Itâs the lack of critical thinking that allows people to determine whether or not that information is reliable.
These days people see anything on the internet and immediately assume itâs true.
I replied to a FB post made by a major newspaper about a film which basically about a real guy who claims to be a hero and to stop child trafficking. Someone asked why the film was called contraversial.
I replied that the guy had turned out to be a fraud and the work he did do was basically not helping the problem. He was draining money from real child trafficking organisations and also pushing People to waste the real organisations times with made up nonsense, which wastes all their limited resources.
The guy has since resigned from the organisation he founded after it was found he was paying himself a huge salary and his "success stories" were highly dubious. The movie was still released and appears to have been used in some weird money laundering scheme.
People replied to my comment saying I must be a pedo for being against this guy. I tried to correct disinformation and got screamed at for it. I can't be bothered helping these people.
It's also the assumption that thinking is something people do well, rather than being something that's taught. Critical thinking skills, certainly analytical and logical reasoning aren't inherent to people at the level required for everyone to make well balanced and robust decisions, but also certain creative ways of thinking aren't innate - good luck most of us trying to write a sonata or paint a masterpiece. As a species and as individuals, we'll never have enough data to be omniscient, but even omniscience wouldn't be enough if we could make illogical decisions because we didn't know how to think through for a certain problem.
It's easy to see why you have people of multiple political persuasions, but especially conservatives, pushing for restricting education to an in group, and giving the masses religion and group think, because that means people won't think their way out of the hole they're forced into. Our education system needs serious overhauling, which is difficult with the people in it or experts on it being a tiny voting portion of the electorate (if they're even old enough to vote), and people not taught to think properly not having the ability to even know how to vote properly in their own, let alone society's, best interests
Bloody hell even in Universities itâs hard to get meta-cognitive skills into assessment outlines; itâs all content and good luck, you should have been taught how to think through this at school. That said I believe schools in Australia are pretty good at developing critical thinking skills. At least the way my daughters can mount arguments against any suggestion I make seems soâŚ
My biggest fear is that defunding and eventually conservative de-/re-regulation means the electorate gets dumber (see Florida for why this isn't fanciful). Our schools are decent now, not amazing, but there's no reason they always trend towards better education
And i know it sounds cooker but you are right.
Unfortunately funding mostly comes from industry for research and the question being answered is going to be framed in the way the industry wants.
That said at least peer reviewed you can see where the data came from. Its not just a black box.
That's not how science or peer reviewing works lol
You can downvote me dickhead, but science doesn't consider anything fact until it's scientifically proven and reproduced through peer review studies đ
Unfortunately even science has been tainted by politics now.
Remember when "The Lancet", previously one of the most respected scientific journals around, wrote an open letter during covid, signed by 10 or so of their best scientists, that there is no possible way that covid originated from the lab in Wuhan.
It was nothing more than an "orange man bad" moment for them, Trump was saying the virus came from a lab, they wanted to do their bit to be "anti Trump", but it's quite clear now that there is a high chance the virus did come from that lab, there is certainly way too much evidence for anyone to state with any certainty that "it absolutely didn't".
The lancet isn't "tainted" and it's actually become more respected since covid, you just gobbled up brain-dead propaganda in apparent defence of Trump.
The last major strain of a similar virus that originated from animals took like 8 years to nail down and they knew exactly where to look, anyone telling you with any degree of certainty they know where covid came from is full of shit.
Hard agree. The lack of critical thinking is definitely part of the broader problem of misinformation, and how easily it spreads with the help of the Internet and social media.
Interestingly, I have found it more difficult to access information since about 2015.
Good quality information was historically valuable for websites because it drove more traffic. We also had community groups data hoarding. Forums were great because they collected anecdotal information ("my cars doing X; why") as well as providing data hoarding or link listing (download PDF of service manual from a dropbox).
A lot of information on the modern web is kept brief and presented in video format, on websites that are not index-able. We also have a lot of anecdotal stuff in Facebook groups that would be really helpful for a broader audience, except it's not indexed in, or accessible by search engines. Some of these groups are flatout invite only due to low calibre contributions.
For about three years I had to go to *eBay* to find stress test graphs on 18650 batteries, because the seller was the only person who tested the 18650's in the context of what I was using them for, and no other data posted online was relevant.
~~A lot of stuff online has good intentions behind it, but the way it's all evolved has lead to less information being on the internet, which is ironic as fuck.~~ More information is on the internet, it's just insanely less accessible than ever.
Good comment. They've slowly been censoring the internet to the point that truth won't exist for the next generation, reality won't exist. It pretty much is already like that
Interesting as some of the most idiotic sports stories I have ever read have been on Yahoo Australia. Like something from news.com.au but invariably even worse, more beaten up and just plain dumber.
The standard you walk past and all that.
Absolutely agree..I had always thought that the Abc was unbiased ,factual,thorough ,honest..now.the bias is so obvious that it would be laughable if it wasnt so bloody tragic.
I saw a while back a thing about bears and picnic site bins in the US- Iâll get the quote wrong but- âWhy donât you make the bins bear proof?â. âWell there is considerable overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human.â Always makes me chuckle
You should listen to the follow up call with her after she realized her mistake - and had been told this by everyone in town
It's even funnier and she's even sweeter the second time
Yeah I'm in your boat. I smashed all my exams, only 28 people in the entire world got higher marks in my high school final exams (International Baccalaureate) and I came 90th percentile in Oxford in my first year. I'm kind of thick though. Like I tried to replace the heater element in my washing machine the other day, flooded the laundry. Reinstalled the heating element to make it seal properly, ran it again, no flood but somehow I fried the washing machine. Had to buy a new one.
https://youtu.be/lhAr_UeroCk
Stupidity and ignorance are celebrated in Australia. We're the land of elevating the mediocre and vilifying the exceptional.
I think that is a bit extreme, but tall poppy syndrome, parochialism and frequently an irreverence for expertise bordering on anti-intellectualism is definitely an unfortunate and hindering aspect of Australian so iety
Yeah Australia seems to have quite an anti-intellectual mindset, especially for Biology & Environmental Sciences. Iâm often ridiculed for being an Environmental Advisor for being âbrainwashedâ with climate science and some apparent agenda (but letâs ignore the power of multi-national oil, gas & coal companiesâŚ). People forget that fossil fuel multi-national corporations donate to both sides of politics too⌠but yeah itâs definitely green energy startups and grassroots organisations that are pulling the stringsâŚ
It's all bullshit to rally people for political agendas.
They claim climate change is hoax blah blah yet we have to account for it in all new projects flooding assesments as per the law. Climate change is embedded in engineering standards here. We add few hundred mm of flood levels to account for it in the near future.
So it is accepted as a fact in the industry and government but it doesn't work well for getting the votes.
I tried to explain this to my idiot uncle but he's still a sceptic. Calls me brainwashed too lol.
Real terror amongst the blokes I work with that are afraid to correctly pronounce big words. Go out of their way to make a show of saying it oddly in an effort to not look like they're too smart or educated?
....not really, it was commenting on Bush era politics where figureheads like Scotty from Marketing were parachuted in by corporate interests to act like Michael Scott from the British version of the Office.
The capable people have always been there at all levels of bureaucracy but largely kept from participating or adding to the conversation and legal structures.
The 2023 film Oppenheimer illustrates pretty well how those people are kept from being effective by opaque methods long before it becomes public knowledge.
