Question about Basic Common Sense

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a question that has bothered me now for quite some time. My basic question is:

Why are people so stupid???

Now I want you all to understand that I’m not trying to flame anyone at all. This is just a question in general. I have been reading a lot of reports from the media and I can’t help but wonder about some of the people that these stories are about. For example:

People will move into an area known for Tornadoes. The place may have a history of Tornado strikes every few years. They move in and buy a house knowing full well the risks of living there. Then eventually a Tornado comes barreling down and destroys everything they own. You see them on TV crying their eyes out about how they lost their loved ones and everything they own, they get the insurance money for losing the house, Then will rebuild the house IN THE EXACT SAME LOCATION so another Tornado can come roaring through there and smash their house to pieces again.

Heres another:

People will go surfboarding at the beach. The media will give warnings of various shark attacks that have occured over a recent period of time. Some unfortunate soul will go out into the water, get attacked, and get either a limb torn off, or even worse killed. Everyone will witness this and stand there screaming while the shore patrol is carting the victim away, THEN THESE FOOLS WILL GO RIGHT BACK INTO THE WATER AGAIN AFTER SEEING WHAT JUST HAPPENED.
and another:

Hikers will go mountain climbing in the hills after being sternly warned about high winds and adverse weather conditions in the area. They go up, ignore this warning, get stranded, and then the next thing you know, Rescue Choppers are being called in to rescue them after they (the climbers) have been officially warned about the weather and directly told not to go out there.
I mean this can go on and on. People will go sailing far from shore knowing that a powerful storm is approaching knowing fully well that their boat is not seaworthy enough to survive it when they get caught

People will continue to do drugs after seeing many of their best friends Overdose on it

Women will get beaten by an abusive spouse, police takes him to jail, and as soon as he is released, she goes RIGHT BACK TO HIM so he can beat the crap out of her again…

Now I do not by any means consider myself a genius. Believe me I am far from it, but for those of you that have any type of advanced training in psychology and understand human behavior…please help me understand this…

Why do people do these things :confused:

2

One might say the same thing about those who live in areas with hurricanes, floods, volcanoes, blizzards, or earthquakes. Our world is filled with uncontrollable natural disasters. Name me an area without natural disasters, 'cause I sure can’t think of one!

I can’t defend the surfboarders, hikers, sailors, and druggies except to say that it’s probably similar to what we all experience in highschool - we think we’re invincible and that it won’t happen to us. It frequently takes an experience of it actually happening to us to make us believe we’re vulnerable like the rest of the mortals. Unfortunately, common sense is frequently only sensical if one has the experience to make it so. :wink:

There is way more to this than being “stupid.” More often than not, a woman feels she has no choice or has been mentally abused so long she thinks she doesn’t deserve better, or she may not even think there IS any other way to live, especially if she grew up with an abusive parent. If you really think these women are just being stupid, I’d encourage you to do some serious research on the subject, or talk to a local battered women’s shelter about the psychology of abusers & their victims.

3

If everyone moved from a region that had more than one earthquake most of l.a and orange county in ca would be empty

Also the highways would be empty since most of them are right on the san andreas fault (although this might not be totally bad heh )

It’s not practical really

4

You make some good barbs in your post, but let me argue against one in particular…

I’m not sure which areas you’re thinking of that have damaging tornado strikes every few years — unless your “area” is, say, all of Missouri. The odds of a tornado strike on any particular town in a given year, or decade yet, are quite low.

And you just never know anyway. I lived in Tornado Alley for 12 years of my childhood. Never saw a tornado come to my town, or any town nearby. Never knew anyone who was affected by them. Never was affected myself, unless you count enduring school tornado drills. But then surprise, I’m an adult now and working in Maryland — not an area especially known for tornados — and a couple years ago the town of La Plata was wiped off the face of the earth by one. Who knew that was coming?

Basically, the entire swath from Texas and Louisiana, stretching north-east to the Great Lakes, experiences tornados every year. That’s a sizeable chunk of the country. Shall we evacuate all of it? But consider, most tornados meander “harmlessly” through the countryside and never hit a population center. (Although come to think of it, Nashville was hit a few years ago. Again, who knew?)

The odds of your home getting hit by a tornado, over a human lifetime, even in Tornado Alley, must be many thousands to one against. The odds of getting hit twice — and I challenge you to identify some people this has happened to — would be staggeringly small. You’re much more likely to get killed in car accident, or have a heart attack from your atrociously unhealthy Midwestern diet.

Now, people who build homes in a flood plain, and keep rebuilding even after being flooded, those people are nuts.

