Why are there so many stupid people?

Yeah, as someone just said, the reach available is greater than ever before. Same amount of stupid as always. Jack Dorsey has a lot to answer for, the pr*ck.

Northernlily

Social media is causing a surprisingly huge number of people not having the capacity to think objectively and instead believe everything they read on the internet.

StupidLikeAFox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119229049#Comment_119229049

Spot on, I couldn't agree more

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119229049#Comment_119229049

Disagree. Those people who couldn't tell the difference between good information and bad information, were always there. They just had access to their immediate circle to chat with and were susceptible to misinformation on a local scale. Social media, as the name suggests, links these people up so they can spread misinformation and conspiracy theories on a global scale.

Social media isn't the cause of the stupidity. It just spreads the information the stupid people use.

Drumpot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119229049#Comment_119229049

There are certain threads where even seemingly intelligent people don’t want to discuss the topic particularly where Emotions run high and it’s not just stupid people but it is people being stupid.

Saying that, I think there’s a difference between people being stupid and stupid people. We can all be stupid at one time or another , not everybody is stupid all of the time. We all have our blind spots and our stupid/misguided core beliefs. It is also easier to spot when others are being stupid but harder when we are engaging in it ourselves!

One simple experiment to ask yourself is to consider some absolute beliefs (your truth) you hold dear. Can people discuss or challenge your “truths” without you getting flustered, angry or hitting back? Are you only able to take a “there is only what I believe and people hostile to what I believe” approach to some topics ?

I think what people think is “objective thinking” isn’t always such because all our views and opinions are moulded by splintered facts and bias. An easy example of “objective thinking” is questioning conventional/conformed wisdom with a logical point and no easy answer. Thats not valued in society and certainly not valued in the more emotionally driven threads of boards.

An awful lot of people argue against the poster rather then the point. That to me is kind of thick but it doesn’t mean they are stupid, just not able to engage people in an intelligent manner. It’s like the adult children in the Dail point scoring and it’s remarkably effective and really popular at spoiling meaningful discussion. I’ve done it myself but generally try to stay away from this sort of engagement strategy.

macraignil

Since moving away from being hunter gatherers there is much less chance now of the stupid simply being killed in a hunting accident or by picking the wrong fruit and eating it with fatal consequences. Society protects the stupid to a much greater extent now than ever before. It might even be suggested that in the unfavorable economic circumstances that now prevail in many parts of the world it is more the ones who can't understand how to use contraceptives that are more likely to reproduce in greater numbers so overall there may be very little selection for stupid not to be propagated to the next generation. How else would Putin have so many thousands of stupid people to take up weapons and risk their lives attacking and killing their neighbours because they are allegedly nazi drug addicts?

Not sure about the talk of so many stupid people being on social media as the forms of it where I see lots of people acting in a way I view as stupid I simply avoid so I don't need to hear from them. Is the apropriate phrase "birds of a feather flock together"?

Hotblack Desiato

@macraignil Stupid? They have conscription in Russia. Conscripts don't have a choice (well, unless they're prepared to risk imprisonment or execution) The propaganda BS is just to try to keep things quiet on the home front.

@El_Duderino 09

Disagree. Those people who couldn't tell the difference between good information and bad information, were always there.

Filling the churches every Sunday... 😛

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119230240#Comment_119230240

The first reference I could find for the level of conscription in the Russian military is that it makes up about 25% of its forces so that still leaves about 75% taking part in killing their neighbours and risking being killed themselves by choice. A choice that I would consider stupid. Also allowing a leader as insecure and paranoid as Putin to control the military and use it for murdering their neighbours would also be stupid in my opinion. Maybe the less stupid Russians went to live somewhere else or are simply outnumbered.

Hotblack Desiato

Your posts only make sense in relation to those (if any) who've volunteered to join up after the war started.

Young men the world over join their country's (or sometimes another country's) army, sometimes because of nationalistic fervour but usually because they have few or no other job options. The vast majority of them who join an army during peacetime never expect to be fighting in a war, but if it happens they don't have a choice in the matter.

