being a farmhand was productive, useful, accepted work. You don't need an IQ of 130 to do it, and it doesn't matter one whit if you can't find Indiana on a map. There was no government-supplied welfare or unemployment that lasted for two years. If you didn't work, you didn't eat, and if you were incapable of work, your family took care of you, supplemented by charitable neighbors.

So nowadays it's all broken apart. Our families are broken, leading to a lot of single Moms who think the government ought to be their husbands and embark on a permanent life of welfare. You have a lot of people working minimum wage at retail decrying a lack of "family wage" jobs, the majority of which have been moved overseas. Why? Because the Chinese will do it cheaper, be thankful for the work, and not demand the companies provide for their every need.

So we've evolved into this entitlement mentality where if you don't do well, it is simply expected that the government will take care of you. Here we've just had a major storm and the governor of New York has stated he expects the Feds to pay every single cent for the damage. In other words, people expect the government to "make them whole" for every loss they incur. Anything that nature throws at you, whether it is a storm or a low IQ, the government is expected to take care of.

In the technological society we live in it's a lot harder to provide work for stupid people. We try, like making McDonalds cash registers with pictures of the meals to make it easier, but ask these people to make change by actually counting it out and they're useless. (BTW, I don't believe ALL people working in these environments are stupid. There are plenty of geniuses working at McDonalds, but overall the issue remains.)

I don't pretend to know what ought to have been done here. Perhaps it is simply always out of our control, but I do see a lot of really smart people coming out with stupid policy decisions that do the opposite of what they are intended to do. It just came out that the US spent an average of $60,000 per welfare family in providing those services. In other words, welfare is a business that provides jobs to welfare case workers. Now we have both the recipients and the government employees alike saying, "You owe me."

Where this hasn't already fallen completely apart, such as in Detroit, for example, it soon will, because this mode of operation simply cannot continue.

I think a huge mistake is being made when trying to equate a persons intelligence with their knowledge or willingness to discuss their knowledge of specific topics with others.

There are other factors involved such as the confidentiality of the conversation, being an introvert/extrovert, their vocabulary, primary language, ability to trust others, willingness for personal disclosure, interest in the subject matter.

Sometimes people have more important personal issues on their mind, sometimes they do not want to argue if they disagree with you. There are many reasons why people might "play stupid" and not be willing to discuss certain topics with other people who hold extremist viewpoints.

reply to post by AccessDenied

Doesn't anyone else feel like they have to dumb themselves down to talk to most people nowadays or else they look at you like you just vomited a quantum mechanical equation?

Yes we have to Dumb ourselves down sometimes at least. Places like ats give an outlet. I guess you are referring to people you meet in publci places like a supermarket who are tallking about shopping?

Originally posted by EllaMarina
reply to post by kat2684

 

Well, a long time ago I used to know the names of all the presidents and the capitals of each state. Now I couldn't drag most of them out of my brain if someone put a gun to my head.
I only just recently succeeded in memorizing the names of all the countries in the world. I haven't found cause to add capitals to that feat, though maybe I should just in case someone jumps out at me with trivia to gauge my intelligence level.

edit on 1-11-2012 by EllaMarina because: (no reason given)

The things you speak of are more of a memory test, than a marker for intelligence.

But, if you ask someone their opinion on euthanasia and they say, "The youth in America are just as bad," you know this conversation ain't goin' nowhere.

When Jay Leno asks questions to the people on the street and they can't answer such simple questions, it gives me the chills.

Here's a clip that starts with a Canadian that knows the answers. The U.S. citizens, eh, not so much.

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
reply to post by AccessDenied

 

Doesn't anyone else feel like they have to dumb themselves down to talk to most people nowadays or else they look at you like you just vomited a quantum mechanical equation?

Yes we have to Dumb ourselves down sometimes at least. Places like ats give an outlet. I guess you are referring to people you meet in publci places like a supermarket who are tallking about shopping?

It takes a clever man to play the fool!

I agree with the op

reply to post by phroziac


Read your post a few weeks ago about leaving ATS.
Glad you changed your mind,good to see you back.

I agree with much of what Saturnfx said. I wonder sometimes what does intelligence gain for us? Most of us know many things, and spend hours everyday collecting information, can work equations, can quote literature, and lead reasonably successful lives. But when push comes to shove, what does it really contribute to the overall success of our lives as a whole?

I have successfully engineered my professional life, but my personal life is and has always been very complicated and messy. My exhusband once asked me "If you're so smart, then why can't you make me happy?"
I don't know. I didn't put my happiness in his hands, anymore than I expected to be in charge of his. Besides, he was really the smart one, and he knew it.

