Surrounded by stupidity

Hahaha Oooooooh yes. My current run-in with stupidity involves animals and a poor owner. I keep explaining the behavior issues and my answers are accepted but my guidance is not. There's just too much stupidity around my area. It would take a week to write a day's worth! :rolle:

 

My father always says, "There are a million things you don't know that someone else knows, and there are a million things you know that they don't know." I try not to judge when someone doesn't know/understand something because there's a chance that they didn't have the opportunity to learn about it. It's only stupidity if they don't understand it after being taught. Shaming people will only make them afraid to ask questions, which perpetuates their ignorance.

 

You'd be surprised, those people probably have one quality that makes up for all those things, as long as they're nice people. After all, Kindness is the only valid excuse for stupidity, but we unfortunately live in a world where the only excuse for kindness is stupidity. You shouldn't tolerate ignorance, just remember that not everyone had the same opportunities for education as you did. If none of the above applies, I'll gladly loan you a sledge-hammer to hit them with.

 

Join the club. We can have jackets!

---------- Post added 17th Apr 2013 at 11:50 AM ----------

In other words, yes. I am surrounded by stupidity on a regular basis.

 

I feel you Hexagon.

What bothers me most isn't that people are ignorant. As much as I love to learn and put a high emphasis on knowledge, it's impossible to learn everything in a lifetime, so that people are ignorant on certain subjects doesn't bother me at all. What really bothers me, and why I classify these people as "stupid" is that rather than trying to understand, they'd rather close their minds and stay ignorant. You could bring all the evidence you need to support your argument whereas they bring none, and they still won't admit to be wrong and instead stick to their misinformed and ignorant arguments.

Those, in my books, are stupid people.

 

i really dont like to judge people and just because they dont know the meaning of something doesnt make them stupid, we are all new to stuff at one point and i just explain what stuff means to people. i only get sick of being surronded by nasty people and hateful people , but yes that does include people who really just try to make arguments over things and if i explain to them and they still argue then its frustrating but i wont talk to them anymore as its showing no respect to me

 

It takes both intelligence and humility to know that you don't know.

Funny thing: the more I know the less definite and the more tentative I get about things...First-hand knowledge is like standing on shifting sand, it's the ones who get it second-hand that are so sure of themselves.

 

Sounds like Confucius : "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."

I'm much more hesitant as well, which makes me research a lot more on both sides of the argument to make sure that I have all the right information before I say anything.

Trying to find this quote I had placed somewhere...

Edit: There is is:

"The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him." - Arthur Schopenhauer

(I keep a text file with quotes I find interesting )

 

About keeping a file on quotes, I do that too!

Here's a poem by Alexander Pope that sums it all up:

A Little Learning

by Alexander Pope

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts ;
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise !
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky ;
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way ;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hill peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !

 

Had to Google "Pierian Spring" for the poem to make sense. The parts in bold reminded me of this other quote by Schopenhauer: "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."

I've never been one for poetry though, it just never clicked with me.

 

today, after telling a friend i identify as Bisexual and Pansexual, I was told (this is a cis gay person btw) that im not allowed to do that and that i cant be genderqueer and bisexual.

 

I am far from the brightest bulb in the shed, but I hold integrity and enjoy pursuing new definitions, to actually learn and not seem as ignorant. Unlike those who are dumb and would rather stay dumb. At least they bothered to ask definitions, so I can't really blame them.. I just dislike people who assume and are too pigheaded to bother properly learning. Same as with bigots, now those are people I can't tolerate.

To be honest, I actually find these stupid people to be entertaining. It makes school not so bland for me, and it's fun to ponder how people can be so thick.

 

That's one reason i say locked away from the world..

 

People can be absolute idiots! I have this one 'friend' (whose turning into an absolute bitch) who told me that I can't be Christian, because I'm LGBT!! And then I told her that I also believe some Buddhist teachings to which she said 'you can't! You can't be two religions!' She is sooooo annoying and closed minded!!

 

Hexagon - Surrounded by Stupidity.mp3

 

I saw a poll on it once and I can't remember the percentages, but apparently there are a large amount of people in first world countries who still believe that a) the sun revolves around the earth and b) the earth is flat. There is actually a society of people believing the earth is flat. I saw this quote from one of those people:

And I was just thinking "Are you serious? You just defined gravity!"

 

YES! people are always confused my anarchodemocraticveganegalitarianosocialisticmutualistmarketregulationbottomuppoliticalish views, and they laugh at my athiesm

 

Fun little known fact, and something that is still wrongfully taught in school. The vast majority of scholars in the past did not in fact believe that the Earth was flat.

A good read : Myth of the Flat Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia