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Why are there so many stupid people?

  • 15-06-2022 3:27pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 404 ✭✭bluedex


    Is it shortcomings of the educational system, societal failures, or were there always just this many completely stupid people in the world?

    I think social media has probably drawn the curtain back on the high numbers of complete dimwits - so maybe they were always there, through the ages?

    Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.



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Comments

  • Posts: 3,689 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    None of the above really in your first paragraph OP

    The Stupid TV and Radio Ads on Irish TV and Radio MUST WORK, if they get worse and more cringeworthy year by year - Take phones and cars. And the "common sensical" ads. There is a measurable audience for this.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,790 ✭✭✭✭BattleCorp


    The media are playing their part in dumbing down the population. Producing sh1te like Love Island etc. where the celebrate the likes of Joey Essex etc. Also, have you seen what passes for journalism nowadays? No research in many cases, a load of cobbled together twitter screenshots etc.

    Mobile phones are also chopping away at people's attention spans too.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 506 ✭✭✭asdfg87


    So what gives you the right to decide people are stupid? most people seem to do pretty ok, i know loads of people who are different and quite a lot of them seem to have pretty ok lives with modest means, often more contented with their lot than so-called intellegent people.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,790 ✭✭✭✭BattleCorp


    The OP is expressing an opinion, which he/she has every right to do. If they think an awful lot of people are stupid, that's their right. They may be right or wrong, but they are free to think and express it.

    You are right, most people do ok whether they are stupid or not. You can be very very clever and be poor. Look at Tesla for example. Very intelligent man who died in poverty. Being content is no indication of being stupid or otherwise.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,433 ✭✭✭✭EmmetSpiceland


    Anger clouds judgment. There’s a lot of angry men out there, not happy with how the world is “changing” and leaving them behind.

    “It is not blood that makes you Irish but a willingness to be part of the Irish nation” - Thomas Davis



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 900 ✭✭✭sameoldname


    I don't think most people are unintelligent. I do however believe that an awful lot of people are ignorant and/or incompetent in a lot of the things they say and do.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,443 ✭✭✭AyeGer


    Think how stupid the average person is and then think half are stupider than that 😂😂



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,513 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    When I was in school I remember itching to get out so I wouldn't be around stupid people anymore. Being in all male Christian Brothers school I would say the general atmosphere was like a prison. Many of my fellow students were working and thinking at some base level. Many just didn't want to learn and gathered information from friends. So one person who didn't understand something could spread information to a group so they all didn't know and would agree with each other.

    Went to college and things were different but there were certainly a new type of stupid I met. People who memorise things but not understand them. Amazing how people like this function and it works really well for certain subjects but useless when they have to work out things. These people can excel in college and get good paying jobs.Along with some lecturers who were so out of the loop they wouldn't be able to do entry level work in the industry.

    Anyway once in the real world and working I realised stupid people don't go away and pop up in my work life here and there. Some people get jobs just because they speak the right way and have a college education. I worked with one women who I couldn't understand how she kept her job for a long time. Every project she was put on she was removed from after causing problems due to her constant mistakes. She did have an English degree but somehow was working in IT.

    It turns out her family were very rich and basically she grew up with many of the richest part of the population. Her family therefore knew many top executives around the country. So when presenting to a client they would bring her along as she would undoubtedly know some of the top people in the company. Once the project started she would mess up and they would move her. She eventually left and became a lecturer in a university. So incompetent person with no real skill nor ability now teaches others. Spreading stupid around.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 565 ✭✭✭frosty123


    Maybe your father got around OP 😉



  • Subscribers Posts: 42,171 ✭✭✭✭sydthebeat


    social media etc allows stupid people to make a lot more noise that they used to. it used to be the case that stupid people could only advertise their stupidity to those directly within ear shot.. now they can broadcast it across the world. Coupled on top of this that stupid congregates in a crowd as they find safety in numbers, therefore that stupidity considers itself the consensus, the mean, the normal reality. That leads to that group of stupidity viewing people of intelligence with suspicion and hatred. Then we get what we have in the US with science and intelligence is dismissed as "your facts, not my facts" and we end up living in a world of "alternative facts" where stupidity has a free reign.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,323 ✭✭✭phonypony


    I really envy the perpetually thick- they seem so happy, all the time!