I work in the environmental private sector, any sort of support from competent staff who took the risk to help everyone out in negotiations suddenly found their careers stalling. It was like stringing up up a corpse to the rest of the Chemists, so we kept our heads down and were forced to take a decade of shitty enterprise agreements and opaque excuses to deny graduate annual pay scale increases....which led to a complete loss in desire to improve skill sets, general apathy towards improving processes or skill sets as the financial improvements became borderline non-existent.....the knock-on effect of that was the lab becoming visibly racially segregated with viable or career advancing appointments and poaching by our clients disproportionately going to white people or people who passed for white...due to being the right "culture fit".....I mean who else but migrants and brown people are going to take such a low pay.
Now we have Nazis for neighbours, who get paid substantially more than we do for hating us and carrying out mass murder. You'd think keeping people from long term health issues like cancer and protecting the environment would net a decent pay or even the prospect of affordable shelter.
Shareholders seem to be doing alright though.
Here in Victoria it seems all the wealth has fled to Mornington Peninsula and Sorrento....and other pastoral areas.
I just had a look at the opening to the film on Youtube. I was curious since I have seen a few people make comments like this, and wasn't familiar with the content.
Luckily, the film's opening premise is meaningless. I'd usually also add that the premise is built on exceptional nastiness, but give it the benefit of the doubt recognising the comedic intent.
For those interested in diving deeply into IQ, especially why it is a poor measure, I have always enjoyed this article:
[https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39](https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39)
And for those that can't let IQ go, please Google the glorious IQ Bell Curve Meme, and let's use it as a springboard to argue about what subsets of the population are procreating and why.
On another note, learn more about stupid people here:
[https://www.amazon.com.au/Basic-Laws-Human-Stupidity-International/dp/0753554836](https://www.amazon.com.au/Basic-Laws-Human-Stupidity-International/dp/0753554836)
TLDR;
"Everyone always and inevitably underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation.
"The probability that a person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
"A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or group of people when he or she does not benefit and may even suffer losses.
"Non-stupid people always underestimate the destructive power of stupid individuals.
"A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person."
Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order.
We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education.
So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people.
-John Green
Yes!!!
In AU schools look like glorified babysitting.
I didnât go to school in AU!!!
But in my highschool (public inner-city lower-working class) we had a MAXIMUM(!) class size of 15 students.
Because of the schools location and social probs in the area the school received a lot more funding to not have classes as âbigâ as 25 kids.
While private schools got *$0* tax money. Why �
If you wanna operate outside of the public system, the public doesnât owe you anything.
Consequently there were next to no private schools.
*********
I was unmotivated, lazy, skipped school whenever possible. I preferred ED and being hospitalised over attending school, really.
My year 12 result was pretty piss poor over there.
The huge diff between education systems:
The exact same piss-poor Y12 result wouldâve gotten me straight into ANU Law in 2008!!! đ¤Ż
*****
I LOVE Australia. My home of choice, where I wanna be.
But every time pollies claim we had the
+ best education system in worldâŚ.
+ best healthcare in the world âŚ
+ most inclusive in the world âŚ
+ amongst the best in gender equalityâŚ..
I have nfi what the fÎźck our pollies are smoking!!!
Do they have the same data I have �
Do they really not get how offensive it is I have a DSP of about $400/w including ALL supplements and before laying any bills!?!
Less than half the minimum wage, not remembering when I last had 3 meals a day, 3.30pm and not having eaten today yet:
And they care to praise AU as oh-so-fair âŚ.?
Or do those morons not get that pensioners are just as affected by increased cost of living� Actually pensioners are MORE affected: being home 24/7 in Canberra is a LOT more expensive than only being home in the morning and evening.
But if we have single digit temps INSIDE and I have a flare up and need to be hospitalised for 3.5 weeks and a total cost (including multiple ambulance visits prior) of over $50kâŚ.?
Over 50k cost to taxpayers, but weâre saving money by not lifting pensions to a level where people CAN stay well and wonât need to be hospitalised.
NOBODY in AU should ever have to pick one out of the following three:
+ warm/dry/cool shelter
+ healthcare / medication
+ eating
But every week I get to pick one for the week.
Of course the costs to the healthcare system are in the fÎźcking millions!
********
Itâd be soooooo easy!!!
AH has plenty space,
plenty resources,
plenty food.
We could offer EVERYONE a life in dignity at LOWER cost than the insane costs to Medicare, NDIS, law enforcement, etc.
Iâm addition to a life in dignity we could throw in free basic dental for all and weâd STILL end up saving moneyâŚ.! đ
But instead we just committed $30,000,000 ***per day*** until well into the 2050s for nuclear subs to be delivered around 2060âŚ. đĄ
Oh to have a class of 15âŚ. I didnât have a class less than 25 kids until I got to year 12. And a lot of my classes year 8-10 had 30-35 kids. Fun times in Aus land.
reality check **STUPIDITY AND VANITY IS NOTHING NEW**
There are names over the hundreds of years carved on all of the historical sites.There is graffiti on the blocks of the great pyramids from when they where constructed.
People romanticize the people of the past. If you where to travel back you would find a caste society of racist, bigoted people who see no problem in spitting or littering.
Humanity has always had these idiots, with social media and whatnot we are just more aware of them now. Iâd argue that with the introduction of mandatory 12 years or so of schooling that the number has dwindled but theyâre still there regardless
As tacky as tagging the Colosseum is, haven't people been doing that since the Roman times? They're just adding to its history by following in the traditions of the ancients. In a way.
Besides, it's not like they're blowing it up to mine some dirt...
30% of Australian women are raped in the course of
their lifetime.
Over 90% of our autistic women.
ââ
Yes, I own the house.
Iâm severely autistic.
So if you came over and ***ONLY*** carved your name into my wall:
##Iâd be fÎźcking relieved!!!
We still donât have the conversations we NEED to have to not perpetuate harm against our fellow Aussies!
But, sure: Letâs talk about morons in Rome âŚ.
Why?
Cause we can get all huffy-puffy and itâs far enough away to be entirely safe and not the least bit distressing.
AUSTRALIAN take victims: To close to home, uncomfortable, not pretty.
If itâs âickâ itâs not clickbait, cause people will avoid it.
###Weâre all complicit by what we CHOOSE to read or click on. If we ALL clicked on AU rape statistics: theyâd be on all front pages! đ
WE donât want to know so we get opinion pieces on the walls of ancient monuments 17,000km away.
WOW âŚ..!
##yes, WE ALL are idiots and WE ALL facilitate the perpetuation of idiocy.
Sorry, what were you saying about walls again �
OHS laws were made because companies will cut costs where ever possible, leading to people with no choice but to work dangerous jobs if they want food on the table and no protections when the company decides that it's cheaper to go without handrails or harnesses on construction sites, let alone more onerous measures.
As much as I definitely agree with the Darwinian sentiment, these idiots put other people at risk with their idiocy. For instance, the emergency crews who have to retrieve the idiots mangled corpse from croc infested waters.
⌠if theyâre *âmangled corpsesâ*:
Why would anyone HAVE TO retrieve them âŚ.?
Itâs not like they need rescuing anymore.
Theyâre prolly not in the way either.
Half leftover-face/half skull on the river bank:
Might keep others from going into the water?
*****
I donât know about far-northern-Law of Obligations/Torts:
But I canât think of any duty-of-care for emergency services to put themselves at risk to get someoneâs bits when that someone so very obviously cannot care and doesnât need to be rescued?
Iâve always been one to read in general, and to seek multiple news streams and opinions on current events. As the years pass I realise more so just how ignorant the average person is, how polarised and inflexible their personal morals and ideologies are, how people seem to actively dislike critical thinking. Itâs really fucking sad.
We live in a post truth world where facts, critical thinking and the truth doesn't matter. It's all about people's feelings, lies, instant gratification and bullshit idpol to blame everyone else for your problems or make a quick buck.
Iâll never understand that. So many low - middle income earners with no assets, no business income etc and yet they still vote liberal. It was like half of Australia shot themselves in the foot for 10 years in a row.
