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.”
A lot of people feel the ways you do at one point or another in their lives, and that means you probably end up in their 90%.
No, it just means that he’s smart enough to notice.
If you meet people every day that can’t do simple math, yeah, that gets under your skin really fast… and then you start to notice other things, like their attitude towards life and problems, their lack of logical reasoning, etc. And then you realize that, yes, most people are stupid. You yourself are not very smart, but smart enough to notice.
My guess is, in most cases, people just lack good education. Sure, there are simpletones, but most people are not like that, they just never had proper education and guidance. And the problem seems to perpetuate. They don’t see anything wrong with the way they were raised, so they raise their children the same way. An oddball might break the cycle every now and then, but their number is far too low to make an impact, so they usually just move when they become of age.
That’s not how you respond to someone saying “people are stupid.”
What you’re really saying is “other people aren’t as smart as me.”
I like xkcd but I feel like Munroe is being assumptive here, assuming “your expectations are based on you”. Are they?
Agree. When I say “people are stupid” I mean they are living below their potential. The average person may have the intelligence, but consistently refuse to use it.
Yeah, I think that this is part of the deal.
When someone says “people are stupid”, they usually are not conveying “the average person has a lower-than-average intelligence”. And I don’t think that they’re even comparing people with some point of reference (the average, or themself, or someone else); in the context they’re usually criticising some behaviour that they see as stupid. For you this behaviour would be “living below their potential”, for me it’s “showing blatant lack of reasoning”, for @_danny@lemmy.world’s (from another comment) “lack of curiosity, drive to learn and critical thinking”.
This. I don’t mind ignorance. The ignorant can always be educated. I mind WILLFUL ignorance. Those who refuse to look at facts or use reason when confronted with something that contradicts their world view. THOSE are the stupid people.
Yeah, “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence. This whole panel is an example of a straw man fallacy to undermine someone saying “people are stupid”.
Sure, “stupid” isn’t defined around average intelligence, but “people” is defined around the average person. So, by saying “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence, you’re really criticizing the phrase “people are stupid”…
…which is exactly what this comic is doing
Saying “people are stupid” is the same as saying “the average person is stupid”. What’s hard to understand here?
Frankly, that is just a big pile of babble.
but “people” is defined [SIC] around the average person
There’s no “definition” here. The closest to what you said that would make some sense would be “but “people” implies a generalisation around the average person”, but it doesn’t work in your argument because it does not contradict what BananaTrifleViolin said. Nor it justifies your assumption that
by saying “stupid” is not defined around average intelligence, you’re really criticizing the phrase “people are stupid”…
I genuinely think that you did not understand what the other poster said, so I’ll repeat it under different words.
The comic has an implicit definition of stupidity as “lower than average intelligence” (see panel 2).
BananaTrifleViolin is highlighting that this is not the definition that people use for “stupid” when they say “people are stupid”. And that leads to a fallacy called “straw man”, where you misrepresent a position to beat it. Munroe (the cartoonist) is doing this, either by accident or on purpose. (It is not the first time he does this; his comic about free speech also shows the same irrationality.)
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So our brains were crafted to intake “reality” at a specific speed and quality. We can’t see things at the atomic, much less quantum reality, nor understand the massive scale of the planet, much less the universe. Most “facts” are more beliefs from what others have suggested to be, than individually researched facts. Even our scientific method is a bit wanting in this area, since if we hear X, how can we prove X? We just need to take other’s word that they did the correct process, didn’t lie during any steps, didn’t have any bad data unknowingly, especially in a culture where reproducibility is not a high priority so most scientific papers are not thoroughly tested and retested
That’s roughly our skeletal social structure around “facts”, and we’re heading face first into a world of deep fakes and misinformation, to an extent never seen before in humanity. So maybe we should all extend each other a bit more patience and kindly help each other through these uncertain times
Even our scientific method is a bit wanting in this area, since if we hear X, how can we prove X?
by looking at their lab notes and repeating their experiment and seeing if we can make the same observations. if they lied about their process (see the guy that claimed he made a room temp superconductor…) they get caught out.
I think you thoroughly misunderstand the process involved. yeah, there’s more emphasis on being first… but no… there’s definitely still verification. Oh. and. yes. we can image atoms.
Agreed, science is essentially set up as a competition such that disproving important things is also rewarded; reproducibility comes up more for niche fields
Yeah, I’d second this. The scientific method is very thorough.
So thinking on this more, there are many studies that are impossible to replicate, either due to time, money, or team size. Think about weather studies, no human lives long enough, so we have to push the belief back on the original data being accurate. Human studies that span millions of people are also hard for small teams or individuals to replicate. Also hard to have a particle accelerator for most people, so we have to trust the accelerators function properly, the data collected is not malformed and the interpretations are also correct (the last bit is what we could possibly double check if we had direct access)
I love the scientific method as well, but I think we still have some limits. Even if we had infinite time, but without infinite resources we might not be able to replicate everything “scientifically proven” (and even then, due to space time curvature, it might not be possible if infinite time and infinite resources had a fixed physical point, but that is probably Einsteinian philosophy)
Also, please prove me wrong. I’d rather believe the scientific method was 100% true, no joking.
Totally agree that most of the tools are there, but how many trials have you personally duplicated? The average person?
That doesn’t make the scientific method wrong. If someone isn’t following the scientific method, that’s on them, not the science.