As for the little honey-boo boo show. Ya know, I think it has something to do with feeling superior. Perhaps people's lives have become so insignificant, disappointing, or diminished (maybe those aren't the right words, but I hope you know what I mean), that they need someone to make fun of. To feel superior to. Better than. Anybody but anybody can watch that show and feel smarter, better looking, and more successful, than the characters it follows. You know? I mean, for crying out loud, at least we have manners and teeth!

How did you ever get their fingers off their smartphone long enough to engage in a conversation? I found a good way is to smack it out of their hand. That starts the conversation right on up!!!! Here's the problem from where I stand.
Facebook
Twitter
linkedin Etc,etc.etc.etc. Entertainment & social networking is dumbing us back to second grade. I would rather have two friends that I could actually sit down and talk with over a good cup of coffee, than 8 kizzillion "friends" on Fake Book. And it aint gonna get any better any time soon.

Originally posted by BellaSabre
I agree with much of what Saturnfx said. I wonder sometimes what does intelligence gain for us? Most of us know many things, and spend hours everyday collecting information, can work equations, can quote literature, and lead reasonably successful lives. But when push comes to shove, what does it really contribute to the overall success of our lives as a whole?

I figure it's the same reason why people climb mountains, travel the world, compete... It's so we can have something to talk about. Imagine a world where no one had anything to say? A world of silence, or a world of utterly shallow conversations? That would be hell!

Know exactly what you mean. My girlfriend likes keeping up with the kardashians so it's on sometimes here and there, and I am always asking her 'how in gods name can you watch this?! what do you get from it? I feel like I am killing my brain!" I thought it was the worst show on tv...then I saw here comes honey boo boo. wow is the only word I had for it.

I think it's like in the movie Idiocracy.

Smart hard working people are doing just that....going to school, furthering their lives and working hard.

Stupid people just stay home and breed.

Figure MOST smart people have... what?.....2.5 kids

Where your high school drop-out, trailer dwelling crackhead is having 5 kids.......

Do the math and project that 20 - 50 years.

This is a great topic.I'm in the u.k. and i live with what your describing(shared house)..There are alot of good points here but i'm not sure intelect is the main problem,although it's a big part of it.

I recently walked around greece for two months and a while after road a push bike around turkey.All of it in the backwoods in both countries,and was very pleased to see that most people although not doing much work simply sat in community area's talking,getting plenty of fresh air,happy in the simplicity of their lives.You could say they seemed connected with their surroundings.

I think this is what we have lost,we live in concrete boxes doing jobs we don't particularly like,well, the majority do,and to what end? so we can retire with a numbed mind.

So i guess from my point of view it's a population problem,if you rack and stack the human race,we become automitons mindlessly going about our buisness. Add to that political correctness and if you say something not quite right you get pulled up on it.. Actually now i've given it some thought i think i could list a thousand reasons...

STUPID PEOPLE SHOULDN'T BREED good job i havn't had kids ey

Maybe you're just boring. I hear this all the time. People being stupid. People being sheep. What are you doing but complaining? What makes everyone but you so stupid? Did you crawl out of a different hole than the rest? Wait. Do they have different opinions? Oh my. Then - you may be just like them!

(whispers) they all think they are so different and fun.

I can deal with stupid people, I just hate hate hate effin' HATE the ignorant, the rude, the crass, the condescending, the obnoxious, I can go on forever. I hate that a lot of people somehow manage to grow up never learning "you don't always HAVE to have an opinion."

Honestly though, I think I've developed a dislike of people from the time I began driving. I live in a populated area just outside Philadelphia, and I can't seem to drive 10 minutes away without wanting to run somebody off the road.

Just my opinion, but I think a lot of today's causes of the different "classes" of people I described above stem from a lot of different variables. TV/entertainment plays a significant role; people see these jack@sses on TV and think it's acceptable to behave like them. Technology itself plays a role. I also think the speed of society, meaning us in our everyday lives, today has taken away from a lot of parents properly raising their children with morals, respect, etc. Respect seems to diminish every year.

reply to post by cultureboxes


It's true. We all think we're unique individuals with our own color template, and we are. But group everyone together and that changes, for some reason. A uniform outer layer is created, one that comes across as possessing an IQ level about 20 points lower than the actual collective average of the group... or so I assume.

True story: I was 17 years old (came home from my p/t job at a coffee shop)

"I am so sick of dealing with stupid people!"

My dad...

"get used to it..."

End of story.