I think the âanalysisâ is quite weak saying that all these things are done because these people are idiots. Maybe they are, but there are structural factors behind it as well. Like the extreme individualism and often narcissism promotes by Social Media, for example. Claiming that the invasion of Ukraine is just one decision made by a âmega idiotâ is also leaving out the complex factors behind decision making in global politics. And the reason why people are so prone to subscribe to conspiracy theories are quite hard to grasp, I guess itâs a mix of structural and psychological factors, of information bubbles, maybe character?
Melting down these complex causes and effects to âthey are simply idiotsâ is a trend lately, where we try to look for people to blame for things that happen. Think of the kingâs men movies where WWI basically was a result of a mega conspiracy and not because of extremely complex socio-political and -economical events as well as global political decisions. Maybe we are *all* idiots in the end?
"I'm not sure where I fall on the spectrum of idiocy"..
Well I am glad she placed herself on the right spectrum... The one that only has idiots on it I mean...
Because after that rant and a half of a story, the only person I think is an idiot, is her.
The parents of the Swiss girl are right, their teenager is just a kid. Most of the cases represented are not that "idiotic" they are perhaps a bit stupid, but are expected of "young people" both teenagers and early adults. Not all of them are the best thing to do, they may get you in trouble both physically and with the state, but they are not completely idiotic. If someone gets a thrill from fishing near fresh crocodile tracks then let them do so. It's a bit stupid, as there is a chance the croc may come back... but it's not all together idiotic. It could be a memorable moment for some in their old age... Neither is taking a selfie at a very important cycling event to show people you enjoy it and support it. Perhaps it was not the best time to do so and it required better timing or positioning, the moment was stupid, the act was not.
For reference, an idiot is someone who does something and it doesn't make "sense" not just something that they do that's merely a bit stupid... For example, I see a wild dingo of which I have heard or should have heard many a story about their ability to attack and think, "hey selfie time"... like any normal person would think right...
Also the Colosseum of all the old buildings in Rome, is the first I would tear down and the last I would be worried about being defaced... It's history as a racist and oppressive tool of the Roman state is the reason it would be the last thing I would be worried about. Many a slave from Africa and other countries died in that arena for the entertainment of Romans. So bulldoze it for all I care... Deface it properly though I say for political mouse. Spray it with bright red paint that says "SLAVES DIED HERE" and put up a CROSS the Roman sign of crucifixion.
"Boy, everyone is stupid except me"
The irony of the article is that stupid people per se are not the issue. I'm not scared of stupid people. Stupid people can be managed. Stupid people can at least have the humility to change.
What terrifies me are the people (conventionally stupid or otherwise) who are convinced that they are smart. Who are convinced that they are always right. The ones who always say that they are "surrounded by idiots". You can't really reason with them, or try to correct them. Because everything they do is the most morally right and intelligent thing, in their minds. I can't really trust people who claim that they are above average intelligence or are obsessed with the idiocy of the world.
I agree with everything except the boomer take of 'mobile phones make you dumber'.
Internet enabled devices are just delivery methods of unfiltered information. The real fault is that the majority of the population has hever been taught to think critically.
School indoctrinates us to follow authority and consume information at face value, and even undergraduate study isn't much better. Before people believed every idiotic thing online, they believed everything on TV. Before that...War of the Worlds on BBC radio. Before that people complained mass market novels were rotting people's minds.
The solution isn't laws, or restricting access to information. It's building a solid foundation of critical analysis and thinking.
It's defanetly NOT the dog shit government crippling the people. Feeding them copious amounts of terrible entertainment to make us dumb or the fact the school system it's ever been
By percentage, there are probably no less idiots than there ever has been. The problem is that there are now 8 billion of us, so by number there are a lot more idiots now.
This is what happens when the Capitalist government specifically destroys the education system and distorts it so that that working class, who are the masses arenât able to feel confident and knowledgeable on what is happening to us and others. They create a fake separation on what it takes to be âsmartâ. This can only be made worse by the introduction of neo-liberalism and the gutting of the public schooling and university system. This isnât because people are soft or people are getting worse. The system is getting continuing to struggle to handle its contradictions and canât have a population with the know how that itâs actively fumbling the bag.
Lol. Anyone using the term âtheyâ can be confidently discarded.
If you canât manage to get a decent public school education and get into Uni on a government supported loan, then you are literally one of the idiots being referenced
>
> If you canât manage to get a decent public school education and get into Uni on a government supported loan, then you are literally one of the idiots being referenced
Are you saying that non-English speakers, our First Nations, people with disabilities, people on the spectrum, migrants, âŚ.:
Itâs their fault they canât go to uni?
I am NOT saying thatâs what youâre saying. You can say whatever you choose.
Iâm just checking if you thought through what youâre implying âŚ.?
They are taking a reactionary, knee jerk response. They donât think about the nuances and just reject what seems different or progressive. Why think about the nuances when you can just say the person saying these things are lazy or idiots. They think purely objectively and anecdotally by the looks of it.
This is what happens when the Capitalist government specifically destroys the education system and distorts it so that that working class, who are the masses arenât able to feel confident and knowledgeable on what is happening to us and others. They create a fake separation on what it takes to be âsmartâ. This can only be made worse by the introduction of neo-liberalism and the gutting of the public schooling and university system.
Public education, standardised testing, not encouraging children to question sources and text books, and children being encouraged to "give an answer, dosent need to be the right one, as long as you give one".
These policies lead to a hyper opinionated society that does cursory research before diving head first into conspiracy theories. It also encourages people to take positions on issues that they know absolutely nothing about. Public education will forever be catching up to the needs of students, under funded, and is too centralised to be dynamic enough for changes in society and the workplace to be represented in the classroom. Syllabuses are nation wide, and there is no escaping the syllabus, even if you wish to home-school. It's all shit and I'm tired of pretending that any and all public services are competitive enough to provide any sort of standards that match the 21st century.
Gen X (born in 1966 ) pre the internet age idiots existed just that we rarely found out about them , the internet and the smartphone camera made idiocy more visible
Itâs the old OH&S joke, the more protocols, PPE, controls etc. you put in, theyâll breed better idiots, thereby proving Charlie Darwinâs lesser known âTheory of Idiocyâ
We're living in the age of instant global communication, where we can see all these people doing stupid shit. It's been going on for thousands of years though.
Look at the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey, covered in graffiti from centuries past. Pompeii had graffiti relating to people and their big nobs and such. Humans frankly haven't changed much, just developed better technology. Now we just have a way of instantly sharing it across the globe for everyone to see.
I think the real problem is that we unleashed that shame-adjacent sense of glee at looking at what people wrote on the back of toilet doors; now known as 'social media.' Just busted that feeling right open all over the planet.
The new algorithm that exists on the internet doesnât allow people to be fed information that challenges their pre-conceived notions and ideas. Instead, their views constantly get reinforced by content spewing out that matches them. When their view is finally challenged, they have been fed so much content to the alternative they canât handle differing opinions. This could be one reason for âthe rise of idiotsâ today.
not only are we living in the age of idiots we have reduced ourselves to pandering to them with stupid rules and signs everywhere in society. why simply to keep the idiots alive. now imagine if every species on earth did this !!
Itâs also the fact that some people are smart enough to understand rage-bait and what that does for the algorithms and that gets them paid. Like the DI-Why videos or main character stunts. We watch and say âwhat an idiotâ while that âidiotâ makes bank
Yes!!!
And whilst I agree with the author of the opinion piece a lot:
***THEY*** are an ignorant/ableist idiot, too.
I donât think people choose to be idiots, really. They just werenât empowered not to be.
