The stupid.

[Henry]

Unfortunately, there are some of you who are, in fact, stupid.

And many other people as well.

At the weekend in a social gathering, I had cause to speak to a woman, in a well-paid job and who otherwise comes across as not at all dense, who did not know that the moon was smaller than the earth. Upon my expressing some incredulity and exploring the matter further, it transpired that she also was unaware that stars were farther away than the moon.

How does one respond to such casual stupidity? How does a person reach their thirties without being exposed to these facts, and without acquiring the least degree of curiosity?

[phonics]

I was in the same class as someone who now presents the news that didn't realise we'd just dropped bombs on Iraq not nuclear warheads.

[randomlegend]

My brother.

[igor_balis]

I am this with actors. I am constantly amazing my mum with my lack of knowledge when cinema comes up as a category on pointless. She believes in horoscopes though so she can fuck off.

[Magic]

I remember this stupid cunt who got in a minor dispute with his neighbour and to show him he parked in his space even though he was out all day then moved it before he got back.

[randomlegend]

Someone on my course tried to boil a potato in a kettle (she was Irish).

The international school kids are also, without exception, incredibly stupid.

[Baz]

Re the space nerdery in the opening post, some people just don't care. :wave:

[Shindig]

So, like there's this downs lass near me who I've seen out and about wearing these massive headphones. She got off the bus as I was about to get on. The bus sat for a couple of minutes and she got back on. Why? Is that how she fills her days?

[Henry]

Re the space nerdery in the opening post, some people just don't care. :wave:

It's not nerdery. That would be knowing the names of Jupiters moons, or the distance to Proxima Centauri. These are things that one learns at five years old.

As for not caring, I can't get my head around not having any curiosity whatsoever. So I'm going to label this person stupid.

[randomlegend]

Perhaps you're just too stupid to get your head around it.

[Reg]

It's not stupidity, it's ignorance / not caring / having other interests / people being different than you.

[Magic]

Henry coming across as a thoroughly unpleasant pretentious cunt? I, for one, am shocked.

[John]

How did the moon being smaller than the earth come up? That seems like an odd thing to be getting mentioned at a 'gathering'.

[Henry]

How did the moon being smaller than the earth come up? That seems like an odd thing to be getting mentioned at a 'gathering'.

A quiz, one question of which involved listing planetary bodies by size.

[Shindig]

Was 'your mum' an available answer?

[Foe]

I only realised last week that I could take my new kettle to the sink and fill it there rather than scooping cups of water into the Britta filter bit ad-hoc.

:moop:

[Mazuuurk]

Henry was probably trying to describe his cock in relation to an Plum, and had to use a metaphor.

[John]

I only realised last week that I could take my new kettle to the sink and fill it there rather than scooping cups of water into the Britta filter bit ad-hoc.

:moop:

:D

And you design oil platforms.

[Foe]

:D

And you design oil platforms.

Getting paid a fortune :drool:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I once told a girl about the traditions of a Polish Christmas, when I mentioned that we don't eat meat on Christmas Eve she replied: 'What, so you don't eat mince pies?'

Also, this stuff must be fake:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2eyq9qTOQY

[Boydy]

A guy I work with in the bar was on holiday recently, he did a bit of touring around central Europe and down into Italy. He had his phone stolen in Rome and was telling me and idiot cousin (yes, that one) this when he was back. Then idiot cousin said something about Romanians stealing his phone. We were both like 'you what?'. Then he said 'you said you were in Rome!' and we OUTRAGED that he thought people from Rome were Romanians. Then he tried to cover it up by saying he thought the other guy had originally said Romania when we were making fun of him about it.

Fucking eejit.

[Raoul Duke]

Is he still engaged?

[Boydy]

Yeah.

Exhibit B for this thread.

[niko_cee]

Those filter kettles are the devil's work. Passing the time it takes the bastard to 'filter' the water by transporting the input one thimble at a time probably isn't that daft a thing to do. It still takes the same amount of wasted time to make a cup of tea.

[Boydy]

Why do you need a filter in your kettle?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

You don't.

It's just capitalising on idiots.

[Spoonsky]

I once told a girl about the traditions of a Polish Christmas, when I mentioned that we don't eat meat on Christmas Eve she replied: 'What, so you don't eat mince pies?'

