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People in general are fairly fucking dumb. It’s frustrating…
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Submitted 1 year ago by Lawdoggo@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
DontMakeMoreBabies@lemm.ee 1 year ago
melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
only because they’re made dumb, they’re made small, they’re made blind and deaf and numb because seeing and hearing and feeling hurts too much and this way is just easier. not thinking is easier. not caring is easier. it’s not like thinking helps. it’s not like caring helps. not when you’re totally atomized.
but there are things to do. things you don’t even have to be intelligent or compassionate to manage.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 1 year ago
the same % of Americans have always been stupid.
But thanks to the internet connecting disparate crazies, and elevating crazy to a mainstream voice, and then hostile foreign powers elevating that further on social media thanks to the internet, its devolved into a unique bouillabaisse of cromagnum hyper-idiocy the likes the world probably has never seen before.
and thank to isolated media bubbles like Fox News and OANN, it will only continue to get worse and worse.
Objection@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
How did we go from something like 1940s era collectivism or 1960s era leftism to the current bizarro political machine that seems to have hypnotized a large portion (if not majority) of the country?
The prevailing economic wisdom after WWII was Keynesianism, which says that the government should increase government spending when unemployment is high and decrease it when inflation is high. What happened in the 70’s and 80’s was that the economy started experiencing both high unemployment and high inflation at the same time, “shrinkflation,” which wasn’t supposed to happen according to Keynesianism, and which it had no real response to. The reason it was happening (at least from a Marxist perspective) was that the US had already developed in the ways that saw the highest returns, and there simply wasn’t as much new ground to cover - this is what’s meant by “the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.” Regardless, the government was faced with a decision of which problem to focus on between unemployment and inflation - and it chose inflation.
The phenomenon of shrinkflation started under Nixon, who attempted to fight it with price controls, which was perhaps the most anyone ever did. Ford had no idea what he was doing and just asked people to spend less.
And then we got Carter, and Carter does not get nearly enough hate for his role in this. Carter chose to confront inflation rather than unemployment, the real beginning of “supply side economics” that Reagan would take further. Carter’s whole deal was “restoring the dignity of the office” after Watergate and his focus was on individual morality. His message was essentially, you’re going to have less purchasing power, but it’s ok because we can seek fulfillment in other ways, outside of the economic sphere. He marked the transformation of the Democratic party away from representing the interests of labor and towards the beast that it’s become today, with it’s obsession over norms and procedure and technocracy.
The result of Carter’s messaging and policy was one of the greatest blowout losses in history against Ronald Reagan. Reagan would do all the same things as Carter, but he at least had the decency to lie about it. He focused on how much more you’d be able to afford with cheaper goods, conveniently ignoring the fact that with lower wages, purchasing power would actually decrease. However, thanks to the Democratic party completely abandoning labor and the common people, there was no real pushback against this, there was no alternative explanation or solution or criticism of the broad direction of policy. In fact, economic policy was moved out of the sphere of democratic accountability altogether by leaving it to the Federal Reserve to set interest rates. Instead, the culture war kicked off and that’s what elections would be about from then on.
Why did the Democratic party abandon unions? Because the unions like the AFL/CIO stripped themselves of power and radicalism by purging communists during the Red Scare. The Carter administration didn’t view labor vs capital in terms of the fundamental struggle of society but as just another set of competing interest groups and lobbyists, which is honestly pretty much how the unions saw themselves and wanted to be seen anyway.
So what happens when more and more important questions are taken out of the hands of the voters, who then watch conditions gradually decline? Well, the voters get mad about declining conditions - and at the same time, get dumber from not being engaged in any important questions. There’s a sense that we can just fuck around and do whatever because our actions don’t have consequences, because most of the time what we say and believe seems to have no real effect on policy anyway. Nobody gets to vote on whether or not to keep arming Israel and bombing Yemen or on whether to raise or lower interest rates or anything like that - the only thing we get to vote on is stuff like whether trans women can play sports.