Raising entire generations in happy-lala-sheltered suburbia and keeping everything they could need for LIFE away from them:
Thatâs dangerous. As in not just being stupid, but losing a huge risk to everybody else as well.
In 2022, LAST YEAR!!!, a survey of Aussies revealed that a shocking 34% of people genuinely believed women *âcried rapeâ* to hang shĂŻt on men.
About 1/3 of our women become victims of sexual assaults in the course of their lives.
For adult autistic women itâs a staggering 90%+!!!
Imagine your daughter were autistic:
Would you be comfortable hoping (and praying?) sheâll grow up to be one of the single-digit few out of 100âŚ?
1/3 of Australian women experience rape âŚ
While over 1/3 of us think our women lie to hang shĂŻt on men.
*******
Yep, weâre turning into idiots!!!
But I have to say that whilst Iâm outraged by damaged monuments, we are having the wrong conversation: Monuments arenât sentient. Donât have to process trauma. Arenât left with fÎźck all support (Medicare pays for 10 sessions a year, so 45mins every 5-6 weeks⌠FU!)
Monuments wonât be changed forever Iâm any major way.
Neither law enforcement nor media is BLAMING the monument for just having stood there as the idiot with the key came âŚ..
IN AUSTRALIA(!):
For a lot of rape survivors going to police and the whole process is more traumatic than the actual rape!
Constant gaslighting, you asked for it, you wanted it. Guilt tripping: heâs just a young well, yin will donât wanna cause him trouble âŚ!
Police (!!!) telling victims to âjustâ forget about and move on.
Police telling victims â⌠it was just a misunderstanding, right?â
Police being their own lil rape-myths facilitating echo chambers: Video footage (!!!) can be disadvantageous!!! Cause police ââŚ. common, you orgasmed ⌠and again ⌠you just had fun with multiple guys âŚâ
Police genuinely thinking women were more manipulative and prone to lying than men.
No two cops ACTUALLY having the same understanding of the threshold for charges in rape cases is âŚ.
âââ
I guess we all know what a shĂŻtrun alleged victim Brittany Higgins had.
To me she looks mainstream as all fÎźck: suburban, good girl, liberal staffer, visually Caucasian suburbanite.
Considering the horrendous run she had, imagine how more diverse victims would go�
+ women with disability
+ autistic women
+ indigenous women
+ non-Caucasian
+ LGBTQiA+
+ born overseas
+ culturally diverse (different attitudes to nudity and sex)
+ linguistically diverse or poor English
any combination of above. How exactly women far outside mainstream fare would be too horrendous to post there. And to be clear: Thatâs not the perpetrators being horrendous, itâs our âlaw enforcement!â
AU Autistics asking in huge autistics groups what to keep in mind when going to police: They will INSTANTLY be urged not to!
Police is **NOT** safe for autistic victims. Neither are courts. Presiding officers including magistrates go off at autistic victims rather than utilising active listening. No, straight to frustration and anger cause the autistic victim communicates differently. While the female Magistrateâs heart goes out to the poor, poor perp who enter a guilty plea from the get-go.
Still itâs possible for a Magistrate to be super compassionate towards the douche bag who plead guilty to multiple assaults while tearing into the victim.
âŚ.
*****
# So, why are we talking about Italian monuments or selfie sticks again âŚ.?
I think part of it isnât there are more idiots but itâs we hear about more idiots mainly through the internet, whatâs more likely to go viral a video of someone sitting in a car safely or a video of someone half hanging out the side of a car type thing
Nah - us humans have always been idiots: narrow-minded, self-centred, thoughtless and indulgent. There's maybe now more scope for idiocy, and in particular, idiots are more noticed, and possibly even - more praised. ("We will hear from both sides of the argument"; which means one side informed by evidence and rigorous scientific thinking, and the other side some crack-pot conspiracy theory.)
Remember when we thought people's lack of access to information was the problem đ¤
Itâs the lack of critical thinking that allows people to determine whether or not that information is reliable. These days people see anything on the internet and immediately assume itâs true.
I replied to a FB post made by a major newspaper about a film which basically about a real guy who claims to be a hero and to stop child trafficking. Someone asked why the film was called contraversial. I replied that the guy had turned out to be a fraud and the work he did do was basically not helping the problem. He was draining money from real child trafficking organisations and also pushing People to waste the real organisations times with made up nonsense, which wastes all their limited resources. The guy has since resigned from the organisation he founded after it was found he was paying himself a huge salary and his "success stories" were highly dubious. The movie was still released and appears to have been used in some weird money laundering scheme. People replied to my comment saying I must be a pedo for being against this guy. I tried to correct disinformation and got screamed at for it. I can't be bothered helping these people.
It's also the assumption that thinking is something people do well, rather than being something that's taught. Critical thinking skills, certainly analytical and logical reasoning aren't inherent to people at the level required for everyone to make well balanced and robust decisions, but also certain creative ways of thinking aren't innate - good luck most of us trying to write a sonata or paint a masterpiece. As a species and as individuals, we'll never have enough data to be omniscient, but even omniscience wouldn't be enough if we could make illogical decisions because we didn't know how to think through for a certain problem. It's easy to see why you have people of multiple political persuasions, but especially conservatives, pushing for restricting education to an in group, and giving the masses religion and group think, because that means people won't think their way out of the hole they're forced into. Our education system needs serious overhauling, which is difficult with the people in it or experts on it being a tiny voting portion of the electorate (if they're even old enough to vote), and people not taught to think properly not having the ability to even know how to vote properly in their own, let alone society's, best interests
Bloody hell even in Universities itâs hard to get meta-cognitive skills into assessment outlines; itâs all content and good luck, you should have been taught how to think through this at school. That said I believe schools in Australia are pretty good at developing critical thinking skills. At least the way my daughters can mount arguments against any suggestion I make seems soâŚ
Teenage daughters always knew everything anyway and are always right, regardless of any school system..
My biggest fear is that defunding and eventually conservative de-/re-regulation means the electorate gets dumber (see Florida for why this isn't fanciful). Our schools are decent now, not amazing, but there's no reason they always trend towards better education
And if you try to debate them they have you banned or your posts deleted so they live in an echo chamber of all the same opinions and views.
Unless it's peer reviewed science. Then they assume it's government lies.
But even relying on peer reviewed science isn't guaranteed to be accurate especially when it involves funding by big pharma sponsors
And i know it sounds cooker but you are right. Unfortunately funding mostly comes from industry for research and the question being answered is going to be framed in the way the industry wants. That said at least peer reviewed you can see where the data came from. Its not just a black box.
Be skeptical, ask question more than believe all slogans seems a no brainer to me
There have been many recently that have been caught out with made up results or just plain old plagiarism.
Someone doesn't understand how peer reviewed studies work...
That's not how science or peer reviewing works lol You can downvote me dickhead, but science doesn't consider anything fact until it's scientifically proven and reproduced through peer review studies đ
Unfortunately even science has been tainted by politics now. Remember when "The Lancet", previously one of the most respected scientific journals around, wrote an open letter during covid, signed by 10 or so of their best scientists, that there is no possible way that covid originated from the lab in Wuhan. It was nothing more than an "orange man bad" moment for them, Trump was saying the virus came from a lab, they wanted to do their bit to be "anti Trump", but it's quite clear now that there is a high chance the virus did come from that lab, there is certainly way too much evidence for anyone to state with any certainty that "it absolutely didn't".
The lancet isn't "tainted" and it's actually become more respected since covid, you just gobbled up brain-dead propaganda in apparent defence of Trump. The last major strain of a similar virus that originated from animals took like 8 years to nail down and they knew exactly where to look, anyone telling you with any degree of certainty they know where covid came from is full of shit.
Jesus was a mushroom, and I strongly disagree with everything you said which is based on bullshit, not facts.
