Talk:Stupidity

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[edit] New Scientist Magazine

Encyclopedia of Stupidity reported on Feedback page of New Scientist Magazine 28-Feb-2004 Stan 00:31, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Amazon review page

Ideas taken from amazon review page for the encyclopedia. Stan 13:55, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Bush reference

Rebecca Is that Bush reference really necessary?Pookleblinky 01:00, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, I removed it since I'm butt hurt. --Numerousfalx 02:27, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What did it say? I love to hate Bush, and think the statement should come back. Maybe.

It just said what was true —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canadaolympic989 (talk • contribs)

Hey! Pick on your own politicians...ours have enough trouble. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 01:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

AGH! Put it back! george bush is beautiful. says 68.18.117.231 20:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

#redirect George W. Bush

is my vote. ALI AND SARAH —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.213.46.3 (talk) 18:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Paucity of Academic research

This is hardly surprising. I can't imagine any serious minded academic wanting to be Professor of Stupidity, or to be the Stupid Lecturer, or to hold the Stupidity Chair. Similarly, to have a Masters in Pure or Applied Stupidity from a Department of Stupidity Studies (DOSS) would (no matter how many Stupid Seminars one had attended) be unikely to enance one's academic status in an immediately obvious way. Matt Stan 03:06, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

LOLOLOL Ichelhof 11:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually it would be called Stupidology Dept.. The most needed of them all considering where this civilization is heading. Jim 13:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that there has been plenty of research, perhaps most famously, [Solomon Asch's|Asch_conformity_experiments] conformity experiments.

[edit] Brain Damage?

(I've subordinated this section to the last in part as a suggestion of where the stupidity research is being done.)

I can't help relating stup- to the German "Stoß", which i think means a sharp blow. (The SA "stormtroopers" were the Sturmabteilung", literally "Storm [or Storming] Detatchement"), but i'm pretty sure Remarque (in Three Comrades rather than ...Western Front) used the generic term "Stoßtrup" for what i took to be Weimar-era SA or SA-like stormtroopers engaged in sharp, short street attacks.)

My full-sized print Amer Her Dict traces "stupid" thru Latin words connected with being "stunned" and Greek ones concerning "beat"ing to Proto-Indo-European "steu-" which includes "beating" in its constellation of meanings.

So i think we usually say "stunned" metaphorically, suggesting the (temporary) effects of a blow to the head, and that the concept of stupidity fundamentally evokes the difference in an individual's behavior before and after the infliction of permanent brain damage by a blow to the head. "What are you, stupid?" to me means "Did you get your brains scrambled, and i didn't get to hear about it?"

Not sure that's encyclopedic, but then, i'm not sure the article is any more so. [frown]
--Jerzy(t) 18:47, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

If you do not mind, I am fixing a few things. You'll see. Poserlkg 22:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To the contributers who add the names of 'stupid' individuals to this article

Adding the names of individuals deemed 'stupid' by the contributer is neither big nor clever. Neither is it particularly original- a quick browse of the change log for this page will show many have done this before. There is no point, as the change will be reverted almost immediately.

Ironically, this is a great way to demonstrate your own 'stupidity' whilst unintentionally bolstering the credibility of those you seek to slander.

[edit] OK then, for the sake of discussion: Is George Bush Stupid?

Seeing as this page is regularly vandalised with references to George Bush, perhaps it would be healthy for the understanding of stupidity to define exactly why or in what way is George Bush stupid. It is not unusual for the media to label a politician as 'stupid' but it would seem that Dubya is seen to be stupid by an uncommonly large amount of observers.

Personally, I dont think that he is that stupid, although he does lack what most (North American) people would term 'real world experience' in so far as he is privatly educated, has never had to have a proper job, and is by any standard out of touch with the struggles of the middle/working classes. I think that his questionable descision making regarding foreign and domestic policy, generally comes down to his cloistered upbringing, and a desire to protect the interests of his friends and family at any cost.

So- is George Bush 'really' stupid? If so- why? If not- why do people attribute stupidity to him? --Fergie 09:44, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)fdsfs

Breadth of vocabulary and other indirect indicators, peg Bush's IQ below both mean and median average, but still well above room temperature (low 70s), and above non-human primates (70s to 80s), according to a dubious report from 'Tthe Lovenstein Institute', which published 'research' purportedly for the education community on each new president, including a Presidential IQ report, among others, since 1973.[1] [2] [3] Bush Jr's IQ, according to the many of his critics and the 'institute', rivals only that of Bush Sr, but is nowhere near that of the average Republican President, and is only roughly half that of several Democratic Presidents, including Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton:

• 147 Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
• 132 Harry Truman (D)
• 122 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
• 174 John F. Kennedy (D)
• 126 Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
• 155 Richard M. Nixon (R)
• 121 Gerald Ford (R)
• 175 James E. Carter (D)
• 105 Ronald Reagan (R)
• 98 George H. W. Bush (R)
• 182 William J. Clinton (D)
• 91 George W. Bush (R)

Ombudsman 12:08, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

The Lovenstein Institute report you are referencing Ombudsman was a hoax, a false report that is not to be taken seriously. I just thought I'd inform you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.201.29.226 (talk) 03:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

_______________________

The Lovenstein Institute does not exist. It is an internet hoax and the IQ list above is a fake: OH REALLY???

