Talk:Stupidity

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

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

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

No, I removed it! --Numerousfalx 02:27, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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)[reply]

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. [smile]
--Jerzy (t) 18:47, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

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.

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)

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)[reply]

_______________________

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

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

Nov. 12, 2005

________________________________

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Definitions

Questions:
...it could be argued that stupidity implies culpability...
It could be, but by whom? If anything, I think that being stupid would make you less culpable.

It has been proposed that when faced with…
Proposed by whom? The contributor?

When an individual regards the actions of others as "stupid", it is often because those actions are contrary to the actions that the individual thinks are rational.
What is this based on?--Serf 16:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]