Also, this stuff must be fake:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2eyq9qTOQY

That looks fake but this was the first of the kind and I think it's real. The way I know it's real is that these people are driving from Utah to Idaho.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhm7-LEBznk

Wonder if that guy's still married.

[Magic]

You probably do down south. Disgusting water.

Also you seem to hang about with you cousin a lot Boyd.

[Boydy]

You probably do down south. Disgusting water.

Also you seem to hang about with you cousin a lot Boyd.

He works in the bar I work in.

[phonics]

A guy I work with in the bar was on holiday recently, he did a bit of touring around central Europe and down into Italy. He had his phone stolen in Rome and was telling me and idiot cousin (yes, that one) this when he was back. Then idiot cousin said something about Romanians stealing his phone. We were both like 'you what?'. Then he said 'you said you were in Rome!' and we OUTRAGED that he thought people from Rome were Romanians. Then he tried to cover it up by saying he thought the other guy had originally said Romania when we were making fun of him about it.

Fucking eejit.

Remember when Harold thought something similar?

[Pepe]

:sherlock:

[Bernanke]

I had a girl in my class in high-school who constantly one-upped herself with idiotic statements. She graduated with perfect grades. I guess it was easy to fill up the empty space in her head before exams.

"When you swallow gum, your stomach can't ever digest them. I have 7 chewing gums in me now."

During a discussion regarding Belarus being the only European dictatorship:

"Wait, doesn't Italy have a dictator? No, right, they have the pope."

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

You should have told her that she has to be careful, if she keeps swallowing chewing gum she wont be able to eat as her stomach would be permanently full.

[Disco]

What an idiot, everyone knows it sticks over your heart if you swallow it.

[Mike]

I'll think you'll find it will stick your bum together so you can't poo.

[Bartholomert]

Unfortunately, there are some of you who are, in fact, stupid.

And many other people as well.

At the weekend in a social gathering, I had cause to speak to a woman, in a well-paid job and who otherwise comes across as not at all dense, who did not know that the moon was smaller than the earth. Upon my expressing some incredulity and exploring the matter further, it transpired that she also was unaware that stars were farther away than the moon.

How does one respond to such casual stupidity? How does a person reach their thirties without being exposed to these facts, and without acquiring the least degree of curiosity?

I think attractive women in particular are largely insulated from ever having to develop a sense of common sense, logic or intellectual independence, because they are always surrounded by men willing to take care of them, or validate and/or ignore their idiocy in the hopes of getting laid. This is further compounded by the general tendency among women to be constantly fake, passive aggressive and even maliciously misleading with each other so that their perception of reality often becomes very warped and narrow. Women are simply not subject to the same pressures as men and therefore are never forced to excise their unacceptable/stupid behaviors, attitudes, and ideas because of a lack of comparable social consequences.

IMO this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in Europe because the men are relatively non-confrontational and deferential to the whims of women.

[Henry]

I think attractive women in particular are largely insulated from ever having to develop a sense of common sense, logic or intellectual independence, because they are always surrounded by men willing to validate or ignore their idiocy in the hopes of getting laid. This is particularly pronounced in Europe because the men are particularly non-confrontational and deferential to the whims of women.

This woman wasn't attractive in the least.

Also, no.

[Bartholomert]

This woman wasn't attractive in the least.

Also, no.

Then,

a) Nobody cares enough about her existence to correct her fallacious opinions
b) Nearly any women, no matter how unattractive, can get laid at will between the ages of 15-38, so the general rule still applies

[Ian]

And yet if we were to seal Mert into a fridge and toss it into the sea we'd be criminals in the eyes of the law. Where's the justice?

[Disco]

Littering is a serious crime.

[GS]

It's not particularly pleasant to sneer at people.

[randomlegend]

...is he serious?

[Bartholomert]

You know sometimes I wonder, are you all really too dumb to see that what I'm saying is true? Or is it more a collective psychological self-defense mechanism to protect your ego from the harsh shallow reality of human psychology?

[Raoul Duke]

Maybe you're just a massive bellend?

[Bartholomert]

Maybe you're just a massive bellend?

You do realize that ad hominem attacks don't actually undermine the merit of the arguments I'm making, right?

[SvN]

Baby kangaroo.

[Pepe]

Now I understand who the thread title refers to.

[Boydy]

I reckon Mert's at least partially right in this instance.