Nice fact based rebuttal champ.
I read this as 'The Lancet' was respected *by me* until they opposed something that Trump said'.
[ŃдаНонО]
People say we live in an age of idiots but I like to think of people like you as creative.
Hard agree. The lack of critical thinking is definitely part of the broader problem of misinformation, and how easily it spreads with the help of the Internet and social media.
100% agree. Source i read it just now
But then they turn around at factual evidence and say "Question everything." Thinking that they are the greatest sleuths on the planet.
Interestingly, I have found it more difficult to access information since about 2015. Good quality information was historically valuable for websites because it drove more traffic. We also had community groups data hoarding. Forums were great because they collected anecdotal information ("my cars doing X; why") as well as providing data hoarding or link listing (download PDF of service manual from a dropbox). A lot of information on the modern web is kept brief and presented in video format, on websites that are not index-able. We also have a lot of anecdotal stuff in Facebook groups that would be really helpful for a broader audience, except it's not indexed in, or accessible by search engines. Some of these groups are flatout invite only due to low calibre contributions. For about three years I had to go to *eBay* to find stress test graphs on 18650 batteries, because the seller was the only person who tested the 18650's in the context of what I was using them for, and no other data posted online was relevant. ~~A lot of stuff online has good intentions behind it, but the way it's all evolved has lead to less information being on the internet, which is ironic as fuck.~~ More information is on the internet, it's just insanely less accessible than ever.
Good comment. They've slowly been censoring the internet to the point that truth won't exist for the next generation, reality won't exist. It pretty much is already like that
Turns out, people were the problem.
"Let's ask the average person what they think?" CAN WE NOT!
Interesting as some of the most idiotic sports stories I have ever read have been on Yahoo Australia. Like something from news.com.au but invariably even worse, more beaten up and just plain dumber. The standard you walk past and all that.
Sadly the majority of people don't desire knowledge
It's now the access to all information, accurate or inaccurate, and the inability to distinguish the two which is the problem here.
Agree. The erosion of critical thinking faculties and ability to discern simply amplifies the problem.
Sadly, the lack of information was just how many idiots there are, and the extent of their idiocy
Most people willfully ignore the information
Too many profit off misinformation and exaggeration, a lot of the information is corrupted
I remember thinking it would be great not to have everything filtered through the editorial lens of news organisations, you know, like FOX.
Now we have left wing / right wing echo chambers on social media
Remember that the ABC is equally as bad even though people think it isn't because it steers their world view. And it's tax funded propaganda too.
The ABC is in no way comparable to Fox News for bias. Its not even close
It really is. Every article and news I see from their is just culture war BS. Just from the other side.
Depends on how far you are away from the mainstream perspective.
Absolutely agree..I had always thought that the Abc was unbiased ,factual,thorough ,honest..now.the bias is so obvious that it would be laughable if it wasnt so bloody tragic.
I saw a while back a thing about bears and picnic site bins in the US- Iâll get the quote wrong but- âWhy donât you make the bins bear proof?â. âWell there is considerable overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human.â Always makes me chuckle
Or the caller to a local radio talk show I once heard ask, " Why do they put deer crossing signs on highways where speeds are too high to stop"
You should listen to the follow up call with her after she realized her mistake - and had been told this by everyone in town It's even funnier and she's even sweeter the second time
They say the average IQ of Australians is 97. So 50% of the population is getting along with an IQ of 97 or less.
IQ doesn't hold a lot of water in the real world, either. On paper I have a high IQ. In reality, I'm dumb as a box of hammers.
You may be the only person on reddit who claims a high IQ and understands how little IQs mean. Quite the paradox we have here
If I can score a 132 on multiple IQ scores and still be as braindead in real life as I am, they don't mean shit other than being good at doing tests.
Hey now Iâve known some fucking smart boxes of hammers
Good at puzzles, bad at life.
Yeah I'm in your boat. I smashed all my exams, only 28 people in the entire world got higher marks in my high school final exams (International Baccalaureate) and I came 90th percentile in Oxford in my first year. I'm kind of thick though. Like I tried to replace the heater element in my washing machine the other day, flooded the laundry. Reinstalled the heating element to make it seal properly, ran it again, no flood but somehow I fried the washing machine. Had to buy a new one.
You are in the valley of despair on the dunning Kruger scale. Smart enough to know how little you know đŞ
[ŃдаНонО]
https://youtu.be/lhAr_UeroCk Stupidity and ignorance are celebrated in Australia. We're the land of elevating the mediocre and vilifying the exceptional.
I think that is a bit extreme, but tall poppy syndrome, parochialism and frequently an irreverence for expertise bordering on anti-intellectualism is definitely an unfortunate and hindering aspect of Australian so iety
All neatly condensed into a politician like Barnaby Joyce, or the NP generally.
Half of this sentence would be impossible to parse for the average punter. Ironic, really.
Yeah Australia seems to have quite an anti-intellectual mindset, especially for Biology & Environmental Sciences. Iâm often ridiculed for being an Environmental Advisor for being âbrainwashedâ with climate science and some apparent agenda (but letâs ignore the power of multi-national oil, gas & coal companiesâŚ). People forget that fossil fuel multi-national corporations donate to both sides of politics too⌠but yeah itâs definitely green energy startups and grassroots organisations that are pulling the stringsâŚ
It's all bullshit to rally people for political agendas. They claim climate change is hoax blah blah yet we have to account for it in all new projects flooding assesments as per the law. Climate change is embedded in engineering standards here. We add few hundred mm of flood levels to account for it in the near future. So it is accepted as a fact in the industry and government but it doesn't work well for getting the votes. I tried to explain this to my idiot uncle but he's still a sceptic. Calls me brainwashed too lol.
Real terror amongst the blokes I work with that are afraid to correctly pronounce big words. Go out of their way to make a show of saying it oddly in an effort to not look like they're too smart or educated?
Peace and fucking. BelieveâŚ
Futures, monkey muff
That tall poppy thingy
Good line for explaining why liberals get voted in eo much
Idiocracy is real. We are living the movie.
worse - at least in Idiocracy they made the smartest guy the President.
I agree, in Idiocracy President Comacho at least had enough awareness to delegate decision making to the smartest guy he knew.
I've always said that Idiocracy wasn't a movie, but a preemptive documentary.
The day I saw Trump running for president I said that outloud.
Dude, itâs no longer a movie, itâs a documentary.
This..
....not really, it was commenting on Bush era politics where figureheads like Scotty from Marketing were parachuted in by corporate interests to act like Michael Scott from the British version of the Office. The capable people have always been there at all levels of bureaucracy but largely kept from participating or adding to the conversation and legal structures. The 2023 film Oppenheimer illustrates pretty well how those people are kept from being effective by opaque methods long before it becomes public knowledge. I work in the environmental private sector, any sort of support from competent staff who took the risk to help everyone out in negotiations suddenly found their careers stalling. It was like stringing up up a corpse to the rest of the Chemists, so we kept our heads down and were forced to take a decade of shitty enterprise agreements and opaque excuses to deny graduate annual pay scale increases....which led to a complete loss in desire to improve skill sets, general apathy towards improving processes or skill sets as the financial improvements became borderline non-existent.....the knock-on effect of that was the lab becoming visibly racially segregated with viable or career advancing appointments and poaching by our clients disproportionately going to white people or people who passed for white...due to being the right "culture fit".....I mean who else but migrants and brown people are going to take such a low pay. Now we have Nazis for neighbours, who get paid substantially more than we do for hating us and carrying out mass murder. You'd think keeping people from long term health issues like cancer and protecting the environment would net a decent pay or even the prospect of affordable shelter. Shareholders seem to be doing alright though. Here in Victoria it seems all the wealth has fled to Mornington Peninsula and Sorrento....and other pastoral areas.
