I think I win for "Stupidest Parents". Can you beat me?

[swampspruce]

I thought the whole never get into a land war in asia was a reference to Napoleon’s misadventures in Russia, not WW2.

[digs]

I thought it was free advice from Wally Shawn…

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

I know I bitch about my father a lot, but if somebody had dared talk about my mom the way way Idle Thoughts was just talking about his, at the very least I’d be ordering them to get out of my presence.

So your parents aren’t well educated. Big whoop. Do they love you?

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@turtlescanfly

At Christmas one year at my sister’s house, I had a conversation with her in-laws, who were not sure how many U.S. states there were exactly, but they knew it was either 51 or 52. When I said I was pretty sure there were 50, he said “no, they added a couple”.

This actually happened in one of my kids’ classes, and the one who said “no, they added Alaska and Hawaii” was the teacher.

[GunnarFranz]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

Yeah, that’s all well and good, but the problem is that these people can, and unfortunately often do, vote. And because they have no context or knowledge upon which to make an informed decision, they make a decision based upon bogus rhetoric, or how attractive the candidate’s wife is, or some kind of unworkable pledge to, say, built a 3000 km wall to stop illegal immigration.

There really should be a compentency test for participating in an election, perhaps graduated by the degree of knowledge of civics, history, and technology. Sure, it will disenfranchise some people–perhaps even otherwise intelligent people with holes in their knowledge–but that’s a feature, not a bug.

Stranger

The more I think about it, the more history does not matter for current voting. The issues and variables are simply too complex to have any ceteris paribus stand in, even in our lengthy (/s) history.

I wish I could be completely and totally ignorant of world events, simply for the reason that it causes much unnecessary consternation. For example the attack in Nice yesterday will never have any impact on me, directly, in any way. Why bother to think about it, if I could unknow it, and most other events, I would. The problem is we have to know these things, to separate the important from the not. The most basic philosophical principles are timeless.

I digress, parents, mine are intelligent but they both have brain farts some time. My mom tried to share a “fact” about genetics, namely that humans are 97% banana. My father has on multiple occasions referred to himself as the family’s matriarch.

[Barbarian]

@digs

Whoa… I canNOT imagine. I can’t use ANYthing without wanting to understand how it works.

The older I get, the more I confirm curiosity is a rare trait – and often distrusted.

[gigi]

@purplehearingaid

Wow ! That really bad not knowing you needed glasses . You would our doctors would had notice this

My mom was a little girl when her eyes went bad. She memorized the eye chart (when the doc would say, look at the chart across the room, she couldn’t even see any of that part of the room) and sat up front in school. When her parents finally realized, the doc couldn’t find anything physical to account for it so they sent her to a psychiatrist. But didn’t get her glasses in the meantime. :smack: