You guys need to watch the movie "Idiocracy". At least watch the first few minutes, it describes how stupidity spreads through our culture.
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I think a big part of the equation is the 'me' factor. Unfortunately, what seems like a majority of the population is only concerned with 'me'.
Yesterday, in the market, a woman has 2 carts in the aisle and herself alongside of them, virtually blocking the aisle from passage by anyone else.
A guy came up and asked if the carts were hers, she said yes and turned around and continued to look for whatever. I can't believe she didn't understand that she was blocking the aisle, so this only leaves 2 possibilities:
Now. is she:
1) just plain ignorant
or
2) just doesn't give a crap about anyone else.
I vote for #2, because i see it every day.
FI, people no longer use their turn signals, and this is only in the past 10 years or so. They just don't care.You don't need a parachute to skydive, you only need a parachute to skydive twice.Comment
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I get worried about my level of stupidity at times too. Like leaving my billfold in my jeans and going somewhere in slacks without a billfold. I could blame it on age but my issue is typically distraction and other people have that issue too. I have also noticed that I function better when everything is consistent with my normal routine. Once I get off of my normal routine, I am more prone to errors.
Two times ago when I got a haircut, the young lady asked how much to take off. I said 5/8 inch. She had no idea what that was. I told her a little more than 1/2 inch and she was OK. I don't think she was stupid but I worried a little about this. She also shared that she had somebody do her taxes and I guess I can understand why. She was able to earn a living but her functionality is a long ways from what I would want for my kids.
Fortunately in my job I do not interface with the general public. I deal with customers every day but they are almost all engineers like me. That doesn't mean they are never "stupid" but I haven't met one yet who didn't know what 5/8 of an inch was. We still struggle to agree with each other at times but it is not typically that we can't understand what the other side is saying.
JimComment
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I had to chuckle at that one. A kid whose brother I worked with, took several of those pre act/sat tests either his freshman or sophomore year, and missed three questions. He went on with scholarships to get an engineering degree. The thing is, the kid lacked common sense, and was incredibly ignorant in certain area's. Now when one is ignorant is one thing, but when you don't wish to learn and correct yourself, it becomes stupidity, IMHO.
The things the kid did that made me laugh:
Asked where are the large lightbulbs (had no clue about globes)
Said the light bulb was threaded wrong (it wasn't)
and lastly, waited an extremely long time to the point of pain, when his area lost power, because he thought the toilet needed electricity to function.
The best engineers I know, have at least common sense, or real world experience to go with their engineering.She couldn't tell the difference between the escape pod, and the bathroom. We had to go back for her.........................Twice.Comment
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online at http://www.theFrankes.com
while ( !( succeed = try() ) ) ;
"Life is short, Art long, Occasion sudden and dangerous, Experience deceitful, and Judgment difficult." -HippocratesComment
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I work in a construction related field & when I was in my first engineering position, I had a situation where I referred to a half inch as 0.5". Our field rep, who had been in construction for ~40 years apparently had never encountered decimal units before. He had absolutely no idea what 0.5" meant. Couldn't even comprehend it. However, if I told him 12mm was about 1/2", he could use that reference to navigate through a metric set of drawings well enough to understand the project.Comment
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A new Governor thought he should centralize everything to Topeka, Wichita and Kansas City. Our office and all other small offices were closed, and I got laid off. They took some into the remaining offices, but I was very low on the totem pole. I had to go through the same process that everyone else does for unemployment. When I tell people I got laid off from the unemployment office they seldom beleive me.
Bill"I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in."-Kenny RogersComment
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That's better
When I first read this, I thought I'd get some grins from examples...
I knew a guy who started typing everything in the computer in lower case just to save space on his hard drive...
The operator who asked if Chicago was spelled "She..."
Some people are just so outside their comfort zone and experience that they are totally lost. Put me in an art museum and I'd wonder where the art was and why they had all the junk stored there, for instance.Comment
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I find a good 85% of my job is process reworking just to navigate around those that I hope are simply to stupid to know any better, because I find it quite difficult, as has been noted in my previous performance evaluations, to tolerate those that are simply lazy.
Stupid I can handle, lazy, I cannot
there are Days that I am thankful that I do not have a smite button... it would have been worn out long agoComment
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I hope that guy has a Masters in engineering, not a PhD. As my advisors so often told me, a PhD is a philosophy degree. The focus is developing new knowledge, not applying it. Given that engineering is "applied science", a PhD in engineering always seems like a bit of an oxymoron to me.--------------------------------------------------
Electrical Engineer by day, Woodworker by nightComment
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Herb makes note of the woman
with two shopping carts and blocks the aisle; I have been to the local Wally World and that seems to be the place for all the "me" people to be at one time. Not a care about the people who need to get by or the wheelchair bound individual that's stuck because of the lazy, crazy shopper. Then you have all those that can not count how many items they have in the cart; 20 max, "oh, I only have a full buggy". So there you have it. Lazy, crazy people who can not count how many fingers and toes they have. Me? I'm ok as long as I'm on my meds and no lazy, crazy, math defience(?) shopper gets around me. THen I come unglued and run off at the mouth about how sorry those individuals are. Once the cops had to be called because of my mouth. Didn't get to go to jail or ticket or summons, just a good talkin' to about how I should just ignore those lazy,crazy, math dumb@#$s. Ah, what was this thread about now, I forgot. TIme for my meds I think...
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"Stupid is as stupid does"
Forrest GumpComment
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