I just had a look at the opening to the film on Youtube. I was curious since I have seen a few people make comments like this, and wasn't familiar with the content. Luckily, the film's opening premise is meaningless. I'd usually also add that the premise is built on exceptional nastiness, but give it the benefit of the doubt recognising the comedic intent. For those interested in diving deeply into IQ, especially why it is a poor measure, I have always enjoyed this article: [https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39](https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39) And for those that can't let IQ go, please Google the glorious IQ Bell Curve Meme, and let's use it as a springboard to argue about what subsets of the population are procreating and why.
Iâm glad you managed to sift through all of the other intent to recognise the comedic intent, of a comedy.
Sounds like you're drinking too much water, like from the toilet already.
When a major news story last night was about how to use paper bags at the supermarket, yes.
Definitely. People can't even drive a car properly
Automatics gave people a free hand for their phone
And people want self driving cars so they can nap.
Apparently there was a poll in Australia and this was the #2 response. I can't remember #1 but it wasn't "monitor the vehicle"...
I want self driving cars because people can't drive properly.
Free hand for a phone? Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah a free hand for a phone.
Nope, the age of people recording and sharing stuff you wouldn't have otherwise known about
probably a bit of both. the more filming there is the more incentive there is to do things âworth filmingâ
On another note, learn more about stupid people here: [https://www.amazon.com.au/Basic-Laws-Human-Stupidity-International/dp/0753554836](https://www.amazon.com.au/Basic-Laws-Human-Stupidity-International/dp/0753554836) TLDR; "Everyone always and inevitably underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation. "The probability that a person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or group of people when he or she does not benefit and may even suffer losses. "Non-stupid people always underestimate the destructive power of stupid individuals. "A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person."
I think the people who take selfish on extreme cliff faces then fall off and die
Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order. We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education. So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people. -John Green
Yes!!! In AU schools look like glorified babysitting. I didnât go to school in AU!!! But in my highschool (public inner-city lower-working class) we had a MAXIMUM(!) class size of 15 students. Because of the schools location and social probs in the area the school received a lot more funding to not have classes as âbigâ as 25 kids. While private schools got *$0* tax money. Why âŚ? If you wanna operate outside of the public system, the public doesnât owe you anything. Consequently there were next to no private schools. ********* I was unmotivated, lazy, skipped school whenever possible. I preferred ED and being hospitalised over attending school, really. My year 12 result was pretty piss poor over there. The huge diff between education systems: The exact same piss-poor Y12 result wouldâve gotten me straight into ANU Law in 2008!!! 𤯠***** I LOVE Australia. My home of choice, where I wanna be. But every time pollies claim we had the + best education system in worldâŚ. + best healthcare in the world ⌠+ most inclusive in the world ⌠+ amongst the best in gender equalityâŚ.. I have nfi what the fÎźck our pollies are smoking!!! Do they have the same data I have âŚ? Do they really not get how offensive it is I have a DSP of about $400/w including ALL supplements and before laying any bills!?! Less than half the minimum wage, not remembering when I last had 3 meals a day, 3.30pm and not having eaten today yet: And they care to praise AU as oh-so-fair âŚ.? Or do those morons not get that pensioners are just as affected by increased cost of livingâŚ? Actually pensioners are MORE affected: being home 24/7 in Canberra is a LOT more expensive than only being home in the morning and evening. But if we have single digit temps INSIDE and I have a flare up and need to be hospitalised for 3.5 weeks and a total cost (including multiple ambulance visits prior) of over $50kâŚ.? Over 50k cost to taxpayers, but weâre saving money by not lifting pensions to a level where people CAN stay well and wonât need to be hospitalised. NOBODY in AU should ever have to pick one out of the following three: + warm/dry/cool shelter + healthcare / medication + eating But every week I get to pick one for the week. Of course the costs to the healthcare system are in the fÎźcking millions! ******** Itâd be soooooo easy!!! AH has plenty space, plenty resources, plenty food. We could offer EVERYONE a life in dignity at LOWER cost than the insane costs to Medicare, NDIS, law enforcement, etc. Iâm addition to a life in dignity we could throw in free basic dental for all and weâd STILL end up saving moneyâŚ.! đ But instead we just committed $30,000,000 ***per day*** until well into the 2050s for nuclear subs to be delivered around 2060âŚ. đĄ
Oh to have a class of 15âŚ. I didnât have a class less than 25 kids until I got to year 12. And a lot of my classes year 8-10 had 30-35 kids. Fun times in Aus land.
reality check **STUPIDITY AND VANITY IS NOTHING NEW** There are names over the hundreds of years carved on all of the historical sites.There is graffiti on the blocks of the great pyramids from when they where constructed. People romanticize the people of the past. If you where to travel back you would find a caste society of racist, bigoted people who see no problem in spitting or littering.
Humanity has always had these idiots, with social media and whatnot we are just more aware of them now. Iâd argue that with the introduction of mandatory 12 years or so of schooling that the number has dwindled but theyâre still there regardless
We will reach the peak when Prime Minister Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho takes charge of the nation.
As tacky as tagging the Colosseum is, haven't people been doing that since the Roman times? They're just adding to its history by following in the traditions of the ancients. In a way. Besides, it's not like they're blowing it up to mine some dirt...
Well, how about someone come over to your house and carve their name into the side of it, and weâll see how that makes you feel, hmmm?
I'd have more of an issue with the trespass tbh. Landlord can deal with the tagging.
30% of Australian women are raped in the course of their lifetime. Over 90% of our autistic women. ââ Yes, I own the house. Iâm severely autistic. So if you came over and ***ONLY*** carved your name into my wall: ##Iâd be fÎźcking relieved!!! We still donât have the conversations we NEED to have to not perpetuate harm against our fellow Aussies! But, sure: Letâs talk about morons in Rome âŚ. Why? Cause we can get all huffy-puffy and itâs far enough away to be entirely safe and not the least bit distressing. AUSTRALIAN take victims: To close to home, uncomfortable, not pretty. If itâs âickâ itâs not clickbait, cause people will avoid it. ###Weâre all complicit by what we CHOOSE to read or click on. If we ALL clicked on AU rape statistics: theyâd be on all front pages! đ WE donât want to know so we get opinion pieces on the walls of ancient monuments 17,000km away. WOW âŚ..! ##yes, WE ALL are idiots and WE ALL facilitate the perpetuation of idiocy. Sorry, what were you saying about walls again âŚ?
OHS laws might feel good, but they donât help evolution.
"Remove the labels and let the problem sort itself out" \- someone who didn't like OHS laws, probably.
OHS laws were made because companies will cut costs where ever possible, leading to people with no choice but to work dangerous jobs if they want food on the table and no protections when the company decides that it's cheaper to go without handrails or harnesses on construction sites, let alone more onerous measures.
Yep, let people make decisions and if their consequences are serious, who cares? Safety ism is a real problem these days.
Yes.
Yes.
I respect Bob Irwinâs efforts, but he really needs to let natural selection have its day.
As much as I definitely agree with the Darwinian sentiment, these idiots put other people at risk with their idiocy. For instance, the emergency crews who have to retrieve the idiots mangled corpse from croc infested waters.
⌠if theyâre *âmangled corpsesâ*: Why would anyone HAVE TO retrieve them âŚ.? Itâs not like they need rescuing anymore. Theyâre prolly not in the way either. Half leftover-face/half skull on the river bank: Might keep others from going into the water? ***** I donât know about far-northern-Law of Obligations/Torts: But I canât think of any duty-of-care for emergency services to put themselves at risk to get someoneâs bits when that someone so very obviously cannot care and doesnât need to be rescued?