Trump’s popularity is very easy to understand in that context - he is a rebellion against that declining status quo and a desperate attempt to reassert the power of elected officials over technocratic institutions. Of course, since the left has been purged and is devoid of power, this rebellion can only come from the right. A similar thing happened in Iran (which Carter also fucked up btw but that’s not important right now), where after being installed by the CIA, the shah hunted down and exterminated everyone on the left, and then conditions declined and people wanted change, only that change had to come from the right because the left was powerless. And if the American left can’t materialize and offer an alternative vision, both to Trump and, more importantly, to the failed bipartisan status quo that existed before him, then we’re headed towards the same future as Iran.
CalipherJones@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Billionaires are extracting all the wealth from this country and convincing the idiots that Maria from El Salvador with 2 dollars to her name is the problem.
kemsat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think it just comes down to racism. Once the Civil Rights Movement happened all that collectivism disappeared because it had always been white supremacy masquerading as collectivism. Once all the diverse peoples of the USA were to benefit from that collectivism, the whites very quickly changed their minds about the socialist policies they’d put in place. Obviously I don’t mean the whites as if they’re a monolith, but it was enough of them to get the system to go in a different direction.
SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
That’s certainly part of it. I think another part of it is that political theories are nice and sanitary in a vacuum, but once nation states co-opt them and use them to further their interests things get a whole lot messier.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Yes
1960s leftism of having race separated water fountains?
Jhuskindle@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When I was a child i gree up around red Republicans and insane wealth. Yes. The answer is yes. And rich people hate accountability and always get away with being shitty.
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
I think so yes (there is a stereotype about them for good reason after all), but I think things are trending in an extremely concerning direction and things are going to get worse. I mean, they’re clearly trying to make younger Americans less intelligent, look at what they’re doing with the department of education.
thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think it got worse in 2009 when the tea party started. But yes, we’ve always been stupid. But this is a whole new level.
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
leaded gasoline was fun, huh?
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t think he represented leaded fuel in aviation correctly, although he wasn’t wrong. It’s an economic and legal issue
It’s important to understand this is propeller planes only: jets and turboprops always used jet fuel with no lead. The octane benefits to piston engines really don’t apply to turbines so it was never a concern. However commercial aviation is almost entirely turbines. The most active, profitable and by far the largest part of the industry never had a problem.
Those piston engined propeller planes though… that entire industry was destroyed by litigation and lack of economies of scale in the 1970s. Not only is this a small part of the industry with less profit, not only was the industry mostly destroyed, but now most of those airplanes in active use are old. Very old. They keep flying much longer than for example a car, and there are very few aircraft produced every year. Also note the small volume of fuel used, and lead contamination means this has few refiners and limited distribution: there’s not much profit
So there have been attempts to develop an unleaded fuel for decades, but why does it never happen? Everyone seems to support the idea. Economic and legal. To support a new fuel, engines potentially need to be modified, aircraft performance certified, and someone needs to take legal responsibility for any problems. Who’s that going to be?
- Even if there was an approved fuel, and it was available, and the remaining manufacturers took full legal responsibility, and all new aircraft were certified for that fuel, there are so few aircraft manufactured that it would take centuries to replace the fleet
- Most of the aircraft fleet is orphaned: theirs is no manufacturer. There’s only an owner and a mechanic, and even if there was an approved fuel and it were available, and there were known engine modifications they could make, there’s no way they could re-certify the aircraft with a new fuel nor any way they could cover the legal part
- Most of the fleet has been privately owned for many decades. We have a general legal principal that things are “grandfathered” to when they are first sold. For example, building codes change every year but your house is still ok because it’s grandfathered in since it complied when it was new. Same with most of the small aviation fleet: they’re good when they meet the standards in place when they were new. In most industries, this is not too bad since there’s turnover but this industry collapsed so completely that there essentially isn’t turnover
So because of the collapsed industry meaning very little new development or manufacturing, the high legal bar because of safety requirements, the sheer age of the fleet, and the general legal principal of grandfathering, there’s just not enough opportunity to move forward
My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Goretantath@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The republicans have been ruining the education system for decades. Can’t have smart people without paid teachers.
melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
you can, but it doesn’t happen often.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
People have been stupid for centuries.
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The average education level has been low or nonexistant for most people through most of history so everyone was equally dumb. Public education is a relatively new thing. People have been vulnerable to greed, deluded thinking, etc since day 1.