[Manc]

Generalising wimmin. :cool:

[Boydy]

It probably works both ways but a bit more in women's favour. People who were attractive/popular in school, think of your typical 'jock', didn't have all that much of a personality.

[ItalAussie]

When someone takes a massive swerve on a topic, it says more about the speaker and what they find particularly important than it does about the topic itself.

[Spoonsky]

I reckon Mert's at least partially right in this instance.

Yeah, I think there's some truth to it. It's very exaggerated, but it's hardly the worst of his posts on women.

[Shindig]

Regardless, some lass catfishing mert would be the single greatest thing to happen to this board. Also, this legal name theft campaign. Do fuck off, fellas. It's identity theft, not some new unheard of crime that you've discovered on your own.

[Bartholomert]

When someone takes a massive swerve on a topic, it says more about the speaker and what they find particularly important than it does about the topic itself.

It's not a swerve, it's the direct cause as to why girls can come off as shockingly dense / ignorant despite otherwise doing well academically / professionally. They were never valued for (or even required to really have) common sense or general worldly knowledge, and so no external impetus compelled development of that aspect of their personality.

[Boydy]

What Mert's saying actually works as a critique of patriarchy as well - women are 'rewarded' for their looks etc and not for their intellect.

Think of how young girls are praised for how pretty they are. That happens much more often than they are engaged in conversation about their intellect or whatever.

[Boydy]

Good article about it here - http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html

[Bartholomert]

What Mert's saying actually works as a critique of patriarchy as well - women are 'rewarded' for their looks etc and not for their intellect.

It's going to be tough to shake off thousands of years of evolutionary hardwiring to seek out indicators of fertility, and replace them with being attracted to women's studies masters degrees. So whatever you want to call the basis of male attraction, I don't think it's changing any time soon.

At the end of the day women are valued for their looks, because the value of a woman is very closely related to her appearance. Just like the value of a man is more closely related to his social value (composed of a number of factors) rather than any physical characteristic.

[Pepe]

Unfortunately, despite how much men are apparently valued for their common sense and intellect, plenty of idiots abound.

[Pepe]

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/how_it_works.png

[Pepe]

Boys are not valued for (or even required to have) common sense or general worldly knowledge. At the end of the day, they are valued by other things, such as their athletic abilities, so no external impetus compels them to develop their common sense, which is why you end up with men who do well academically and can even attend law school even though they are unable to realize how flawed their arguments (which have not evolved since they were sixteen years old) are.

But hey, at least they're beastly from the three point line.

[Lewis]

Alright, mate. Calm down.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

They also suck at maths.

[Pepe]

Alright, mate. Calm down.

It passed now.

[Bartholomert]

Unfortunately, despite how much men are apparently valued for their common sense and intellect, plenty of idiots abound.

Despite women being valued for their looks, plenty of fat girls abound (to an extent because feminism has lied to girls that their appearance doesn't matter, and now they are alone and unhappy).

[Pepe]

As do smart ones. What does that tell us about your theory?

[Bartholomert]

Boys are not valued for (or even required to have) common sense or general worldly knowledge. At the end of the day, they are valued by other things, such as their athletic abilities, so no external impetus compels them to develop their common sense, which is why you end up with men who do well academically and can even attend law school even though they are unable to realize how flawed their arguments (which have not evolved since they were sixteen years old) are.

But hey, at least they're beastly from the three point line.

If anything you're proving my point. I make a(n arguably flawed) statement, I get challenged on the validity on that statement by another male. A woman makes a(n arguably flawed) statement, and the guy across from her nods in approval (as you are metaphorically doing right now) in the hopes of getting in her pants later, if he doesn't, there are ten other men waiting on the sidelines willing to nod in approval.

You've so deeply internalized this pathology of instinctively protecting women from all criticism or judgment, that you even suck up to them when none are present to be 'impressed'. You are the reason why stupid girls exist.

[Bartholomert]

As do smart ones. What does that tell us about your theory?

That I'm speaking on the basis of relative effects on the average which influence genetic expression in certain directions. There are always exceptions.

[Pepe]

A woman makes a(n arguably flawed) statement, and the guy across from her nods in approval (as you are metaphorically doing right now) in the hopes of getting in her pants later

:face:

And here I was, considering a serious response.

[ItalAussie]

I presume "value" is indexed against the gold standard. Seems like it'd appeal.