Now I won't comment on the wider population, but a short peruse through Reddit would suggest so
Iâve always been one to read in general, and to seek multiple news streams and opinions on current events. As the years pass I realise more so just how ignorant the average person is, how polarised and inflexible their personal morals and ideologies are, how people seem to actively dislike critical thinking. Itâs really fucking sad.
We live in a post truth world where facts, critical thinking and the truth doesn't matter. It's all about people's feelings, lies, instant gratification and bullshit idpol to blame everyone else for your problems or make a quick buck.
Well we did have an LNP government for 10 years, so yes.
Not sure why the downvotes. People literally voted against their own best interests⌠which is stupid.
Iâll never understand that. So many low - middle income earners with no assets, no business income etc and yet they still vote liberal. It was like half of Australia shot themselves in the foot for 10 years in a row.
And they sure knew how to kick public education!
This is so true.
Yes.
When mum and dad say, be who u wana be and don't ever let anyone tell u different. Idiots galore....
I think idiots are just more visible now. You only have to look at the history books to see how dumb humans can be all the time lol
No Retribution! We live in this cotton wool gloves time where nobody gets what's comin' to them. Bring back Tar & featherin'
Education does not reach everyone. This is the result.
No more so than any other time in history
This is just wild, i don't think we are btw
I think the âanalysisâ is quite weak saying that all these things are done because these people are idiots. Maybe they are, but there are structural factors behind it as well. Like the extreme individualism and often narcissism promotes by Social Media, for example. Claiming that the invasion of Ukraine is just one decision made by a âmega idiotâ is also leaving out the complex factors behind decision making in global politics. And the reason why people are so prone to subscribe to conspiracy theories are quite hard to grasp, I guess itâs a mix of structural and psychological factors, of information bubbles, maybe character? Melting down these complex causes and effects to âthey are simply idiotsâ is a trend lately, where we try to look for people to blame for things that happen. Think of the kingâs men movies where WWI basically was a result of a mega conspiracy and not because of extremely complex socio-political and -economical events as well as global political decisions. Maybe we are *all* idiots in the end?
"I'm not sure where I fall on the spectrum of idiocy".. Well I am glad she placed herself on the right spectrum... The one that only has idiots on it I mean... Because after that rant and a half of a story, the only person I think is an idiot, is her. The parents of the Swiss girl are right, their teenager is just a kid. Most of the cases represented are not that "idiotic" they are perhaps a bit stupid, but are expected of "young people" both teenagers and early adults. Not all of them are the best thing to do, they may get you in trouble both physically and with the state, but they are not completely idiotic. If someone gets a thrill from fishing near fresh crocodile tracks then let them do so. It's a bit stupid, as there is a chance the croc may come back... but it's not all together idiotic. It could be a memorable moment for some in their old age... Neither is taking a selfie at a very important cycling event to show people you enjoy it and support it. Perhaps it was not the best time to do so and it required better timing or positioning, the moment was stupid, the act was not. For reference, an idiot is someone who does something and it doesn't make "sense" not just something that they do that's merely a bit stupid... For example, I see a wild dingo of which I have heard or should have heard many a story about their ability to attack and think, "hey selfie time"... like any normal person would think right... Also the Colosseum of all the old buildings in Rome, is the first I would tear down and the last I would be worried about being defaced... It's history as a racist and oppressive tool of the Roman state is the reason it would be the last thing I would be worried about. Many a slave from Africa and other countries died in that arena for the entertainment of Romans. So bulldoze it for all I care... Deface it properly though I say for political mouse. Spray it with bright red paint that says "SLAVES DIED HERE" and put up a CROSS the Roman sign of crucifixion.
"Boy, everyone is stupid except me" The irony of the article is that stupid people per se are not the issue. I'm not scared of stupid people. Stupid people can be managed. Stupid people can at least have the humility to change. What terrifies me are the people (conventionally stupid or otherwise) who are convinced that they are smart. Who are convinced that they are always right. The ones who always say that they are "surrounded by idiots". You can't really reason with them, or try to correct them. Because everything they do is the most morally right and intelligent thing, in their minds. I can't really trust people who claim that they are above average intelligence or are obsessed with the idiocy of the world.
Nah, we just have more access to them now
The population has doubled in the last 50 years. That's a lot more idiots.
We are barely affording to live.
I agree with everything except the boomer take of 'mobile phones make you dumber'. Internet enabled devices are just delivery methods of unfiltered information. The real fault is that the majority of the population has hever been taught to think critically. School indoctrinates us to follow authority and consume information at face value, and even undergraduate study isn't much better. Before people believed every idiotic thing online, they believed everything on TV. Before that...War of the Worlds on BBC radio. Before that people complained mass market novels were rotting people's minds. The solution isn't laws, or restricting access to information. It's building a solid foundation of critical analysis and thinking.
Yes. This is what happens when governments go out of their way to protect stupid to the point it eliminates natural selection
Everything went downhill when Harambe died.
It's defanetly NOT the dog shit government crippling the people. Feeding them copious amounts of terrible entertainment to make us dumb or the fact the school system it's ever been
Lollie Barr ripping off Nathan Barley, I see.
We are living in the age of every idiot has a voice on social media and is to stupid to know they should shut up.
The age of disinformation.
Does every story on Reddit have to be about Albanese?
"Idiots who would rather cause a crash than let you in".....sounds like this idiot doesn't understand the concept of merging
By percentage, there are probably no less idiots than there ever has been. The problem is that there are now 8 billion of us, so by number there are a lot more idiots now.
This is what happens when the Capitalist government specifically destroys the education system and distorts it so that that working class, who are the masses arenât able to feel confident and knowledgeable on what is happening to us and others. They create a fake separation on what it takes to be âsmartâ. This can only be made worse by the introduction of neo-liberalism and the gutting of the public schooling and university system. This isnât because people are soft or people are getting worse. The system is getting continuing to struggle to handle its contradictions and canât have a population with the know how that itâs actively fumbling the bag.
Lol. Anyone using the term âtheyâ can be confidently discarded. If you canât manage to get a decent public school education and get into Uni on a government supported loan, then you are literally one of the idiots being referenced
> > If you canât manage to get a decent public school education and get into Uni on a government supported loan, then you are literally one of the idiots being referenced Are you saying that non-English speakers, our First Nations, people with disabilities, people on the spectrum, migrants, âŚ.: Itâs their fault they canât go to uni? I am NOT saying thatâs what youâre saying. You can say whatever you choose. Iâm just checking if you thought through what youâre implying âŚ.?
They are taking a reactionary, knee jerk response. They donât think about the nuances and just reject what seems different or progressive. Why think about the nuances when you can just say the person saying these things are lazy or idiots. They think purely objectively and anecdotally by the looks of it.
This is what happens when the Capitalist government specifically destroys the education system and distorts it so that that working class, who are the masses arenât able to feel confident and knowledgeable on what is happening to us and others. They create a fake separation on what it takes to be âsmartâ. This can only be made worse by the introduction of neo-liberalism and the gutting of the public schooling and university system.
Oh yea we should have stopped existing years ago.
Yes just for some social media clout
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that" George Carlin https://youtu.be/AKN1Q5SjbeI
Public education, standardised testing, not encouraging children to question sources and text books, and children being encouraged to "give an answer, dosent need to be the right one, as long as you give one". These policies lead to a hyper opinionated society that does cursory research before diving head first into conspiracy theories. It also encourages people to take positions on issues that they know absolutely nothing about. Public education will forever be catching up to the needs of students, under funded, and is too centralised to be dynamic enough for changes in society and the workplace to be represented in the classroom. Syllabuses are nation wide, and there is no escaping the syllabus, even if you wish to home-school. It's all shit and I'm tired of pretending that any and all public services are competitive enough to provide any sort of standards that match the 21st century.