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The internet has allowed stupid people to find each other and reinforce each other’s stupidity and create a race of conspiracy obsessed super morons.
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The internet has also distilled everything into negativity to the point where everyone and everything isn’t just questioned but warped and rejected. Even the most basic advice on public health is now rejected. You’ve got people rejecting basic facts and science. Everyone who runs for office gets subject to so much hate and lies that no sensible person would want to run for office now leaving only questionable personalities willing to do it.
I’ll add that America’s obsession with individualism, which ironically becomes groupthink like with MAGA, has become extremely poisonous. It is making it impossible to do even basic things like improve public transportation, gun control, education, healthcare, public health, etc. It is like we’ve become a nation of children who can’t handle being told to go to bed and brush their teeth.
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habitualcynic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ve lived here all my life; the answer is yes.
Source: am stupid
tetranomos@awful.systems 1 year ago
between The Delectable Negro and In Defence of Cannibalism (routley. 1982): and and and and?
Smoogs@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think most of this is being driven by personal vendettas. if you look at each person on the right, it seems they all have a grudge of some such and this current administration promises to deliver based on revenge.
The biggest player being Elon: His son Xavier has transitioned. And when his (now daughter) called out Elon’s nazi wave as being legitimate, Elon tipped his hand by saying the woke killed his son and he is out to kill the woke mind(aol.com/…/elon-musk-estranged-daughter-responds-1…) - So Elon sank a tonne of money to sway this election to his own vendetta.
For Dementia donald : it’s Biden winning the 2020 election.
For Vance it’s repressed feelings you can see he’s trying to break out the drag queen smokey eye: although he’s an opportunist at the base of it. So he’s getting two things met here. I think because he’s at odds with himself(still eyelining everyday) his soul has vacated, he has much self insecurity and is unhappy with himself as a person and projects that as anger and revenge on everyone who he views is as weak as he feels. Sort of a projected self hatred.
For the speaker mike johnson: he’s a gay convert, big proponent of the conversion therapy so lots to unpack there. even lives with a reverend while married to a woman. to simplify it : He’s against the ‘woke mind’ because he has a lot of self hate. He’s against himself. Likely why he drinks so much as well and does wreckless shit : nbcnews.com/…/speaker-mike-johnson-chief-staff-ar… - this person is self destructing.
For Hegeseth: he’s an untreated alcoholic that self medicates rather than face a true recovery.
JFK Jr: wormbrain. his worm is against anything that would kill parasites. I don’t think there’s much of a human being in that brain anymore. I think it’s all parasite now.
For Leavitt: greedy and sees this as an opportunity(as do most of the party) - and while we can say she’s young and easily influenced I’m not prepared to let her off the hook on this. There are too many progressive young minds to prove this was a choice of her’s. Not simply ignorance. It’s stupidity for sure. but not from not knowing any better.
RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
For the speaker mike johnson: he’s a gay convert, big proponent of the conversion therapy so lots to unpack there. even lives with a reverend while married to a woman. to simplify it : He’s against the ‘woke mind’ because he has a lot of self hate. He’s against himself. Likely why he drinks so much as well and does wreckless shit : nbcnews.com/…/speaker-mike-johnson-chief-staff-ar… - this person is self destructing.
You better have actual proof of Mile Johnson being gay otherwise this us the most homophobic thing I have seen in months.
The idea that people who hate gay people just closeted is at odds with the simple fact that straight people vastly outnumber non-straight peoples. The fact is most people who hate gay people are just hateful people.
When you suggest that these homophobes are actually self loathing homosexuals you shift the onus of dealing with homophobia from the straight communities that are homophobic on to the victims of homophobia. That’s not cool.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Are we more stupid than we used to be? Yeah. But I’d use the word ignorant instead. It’s a bit more accurate. Ignorance is chosen, and that’s what our current epidemic of stupidity is. Chosen.
There have always been a lot of ignorant people, but now, with social media, those people have platforms to infect others with their ignorance. Also, in my own lifetime, I’ve witnessed a shift from ignorant people still being able to set aside partisan politics to condemn obviously bad actors or decisions to 100% doubling down on partisan politics no matter how bad the person or action is.
