Most People are Stupid
In these comments, semi-heckler Prince of Daylight poses the following question:
As I said in the brief initial response, one of my primary philosophies about life is that most people are stupid. Certainly, there are exceptions; I like to think that I'm one, though I'm no genius. However, I've found that the most consistent truths is that people will say and do things that are absolutely stupid and ignorant; if you bank on people doing the wrong thing, and making stupid choices, you will never be disappointed, you will only occasionally be proven wrong, and when you're proven wrong you will be pleasantly surprised, not unpleasantly surprised. I'll give you a few examples.
This weekend, a bunch of neo-Nazi morons held a march in Toledo, Ohio, protesting "black crime". Now, neo-Nazis marching in a black neighborhood of Ohio is, I think we can all agree, extremely unwise, and there were predictions before the march even began that it would get ugly. So at this point, we have stupid neo-Nazis, and stupid public officials who didn't deny them a permit when there was good reason to believe that the march would cause violence. Refusing to be out-stupided by a bunch of racist white guys, what did the local black street gangs, the very object of the protest march, do? They rioted and vandalized black businesses! Here we have a case of everybody doing the worst possible thing. An isolated incident? Of course not.
At the end of August of this year, a massive hurricane hit the Gulf of Mexico region, specifically Mississippi and Louisiana. Now, Mississippi actually did okay. Louisiana and New Orleans, though, were the picture of abject stupidity. You had a governor who refused to allow the federal government to take over (and that includes responsibility for anything that went wrong), instead taking time "to think about it". You had a mayor who was so negligent that he allowed hundreds of buses to be flooded, instead of preemptively getting them out of the city so that they could be used to evacuate. And the evacuation? That was for tens of thousands of people who were too stupid to follow a mandatory evacuation order. Instead of being orderly and just walking their able-bodied asses out of the city, they stole things like plasma screen television sets. They got so violent that the National Guard had to be called in to restore order; and the whole time, many of these people just sat around, waiting for someone else to help them. Certainly, there were people who were helpless victims, completely unable to fend for themselves; however, the guys who were shooting at National Guard evacuation helicopters do not fall into this category. Here you have a massive example of stupidity and laziness! Double threat! And that's not to mention the colossal mistake of building a major city below sea level, and between two massive bodies of water, then diverting money meant to strengthen levies to other projects, often for no better reason than political expediency.
How about people who build houses on unstable slopes (my specific example being the folks in California who have made the news lately, but it happens all over) and then whine about their inability to get insurance, and demand state and federal funds to put their lives back together when their houses bust in half and get condemned? Or people who spill hot coffee in their lap and sue McDonalds? Or smoke two packs a day for forty years, and then sue the tobacco company when they get cancer?
And it's not confined to our generation, not by any means. People have been doing and saying stupid things since the beginning of time. Assuming you put any stock in the Bible (I do), pretty much the first story is of God telling two people "Don't eat that fruit." What's the first thing they do? They eat the fruit. Or how about King David? He has sex with another man's wife, and then he has the guy killed! Human history is like a bad mafia movie! And even if you don't put stock in the Bible as reliable history, you can look at other events and individuals. What about Henry VIII, whose solution to a bad marriage was to kill his wife? Or the French, who killed thousands of each other for years in order to eliminate the monarchy, only to pretty much give absolute power to Napoleon Bonaparte? How about the folks who lionize Usama bin Laden because they're too stupid to understand that bin Laden was disowned by his family and expelled from several countries because he's a bad apple? Or people who are stupid enough to wear Che Guevara T-shirts, referring to him as a "rebel" or an "idealist" on account of he set up death camps and played a large part in eliminating freedom in Cuba?
I spent five years at university. Now, it was a state university, but that says more about the financial background of the parents of the student body than it does about the students themselves; I'm truthful when I say that there was a fairly even cross section of society at the school I went to. These, some of the brightest minds that the population had to offer, were always responsible, logical, reasonable, and well-informed, right?
Wrong. I knew some very bright people, most of whom couldn't tell you who George Galloway is, or what country Hu Jintao was president of, or what the title of the Japanese head of state is, or what kind of government they have in Syria. They don't check the news, they don't know their geography, they don't know what C-SPAN is, they can't explain how a bill becomes a law. The term "electoral college" conjures immediate thoughts of wiring, batteries, and light bulbs in most Americans; repeated consideration generally leads to confused headaches. Most people don't understand simple concepts like capitalism, free markets, socialism, planned economies, republican democracy, or inflation. They think that nuclear power is dangerous without any evidence to back it up. They think that silicone breast implants can cause cancer or other health problems, again without solid evidence. They think that global warming and evolution are proven scientific fact, and if questioned the average American would answer with an argument about as sophisticated as "Uh-huh!"
I know this is a totally long rant, but I think you get the picture. Whether it's current events like the hurricane or that neo-Nazi march, or historical events like Henry VIII or the execution of Socrates, or a general lack of knowledge among the general world population when it comes to anything beyond their sphere of influence or experience, human beings are stupid, lazy, selfish, unreliable people. When I observe the things that happen in the world, I am very seldom surprised at the stupid things, and I am occasionally surprised when people actually do what they're supposed to. It may sound cynical, but it hasn't failed me yet.
Dig?