    They go around creating disaster after disaster, often completely oblivious and the people who actually give a shït go around worrying about it and dealing with the fallout.

    They're definitely on to something.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,292 ✭✭✭Ubbquittious


    There have always been stupid people but to be honest I think people are more educated now than before. Social media does have an effect. Fellas who would have been holed up in their stone cottage in Ballynowhere 60 years ago can now broadcast to the world.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,964 ✭✭✭growleaves


    People with connections will always win out in competing for jobs because what is most needed at a company - any company - is someone who can definitely be trusted, which is why a hyperintelligent person will always be a distant second to somebody's cousin.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,964 ✭✭✭growleaves


    A LOT of jobs involve rote tasks which just have to be done, and for which basic ability plus withstanding boredom are the only requirements.

    Roles are made to be fungible because otherwise the employee would have too much leverage in salary negotiations and would be a nightmare to replace.

    What organisation wants super-intelligent people walking around unless it's totally unavoidable? Only if complexity is tied to profits will such people even be tolerated. They can potentially make managers look bad and feel insecure.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,611 ✭✭✭✭blade1


    There's less stupid people than you think because some of them have multiple accounts! 😁



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,234 ✭✭✭✭Dial Hard




  • Posts: 693 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    More stupid people have come to the fore through social media & that seems to make it ok to be that way.

    It's almost a fashion statement in publicising how stupid a person that you are!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,611 ✭✭✭✭blade1




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,832 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump


    Mama says stoopid is as stoopid does





  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,832 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump



    You can say what you like about the OP's father. He might not have been the sharpest tool in the box, but he was damn good at delivering milk



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,101 ✭✭✭erlichbachman


    I've said it before and I'll say it again, take the danger sign off the back of bottles of domestos and the like, for the sake of humanity.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,832 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump



    I know what you mean. It put so so many people off curing their Covid.



  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators Posts: 10,611 Mod ✭✭✭✭Jim2007



    I don't think there is any difference between the distribution of IQ and common sense today and in the past. It's just that the social media allows for the validation and long life of misinformed views. In the past if you had a misinformed view and met 6 people who told you it was wrong you'd feel the need to reevaluate you position. Today even if you do meet the same six people, you probably have another 20 on social media telling you they agree with you, so no need to reconsider your position.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,513 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    In fairness this is the only time I have seen this. There are other people who have parents that give them a lot of help with "companies". Basically the family sets them up with funds and/or contracts to have a company. Ireland is relatively equal and doesn't have the old boys club of the UK or USA.

    I don't know about your family but I wouldn't trust my cousins



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,297 ✭✭✭Count Dracula


    You all taste the same to me.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,707 ✭✭✭Bobblehats



    Just as vice versa I believe level of distaste and lack of refinement can lead to bad choices. Stupid isas a society permits it do, but then you run into the idiots directing it too.

    Worth keeping in mind just as clown world doesn’t quite extend in being effectively just Westworld for every awtist here administered an aerosol by their tutor to celebrate say african culture there’s at least 100 kids at the grand piano the other direction reciting Bach. Bad choices can lead to bad, bad, bad 2 tha bone results…



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 432 ✭✭NiceFella


    OP, your post is vague. What do you define as "Stupid" as Stupid is a relative term. For example, next to Einstein we are all stupid.

    My definition of stupid has nothing to do with some IQ score. It would be someone who is incapable or unwilling to learn from experience. Yes many people will and do make the same or similar mistakes over and over ..... etc.