I’ve definitely FELT this increase in willful ignorance over the course of my life living in this country. People in my own life choosing to believe things they absolutely would not have believed a couple decades ago. People not understanding super basic concepts.
I think there are other factors than just bad actors spreading ignorance on social media. I think a lot of it has to do with simple distractions. The modern world has so many. A lot of the people I know don’t even read books. Like, they simply don’t read. If I ask them what book they read last they have to concentrate because it was multiple years ago. That’s fucking crazy. Instead of picking up a book they’re watching Real Wives of Whatever. Getting involved in some wealthy person’s 1st world problems, instead of, you know, learning something.
We’re entering an age of concentrated ignorance and, unfortunately, that’s very unlikely to end anytime soon. And the stakes are higher than ever for something like that to happen because we possess greater power to decimate this planet than we used to. Through pollution or braindead child-like politicians who can wage war or launch nukes.
It takes a lot less effort to allow things to keep going the way they are than it does to turn things around and responsibly educate the masses. So we’re probably going to continue spiraling.
Things are going to get dark. Our quality of life will decline.
Unpigged@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
There’s a fantastic documentary by Adam Curtis, called “I can’t get you out of my head”. It explores specifically the transition from the ‘then’ system of thinking to, well, now. It’s long but give it a watch.
carealot@lemmy.cafe 1 year ago
They aren’t stupid, they know exactly where they interests are. Short term, sure, it sucks, but long terms, they will benefits from a tough immigration, economically.
I’m not americans and I think nazism suck. I’m saying you can’t deny it’s to the benefits of americans as a whole. Your country’s supremacism means you gets at least something in return.
But hey, go tell that to the covert racists
Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Parties and what they represent evolve over time. America is going through a rapid evolution currently.
Since the end of the Cold War America has pursued or engaged in free trade and Neo Liberalism and the War on Terror.
The result is there are significant sections of the populace that feel left behind by our economy as wealth inequality builds. They see their jobs going over seas and an ineffectual government that has failed at protecting them economically and has failed in the War on Terror. Add to it a powerful propaganda machine in the form of our news and social media and it is a recipe for change… What that change will end up shaping into may not be the future you want.
This is the backlash. After the Democratic establishment has ignored unions and the working man. Leaving them open to the populist out reach of Donald Trump.
Never mind that Trump will never deliver any of what he promised. The fact is he now has the power and is using it to break up the system that has been in place since WW2. Which benefits a small number of oligarchs who want to cement their power over the US.
I suspect we will see a shift in the next mid-term election (if it takes place) and a realignment of the Democratic Party toward populism. We as a people have to figure out how to fight corporate propaganda and their hegemony over social media.
That is if Trump doesn’t kill our Democracy first.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Read the book “bowling alone” if you’re interested in someone’s attempt at researching why we went from collectivism to individualism as a country. There are a large amount of factors but if I were to take a crack at it, I’d list a few: TV, the Internet, smart phones, air conditioning, capitalism, and (last but certainly not least) racism. Racism is foundational to the country and its history.
As far as the stupidity, some of the same factors apply, but there are also additional ones like environmental factors (US citizens eat more microplastics than any other major country since like 2016 and we lead poisoned ourselves for a century), a deep-seeded anti-intellectualism, and we’re a large part cultist/religious idiots that see everything through the lense of “some guy” being the best thing ever and the source of all truth.
slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Lead was used in Europe too, and is still used by some member states. If there’s anything we know about micro plastics, it’s that they are ubiquitous. What we don’t know is what effects, if any, they have on health/cognition.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 year ago
America is more car-oriented than most other western countries and leaded gas is how we did the majority of our poisoning.
Yes, of course microplastics are everywhere, but I’ve read studies saying that internationally they’re eating about the same amount of plastic as we did years ago, but they kind of plateaued whereas here in the good ol USA people still don’t know that it’s not a good idea to eat three meals a day of microwaved food cooked in plastic containers.
turnip@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Every country suffers from this, America is just the most rich due to geographic benefits and the Bretton Woods system.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Every country suffers from what? Mass stupidity?