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm

Nov. 12, 2005

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Stupidity as a sales tactic seems to fit George Bush. Seeing as how Americans like very much the idea of the "common man": a white evangelical blue-collar worker who doesn't have a high IQ. Bush pounces on that by acting stupid, which him makes more loveable to his supporters. Contrast this with John Kerry, who has a serious problem with making everything too intelligent sounding, and needlessly long. While people may not conciously be voting for Bush for his stupidity, it makes him more accessible. Or maybe he is just stupid. The World Stupidity Awards certainly think so. Xunflash 01:16, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

A low-intelligence president can surround himself with people of wisdom and sharp insight. I judge Bush to be profoundly stupid, and also he has surrounded himself with others who are even worse. But this is not the stupidity of low intelligence or the lack of information. Instead this type of stupidity is a sort of dishonest and willful ignorance which breaks loose from reality (or where the victim ignores reality and insists that their own dishonest assertions are the only real thing.) Put another way: honest mistakes are not stupid, while "stupidity" involves the mistakes caused by intellectual dishonesty. Or... stupidity appears whenever our beliefs determine what we can see. The opposite of stupidity is to fight for clear vision, and then to correct our beliefs based what we think we see, then use our corrected beliefs to improve our seeing. The opposite of stupidity is the quest for the truth behind our sometimes-flawed perceptions. If instead a person adopts an irrational belief (perhaps taught in childhood,) and then later angrily rejects all evidence which conflicts with that belief... that's "stupidity." It's intentional anti-knowledge, intentional ignoring of truth and reality. Such "stupid" people seem to regard reality as being entirely determined by opinion, and regard truth as a worthless ideal which doesn't exist in the practical world. If the world doesn't exist, then they figure that they can make up any story they want, and that story is automatically true. If that story is self-serving and disingenuous, well, "self-serving" is just an opinion and can be ignored. If all opinions are equal, then we can ignore all evidence and use persuasion to "win" any argument (and evidence cannot exist in a world determined entirely by opinions.) Yet reality does exist: it's what's left over when all the intentional lies and distortions are halted. Because there is an absolute reality, though a complex and multi-faceted one, anyone who intentionally closes their eyes to it and butts heads with reality is "stupid" in an absolute sense.

Doesn't this connect a bit with Neocon politics? I evolved the above view of stupidity over years while fighting with deeply stupid (but quite intelligent) people on Newsgroups. I've added a short paragraph under the intelligent-but-stupid section. --Wjbeaty 21:42, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

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action without heed to consequence yields evidence of a poor IQ, but stupidity is a term of relativity and responsibility so one has to assume that an organization's selected leader would have to be a good representation of the mean and median (especially inside a large organization) -c 67.23.125.138 01:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

"action [sic] without heed to consequence yields evidence of a poor IQ". It absolutely does not. Intelligence Quotient tests primarily test simple reasoning, problem solving skills, pattern recognition, and abstract thinking. I'm sure President Bush isn't stupid, he simply is not a very adept public speaker, which makes him seem "stupid".

By the way, nice analysis, Wjbeaty. I hate when people are simply called "stupid" without any proof or further information. However, analysis such as that might actually convince me that someone is stupid. Good job. X Wild Irishman x (talk) 02:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

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I wanted to add the image below, but the page is locked down. My manner of presenting the image would be completely encyclopedic in tone, leaving the view to draw his own conclusions.

[edit] Image

Where has Stupidity.jpg gone? I thought that was a perfect image, which legitimately illustrated the subject of the article as well as being hilarious. Now there is no image. —Keenan Pepper 16:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Smith Personal Attacks

As a John Smith I must say that I am deeply offended by the edits I see here at Wikipedia. Not only are these attacks vicious, and plentiful, but there are not even references sited in their slander. How low have we fallen? --M4bwav 19:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, even if I am not a John Smith. --Delf 19:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

The following appeared in the article before I removed it:

Social psychology has shown that perfectly sensible people can, collectively, act quite foolishly because of blind obedience, mimetism or herding.

Who or what research in social psychology has shown this? -- backburner001 18:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well for starters, Milgram's study on obedience, or Asch's conformity experiments. Try using google.

[edit] Stupidity in culture/music

The Black Eyed Peas song Let's get retarded glorifies mindlessness, perhaps it should be mentioned in this article. --Easterlingman 14:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stupidity

New thought as to a description of TRUE stupidity, or what it represents...

I say: Stupidity is one of the many factors of chaos, which cause things to be unpredictable.