You’re right that science doesn’t ever really prove anything per se. The best it can do is come up with a useful model that we can use to make predictions. The neat part is that this is extremely practical. You can take prediction X and apply it in the real world, so you don’t have to take someone at face value. For example, you know the theory of electromagnetism is more or less accurate because we have phones that extensively use those principles. And if that isn’t sufficient evidence, the present year is literally the best year ever for you to most easily test the theory yourself.
More like 90% of human actions are stupid, as I’m not sure if there’s an even split of “the stupid” and “the smart”, and plenty people mix both. (E.g. being oddly competent at something specific, only to vomit assumptions on something else.)
In special I feel like four types of stupidity became a bit too common, too harmful, too egregious. They’re the failure to handle:
- uncertainty - or, “how your belief might be wrong, and you’ll need to handle the case that it is wrong”
- complexity - or, “how small details have a profound impact on everything”
- undesirable possibilities - or, “how nature gives no fucks about your fee fees, and things don’t become true because you roll in wishful belief”
- context - or, “how things are never isolated, and you need to look outside the thing to understand the thing”
They’re intertwined, I think. And perhaps there’s something more important than those, but those four are the ones that I notice the most.
this is the most reddit post i’ve seen on lemmy
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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.
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.
Gop wants people dumb, it’s by design.
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.
Human intelligence is segmented and specialized. People who are smart at few things are usually very dumb at others. A person who can speak 9 languages can’t do more than basic math. An expert computer programmer, who can’t figure out how to keep a plant alive. Etc…
Polymaths are very rare. Very few people have advanced understanding and skills in multiple areas.
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Maybe people tend to specialize because they’ve been told that’s how they should do it. The reality is there is no limit known to what the human mind can learn. I’ve found that I can do just about anything I set my mind to do.
I can do car repairs, electronics design and repair, plumbing (which I avoid if at all possible), music (guitar, keyboard, bass, and drums), painting, drawing, computer systems design and repair, basic programming (powershell and bash scripting mostly), carpentry, farming, chemistry, cooking, hunting, and math. Math was always pretty easy to me until I got into Calculus which kicked my ass initially.
When I was growing up we didn’t have the internet or cable TV so I read books all the time. I’ve read hundreds of novels, and it gave me an excellent grasp of language and a massive vocabulary. Everybody should do that too.
Is someone stupid because they don’t know how to change a light bulb? A tire? How to do laundry? How to cook a meal? Review a book? Write an essay? Manage a task?
It’s just skills people dont have that often make them look stupid to most people who have that skill. Especially when those tasks seem very trivial once you have that skill.
Being ignorant of something doesnt make someone stupid. But i do think being stupid often prevents you for fixing your ignorance
Just 2 cents of thought
Edit: forgot to say every single person on the planet us stupid at something or about something but we may never have the opportunity to find out
They’re stupid if they don’t know those things and refuse to learn them.
People are allowed to call others stupid and be right about it.
People aren’t committing some great sin by doing so.
The idea we are is the idea the willfully ignorant use to manipulate everyone else into accepting their selfish indolence and it needs to stop.
Part of the problem is how do you determine if someone is willfully ignorant, incapable of learning that skill, or has just never been put in a situation where they needed said skill.
You don’t have to determine it. They make it painfully, painfully obvious.
My friend just moved into a new house, and there are no light bulbs anymore. So changing light bulbs is on a trajectory to be like shoeing a horse.
I never did change a tire, but I have changed a wheel. However most new cars don’t even have a spare wheel.
A lot of older folks are actually less likely to know how to do laundry with modern textiles and dyes. The only complicated thing is sorting and that can actually be largely skipped now.
Anyway, 90% of people will agree that 90% of people are dumb, they just won’t agree on which 90%
Anyway, 90% of people will agree that 90% of people are dumb, they just won’t agree on which 90%
Wholeheartedly agree with this
I think they haven’t tapped into their potential intelligence.
I mean if it is a bell curve, even an average person is smarter than half the world. There’s a selection bias on social media because those heated and ignorant threads get memed and shared either by people who believe the nonsense or by outrage.
Do you think it is a bell curve?
Most tests of intelligence lands close to a bell curve. With how many different factors that can influence intelligence it seems quite likely (the average of many different distributions each with a peak in the center is likely to look like a bell curve)
More precisely: If you repeatedly draw values from a probability distribution and sum them up, the sum tends towards a Gaussian (central limit theorem).
Holy crap this got more attention than I was bargaining for…
There’s a lot of things that can go into being “stupid”, and it’s important to remember that these are largely conditions that are debuffing them rather than inherent features of who they are. Most specifically, huge deaths of the population (61% as of Oct 2023) are living paycheck-to-paycheck in the US and have little to fall back on - that kind of perpetual, hopeless stress can greatly fatigue you and occupy your higher reasoning. Moreover, a number of people have become “locked in” to certain kinds of facts - for example the belief that America is inherently good or that God actively relieves suffering; they would have to put their axioms through substantial reevaluation and fresh information to be able to cross through uncertainty and then accept contrary facts, and their living conditions make that difficult.
A bunch of us recently gained access to global platforms.
A bunch of global platforms recently gained access to us.
Well I know which half I’m in.
It’s more of a mixture of stupidity, distraction, and willful ignorance