Maybe that’s true but it certainly seems like we are more individualistic and stupid than most…and I don’t think those two things are entirely unrelated.
nodiratime@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Driving in a car/metal box instead of sharing the space or walking/cycling and connecting to others is another one.
Othering of others is super easy in a car. There are studies about how much more violent and vitriolic people are when driving.
turmacar@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah lack of third spaces and class mixing is big. Everyone is segregated into their own existing (shrinking) in groups, that then get concentrated by the webiverse.
The 70s oil crisis was an inflection point for Europe and a lot of cities/countries started moving back away from cars as the sole transportation option but the US didn’t have the same reaction.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Last administration started war on Russia, and refused to talk with Russia and China, and so any respect for intellectualism, did not exist then either. So many here support those policies. Post truth/humanist world has existed for a long time.
Underwire@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t know but check out the show All in the Family which was aired in the 70s. I don’t think they have exaggerated the character of Archie Bunker. I really think that there were many people like him during that era. And he is exactly like the pro Trump that we are seeing right now.
I remember him saying in one episode “Nixon is intelligent as he knows how to avoid paying taxes”. That argument comes up from pro Trump people.
Coreidan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No. Education has been under attack for the last 50 years.
For every generation that goes by education gets worse and worse. People are literally getting dumber as a result.
It’s all in the republican playbook. The dumber people are the easier they are to control. That’s how dick wads like Trump get into office.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yes, unequivocally.
frostysauce@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ladies, gentlemen, enbys, and others: Karma whoring has come to Lemmy.
slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
DAE Americans are stupid?
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 year ago
Long term, Americans have been bad at making idiots feel shame for their idiocy. There is less of a societal push to make people conform to societal pressure. On one end, this leads to great creative freedom for artists. On the other end, it creates the born again movement.
Medium term, LBJ oversaw the collapse of economic leftism as he was trying to include civil rights legislation and the Vietnam War. This lead to the stagnation of American salaries, but it took a while for people to notice that quality of life wasn’t improving for everyone. Also, conservatives realized they could create parallel media in a way to control public sentiment.
Short term, the Great Recession and COVID made it clear that quality of life wasn’t as bulletproof as people thought. As a response, some people want to bring back “the good old days”, not realizing/remembering that the good old days had a lot of bad to it that was covered up.
DicJacobus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My answer is going to include a short story as a pretext.
In Canada in the 90s, we used to have these commercials from an organization called “Concerned Childrens Advetisers” the commercials were about a variety of things, some being positive reinforcement about self esteem, others were more on the nose like not eating glue…
there was one important one that would come on a lot called “The North American House Hippo”. And for about 60 seconds it would tell kids about tiny hippopotamus that come out in your kitchen at night, eat crumbs of dropped food, and make beds under your fridge or in the pantry or something… At the end of the commercial, the narrator says something to the effect of “That was an interesting story, but Its not real, not everything you read in a book or see on the TV is real.” the internet wasn’t mentioned because it wasn’t widespread enough yet… but it had a simple lesson. Not everything you see in media is real.
that lesson hasn’t been transfered over to the majority of people, or more likely, most people are not responsible enough to be trusted with the internet because they dont know how to filter, they dont know how to think critically when presented with information online, and its even worse now in the age of deepfakes and AI, that even the smart ones get fooled now.
Collectively we’re dumber because people have allowed their public facebook comment section keyboard warrior persona, to take over their real lives. Who people are in person and who people are online, are two different individuals, but the online persona is the one who is in charge. When we are in public, we usually revert to our social norms, respect each other. But when you’re a keyboard warrior, your impotent rage and urge to yell the N word and other slurs is unchecked because there isnt anyone present to break your nose for saying or doing something antisocial or arrogant.
BreadOven@lemmy.world 1 year ago
That was a great one. Although they kind of exist (skinny pigs). But agreed, people need to think critically. Everywhere.
RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
We’ve spent multiple decades making sure our kids didn’t receive the best education and our government officials are complicit in fueling propaganda for pocket change.
There’s a reason we’ve been the worst first world country in everything that matters except school shootings for a while now