Good catch. Now this will bother me for the rest of my life, tyvm.
I totally agree with you.
But while my parents took us traveling, we never left the continental US. In school, I got no “World History” or “World Geography” until I was about 12 or 13. We had “Current Events” in class where we had to bring in newspaper articles, but the US news media doesn’t really talk about international news. International news is something individuals have to expend a tiny amount of effort to find, but even that tiny amount of effort is a barrier to someone who isn’t interested. I’m not sure *how *to force people to develop an interest in world events.
Right, but that’s one world figure. To really understand Hitler, then you have to know how he got into power given what was going on in Germany, centuries of history leading up to that, the reaction of every other country to his power, everything that happened in WW2 and after, and how it all leads up to today. And that’s just a drop in the bucket.
Yeah, but do you think anybody who doesn’t know the basics of who Adolf Hitler is would really be helped by reading the rest of the article? Whatever the article might be?
Don’t be so hard on them. They’re the common people, the common clay, the salt of the Earth. You know…Morons. 
There’s just as much space under the low end of the bell curve as the high end. Just be thankful you don’t hang out there much.
I think the pathology of the person who is willing – no, anxious – to take advantage of people’s stupidity is more interesting than the fact that people are stupid. How twisted do you have to be to scam grandmothers out of their life savings? Whether it’s the religion, ponzi, or nigerian scam, that kind of evil is all too common. What causes such callousness?
Greed.
Greed, and the feeling the marks deserve it for being so dumb (or greedy, depending on the scam).
Yeah, but in the middle of the U.S. you have two countries within 1,000 miles of you, and culturally one of them is pretty much identical. In the middle of the U.K. you are 1,000 miles from maybe a dozen countries, all of which are remarkably different. There are a lot of people in the middle of big countries who will never travel to another country and therefore have no vested interest in learning about them. Sad, really.
I recently asked my sister who the prime minister was, and she answered “Ben Harper”!
In her defense, it was during her exam time and she was incredibly stressed and tired, and she corrected herself pretty quickly, but it was damn funny. “No, wait, that’s the musician!” She was able to come up with the correct name, though.
She did, however, have to ask me if the pirates in Somalia would affect our Caribbean cruise (she also asked if they wore pirate hats).
She’s a smart girl, but just doesn’t make the time to learn things she isn’t interested in, so while she can name every bone, muscle and nerve in a half dozen animals, recall ridiculous levels of details from things she’s learned in her undergrad, memorize entire plays and perform them… well, she can do all that, but never cared about politics, current events, or geography!
You do NOT gain common sense from reading newspapers. Either you have it, or you don’t; unfortunately, the vast majority of people don’t.
What’s really fun is to step up and watch for a while, then “let” them pull you in. Bet a buck or two; you’ll win because he’s getting ready to set the hook.
You then pick up your big, honkin’ two dollars and walk away.
.And for the victims: desperation. My ex-girlfriend would have fallen for a scam, but she missed the response deadline. It was a snail-mail, phony lottery scam, kind of like the ones you get in email that says you MUST collect your Netherlands Lotto jackpot by Friday or lose they payout.
She called me all upset saying, “I think I lost some money!” It was a time when she was in between jobs, in debt up the whazoo, and even $5,000 would have been a huge relief to her. She wasn’t stupid and was reasonably well-informed about scams, like the 419 stuff and had even helped a developmentally handicapped acquaintance fight back and recoup her money from a “You won a cruise!” scam with the help of the bank and credit card company.
So she was reasonably well-informed and knew how to spot a scam… Unless she was the target. She needed money and to have the carrot dangled in front of her was tragically tempting. She had previously fallen for a pyramid scheme while similarly in tough financial straights. Wishful thinking overrode her common sense.
So even if something had all the earmarks of a scam she could deluder herself that, yes, this looked like a scam, but this time it isn’t one.
I’m not a moron, I swear. I’m ignorant. There’s just no way to catch up on all the information out there and I don’t know where to begin. Even if I learn all about one tiny slice, there’s still a huge pile out there I can never get to.
The fact of the matter is that common sense does not exist. Good judgment does exist, but it is not particularly common and is often the direct result of the lessons learned from poor judgment. Expecting most people to make good decisions when they haven’t the knowledge, experience, or wisdom to do so is asking an awful lot. Most people, IME, are disinclined to put in the effort required to be informed, are always looking for the easy way out (even when the easy way is obviously a scam), and will always choose the path of least resistance, no matter how detrimental that may be in the short- or long-term.
If he’s so great I would have heard of him.
This was one of my first signs of getting old…when you can quote Blazing Saddles and many don’t realize what is is. It was a sad, sad realization
:smack: Sorry.
Or fashion trends in piracy.
I have known people like that. Not so much now, but I have known some.
Way back in the 80s when Mount St. Helens blew I was in college and at a party and one of the guys drank too much and threw up. I made the comment that he erupted like Mount St. Helens. One of the girls there had no clue what I meant. How could you not have heard of something that was in every news media there is?