Why Are People Willfully Ignorant?

[Mozared]

The other day in my civics class we were talking about how sports are valued so much over smarts, and somebody(another stereotypical girl) said "Who cares about being smart? It's pretty much worthless." Honnestly? Nobody even argued that point.

On a sidenothis, this ties in exactly do your question 1;

So here is my question to you guys (actualy, I have 2):
1-When did being a dipshit become cool? And how the fuck did we let that happen?

Being a dipshit has always been cool. Simply said, that's life; dig the alpha male, crime pays, etc. They're all modern versions of "stealing the other chap's food will ensure your own survival". I believe in evolution - this world is the world of the strong, and if you're an asshole and manage to survive because it you don't need to see the value of life, understand problems in a friendship or what-have-you.

2-Why doesn't society honour those who do well, get educated, ect?

Now that is a more interesting question. An epiphany I've recently had is that *everything* we learn, we learn so because of trial and error. There are no exceptions to that rule. The reason we don't honour the people actually taking the trial is because they're also the ones who stumble on the error. These people are rarely succesfull; and if they are, everybody will follow their example and it'll become mainstream. Sometimes people manage to jump out, but generally the smart people are the ones who take the hard road and often see less reward. On the flipside, they do seem to be happy with less than the stupid folks because of this.

In a way, you remind me of myself by saying "value getting their heads out of their asses". I've recently taken a major interest in "survivaling" because I think it's absurdly ridiculous that there's people around who completely freak out when they see a dead body, a killed animal or lose their house. Having to deal with those cases is primal. They are the very core of our existence. If all you've learned is to get your meat for the butcher you're a pathetic excuse for a human being, not able to take care of the slightest dent in your perfect little modern bubble. Just because our society finds ways for you to avoid things like that it doesn't mean you should unlearn them.

That said, seeing as probably 90% of the people on here don't know how to skin a dead animal, I don't think everybody on here's a pathetic excuse for a human being; most people here seem to realize that there's more than the bubble of modern day, and that's what counts to me. They (and this sentence is including me) might not like seeing a corpse, but will at least not completely lose it over such a thing.

 

[Kakarot4739]

the US has had this weird anti-intellectualism to it for awhile, we value football players more then scientists. I would guess it started creeping in after Darwins origin of species before that science was bringing neat things but nothing that really challenged thinking of the genral public but suddenly you have something that explains how life changes and where we come from that challanges traditional religions belief so suddenly science became a boogy man that some ppl were more then happy to try and get rid of. Altho I suppose also the nuke doesnt help it since that showed just the sheer power that science could unleash, if instead of a bomb it had been a power plant things might be diffrent but who knows.

The first sentence nailed it. As a nation, the US is overloaded with people who are lazy and just don't give a damn beyond their own wants and desires. I can't exactly comment on how other countries act, but the best parts of everyone's societies are generally the minority group. As for the US, the majority of people want to work as little as possible, make as much as possible out of it, and be entertained every minute they aren't asleep. Obviously this sentence, when read by most, is a "duh, hell yeah, me too" kind of statement. But when you think of things like science and medicine and anything not related to football, the general populace knows its good for people to work on them, but "someone else can do it".

 

[theultimateend]

Ignorance is bliss.

Which is why religion in general is so popular.

Why attempt to confront the mysteries of life and possibly have unsettling realizations when you could simply ignore it all and smile.

The shame being that each time you are confronted with a conundrum that you attempt to solve you do literally get better at thinking and overall become smarter.

Hence the bliss, some people prefer not to think about and choose an answer they are happy with. I don't see that as a bad choice in my opinion. I know I would be happier not knowing or thinking about some of the things I have thought about. This hindsight is my perogative to seek out the answers... And all I get is more questions.... *sniff*

I just feel the need to point out there are so many different types of intelligence. Even the humble football jock has to make hundreds of decisions in a game. He has to use his spatial awareness, cognitive abillity, hand eye co-ordination, and maintain focus on the strategy of a game whilst playing a role in a team effort. Then add all his speed, agillity, stamina and strength into the mix all working in real-time and you have quite a capable human being (for playing football at least). A football game probably taxes on his brain more than he actually allows it to be taxed when say engaging in a political debate, because this is what stimulates him. He probably doesn't care about politics and this is fine. But he's going to be a much better football player than your average politician. We all find things that stimulate us mentally and I think it is unfair and quite simply ignorant to assume a persons intelligence based on what their interests are.

If he chooses to act like a dick after his big game, well frankly that's not your problem and you should concentrate on your interests instead of judging others on theirs.