Your points about Putin's paranoia and stupidity equally apply to Trump (and the world would be a much better place if both had been strangled at birth imho) but Americans actually had an option to not elect Trump yet they still did so. So does that make them stupider than Russians? - arguably yes it does.

chuchuchu

“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

This is why you give up on explaining things to people.

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119231498#Comment_119231498

I don't agree with you that joining the Russian military before the attack on Ukraine was not something stupid to do. Since 1991 they have been involved in wars in Georgia, Transnistria, North Ossetia-Alania, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Abkhasia, North Caucasus, Syria and the Central African Republic. The war with Ukraine has been going on since 2014 and I think a good number of the current Russian forces will have joined since then.

From some recent reading on conscription in Russia it is stated online that the punishment for dodging the conscription for the year is two years in prison and to be honest if I was given the choice of being locked up for two years or obeying orders from a murderer like Putin for a year I know which choice I would go for.

I think to join one of the biggest armies in the world expecting not to fight in a war is stupid and anyone who signs up to take orders from someone like Putin is not going to get any sympathy from me.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207357#Comment_119207357

Also, have you seen what passes for journalism nowadays?

worse in local papers printing press releases and put their name on it as if they wrote it. the only know copy and paste. never question anything

BrianD3

My circumstances at the moment have resulted in me dealing with a lot of single mothers - from talking to them, I'm hearing so many stories of "complicated" family situations and "who's my Daddy" scenarios. Lots of children produced from cheating. Thick, rough men going around fcuking anything that moves. Thick women opening their legs for them. Contraception obviously used sloppily or not at all. Abuse of drugs and alcohol. Hellraiser lads coming off motorbikes leaving them dead or disabled and leaving behind multiple children with multiple women. Etc.

I used to think that opening scene from Idiocracy was heavily exaggerated for comic effect - if anything, real life is often worse than what is portrayed in that scene.

Educated people aren't immune from this and no doubt there is plenty of cheating going on in this cohort too but they seem to be more clever about it. They don't get caught as often and crucially they seem to manage to use contraception.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119233568#Comment_119233568

we ve completely fcuked up modern society, its introducing highly dysfunctional behaviors, leading to even more dysfunctional outcomes!

Boards.ie was created to alleviate the burden of stupid people on society.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119233818#Comment_119233818

...only that we all decided to turn up here instead!

bluedex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119222351#Comment_119222351

This.

100%

That's all..

vixdname

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119208261#Comment_119208261

I don't buy into everyones more stupid than Einstein....Einstein was a genius in his field of study but wasnt a genius in other subjects such as biology , medicine etc.

Therefore the experts in those other fields may just be as intelligent in their fields as Einstein was in his, except Einstein was more famous due to his discoveries and theories.

I do agree however on the unwilling stupids that simply dont want or refuse to listen to anyone who challenges the incorrect ideas or alternative facts they deem as right.

Social media for all the good its done has also facilitated the spread of unsubstantiated stupidity globally and I fear we'll all have to live with global stupidity for the foreseeable future.

bluedex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119222512#Comment_119222512

Eh...???

OK, thanks for your positive contribution.

That's sarcasm by the way, you can look it up in the dictionary, it's a book which explains what words mean.

bluedex

It's kinda cool the way you can start a thread with a mainly flippant, random thought that came into your head and it turns into a mostly interesting discussion.

I might start another one called "Why do people feel the need to insult complete strangers online?" (And I'm not saying I'm immune to that!)

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119234222#Comment_119234222

f*** you!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119234222#Comment_119234222

So...

"Let the hate flow through you"

boardsie12

I blame the new generation and I would label most of them as lazy!

I know from speaking to the millennials, they hate working and some only get their first job in their 20's.

They are the type that think they are above minimum wage jobs, not all of them, but most of them.

Those jobs are the ones where you learn the most, especially in retail, or even around food, you can gain a lot of important life skills from minimum wage jobs, for example, communication skills, health and safety, manual handling, and so on.....

I know of a millennial that got herself pregnant on purpose as soon as she finished school because she saw it was a way to avoid working for life, claim all the benefits and sit on her arse all day, without a care in the world, this seems to be a recurring thing, especially around Dublin.

