Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Allegro ma non troppo.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
-- Lazarus Long
I can't believe it.
One of my favorite economic historians from my undergrad days wrote a famous treatise on human stupidity, and it took me 20 years to find out about it.
Sheesh!
Well, just in case you too missed this little gem, I offer:
THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
By Carlo M. Cipolla
Go. Read the whole thing. It's not too long. And if you have a wry, cynical (maybe even sardonic?) twist to your view of the world (as I certainly do), you will laugh your proverbial ass off. Maybe even your real ass. But since most people need a bit of convincing to actually *read* things these days, here's a taste to whet your appetite:
THE FIRST BASIC LAW
The first basic law of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that:
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague, and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will however reveal its realistic veracity. No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:
a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.
b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one's activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.
The First Basic Law prevents me from attributing a specific numerical value to the fraction of stupid people within the total population: any numerical estimate would turn out to be an underestimate. Thus in the following pages I will denote the fraction of stupid people within a population by the symbol ?.
There, if that doesn't get you started on the right track, there's no hope for you: you're one of THEM.
As a friend of mine always says: "Don't let the bastards get you down."
Of course, he means the stupid people.
But you knew that.
Right?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to my blog.)
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The thought creeps up on me:
The thought creeps up on me: if so many people are stupid, what if I am one of them?
I know I'm not a complete idiot.
Hell, there are a few parts missing.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
Oh, no question
I certainly would include myself in category "a" sometimes.
What if?
Yeah, but that's no problem at all. You either are or you aren't, and there's probably not much you can do about it. I half-joke that I'm a complete dummy; on better days I get to be a "well-meaning doofus."
The thing is to CARE about trying to do better. To try not to be stupid all the time.
Besides, being stupid has its benefits too. Anytime I go into an airport, for instance, or find myself in the presence of the police, I know that my protective Harmless Idiot Field is busy repelling suspicion.
There's an evolutionary element to it all, too. Go into a bar anywhere in the Deep South, and you'll be treated to the never-fail mating call of the male Stupid — a hornlike blatting of "HUH?"
But seriously, back to the question of whether or not you're stupid: If you're capable of being concerned about it, you're probably not one of them. Just don't get cocky.
maybe
That's sort of like the advice that the psychology teacher of a college friend gave him: If you're worried that you might be insane you probably aren't. It's the people who are certain they are sane that you should be worried about. Which brings up the question of whether there is a difference between insanity and confidence, or stupidity and confidence, or stupidity and insanity (both involve a significant disconnect between a person's concept of the world and the real world).
Whoa.
I'll have to go read that. I've joked many times about how I was born a human but was raised by and forced to live among monkeys.
Yeah, I'm almost certain it was a joke. No, really.