I’ve never been there in person, but from looking at pictures it looks healthy, so if you just didn’t know that it was dangerous you might be tempted to wade in. I wonder if he really swam, though, instead of just waded, since there don’t seem to be that many places that are deep enough to swim in.
In fact, if I saw someone wading there, I wouldn’t think it that odd. Only if they had managed to find one of the few swimming holes and was deliberately swimming there. That would seem like they were trying too hard. Similarly if they were all decked out in swimming gear and/or beach type accoutrements, it would also seem like they were trying too hard instead of just spontaneously wanting to dip their toes.
That’s not the case for four mile run, whose waters look so unsafe that I wouldn’t want to eat fish caught there much less expose myself to it, which didn’t prevent people from casting their lines into it when I strolled along it a decade or two ago.
Of course, looks can be deceiving. And we should be generous to Kennedy, who isn’t really expected to know when something looks safe but is actually unhealthy. It’s not like he’s a secretary of Health and Human Services or something.
I’ve got an acquaintance, a MENSAN for God’s sake, who doesn’t accept the germ theory of disease. What I hate is people like her will look at this as evidence to support her anti-science stance. “See, he was submerged in bacteria filled water and didn’t get sick.” I hope RFK gets seriously ill, but I hope his grandkids are fine.
I may have told this before, but some years back I was at the registration desk for an RG (a local mini-convention) when I was approached for one of the speakers looking for a Mensa-appropriate lead-in. I gave her one based on “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” — “If you’re so intelligent, why ain’t you smart?” Nothing I’ve seen before or since has altered the question a whit (and I most certainly don’t exempt myself).
I’ve never been a member, but some friends of mine were and they invited me to events they also invited their Mensa friends to. I’m still friends with many of those people. It was an interesting learning experience and probably the first time I came to realize someone could be very intelligent yet not very smart. The events probably attracted more of the social butterflies, so I didn’t see too many weirdos, but there were a few with some way out ideas about how the world worked.
Didn’t Asimov have some rather sharp commentary about Mensa? AFAIC, though, it’s not really an intelligence club, but rather a club for people who are good at taking tests.
I remember one dude who was always wearing latex gloves. Every single party I saw him at he would have those latex gloves on. Dude kind of looked like a dehydrated Weird Al, but I never asked him what the deal with the gloves were. Perhaps I was afraid of what he might say?
Yes he did, despite being active in Mensa off and on for much of his life.
He found many of them, despite their intelligence, held irrational or supernatural beliefs. Some believed inclusion in their club made them superior to others. And also found an unusual amount of loudly vocal far right conservatism/libertarianism. And a lot of them, especially younger guys, would basically troll and try to get one up on him in some sort of deranged debate rather than engage with him as a person and intellectual.
Basically, nothing surprising to anybody who has been around any sort of internet forum for any length of time, including this one. One thing about internet culture - it’s made it a lot easier to find a forum in which to engage in such behavior with minimum of effort.
This is not the first article on this. Grok has been contradicting MAGA posters on Xitter ever since they incorporated the AI into Xitter, which happened some time earlier this year. I suppose it’s a subtle form of trolling to ask Grok to evaluate posts by MAGA-ists.
It’s a club for people who are good at taking tests and want the validation for it. Which, you know, is fine if that’s you. But the idea of paying money to associate with people as intelligent but emotionally crippled as me did not appeal, especially as I can get that for free right here.
Anyway - where were we? RFK Jr? I foresee an Oregon Trail re-enactment in his future.
I think exceptionally smart, imaginative people can be even more susceptible to conspiracy thinking than the masses, because they possess the mental gymnastics to convince themselves of many different things. Perhaps it’s the Mensa types who start conspiracy theories*, and the average thinkers who only adopt them and pass them on further. It takes not only intelligence, but mental discipline to think rationally.
*@Atamasama excepted - their Mensa membership may demonstrate intelligence; but their SDMB membership demonstrates rationality
I’m sure this is true. You also have situations where a person becomes an expert in a particular field of study, where they are accomplished and respected, and believe that this gives them authority in other disciplines where they really have no idea what they’re talking about.
We see this play out on the public stage all the time. How often have you seen, for example, someone brilliant (or at least highly competent) in a particular non-medical discipline giving wrong or even dangerous medical advice? They may even be highly educated in a scientific field.
