Death. DEATH. Death to them.
Dec. 24th, 2008 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueCiro and I have talked it out lately, and we think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between smart people and stupid people. This misunderstanding runs along the line "I may not be able to do fancy math, but I can do day-to-day tasks as well as anyone." In fact, no. Intelligence is not like weight lifting, where you can lift anything below a certain number of pounds, but nothing above. There is not a range of thinking tasks, of which some fall on one side of a divide and some fall on the other.
Stupid people are also bad at doing everyday tasks effectively - of knowing how to present or understand an argument, of distributing weight in suitcases, and of mixing a drink someone asked for. Intelligence is about speed, and about connections, and if you don't have them, you don't ever have them, whether you're building a rocket or checking reservations. There is a difference between the output of a smart person working at McDonald's and a stupid person working at McDonald's - you just don't get to see it often because most smart people find work with better compensation. Some of them can't, due to environmental factors or self image, and that is both very sad and very lucky for those of us who get to use their services.
I'm tired of stupid people not seeing that they are stupid, and that they are doing things badly, and that when I have to take up their slack I have every reason to be angry about it, rather than to reassure them that they're wonderful. I don't mind helping people with social dysfunction, or with physical or mental handicaps, but this is partly because they recognize where a limit exists. Having to deal with "I'm just as good as you" stupid people is like having to deal with a person who has bad eyesight and dementia but who insists on driving.
When it comes down to it, I'd rather deal with someone who is clever but mean than someone who is stupid but well meaning, because I am vengeful and when a person regularly harms me, I have a strong desire to kill her* and whichever of her relatives remind me of her, to burn her house beyond its foundation, to mix the soil of her land with salt, and to methodically erase her name from history until all memory of her is obliterated. People are more receptive to this when someone is mean. Otherwise they're all "oh, but she wasn't trying to destroy your life, and I'm sure she's sorry about it." But really the crux of the problem is that a stupid person will just do it again, and you won't be able to expect it, because there won't be anything strategic about it. Stupid people are more dangerous than mean people.
Despite what this entry might imply, I'm in Boston visiting my family and having a very nice time drinking cocktails and playing video games and snuggling on the sofa. There was brown bread with dinner last night, and Ciro has bought me Best American Poetry 2008. The cat hasn't attacked me even once.
*arbitrary pronoun
Stupid people are also bad at doing everyday tasks effectively - of knowing how to present or understand an argument, of distributing weight in suitcases, and of mixing a drink someone asked for. Intelligence is about speed, and about connections, and if you don't have them, you don't ever have them, whether you're building a rocket or checking reservations. There is a difference between the output of a smart person working at McDonald's and a stupid person working at McDonald's - you just don't get to see it often because most smart people find work with better compensation. Some of them can't, due to environmental factors or self image, and that is both very sad and very lucky for those of us who get to use their services.
I'm tired of stupid people not seeing that they are stupid, and that they are doing things badly, and that when I have to take up their slack I have every reason to be angry about it, rather than to reassure them that they're wonderful. I don't mind helping people with social dysfunction, or with physical or mental handicaps, but this is partly because they recognize where a limit exists. Having to deal with "I'm just as good as you" stupid people is like having to deal with a person who has bad eyesight and dementia but who insists on driving.
When it comes down to it, I'd rather deal with someone who is clever but mean than someone who is stupid but well meaning, because I am vengeful and when a person regularly harms me, I have a strong desire to kill her* and whichever of her relatives remind me of her, to burn her house beyond its foundation, to mix the soil of her land with salt, and to methodically erase her name from history until all memory of her is obliterated. People are more receptive to this when someone is mean. Otherwise they're all "oh, but she wasn't trying to destroy your life, and I'm sure she's sorry about it." But really the crux of the problem is that a stupid person will just do it again, and you won't be able to expect it, because there won't be anything strategic about it. Stupid people are more dangerous than mean people.
Despite what this entry might imply, I'm in Boston visiting my family and having a very nice time drinking cocktails and playing video games and snuggling on the sofa. There was brown bread with dinner last night, and Ciro has bought me Best American Poetry 2008. The cat hasn't attacked me even once.
*arbitrary pronoun
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Stupid People
Date: 2008-12-25 04:47 am (UTC)'That, by the way, is my way of telling you you're smarter than me, but in a derrogatory manner so that I won't have to feel bad about it. I'll never let you know that, though.'
-Stupid people
Many people view themselves as protagonists, thus use themselves as a gauge for what it takes to be 'good'. 'Good', in this sense, is an all-encompassing term for desirable traits that one might expect to find in a protagonist, especially including morality and job-efficiency. As such, anyone who does not meet these criteria for any reason is, in their mind, an antagonist, and therefore necessarily 'bad'. This means that if stupid person A sees himself as Bugs Bunny, he would view persons B as being Elmer Fudds until such time as B proves, for example, acts in a manner more intelligent than A; then B becomes Wile E. Coyote. Either way, B is 'bad'.
What stupid people don't seem to realize is that their gauge is biased so that they themselves can do no wrong, no matter how much it hurts the rest of us. If, however, they were ever to take on an objective point of view, we wouldn't even recognize stupidity in them as their new gauge would give them a reason to actively improve themselves. The inherent dilemma with this predicament is that only their antagonists possess such a vantage to point this out to them, and we, being their antagonists, simply aren't enough of an authority on 'good' for them to take our words to heart. Afterall, who would want to be a super genius if super geniuses notoriously blow themselves up?
I, too, find stupid people to be frustrating. You'd think with our collective brains we'd be able to figure a way around them by now, but Einstein rightly predicted that fools are becoming more foolish the more we try to accomodate them. Ironically, the one tool I can think of which would fix this is eugenics, which is a tool we're too intelligent to use anyway.
Perhaps what we need are more protagonists in the media who slowly discover they're not the good guy afterall, and adjust their gauge accordingly. This is where your future directing career comes in handy.
-Quip
Stupid People and the Attribution Error
Date: 2008-12-25 11:02 pm (UTC)Stupid People and Circular Logic from Authority
Date: 2008-12-26 08:44 am (UTC)"I don't like this ending where it turns out the zombies aren't bad guys. Takes too much thinking. I know! Let's throw in god and fate instead! People like that stuff. Let's keep all the foreshadowing that suggests the zombies aren't bad, though. Lord knows smart people need to stay on their toes."
-Quip