July 13, 2004

• Not enough bananas in the world for this post, I think.
• Wendell's Law #58: If everyone who ought to stop and think before doing something actually did so, the world would come to a near-total stop. I should have thought about it more before I posted that.
• Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. Ah, yes; the power of intellectual osmosis. One must avoid associating with the stupid, lest one's brain cells shut down in sympathy. The article doesn't address the problem of catagorical stupidity: all of us (well, myself) are brilliant enough in some situations, but completely dim elsewhere. The Partially-Stupid have no guide.
• I cannot but agree with most of this eloquent article. However, some advice about how to identify and thereafter avoid these all-to-dangerous humans would be of great help. Or perhaps I *am* one. Hm. Though, I did think twice before I posted this...
• Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. -Hanlon's Razor
• "Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation." Not if you live in LA for any extended period of time. Heh.
• Wendell's Law #59: A stupid person is someone who shaves with Hanlon's Razor. Seriously, these laws may provide some real insight to how and why Murphy's Law works. And Kimbaby, I know you are counting the days until you can leave LA, while I have spent 85% of my life here (87% in California). But the thing that surprises me is, in a city best known for its support of "make-believe", how many of the stupid people here make no effort to hide their stupidity. I suspect that more "serious" parts of the country will have more stealthily stupid people, and THOSE are the ones you have to worry about. Then again, obvious stupidity is no longer enough to keep you from being elected President.
• Rocket88, thanks--I've been quoting that phrase for years, and have never know who to attribute it to... although I just did a quick google, and it seems as though there may not have been a Hanlon and the maxim may have first been uttered by Napoleon! Whomever gets the credit, it ranks up there with Sturgeon's Law as one of my guiding principles.
• Kimbery, try living in Southern California outside of LA. Bakersfield or Orange County fer' instance. It gets worse.
• I live in L.A., so I can say "bravo" to someone actually leaving, rather than just complaining about how "phony" everyone is and how much better NY, SF, etc etc. is. Every time I hear this stuff I offer directions and/or a ride to the airport. No one ever takes me up on it, though. As for the "stupidity" thing, how do you define stupidity? If everyone is behaving this way- what makes more sense- a) everyone is stupider than they should be or b) the observer has an inflated perception of what he thinks human intelligence should be. I think, if everyone's behaving that way, that's how smart humans are- smarter than animals, dumber than some theoretical genius alien race- but it doesn't make that much sense to say "everyone is stupid"- stupidity is usually defined as "below average intelligence," so the problem here is not knowing where the average is- what we are perceiving as "stupid" is really "average" by the simple observed fact that the majority of people are behaving that way. (did all that make sense- or am I just stupid?)
• *in walks a smart ass* The first basic law of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that: (just in case you thought this law might be trying to be ambiguous) Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. (including (everyone) the stupid people that (not "who" because the metaphors are without ambiguity (i.e. circulation, stupid people are newspapers while the law "asserts" and is therefore a person/smart-person)) inevitably do the same.) At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will however reveal its realistic veracity. (as opposed to unrealistic veracity and i.e. though the law is trivial (presumably obvious and therefore obviously true) and vague (though unambiguously stated) it still warrants mentioning because it is realistically true.) No matter how high are one's estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled (i.e. repeatedly and recurrently and redundantly startled) by the fact that: . . . and so on.
• S T U P I D I T Y : Winners never quit, and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots (Via Despair.com)
• IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line. Ambrose Bierce
• I wonder what rule this is demonstrating?
• Hell YEAH I'm getting out of LA. In 32 days. The more closely populated a city is, the more stupidity you encounter. Percentage wise, LA may be average in stupidity, but holy cow after living here for six years in six different cities in different parts of the LA Metro area it's hard to imagine that's true. My original point was that stupidity doesn't surprise me at all anymore. The neighbors who blew up a shopping cart with fireworks near a dry yard with small children around? Nope. The guy talking on his cell phone, smoking and going 20 miles slower than anyone else in the fast lane? Nope. The girls who wear high heels to amusement parks? Nope.