A football player doesn't think. He acts on training. He's been told to do certain actions under certain conditions, all he has to do is remember them, which he does because he practices them 24/7. To say that experiential actions require thought is to say that up is down.

Intelligence is the ability to extrapolate based on previous evidence. For example, if I flick a switch and a light turns on, I rationalize that the switch controls the light. A football player does not do this. He does not make plays on the fly, he does not think of trajectory, he simply throws it in the way that it always worked. Also, hand-eye co-ordination is not a form of intelligence. It's your awareness of position of your limbs.

http://www.aele.org/law/2008FPAUG/wb-19.pdf

I'm no expert but I think your confusing subconcious reaction training with the abillity to think on your feet. If you have to observe the velocity, direction and trajectory of a football in order to catch it, I'm pretty sure in order to be succesful in catching the ball some thinking has been involved. The human brain isn't a device that can be programmed with every concievable eventuality during a game of football. That's just impossible.

"to say that experiential problems require thought is to say up is down"

What!? You need to make a concious choice as to which is the best way of reacting to a problem. This is called thinking in my book.

To say that a football player doesn't make plays on the fly would be to say that no one has ever acted in an unpredictable fashion whilst playing a game.

I did not mean to suggest hand-eye co-ordination is a form of intelligence, but to use it in conjunction with a cognitive ability constitutes a concious thought if any desired outcome is to be achieved.

By your logic, I could say that a game of chess requires no thought as a chess player knows where the pieces could potentially be at all times.

Subconscious thought is not the same thing as conscious thought.

A dog subconsciously does all the math involved with catching a frisbee...that in no way means the dog is smarter.

Just like me catching a ball doesn't mean I'm smarter. It is something I'm almost dead positive is largely spine related for most the actions. Just like how you take your hand off a hot plate before you feel it. Your body ends up building up a series of responses to common stimuli.

Just like how I occasionally laser line things at stores when I'm there. I'm not thinking about it. My hands just start laser lining shit I see out of order (I even get surprised after I notice myself doing it).

It's a common phenomenon.

The timeframe between your action and your reaction largely is the qualifier for if it requires actual thought or not. That's EXTREMELY ambiguous and I'm sure it is full of holes. However everytime I sparred I didn't think about what was happening. I moreso just felt it. It was FAR less taxing on my brain than any real thinking activity.

Hard to explain for me I guess .

 

[Kubanator]

Subconscious thought is not the same thing as conscious thought.

A dog subconsciously does all the math involved with catching a frisbee...that in no way means the dog is smarter.

Just like me catching a ball doesn't mean I'm smarter. It is something I'm almost dead positive is largely spine related for most the actions. Just like how you take your hand off a hot plate before you feel it. Your body ends up building up a series of responses to common stimuli.

Just like how I occasionally laser line things at stores when I'm there. I'm not thinking about it. My hands just start laser lining shit I see out of order (I even get surprised after I notice myself doing it).

It's a common phenomenon.

The timeframe between your action and your reaction largely is the qualifier for if it requires actual thought or not. That's EXTREMELY ambiguous and I'm sure it is full of holes. However everytime I sparred I didn't think about what was happening. I moreso just felt it. It was FAR less taxing on my brain than any real thinking activity.

Hard to explain for me I guess .

I get you. I practice Tae Kwon Do, and sparring consists of set responses to the opponent. If he jabs, parry and jab back. If he kicks, step back and catch the foot. I can change my response if I think about it before the fight, but during, I'm not thinking, I'm just following my game plan. If I can get some space I might try to think, but it generally consists of reflex responses.

I'm no expert but I think your confusing subconcious reaction training with the abillity to think on your feet. If you have to observe the velocity, direction and trajectory of a football in order to catch it, I'm pretty sure in order to be succesful in catching the ball some thinking has been involved. The human brain isn't a device that can be programmed with every concievable eventuality during a game of football. That's just impossible.

So why is it that I can catch a ball 0.2 seconds before it reaches me. There's no way I could find it's velocity and calculate, my hands simply move and try to wrap around the ball. I don't think about it, I just do it. It's not that the brain is programmed for every eventuality. It's simply programmed to move the arms towards the ball, and grab it when it gets near.

"to say that experiential problems require thought is to say up is down"

What!? You need to make a concious choice as to which is the best way of reacting to a problem. This is called thinking in my book.

If walk by you and suddenly throw a punch at you, you're going to duck. You won't think about it. It's not conscious. When you play sports, you don't think, you simply do. The coach's job is to think of plans, the player's job is to follow them.

To say that a football player doesn't make plays on the fly would be to say that no one has ever acted in an unpredictable fashion whilst playing a game.

By your logic, I could say that a game of chess requires no thought as a chess player knows where the pieces could potentially be at all times.

