Failures in Common Sense...

Great Debates
1

Is it just me or does it seem like common sense or knowledge of the simplest things are lost on people these days? What I’d like to do, is just open up the discussion with a couple of questions…

  1. What is common sense?

  2. Why don’t people use common sense anymore? Or even think really?

  3. What are some of the simplest failures in common sense that you’ve seen? What is it that we are no longer doing?

Some examples I’ve seen include people who show up at a bookstore without the title or the author of a book and get mad if you cannot figure out what they want by their vague description of the cover… “It’s red… and new.”

My fiancee actually had a woman tell her a long story about a guy reading a book in the park that she thought her husband would really enjoy… and she said (and i’m 100% serious), “I don’t know the title but the author’s name was something like… Da da da-da-da da da da-da.”
Yes, she actually hummed the name of the author…

It just seems to be that this ever growing lack of common sense in society is going to destroy us all.

2

Common sense is as hard to pin down as the ever elusive “intelligence.” What one person considers intelligent, other people do not.

I have given up arguing against common sense. Too many people like feeling they have something other people do not, and you would have to pry the term from their cold dead fingers. There is no convincing them.

3

BTW, interesting article if you aren’t one of those people mentioned above:
http://www.proactivesolutionsinc.com/common.htm

4

I don’t think there is such a thing. Some people just have a lot more sense (intelligence) than others, and that isn’t common.

Maybe what you mean by common sense is actually “common knowledge,” or “common experience,” or perhaps, “native intelligence.”

5

Or just practical intelligence. :smiley:

6

Common sense is simply the ability to recognize the expected consequence of a particular action. For example, if you are constantly late for work, common sense should tell you that your employer will get upset.

Most failures in common sense are because people have an unrealistic sense of entitlement. They feel they should be able to do whatever they want and then they get surprised when people act badly to it.

7

The simplest failure in common sense I’ve seen is the dot com investing bubble. Tens of millions of dollars would be invested in a company whose sole asset was a webpage. Simplest as in simple minded.

8

This book should cheer you up if you think lack of sense is something new.

And here’s a relevant quote from Descartes

9

Oh, and by the way Smootman I worked in a bookstore for more than eight years and met all the characters you describe and more.

10

Tis’ funny indeed… I work in a bookstore for qquite sometime… and found that the days that white collar america were allowed to skip a day of work, they came in a bus called the @$$hole bus… and it was like customer service tests over and over and over…

“Your website says you have it.”

“Do you have a better copy of this? It’s a gift. No? Can I have a discount then?”

“Do you have a copy machine?”

“Can I check this book out?”