• People do circulate. See the traffic out there? And the usual pronoun for them is "who".
• Woe, that too late repents. Joke was: stupid people dehumanized while law personified so may as well extend metaphor to absurd conclusion. Sorry to enlighten, but not everyone uses relative pronouns by the book. You can also catch me using "their" in shameful ways on Saturdays. People that always use "who" are robots, robots who don't use "that."
• Who is it that can tell me who I am?
• That it is that can. Shakespeare 2032 A.D. Really though, I use "that" instead of "who" sometimes for "poetic" reasons. "That" is used for things, and people are often treated as such. I'd say "stupid people" are being treated that way in the linked article. Data, an officer on the Enterprise, is an android that/who acts human, but can't experience emotions. See what I'm getting at?
• That it is that can. Do be do be do.
• Wolof - Hee! And also, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll be hearing 'stealthily stupid' in Daffy Duck's voice for the rest of the day... clearly time for bed....
• As for the "stupidity" thing, how do you define stupidity? Disagreeable is the usual meaning. Or you could make something of a paradox by saying stupid people define it that way.
• Ok, ok, some funny little tidbits to tell here; my husband, who I love dearly and wouldn't trade in for anything, actually put a cooking pot in the microwave one day and was surprised that sparks flew and the handle melted. When I asked him what on earth had possessed him to put said pot in the micro in the first place, he said, "I thought a non-stick pan would be ok." True story, I swear. Here's another; two days ago, while my husband had his head buried deep in a computer game, our two-year old snuck into the downstairs bathroom and proceeded to do the standard toilet paper in toilet, flush, repeat scenario. Problem one; mom wasn't home to save the day (yet again), and two; floater got stuck. Toilet overflowed. Husband was oblivious, son continued to flush. Now, as most mom's know, dad's have to be trained repeatedly to remember, if the kids have been silent for more than five minutes, it behooves you to find out why. Unfortunately, he forgot this. By the time he finally noticed something was amiss, the water had already gone into the adjacent bedroom, hall and another closet. His bright idea was to put the towels, that were hanging up, on the floor of the doorway to keep anymore water from getting out (as if it mattered at this point) and then he was going to vacuum the water up, including the standing water on the bathroom floor. No, he didn't go into the bathroom closet to get more towels and try to soak up more water, he apparently forgot to see if there were anymore towels. Fortunately for us all, I got home in the knick of time to explain the concepts of water and electricity and that he should really reconsider. He said, "Well as long as the water goes into the bag, it should be okay." I merely stood there agog at this brilliant train of thought and then told him that I was going to tell everyone we knew that he said that. Suffice to say, everytime I have to leave the kids alone with him, a quiver of fear runs up my back. Whenever I accuse him of cutting class the day God was handing out basic logic, he feigns indifference and reminds me that I knew the package deal when I married him. Yes....Yes I did. Geez, he asked me to marry him while I was brushing my teeth, how could I refuse?
• Darshon, you no doubt know the difference between intelligence and common sense, and you probably know as well as I do that husbands, as a general rule, possess only one of the above. I kid because I love. Mind you, I was cooking dinner tonight and getting irritated because my steak was starting to burn, when hubby walked past and said, "The stove's on too high." I was about to say something to him about stating the obvious, when I realise he was right and I hadn't thought to turn down the stove to stop it from burning.
• I'm stupid. REAL stupid. What are you smart guys gonna do about THAT, huh? NOTHIN', that's what. HA! HA! HA!
• Sometimes, when it comes to the inevitable dealings with the stupid, it pays to consider it as a sort of performance art, and try to appreciate it purely on an aesthetic level, like witnessing a particularly well-drunken woman do a floppy, spastic dance at a wedding. Stand well back, though. Like all performance art, you don't want to be in the front row when it's performed.
• **jumps on Quidnunc kid's back, knocks him down, sticks Q_tip in his ear, and begins tickling his brain
• Ow! Damn smart people :(