No, by my logic, a chess game wouldn't require logic if the player was programmed for a response to every different move. Balls coming at different speeds simply means you scale the speed of your arms accordingly, for chess it becomes a completely different move. Thus if a chess player could be conditioned to answer a certain move to each and every possible move, there would be no logic.

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

"One cannot dismiss something one does not understand without simply being ignorant. Just the same following blindly is just foolish." -me

99% of the time people do one of both of these things. Hence ignorance.

 

[Smudge91]

Firstly no one is really born with the same intelligence, there are gapping holes of difference between people with intelligence. Also are we defining inteligence by IQ?
Anywho its all down to stereotypical behaviours, these people may feel that in order to fit in to a group they have to conform to similar behaviours and intelligence. Also the stereotypical picture of a intelligent person in both the US and UK is that they are loners for some odd reason. However at both my school and college intelligence was considered to be really cool. Most of the people that went to oxbridge from my college were the most sociable well liked people.
Anywho where am i going with this? hmm. Oh yeah sterotypes and conformity oh and the old saying ignorance is bliss.

 

[shadowstriker86]

I am in high school, and all my short life I have considered myself smart. Not Eistein smart, just a bit above the average. I often liek to question things. Just kind of who I am. But lately there is a question that has been slowly growing in the back of my mind: Why are people so goddamn stupid and ignorant?

I don't mean people with a low IQ or a disability. I mean your regular, everyday, bleached blonde dumb whore. I see them every freakin day, and I always wonder why? I chose to believe that everybody is born at (roughly) the same level of intelligence. So why are there so many dumb stereotypical Jocks and Blondes? It's not even that they're dumb, they're just ignorant. They don't see anything past there little bubble involving their BFF's and OC. Why? Like am I the only person who sees the value of getting their head out of their ass? The other day in my civics class we were talking about how sports are valued so much over smarts, and somebody(another stereotypical girl) said "Who cares about being smart? It's pretty much worthless." Honnestly? Nobody even argued that point.

And for the most part it's true. People go through years and years of school just to have thousands of dollars of debt that they magicaly have to pay off. Meanwhile, Johnny nobody goes straight to work and does almost aswell as the guy who spent all this time getting educated. What the fuck?

So here is my question to you guys (actualy, I have 2):
1-When did being a dipshit become cool? And how the fuck did we let that happen?
2-Why doesn't society honour those who do well, get educated, ect?

I'm shure this topic has been done before, but I would still like you guys to go for constructive critisms, not trolling me. Otherwise, post away.

if i remember right its kind of been like that for centuries. for me i use it as a "cloaking" device. theres an old saying, "rarely are the genius sane". if you're smart, people will think you're up to something, however if people think you're an idiot, they'll leave you alone. If you have to tell people you're smart, you're not. However for your 2nd question, i have an answer for that too. What society sees as those who are educated are 2 things, rich and snobby. So as long as the mob has that mentality, it will always be that mentality, short of a crapload of rich people making 1 hell of a difference to shake the common perspective

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Now that is a more interesting question. An epiphany I've recently had is that *everything* we learn, we learn so because of trial and error. There are no exceptions to that rule. The reason we don't honour the people actually taking the trial is because they're also the ones who stumble on the error. These people are rarely succesfull; and if they are, everybody will follow their example and it'll become mainstream. Sometimes people manage to jump out, but generally the smart people are the ones who take the hard road and often see less reward. On the flipside, they do seem to be happy with less than the stupid folks because of this.

In a way, you remind me of myself by saying "value getting their heads out of their asses". I've recently taken a major interest in "survivaling" because I think it's absurdly ridiculous that there's people around who completely freak out when they see a dead body, a killed animal or lose their house. Having to deal with those cases is primal. They are the very core of our existence. If all you've learned is to get your meat for the butcher you're a pathetic excuse for a human being, not able to take care of the slightest dent in your perfect little modern bubble. Just because our society finds ways for you to avoid things like that it doesn't mean you should unlearn them.

That said, seeing as probably 90% of the people on here don't know how to skin a dead animal, I don't think everybody on here's a pathetic excuse for a human being; most people here seem to realize that there's more than the bubble of modern day, and that's what counts to me. They (and this sentence is including me) might not like seeing a corpse, but will at least not completely lose it over such a thing.

Interesting. It's kind of similar to how sometimes, for fun, I just say "What would you do during a zombie attack?" although impossible, it still surprises me how many people wont even consider what they would do during the "end of the world" scenario. Most people just say "It wont happen" or "I don't know". But what if there was a doomsday? These people would have no idea how to survive, and most likely die.