Yesterday I was in a recruiter’s outer office, and the receptionist was beyond ignorant. Or maybe just gullible. Or maybe just not too bright.
Anyway, as I waited we started the normal trivial conversation about the weather.
MLS: Nice day out.
Ignorant Receptionist: This weather is just crazy. It was so warm today. And at Christmas time, it was just too warm for winter. And then last week we had that huge snowstorm. Something crazy is happening. It must be that global warming. Have you ever seen weather like this?
MLS: Yes, actually. I remember a winter when we were driving around in a convertible with the top down on Christmas. And then it snowed on Easter. It’s a normal variation that creates an average, you know.
IR: <blank stare> Well, I saw this movie on TV, you know. Have you seen it? It was called The Day After Tomorrow, and the global warming happened, and there were these awful storms, and the Statue of Liberty froze…
MLS: That movie is so full of factual and scientific errors it would take me next week to list them all.
IR: It can still happen. Besides, I saw this other show, I think it was on the Discovery Channel, and they were like in 50 million years the sun is going to explode, but before that there’s this asteroid or comet or something that’s going to hit the earth and knock it off its axis, and then all life is going to end.
MLS: <stunned silence> Well, if we’ve got 50 million years, I guess we’ve got time to plan ahead.
So, which is it? Ignorance, gullibility, youth, the state of the American education system, or just plain stupid?