    It's the unwilling ones that piss me off more. The ones who have more interest in maintaining an ignorant viewpoint rather than being open to be challenged or to change there mind when confronted by opposing evidence.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,832 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump



    It's probably just that after putting that many willies into your mouth, they all start to taste the same to you.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,412 ✭✭✭Jequ0n


    Most people are plain stupid but probably well meaning. I don’t think the ratio changes really over time.

    There is always an imbalance because they will always outweigh us superior ones in numbers. You don’t get used to it though.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 506 ✭✭✭asdfg87




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,751 ✭✭✭✭For Forks Sake


    Post edited by For Forks Sake on


  • Posts: 17,378 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    While I don't necessarily think most people are stupid, the removal of religion has left a belief system gap that must be filled for what seems to be the majority of people. These gaps invariably get filled with stupid stuff like we saw during Covid, or with various politics and movements. So the end result is the same as if the majority were stupid to begin with.

    There also exists the sort of people who would have been the most religious and righteous in a community. They latch onto their causes and take them to stupid extremes and we call them virtue signallers.

    I think intelligent people are more likely to exist without having to fill this gap or display their moral credentials to their peers.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,488 ✭✭✭Buddy Bubs


    Tesla is dead? Isn't he trying to buy twitter?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 506 ✭✭✭asdfg87


    There is a guy i know, big burly etc and he thinks he is the boss and knowlegable on loads of stuff, he is never really challenged though i worked around him a few times. Funny thing he thinks he is the man and everyone else thinks he is a pr1ck.

    A lady i know who has a Masters degree in something says. Intelligance has nothing to do with education.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,790 ✭✭✭✭BattleCorp


    Excellent rebuttal. Your debating skills are marvelous.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,513 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    Intelligence is the application of knowledge so a strong connection to education. You can have emotional intelligence where you understand emotional responses and apply that knowledge. Your friend having a masters doesn't mean she knows what she is talking about.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 506 ✭✭✭asdfg87




  • Posts: 3,689 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Hope battle hasn't hurt your feelings too much by such commoner appraisal.

    You deserve a Darwin Award.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,538 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Ireland is relatively equal and doesn't have the old boys club of the UK or USA.

    Are you kidding? There is any number of thick-as-pigshít rugby or GAA types in very well paying jobs. Fúck knows what they actually do all day though...

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



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  • Posts: 17,378 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,538 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Lots of the rugby types are born into old boy networks... meanwhile if you're well known enough in the GAA your ability to do a job does not appear relevant to being hired so it amounts to the same thing.

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,513 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    You don't understand what an old boys club is. It isn't an inherited nor because you went to a particular education centre. Yes sports connections help but it is not the old boys club. These people are not high up in many multinational or decent companies. Being on boards of sports connected businesses is not old boys club. Anybody thinking a sports personality makes them good at other stuff can look up hockey star fraud



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,787 ✭✭✭Feisar


    I've noticed this myself with youtube. My interest is in 10 min bites now more than it used to be. I find it hard to sit into a film as easy as I used to.

    First they came for the socialists...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,538 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Perhaps you should explain what you do mean, then, instead of what you don't...

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16 Raven1221


    There is a lot of beer. And also, the normal IQ is 100.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,964 ✭✭✭growleaves


    The average IQ for Rep. of Ireland is 96 according to a University of Ulster IQ researcher (Prof Richard Lynn).

    Although I should probably say that I personally don't think IQ is the last word in these things. The way in which people refract everything through their intellect (blocking out intuition and all spontaneous knowledge) seems to lead to a lot of anti-commonsense conclusions. Not everything is a syllogism.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,001 ✭✭✭Economics101


    I'm reminded of the Peter Principle which basically states that people are promoted until they are at a level beyond their competence. So "stupid people" will rise up the promotion ladder until their inadequacies are revealed, and then it's too late to avoid the damage.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,513 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    Perhaps you could use a term correctly and know what it means in the first place rather than make me explain what you said is not "old boys club"🤗



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,232 ✭✭✭TooTired123


    People with a limited capacity to absorb information, and have very little interest in anything outside a very narrow scope of subjects are generally very happy, I’ve found in my 57 years.



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