5

I can see your point about most women who remain with abusive men having low self esteem for various reasons. BUt where I live its like these type of women are EVERYWHERE. Here in Chicago, all I see in this neighborhood and women with children that are all born out of wedlock, almost all of these children have different fathers, and almost all of their fathers are either dead, in jail, or have disappeared. When the more civilized men in the area try and start a “more than friends” relationship wi them , none of them seem to be interested in these guys. Its like they actually go out of their way to date criminals. Now I want you all to understand that I am in no way trying to stereotype all the women in this city as being like that, its just that I tend to see a ery large number of them and i can’t seem to figure it out for the life of me…Tell me, can all of them be surrering from low self esteem? I’m not trying to be sarcastic or anything like that at all and if I come across that way, I STRONGLY apoligise for it, but it low self esteem it the prime reason for it, why are there so many women here suffering from it. What can a man do to convince them that that can have a better man and a better relationship if they so desire?

6

Most of your examples relate to the ability to assess risk. We are very bad at it. We tend to distort probabilities. Humans also tend to be optimistic. Obviously experience should help us get a more realistic picture of risks, but the tendency to distort probabilities and our innate optimism can obviously in some people, override what should be bleeding obvious.

7

Starguard, think about where the children of those women will likely be in a few years, given what you’re seeing them exposed to now. Now think about the fact that those women probably grew up in an environment very similar to their childrens’. Whatever situation someone grows up in, they likely believe it to be normal and seek it out in adulthood, unless they have their own sort of epiphany and realise that life doesn’t have to be that way. That just because they grew up in it, doesn’t mean they are stuck in it. Unfortunately, we tend to be drawn to the familiar, and frightened by the unknown - abuse, as painful as it is, is familiar, while getting out of the situation is full of unknowns.

You can’t do anything to convince these women they deserve better. Even were you a trained psychologist, you can’t make someone see something they don’t want to, or aren’t ready, to see.

8

Not many tornados or shark attacks round here (we get the occasional teeny-weeny earth-tremor), but plenty of stupidity.

To take the general point.

IQ of 100 is average.

That means half* any population is below average intelligence.

How scary is that?
*I know that statistically that’s not necessarily strictly true. Someone is bound to wade in with “Gaussian distributions” or something, look I’m just making a point OK?

9

I agree that people who lack common sense are frustrating, but I disagree with most of your examples. Tornados, hurricanes, shark attacks, (I’ll give you the hikers)…add them up, and how many deaths per year do they cause? I have no idea, but I’m sure it’s orders of magnitude less than automobile accidents. Does that mean anyone who drives lacks common sense? I don’t think so. As someone else said, it’s risk assessment. You like the beach, you like the sun, you get a good job in LA, is it worth the 0.00000002% chance that you’ll die in an earthquake to live there? Most likely. I mean, in order to LIVE LIFE you need to take thousands of “risks” every day.

The people that lack common sense in my opionion are the people you read about on the news (and in the Darwin Awards). People who try to fly with a blanket wrapped around their shoulders, or people who light a match to see where the gas smell in their kitchen is coming from. Then there are the people who drive 45 mph in the left lane of a 65 mph highway…or maybe that’s common courtesy.

Just my thoughts.

10

They aren’t.

As has already been explained, even in the midwestern USA where two thirds of all the tornadoes in the world take place, actually having a tornade hit your house is a rare occurrence.

The other thing to bear in mind is that there are considerable benefits to living where people live in the Midwest. Populations do not appear in a particular area out of sheer random chance. The Midwest is some of the world’s most fertile land, lying in the middle of the richest nation-state in the history of the world. There aren’t many other natural disasters or physical problems with it. A tiny chance of being carted off by a tornado can be outweighed by all the benefits of living in such a rich place.

The other factor to bear in mind is that most people who live in the Midwest were born there. Not to point out the obvious here, but it’s not easy to just pack up everything you own and move a few thousand miles. Just quitting your job and buying a plane ticket to New York is for most people a good way to become homeless, which is a lot worse for your health than the small risk of a tornado. All in all, your survival chances are better living in Tornado Alley with a good job than living in New York with a shopping cart and a favourite grate for sleeping on. Obviously, it is absurd to think that every adult in the Midwest can find a job in a city outside Tornado Alley. Who’d employ them all?

Shark attacks are so unbelievably rare that I sincerely doubt this happens to 99.99% of all people that surf. And when a shark attack does occur I’ll bet a lot of people stay out of the water that day when they see the spurting blood.

