More people are stupid. How do I know? Why is this so? It's my assumption and guess that most people think that most other people are stupid. My guess is that most people are probably right. Doesn't it seem like people really struggle with things they shouldn't? How many times a day do you find yourself thinking, “Now why the hell would someone do that?” I hesitate to give examples because we ALL do things that are stupid and my providing examples only dilutes my point by making you question yourself or loved ones when an example I use makes a direct hit. That’s not the point. Humans are imperfect in many ways and even the most intellectual, educated and street smart people do things that are stupid once in a while. Some in that category do things that are stupid multiple times a day because of an addiction or other type issue that makes them uncharacteristically do foolish things. These are not the kinds of stupid I’m thinking about.
Nor am I writing about categorical stupidity. That kind of stupidity is belief or opinion based and has more at play, similar to the addictions and such ideas. An example here is thinking someone is stupid because they are conservative or Republican or non-Christian or dislikes chocolate or believes in Bigfoot or has twelve children or dislikes baseball or lives in Turlock, etc. Arguably, you cannot attribute stupidity to most categories and even if you could, this is also not what I’m referring to in my thought about stupid people. I will say though that popular opinion is often stupid and that is a category. Hmmmm.
So people are stupid, right? There are things we see or read or hear about that doesn’t make a lot sense and we think, “How stupid”. I get angry sometimes when I watch the news (my wife would say always ) and it’s because I’m easily frustrated at how stupid people are. Driving really exposes stupid people. Stupidity is rampant out in the public because it makes people react to their environment and follow certain processes. Many processes exist because people are stupid. Many signs out there are created because too many people lack common sense and fail basic everyday tests. Again, I fail some common sense tasks here and there, but I pass a vast majority of them most of the time. I get the feeling that many sort of bump around day to day. Sometimes I think if there were no railings people would walk off cliffs or other high places. If there was no warning label, people would drink gasoline or store their pets in the refrigerator. And of course, things need to be child proof but young kids can’t read so what good is it to mention that gasoline is “harmful or fatal if swallowed” in writing?
Am I being too hard on the world? There is that possibility. My threshold for stupidity is lower than what I’ve demonstrated from time to time. My stupid moments are mostly attributed to not paying attention though. Some people don’t handle pressure very well either, making them vulnerable to stupidity in moments of panic or even moderate levels of stress. But what about the countless examples of poor decision making? What about the stupid things people think about? Cause and effect is not rocket science. If A=B and B=C than A=C is really just common sense and can be applied to many situations in life. Something that has been proven to be true your whole life will probably still be true tomorrow. Basic physics is all around us and doesn’t change much. Shouldn’t people get smarter as they go through life?
So what’s with the notion that more people are stupid? My sense is that a greater majority of the population, at least those I’m exposed to, are stupid. Growing up it didn’t seem as bad. Am I paying attention more these days? Am I exposed to more people now? Does it seem worse as I become wiser? Or, is there a trend and it has nothing to do with my perception. So what are the possible trends? I see two real possibilities. First, people make people stupid. The population boom is making people stupid. More human interaction increases possibility for stupidity. Overcrowding everything makes everyday things more difficult so the bar continually rises and more people fall into the stupid category. Being a believer in evolution, my guess is that people cannot evolve near fast enough and the very rapid growth in human numbers is too much and we’re feeling the pressure. When animals are crowded they are unhappy and cannot function as well together. Many species begin to kill each other off when things get too crowded. Since we are really just animals ourselves, we’re subject to the same struggles. Most human woes are worse in dense populations. Maybe all of that attributes to more people being stupid.
Second, maybe stupid people are breeding at a higher rate. Is that possible? I don’t have any statistics because nobody dare define stupid and clump people there. I know several smart people that have many children so like I said before, it’s not that having many children is stupid it’s just that it seems like there is a real possibility that the dummies are multiplying faster. That would explain many of the problems in this country. Think about it.