Con we please take out the refernce to Oxbridge in the bit about ali G and Monty Python. There is nothing intrinsically inteligent about going to oxbridge, some of the stupidest people I know are Oxbridge graduates.

What about Oxford? And may I have your name? My friend's father HAPPENS to be an Oxbridge graduate and is very smart... Maybe you should reconsider... Not that all Oxbridge graduates are intelligent... Curious Helen Researcher 10:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)Helen

• Ok.... is this article REALLY necessary? I think it should be deleted. If anything shows the pinnacle of stupidity, its the article's existence. Colonel Marksman 06:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Do we need to add something about stupidity being the beleif in something inspite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the "Flat Earth Society" or maybe religion for example? MattUK 14:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links (The power of stupidity)

The "external links" ref. to "The power of stupidity by Giancarlo Livraghi..." should be updated in: The Power of Stupidity by Giancarlo livraghi, a series of nine papers on the nature of human stupidity. Url should be http://gandalf.it/stupid/home.htm --GiorgioRS 13:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit request

In the section "Manifested by the Educated" I would like one word added to the sentance " Otherwise intelligent prople may also become stupid when their rational thought is derailed by strong opinions, rigid beleifs, or drugs." 74.67.24.110 10:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

a

[edit] In Comedy

Knowledge of how long "comedy (a rather broad term in itself)" has existed is seemingly impossible. Thus, knowing the entire historical usage of the topic of stupidity in comedy is also impossible. Rather, describing stupidity in a way such as, "...a topic utilized in comedy historically..." would be far more acceptable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stev0supreemo (talk • contribs) 03:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Slightly out of place

On first glance through the summary of this article, I get the impression that the last illustraion sentence may be a bit out place where it is. Does anyone agree with me? InsideLine 22:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)YOUR ALL STUPID F****** MONKIES!

[edit] Rewriting the first section?

I think the first section of the article should be rewitten, it reads more like a cheap self help book than an encyclopedia entry--Bisected8 21:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Stupid People

Would it be too much to ask for a List of Stupid People section, or List of People Considered Stupid? 71.89.8.194 00:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it would be. --Kbh3^rdtalk 02:17, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It would be far too hard to add people in without being POV, as some forms of stupidity are generally accepted and it is almost taboo to critisize them. MattUK 14:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I did a major cleanup; in addition to rewording parts of the article, I:

• put cite requests on unsourced statements
• removed most of the quotes. This isn't wikiquote, wikiquote is not a source, and this is not uncyclopedia so we needn't quote Oscar Wilde
• removed unsourced statement about science
• removed most of the comedy section as it exhibited a huge bias in favor of English, drama/tv, was unsourced, and had weasel terms like "venerable lineage"
• removed National lampoon reference as it was anecdotal and irrelevant.
• removed unsourced "sales tactic" section
• marked it as a stub

Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I can't decide ...

quite how I feel about the article on Stupidity not showing much intelligence. I'm pretty sure I'd much rather redirect this page to the English Wiktionary entry. Lycurgus 06:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

like all of us in babca —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.101.101.222 (talk) 23:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adam Sandler

They said that this is a movie documentary done by Adam Sandler. ????? Uzumaki Dude (talk) 16:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A number of problems...

While I hate to seem so negative, there is precisely one sentence in the article I thought is up to encyclopedic standards. That sentence is "The fool or buffoon has been a central character in much comedy." The biggest problem was probably that it defined "stupidity" incorrectly. [1]

This is just to explain why I thought some fairly sweeping changes need to be made here. I've done some to try to tidy it up, but I'd appreciate feedback and suggestions. I also didn't like the lack of sources; in a touchy PC topic such as "stupidity" it is more important than ever to cite sources.

I'd love to see someone dig up one of those "history of psychology" articles talking about the decline of the word "stupid"; that needs a citation. It'd also be nice if people could flesh it out with a few more sentences in the sections and maybe some parts other than "In politics", "In comedy", and "Group stupidity" - it looks fairly silly right now but I don't have time to look for more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coanda-1910 (talk • contribs) 08:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• Coanda deleted an example of the way in which "stupidity" is used pejoratively (namely, "I didn't steal your stupid baseball cap[!]") noting that "stupid is not stupidity, and conflating the two needlessly obfuscates the issue." I don't see how using the adjectival form "stupid" in an example of how "stupidity" might be used pejoratively in anyway needlessly obfuscates the issue. If I said, for instance, "asininity is a state of affairs characterized by pettiness, disagreeableness and stupidity" and then gave as an example: "His reversion was asinine" I would not only demonstrate the ways in which different forms of "asininity" are used, but I would also successfully give an example of what it means for a state of affairs to be characterized by pettiness, disagreeableness, etc. WilliamPitts (talk) 21:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Epidemic

We should really start talking about the stupid epidemic going around. It's spreading faster than HIV, and if we don't warn the general public, then we aren't doing everything we can! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.141.228 (talk) 05:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)