Mountain climbers (and skiiers and what have you) do what they do in part because it IS difficult. They enjoy the risk. It’s simply a big thrill, a more extreme version of riding a roller coaster. That’s not “stupid” per se, it’s just a higher risk tolerance than you might personally prefer.

I would doubt people frequently sail into a storm in an inadequate vessel on purpose.

Addiction isn’t quite the same thing as “Stupidity.”

As other posters have pointed out, you clearly do not understand what you’re talking about here.

11

I’ve often wondered the same thing as the OP about Galveston, TX. Seems like about every 3-5 years a major hurricane makes landfall there, causing massive destruction. Every year the residents seem suprised.

Or, another example: on the Jersey coast people build their houses right on the beach… tides are moving the sand off the beaches, undermining the foundation of their homes. Then they’re like wah wah wah we want a seawall to protect our homes that we wouldn’t have built there if we had any sense.

Ditto for hillside homes getting crushed in periodic mudslides.

12

I just think the OP’s sig line is kinda funny for this thread.

13

Right here. Southern parts of Sweden. No hurricanes, floods, volcanoes, blizzards or earthquakes. No dangerous animals apart from vipers, and they’re rare, very shy and spend their time out in the woods. The worst thing we get here is a big storm every thirty years or so (last one was three years ago, counting down to the next one!), but even that hardly qualifies as a natural disaster. Yep, I’m living in the most boring part of the world and I love it.

Starguard: People are stupid, amazingly so, but you’ve hardly named the really good examples. Have you looked in your spam lately? Some people respond to that stuff.

14

I also take issue with you finding women stupid who getting beaten by their husbands then return. Saying something like that is awfully ignorant. Many women go back to their hubands who hurt them because they have children with them, and would do anything to protect them. Or they think that they can make things better. Or they’re told that they’ll be killed if they try to leave.

When I was younger, my then-fiance used to beat me. On occaision, he would rape me, too. But I stayed with him for three years after this behavior began. When he would beat me, he told me that I made him do it. He said if I really loved him that he wouldn’t have to do it. Then when he was done, he would cry and promise me that it was the last time. But it would inevitably happen all over again. I’d do something small to set him off, maybe not call him when I was supposed to or he’d imagine I was flirting with someone. I lived in absolute terror for my life for three years. He told me that he would kill me if I told anyone or if I tried to leave him. If someone beats you and rapes you, you tend to believe that they would also be capable of killing you, too.

15

Hehe, and I thought of England after I posted (unless you count the 75 degree heat wave a few years back :stuck_out_tongue: ). Be careful though, Priceguy, that description is awfully tempting & you don’t want too many people flocking to the area. grin

So okay, we do have a few areas which don’t have natural disasters or horribly deadly creatures roaming about. In that case - can you imagine if the world’s population all tried to live in those relatively peaceful areas?!

16

I humbly retract the statement I made about women. I just found it rather unusual that so many here in the city are so (stuck) on dating wild and abusive men. I guess that as many of you have pointed out, there is more to that than meets the eye

But the rest I still sorta need help with. I mean. If I were in the market right now for buying a house, I wouldn’t buy one in and area where I knew there was a “more than average” chance that Mother Nature would come knocking on my door with an eviction notice be it Tornadoes, floods,landslides ect…I would try and find a house somewhere else

Nor would I go hiking in the mountains after being sternly warned by the National Weather Service that Adverse Weather Conditions would greatly increase the probability of me getting stranded, lost, or injured…I would wait till the weather was better

Same with boating…Believe it or not, there are people out there believe their boat is a 'floating tank" that can survive anything and do go out in extremely adverse weather conditions after being warned by shore patrol not to.

The National Weather service and other similar departments are there to hekp protect the public. When they issue warnings, they do it for a reason…Why people ignore them is stil a mystery to me…
There is a show called “What were you thinking” that comes on periodically that you all should see…Some ofthese people are not necessarily stupid, its just that they seem to do things without any regard to common logic

Another example I forgot to use is one story I remember reading about that was about a woman that was struck by lightning while running back and forth across the parking lot to and from her car in an electrical storm. The woman was trying to move metal trays from her home to her car while at the same time trying to carry trays of food with aluminum foil from her car to her home " right in the middle of a lightning storm" after several trips and making one too many “BOOM”… her cassarole days were over :eek: …I mean like, wouldn’t the avg person just simply wait till the storm blew over…

Another example is one about a couple that was killed while sitting in a jacusi" I hope I spelled that right" These two were sitting there cuddled together and decided to turn on some music. The male reaches behind her, and tried to turn on a radio…a radio that he had plugged into the wall Authorities believe while reaching for the radio, he accidentally knocked it into the water eletricuting both himself and his lady friend…they both died instantly

Why would anyone use a plug in radio next to a jacusi?..