Perhaps if our system was better regulated and if we didn't bend over backwards to help the lazy people, then we would be able to produce hard-working people who are motivated and capable of working and contributing something to society.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119234276#Comment_119234276

Boooorrriiiinnngggg...

The young peoppe today are exactly the same as young people of yesterday. Your grandparents thought your generation are a joke and now you're falling into the same trap.

If minimum wage jobs were such great learning amd development opportunities, why don't lots of people choose to go from their career paths to retail floor staff? The way you describe it, they would learn loads which would help them in their careers.

The truth is that they can't live on minimum wage. Maybe they can live at home rent free, but they can't live in the way previous generations would have described it (get a partner, a house ansld start a family).

In the past tou could start on low wage and the wage would go up and you could progress your career. That social contract has broken down. Now you start on minimum wage and stay there, living in your parents house. No family, no assets, no prospects.

Why don't young people relish that "opportunity"? Gawd, I'm like you, I just can't figure it out...

boardsie12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119234309#Comment_119234309

Actually, I disagree with what you are saying, I remember when I was in school, especially 5th year, it was normal that most people had a job, a **** job, salary was terrible, but people were still working on the weekends, now, when I chat to my nephews and nieces, along with their friends, barely anyone has a job and are unwilling to work.

Maybe there is a different reason? I wish that I knew, this is so visible nowadays, there is a problem that hasn't been highlighted properly and should be thoroughly examined.

Maybe parents have become more generous as the years have progressed? I wish that I knew

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119234355#Comment_119234355

Yeah. Back then the sh1t jobs with sh1t pay was for people with no experience like students looking for casual work and school students living at home. Now those jobs are done AS careers. They have full adults with years of experience doing those sh1t jobs. Why would they employ children without any work experience when they can now pay full adults with experience and pay them the same sh1t wage?

lalababa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119216852#Comment_119216852

It's funny, what are you supposed to do with no card on the day..or no card atall. They should take cash but like make it 10 euros dearer, so that they don't have much cash to deal with.

Now what's stopping a fella to having a card? I don't know myself...I'm sure there could be some reason. Can people think of some?

But yeah increasingly one needs

1. A debit/credit card

2. Smartphone

To be able to function.

Also some times you specifically need a credit card over a debit card as I found out whilst trying to rent a car. I think some hotels need one aswell or am I talking bollix....

djan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119234439#Comment_119234439

Interesting point raised there. I always thought that insisting for payment by card only works on the principle that a merchant is refusing a sale. When a debt is owed, in this case to the driving licence authority, cash as a form of legal tender cannot be refused. Not a 100% on this though!

jmayo

The big reason for not accepting cash is often the issues it brings with regards security.

And yes nowadays most people will have a bank card of some sort and indeed a smart mobile phone, even old people.

Also it is very noticable how due to covid we have gotten more in line with a lot of our European brethern in using cash a lot less.

I know since covid I have almost totally stopped using cash.

And you can argue till you are blue in the face that someone has to accept cash as it is legal tender, you just will not get the goods or the service.

It reminds me of the point that a vendor does not have to accept your custom i.e. a bar does not have to serve you.

Now the only loophole is that the vendor is the only vendor providing the service i.e. an organ of the state.

Hyperbollix

Imagine a world where people took the front pages of the newspaper as seriously as the back pages....

I can't get my head around people who spend every waking hour thinking about the plight of a team of hurlers going for the All Ireland or a bunch of millionaires lining out for a soccer team in England owned by a Saudi billionaire. Everywhere you go, from school, to college to the workplace, you meet men of all ages who couldn't name three senior government ministers but have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Man United reserves team.

Society seems to put serious brain power in superfluous nonsense but when it comes to the things that really matter, ie informing yourself about issues in order to elect "the best" public representatives, the attitude is "Ah, they're all the same" and "Sure it's a rigged system anyway, might as well get on with me life and enjoy meself"

Now Ireland is certainly not in the worst position for this, but when you look at Britain or the US, you can see the very dark places an ignorant, uninformed and propagandized electorate can bring you to.