This is WAY off topic, but for the benefit of those who are relatively new to this blog, why do the conclusions of many of your topics end up lamenting the low IQ of our generation. (Incidentally, this is an honest question and hopefully not fodder for a "flip" reply demonstrating a superior intellect. We've been on that road before and I'm not interested in playing that game anymore. I'm minor league, at best, and you are clearly major league.) Here's hoping for a well thought-out response that helps me understand your motivations.
As I said in the brief initial response, one of my primary philosophies about life is that most people are stupid. Certainly, there are exceptions; I like to think that I'm one, though I'm no genius. However, I've found that the most consistent truths is that people will say and do things that are absolutely stupid and ignorant; if you bank on people doing the wrong thing, and making stupid choices, you will never be disappointed, you will only occasionally be proven wrong, and when you're proven wrong you will be pleasantly surprised, not unpleasantly surprised. I'll give you a few examples.
This weekend, a bunch of neo-Nazi morons held a march in Toledo, Ohio, protesting "black crime". Now, neo-Nazis marching in a black neighborhood of Ohio is, I think we can all agree, extremely unwise, and there were predictions before the march even began that it would get ugly. So at this point, we have stupid neo-Nazis, and stupid public officials who didn't deny them a permit when there was good reason to believe that the march would cause violence. Refusing to be out-stupided by a bunch of racist white guys, what did the local black street gangs, the very object of the protest march, do? They rioted and vandalized black businesses! Here we have a case of everybody doing the worst possible thing. An isolated incident? Of course not.
At the end of August of this year, a massive hurricane hit the Gulf of Mexico region, specifically Mississippi and Louisiana. Now, Mississippi actually did okay. Louisiana and New Orleans, though, were the picture of abject stupidity. You had a governor who refused to allow the federal government to take over (and that includes responsibility for anything that went wrong), instead taking time "to think about it". You had a mayor who was so negligent that he allowed hundreds of buses to be flooded, instead of preemptively getting them out of the city so that they could be used to evacuate. And the evacuation? That was for tens of thousands of people who were too stupid to follow a mandatory evacuation order. Instead of being orderly and just walking their able-bodied asses out of the city, they stole things like plasma screen television sets. They got so violent that the National Guard had to be called in to restore order; and the whole time, many of these people just sat around, waiting for someone else to help them. Certainly, there were people who were helpless victims, completely unable to fend for themselves; however, the guys who were shooting at National Guard evacuation helicopters do not fall into this category. Here you have a massive example of stupidity and laziness! Double threat! And that's not to mention the colossal mistake of building a major city below sea level, and between two massive bodies of water, then diverting money meant to strengthen levies to other projects, often for no better reason than political expediency.
How about people who build houses on unstable slopes (my specific example being the folks in California who have made the news lately, but it happens all over) and then whine about their inability to get insurance, and demand state and federal funds to put their lives back together when their houses bust in half and get condemned? Or people who spill hot coffee in their lap and sue McDonalds? Or smoke two packs a day for forty years, and then sue the tobacco company when they get cancer?
And it's not confined to our generation, not by any means. People have been doing and saying stupid things since the beginning of time. Assuming you put any stock in the Bible (I do), pretty much the first story is of God telling two people "Don't eat that fruit." What's the first thing they do? They eat the fruit. Or how about King David? He has sex with another man's wife, and then he has the guy killed! Human history is like a bad mafia movie! And even if you don't put stock in the Bible as reliable history, you can look at other events and individuals. What about Henry VIII, whose solution to a bad marriage was to kill his wife? Or the French, who killed thousands of each other for years in order to eliminate the monarchy, only to pretty much give absolute power to Napoleon Bonaparte? How about the folks who lionize Usama bin Laden because they're too stupid to understand that bin Laden was disowned by his family and expelled from several countries because he's a bad apple? Or people who are stupid enough to wear Che Guevara T-shirts, referring to him as a "rebel" or an "idealist" on account of he set up death camps and played a large part in eliminating freedom in Cuba?
I spent five years at university. Now, it was a state university, but that says more about the financial background of the parents of the student body than it does about the students themselves; I'm truthful when I say that there was a fairly even cross section of society at the school I went to. These, some of the brightest minds that the population had to offer, were always responsible, logical, reasonable, and well-informed, right?
Wrong. I knew some very bright people, most of whom couldn't tell you who George Galloway is, or what country Hu Jintao was president of, or what the title of the Japanese head of state is, or what kind of government they have in Syria. They don't check the news, they don't know their geography, they don't know what C-SPAN is, they can't explain how a bill becomes a law. The term "electoral college" conjures immediate thoughts of wiring, batteries, and light bulbs in most Americans; repeated consideration generally leads to confused headaches. Most people don't understand simple concepts like capitalism, free markets, socialism, planned economies, republican democracy, or inflation. They think that nuclear power is dangerous without any evidence to back it up. They think that silicone breast implants can cause cancer or other health problems, again without solid evidence. They think that global warming and evolution are proven scientific fact, and if questioned the average American would answer with an argument about as sophisticated as "Uh-huh!"
I know this is a totally long rant, but I think you get the picture. Whether it's current events like the hurricane or that neo-Nazi march, or historical events like Henry VIII or the execution of Socrates, or a general lack of knowledge among the general world population when it comes to anything beyond their sphere of influence or experience, human beings are stupid, lazy, selfish, unreliable people. When I observe the things that happen in the world, I am very seldom surprised at the stupid things, and I am occasionally surprised when people actually do what they're supposed to. It may sound cynical, but it hasn't failed me yet.
Dig?
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