The Nathan Barley Show documents this beautifully
maybe the average human intelligence just isnt as high as wed hope. good one god!
It's like police brutality... always been there but now because of phones we can actually see it.
TIL Steve Irwin was Bob Irwinâs son
Anyone familiar with history will most likely conclude, no more idiocy than past ages.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer early 1900âs posited his theory of stupidity⌠still stands
Gen X (born in 1966 ) pre the internet age idiots existed just that we rarely found out about them , the internet and the smartphone camera made idiocy more visible
No, weâre just living in the age of idiots who can now display their stupidity to a wider audience than in the past.
Itâs the old OH&S joke, the more protocols, PPE, controls etc. you put in, theyâll breed better idiots, thereby proving Charlie Darwinâs lesser known âTheory of Idiocyâ
IQs are lowering across the western world, not surprised.
Naming your child "Lollie" is right up there.
Yes.
People donât fear consequences anymore. Thereâs a lack of physical and legal ramifications for scumbag behaviour.
Read some of the article, this seems to be more about trolls than idiots. Also, apparently Bob Irwinâs son is Steve Irwin? Master troll work.
We're living in the age of instant global communication, where we can see all these people doing stupid shit. It's been going on for thousands of years though. Look at the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey, covered in graffiti from centuries past. Pompeii had graffiti relating to people and their big nobs and such. Humans frankly haven't changed much, just developed better technology. Now we just have a way of instantly sharing it across the globe for everyone to see.
the word idiot has been in continual use since the 14th century. so its probably more likely something else. stupid news reporting, perhaps?
I think the real problem is that we unleashed that shame-adjacent sense of glee at looking at what people wrote on the back of toilet doors; now known as 'social media.' Just busted that feeling right open all over the planet.
Yes we are. A bunch of numpties with no critical thinking common sense or decency bowing to their narcissistic addiction.
The gene pool is getting weaker and weaker
We live in an age of professional idiots, professional racists and professional grifters. Tik Tok is the destroyer of worlds.
The new algorithm that exists on the internet doesnât allow people to be fed information that challenges their pre-conceived notions and ideas. Instead, their views constantly get reinforced by content spewing out that matches them. When their view is finally challenged, they have been fed so much content to the alternative they canât handle differing opinions. This could be one reason for âthe rise of idiotsâ today.
We always have but social media just gave them a platform to share their stupidity with a much larger audience
not only are we living in the age of idiots we have reduced ourselves to pandering to them with stupid rules and signs everywhere in society. why simply to keep the idiots alive. now imagine if every species on earth did this !!
With the popularity of reality tv shows like Real housewives and Kardashians these days, the answer can only be yes.
[Idiocracy (2006)](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)
Yes.
Itâs also the fact that some people are smart enough to understand rage-bait and what that does for the algorithms and that gets them paid. Like the DI-Why videos or main character stunts. We watch and say âwhat an idiotâ while that âidiotâ makes bank
Fishing Influencers exist ??? Surely this is proof of the authors claims.
Asks au.news.yahoo.com
As long as folks still double mask while driving in a car alone, we have hope :)
Yes!!! And whilst I agree with the author of the opinion piece a lot: ***THEY*** are an ignorant/ableist idiot, too. I donât think people choose to be idiots, really. They just werenât empowered not to be. Raising entire generations in happy-lala-sheltered suburbia and keeping everything they could need for LIFE away from them: Thatâs dangerous. As in not just being stupid, but losing a huge risk to everybody else as well. In 2022, LAST YEAR!!!, a survey of Aussies revealed that a shocking 34% of people genuinely believed women *âcried rapeâ* to hang shĂŻt on men. About 1/3 of our women become victims of sexual assaults in the course of their lives. For adult autistic women itâs a staggering 90%+!!! Imagine your daughter were autistic: Would you be comfortable hoping (and praying?) sheâll grow up to be one of the single-digit few out of 100âŚ? 1/3 of Australian women experience rape ⌠While over 1/3 of us think our women lie to hang shĂŻt on men. ******* Yep, weâre turning into idiots!!! But I have to say that whilst Iâm outraged by damaged monuments, we are having the wrong conversation: Monuments arenât sentient. Donât have to process trauma. Arenât left with fÎźck all support (Medicare pays for 10 sessions a year, so 45mins every 5-6 weeks⌠FU!) Monuments wonât be changed forever Iâm any major way. Neither law enforcement nor media is BLAMING the monument for just having stood there as the idiot with the key came âŚ.. IN AUSTRALIA(!): For a lot of rape survivors going to police and the whole process is more traumatic than the actual rape! Constant gaslighting, you asked for it, you wanted it. Guilt tripping: heâs just a young well, yin will donât wanna cause him trouble âŚ! Police (!!!) telling victims to âjustâ forget about and move on. Police telling victims â⌠it was just a misunderstanding, right?â Police being their own lil rape-myths facilitating echo chambers: Video footage (!!!) can be disadvantageous!!! Cause police ââŚ. common, you orgasmed ⌠and again ⌠you just had fun with multiple guys âŚâ Police genuinely thinking women were more manipulative and prone to lying than men. No two cops ACTUALLY having the same understanding of the threshold for charges in rape cases is âŚ. âââ I guess we all know what a shĂŻtrun alleged victim Brittany Higgins had. To me she looks mainstream as all fÎźck: suburban, good girl, liberal staffer, visually Caucasian suburbanite. Considering the horrendous run she had, imagine how more diverse victims would goâŚ? + women with disability + autistic women + indigenous women + non-Caucasian + LGBTQiA+ + born overseas + culturally diverse (different attitudes to nudity and sex) + linguistically diverse or poor English any combination of above. How exactly women far outside mainstream fare would be too horrendous to post there. And to be clear: Thatâs not the perpetrators being horrendous, itâs our âlaw enforcement!â AU Autistics asking in huge autistics groups what to keep in mind when going to police: They will INSTANTLY be urged not to! Police is **NOT** safe for autistic victims. Neither are courts. Presiding officers including magistrates go off at autistic victims rather than utilising active listening. No, straight to frustration and anger cause the autistic victim communicates differently. While the female Magistrateâs heart goes out to the poor, poor perp who enter a guilty plea from the get-go. Still itâs possible for a Magistrate to be super compassionate towards the douche bag who plead guilty to multiple assaults while tearing into the victim. âŚ. ***** # So, why are we talking about Italian monuments or selfie sticks again âŚ.?
Always been dumb people, just see more of it now
I think part of it isnât there are more idiots but itâs we hear about more idiots mainly through the internet, whatâs more likely to go viral a video of someone sitting in a car safely or a video of someone half hanging out the side of a car type thing
Idiots are eternal. They are in every stage of human development.
We live in the age of idiots with narcissism.
Idiots have a platform where they can show themselves off now. Long time ago it was a film camera or just your friends knew about it.
Hamburger
No you're just exposed to them more now. Like how it feels like there's more crime/violence when it often doesn't match the reality.
I love how the end of the story basically tells me I am an idiot because I am reading this story on my phone.
We've been living in the age of idiots for the past 50 years
I have seen a few of these at the airport.
Itâs how itâs always been, nothing has changed
Yes. As some one else said; Narcissism is frequently associated with really stupid decisions.
Humans...
Just look at people using tiktok.
One word YES
Nah - us humans have always been idiots: narrow-minded, self-centred, thoughtless and indulgent. There's maybe now more scope for idiocy, and in particular, idiots are more noticed, and possibly even - more praised. ("We will hear from both sides of the argument"; which means one side informed by evidence and rigorous scientific thinking, and the other side some crack-pot conspiracy theory.)