These are the type of things I don’t understand. I very sure that there has to be a very logical exlanation for these actions for as one of my friend pointed out to me 'no one does anything without a reason or a motive". I just need help understanding them…

17

OK Starguard,

Where do you want to buy a house? Let’s say you can afford to spen 200 grand.

Tell me where your ‘safe’ from nature house is.

18

As for buying a house in someplace prone to tornadoes, you also have to consider the circumstances of the individual. Housing in the Midwest is probably a lot cheaper than housing on either the East or West coasts. You can get a lot for your money out here if you choose the right spot. And the chances of your house actually being hit by a tornado, even if you live in a tornado-prone area are pretty slim. However, if you can’t afford a nicer house, and are forced to live in a trailer park, it’s very likely that even a bad storm can cause a lot of damage. When I was a kid, we used to live in part of “Tornado Alley” in southwest Indiana. We had a lot of tornadoes, some that came very close to our house; however, our home was rarely damaged by storms because we could afford a sturdy house. But we used to call the trailer parks “tornado magnets” because those structures just couldn’t stand up against them. And if that’s all you’ve got the money for, you’ll probably move right back in once you’ve cleaned up after a tornado’s hit.

As for the other stuff (surfing in shark-infested (or eel-infested) waters, doing drugs, sailing during a storm, mountain climbing when there have been grisly attacks), some of it is circumstantial and some of it’s just plain bad decision-making. People are gonna do what they’re gonna do. But hopefully evolution will take over and the really dumb people will kill themselves off by making stupid decisions and will save us the trouble. :slight_smile:

Okay, I didn’t really mean that about the stupid people killing themselves off, but as long as you’re not the one doing the stupid stuff, if it doesn’t affect you, just sit back, marvel at others’ stupidity, and be glad it’s not you.

19

Starguard does have a bit of a point there though - some places are safer than others. In the US, there is tornado alley where mother nature can strike randomly and sometimes with little warning, and then there is New England where the worst of the weather is intense cold (accompanied by freezing pipes, frostbite, and other fun stuff). Despite some of the perils of living in a region where winter temperatures can dip as low as -20 regularly, it is perhaps a safer place to live, relative to those areas which have yearly tornadoes.

So, why would someone choose to live in a region where nature is relatively harsher than in other regions? Well, I’d imagine some of those people are just stubborn. :smiley: But for others perhaps it it has to do with having grown up in an area, having one’s family and friends nearby, etc. It isn’t necessarily easy to leave the place one has known all of one’s life, despite any local hardships. It also isn’t easy to move to a totally different part of the country, as I am finding out, having recently moved from the Seattle area to New Hampshire (on an aside - I would rather have the risk of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, than the cold weather here!) . And again, look at some of the population problems which already exist in “safer” areas, then imagine what would happen if all the people in more hazardous areas moved there.

As for some of the “stupid” things people do like putting a radio near a jacuzzi or transporting metal during a lightning storm - as they say, hindsight is 20/20, and it is much easier to stand outside of a situation and see the peril in it, than it is to be in that situation. Ever watch Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire and wonder how someone could miss a relatively easy question? Sometimes it’s easy to miss the obvious, especially when distracted by being in a rush (as the woman with the metal) or involved in a romantic encounter (as the couple in the jacuzzi).

For the rest of it, I’ll point you to my first post in the thread - sometimes we just don’t think it can happen to us, despite warnings of those more experienced than we. I like to call it the “immortal teenager’s complex” and hope we can learn our lessons without too much tragedy. :wink:

20

Actually Starguard does not have a point about choosing a place to live based on weather.

According to this chart

You can see that for the past 10 years less than 60 people a year are killed by tornadoes. A fear of tornadoes can, at best, be described as an irrational fear. Now if a person has an irrational fear that affects them to the point of being afraid to live in certain areas, that is commonly called crazy.

It is crazy to assert that it is inherently dangerous to live in Tornado Alley because it is unsafe to do so. Especially when you consider that tornado detection and prediction is getting better as well as advances in safer construction. Living your life in fear, (refusing to live in an area because the bad old tornados will come get you) is just wrong.

Yes, every year you see video of destroyed homes in the midwest. But how many homes are NOT destroyed each year.

Yes people get attacked by sharks each year. But how many people go into the water and DON’T get eaten.

Yes, hikers get lost in the woods each year. but how many hikers don’t get lost.

Compare those two numbers and then you see how risky something really is.
You have to see what percentage of participants die heinous deaths before you decide sit this one out.