Poll: Are most people idiots?

[Drathnoxis]

I see this sentiment expressed quite frequently, I'm curious if this is the majority opinion.

Edit: frickin' site! What good is this thread if the poll doesn't work!?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Idiots? No, not specifically. I think most people are gullible - for good reasons as we're expected to listen to 'experts' in fields - but often what they're told is complete BS.
I mean I've lost track of the number of Evangelical preachers who claim to be a doctor and spout medical dogma, while not having a degree of any kind.
That dude from History channel, Dr. 'It was Aliens'? Yeah his doctorate is in physical therapy not history or archaeology. Every thing he says is shit and idiotic, but someone who repeats what he says isn't inherently an idiot. We're told he's a doctor and he's spouting 'facts'. It just happens he's a charlatan.

That's the problem. Its simply too easy to trick people and a bunch of people have made careers spreading fake news and facts.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

There's a saying that relates to this, I think it goes "a person is smart, people are stupid."

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Yes. Relax, you're not of them of course.

 

[Marik2]

I see this sentiment expressed quite frequently, I'm curious if this is the majority opinion.

Edit: frickin' site! What good is this thread if the poll doesn't work!?

Everyone is

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

People taken as a whole tend to sheep, which follows the most visible and current trends despite those being good/bad.
Individually they act more like goats. Stubborn and going their own way.

The average is average, half are indeed worse than that.

 

[SupahEwok]

Sure, everyone who isn't me.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

I think if most people were idiots then the world just wouldn't function. There's just a few idiots, its just they're really good at making noise and mess so we have to notice them more

 

[Baffle]

No, but many people function (through choice or otherwise) in areas where the things at which they are good are not so apparent. I mean, yes, some people are idiots, but most aren't.

If the guy from my local garage were to try to do my job, he would mostly likely look like an idiot; if I were to try to do his, I would definitely look like an idiot. Same across all skills/professions/walks of life.

Then there are, of course, the people who pretend the Daily Mail is a real newspaper. People who prefix their statement with 'I know it was in the Daily Mail, but...' and then repeat the thing they read in the Daily Mail as though it were true, even though they've prefixed the statement with an acknowledgement that it most likely isn't!

 

[Bobular]

I think it was Lewton in Discworld Noir that once said something along the lines of "You know how stupid the average person is?" "Most people are stupider than that", which I always took as a thing about how if the average person is stupid then most people you meet will probably be stupider than that because that's how averages work.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Yes... roughly 100%. But the universe won't ever let us be smart. Merely idiots of varying degrees of arbitrarily defined measurements.

To be fair, you don't need to be smart to be beautiful. And we're all cspable of being beautiful.

 

[dscross]

I think most people think they are smart. I would say every person will be good at something you are not and 'smartness' is subjective and based on society's, also subjective, measurements. It would be very easy to call the majority stupid for voting for Trump or for voting Brexit, but it's more likely that they have come to a strange conclusion owing to limited information, propaganda and the fact that people have a lot going on in their lives.

But every person in the world will be better than you at something. So, no, people aren't stupid. They just have different skills and interests.

 

[Saelune]

Yes.

 

[McElroy]

Sure, everyone who isn't me.

But... That's more than most people!

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, yes and no. Mostly, no, but every so often a reasonable person will make a stupid mistake, and sometimes they can be impressively big and seem to outweigh the things they didn't get wrong.

 

[Trunkage]

The only people I find stupid are the people who think they know everything and usually don't know much at all. Everyone else - you wanna live you life a certain way, so be it. As long as it doesn't hurt someone else.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Yep. Even people who are incredibly well informed in one sphere of knowledge can be utterly clueless in another.

 

[the December King]

I imagine that 'idiot' is a subjective term, but I'll just say no.

To imagine everyone else (or just most other people) with all their different experiences and trials, as being somehow inferior to your somehow 'unique' development, is ignorant. Experiencing someone making mistakes or fucking up or simply not knowing something, or being misinformed about something, is a shitty means of then summing that person up in their entirety.

Having said that, it happens all the time and is also a part of human nature.

We're idiots, after all.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Yes? No? Maybe? I don't know.

Speaking as a simian professor though, I can say with certainty that apekind is much smarter. For example, when we don't like something, we just literally throw shit at it, instead of using those clumsy wordnoises. Much more honest and straightforward, and far less prone to misunderstanding.

 

[Zontar]

MiB put it best