The lack of basic intelligence always amazes me. Every single time I’ve been at a bar, and I see a guy take a whiz, walk past a row of open sinks and return to the bar, he’s always got a girl. A HOT girl. My blood is boiling just thinking about that. Once I asked a guy why he never washes his hands. He told me, “I flush the toilet with my elbow or foot. That’s where all the germs are.” When I tried to explain what coliform bacteria is, and that just by unbuttoning your pants, you need to wash your hands, he said that was an old wives tale. :smack:
Yesterday, a friend who has a very bad knee due to gout was hobbling around the grocery store parking lot when a Jesus freak asked to pray for him and his knee. My friend told him he could pray for whatever he wants. This crackpot then told my friend he could heal pain through Jesus by touching, and could he touch his leg. My friend said no, and the crackpot lunged at his bad knee. My friend turned away only leading to the Jesus freak to shout prayers at the top of his voice while my friend drove away. More proof that religion relies on ignorance. :smack::smack:
Not too long ago, I had to convince a trove of people that, NO, Shania Twain IS NOT the great-granddaughter of Mark Twain. There was NO Mark Twain! His name was Samuel Clemens; his PEN name was Mark Twain. If there was a chance of any relation, she would have to at least be named Shania Clemens! :smack::smack::smack:
As a teacher of juniors and seniors, I will say that a lot of my least capable students are my worst cheaters. I used to think they cheated to cover up their lack of ability, but the older I get and the more I see the patterns, the more convinced I am that it’s the other way around: a decade of taking the easy way out, of forgoing every opportunity to stretch themselves, of never focusing, has left them significantly less capable of learning at the end.
A Facebook friend exclaimed that people just HAD to watch a link. It was a spoken word video performance about how dumb it is to have to learn a bunch of stuff like calculus. He said that he was speaking for all the busboys and cleaning staff and so forth, and what THEY don’t tell you in school is that there is no point to learning and being tested in calculus because you never have to use it in real life.
Well, it is true that there are many jobs that will never call for any calculus, yes.
I wasn’t really sure what the point of the video was in the end. Something about being pointless tyranny to be expected to learn difficult stuff in high school.
One ironic thing, my friend said in his link that I would “here” the truth.
Because, generally speaking, the more intelligent you are, the less stupid you are. And stupidity is something that nobody likes.
See, the thing about stupidity is that you don’t even know it’s there until somebody does something that’s unmistakably wrong—that is, some kind of “fail”, as the kids say nowadays. Stupidity by its very nature means getting things wrong, failing to understand, lack of knowledge, and so forth.
Sometimes it’s something “fail-y” and mean, like monstro’s example of someone responding to a question about cookie availability by loudly complaining about ugly fat women.
Sometimes it’s something “fail-y” and harmless, like the person who wrote the letter-to-the-editor in the current issue of my sewing magazine politely complaining that the previous issue had stated a dimension in one of the patterns as simply “2C” and should have specified whether it meant “C+C” or “2 x C”. (The editorial response tactfully pointed out that “C+C” is always the same as “2 x C”, but I could see the writer trying to keep a straight face. :p)
Sure, it’s wrong to dislike or despise stupid people as a group, because many of them are nice/kind/industrious/good in other ways. But it’s pretty much impossible to avoid disliking or despising stupidity itself. Which is why people tend to value intelligence.
From Bruce Sterling’s SF short story “Swarm”: Afriel, a human agent of the Solar System’s Shaper faction (specializing in gene-engineering), at war with the Mechanists (prosthetics and technology), has been sent to the Hive, a cluster of asteroids in a distant star system, where, in air-filled tunnels burrowed through the rock, live the Swarm, a race of nonsentient beings with many specialized castes. His mission is purportedly scientific study, but his real mission is to domesticate the Swarm, alter their genes to make them produce things the Shapers can use. At the end, his partner, the (real) scientist Mirny, vanishes, and Swarm of the soldier caste arrest him and take him before what appears to be a new caste, a Swarm with a giant brain, which has absorbed his partner’s mind and memories through a tentacle thrust into her head, so it can now speak her language. Afriel’s pheromonal experiments created a chemical imbalance which the Queen detected, triggering genetic patterns, causing the brain to be born to deal with the threat.
I went to the drug store the other day to buy some cologne. I asked if it was the real thing or if it was diluted.
The girl at the counter was very pretty, maybe 16 years old. She said “I don’t know what that word means”.
I told her it means “watered down”. She said, “Do you still want it?”. I bought it.
As much as it sounds elitist or whatever, the world still needs ditch diggers, burger flippers, and other low level retail employes. Starter jobs are out there.
That said, plenty of “idiots” start and run their own businesses.
Because it’s impossible that any of Sam Clemens daughters or their daughters married a guy named Twain? It seems to me to know with certainty that there is no chance of a relationship you’d need to know that information and not knowing that doesn’t make you stupid.
A quick trip to wiki will show that not to be the case regarding his offspring but unless you are very familiar with the writer’s family wondering if someone sharing the name of a famous persons pseudonym is related to them is no more stupid than assuming that in order to be a descendant of someone who died over a hundred years ago you must retain the same name or you can’t be related. Especially when he was survived only by a daughter and the chance of any offsprings being a Clemens is extremely small.
In fact, his last known lineal descendant was named Gabrilowitsch.
Maybe had you pointed out that Shania herself is actually named Eilleen Regina Edwards it might have helped but again, without some research you still couldn’t say that the reason she took the Twain pseudonym herself wasn’t to honor her kin.
So it enrages you that someone with what you perceive as poor hygienic practices is able to date a hot girl, and you think his poor hygiene stems from a lack of “basic intelligence”? If you’re the smart one, why is he the one with a hot girl, while you spend your time watching men urinate and checking to see if they’ve washed their hands? At the end of the night, the hot girl may make direct personal contact with his bacteria-covered penis, so whether he washed his hands earlier after touching it will make no difference for her. Evolutionarily speaking, it should come as no surprise that the germophobe would be less successful, since reproduction involves exchange of germ-laden bodily fluids, a germophobe’s worst nightmare.
An intelligent person would understand that the fact that Mark Twain’s name isn’t Twain undermines any purported familial connection between Clomens and Shania Twain. Anything’s possible, but if part of your reason for finding the connection plausible was the shared last name, then once you find out about Samuel Clemens, you’ve lost that part of your reason. And if that was your main reason, you’re left without a good reason. If you’re intelliegent.
Stupidity by its very nature means getting things wrong, failing to understand, lack of knowledge, and so forth.