How Stupid Would You Rate America, From 1 to 10, 10 being immensely STUPID.

[Prince.Skeletor]

It's interesting to see how even "smart" people can be incredibly emotionally driven.

I mentioned the other day that a Democratic city council member went off on me online when I said that some Dems wouldn't vote for Bloomberg even going up against Trump. The guy who went off was actually a really smart guy. But he was SO emotional about the fact that I had a different position than him, all he could do was insult me, call me a moron, repeat himself while failing to address any of my arguments. He wasn't even reading my arguments correctly because anything I said he just assumed fit into some box he had already labeled me into. When he deleted the original conversation from his public page I thought he might have figured out that he had fukked up, but then he said even worse shyt in my PMs than he had said in public.

I went to college with all sorts of brilliant scientists, and the truth is even a lot of smart folk make many of their decisions emotionally, then figure out how to use their intellect to justify those decisions after the fact. Outside of a few very careful, fair-minded people (not even 1 in 5), I'd say that even smart people are only maybe 10% less wrong on important shyt than average people. The rest of the time they're just going off of groupthink or emotion and their intelligence ain't helping them at all except in how creatively they can justify the decisions that their emotions already made.

I can agree with what you said to a certain extent.
But when you say many people decide based on emotions, I know that's true but I still find that to be stupid.
Because emotions has nothing to do with whom me I support, and probably neither you.
So if you and me instinctively do it, then why not others?

 

[YvrzTrvly]

That guys actually doing good as president though. He's got a high ass approval rating.

College education or not, 80% of the population is stupid. Go read a history book, we've literally had the same problems for forever and haven't solved shyt.

What

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

America is not so much stupid as it is comfortable. If we were an unstable nations where elections could mean life or death to a segment of people, where they could mean civil war or dictatorship, we’d be more engaged and knowledgeable of different candidates. But between being stable and how the two party system creates another identity nearly as powerful as people identify with their race, class, religion or gender....people just see D or R and do their thing.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

That guys actually doing good as president though. He's got a high ass approval rating.

College education or not, 80% of the population is stupid. Go read a history book, we've literally had the same problems for forever and haven't solved shyt.

The world has has the same problems for thousands of years ever since modern civilization was created...crazy that some of this may just be human nature

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I can agree with what you said to a certain extent.
But when you say many people decide based on emotions, I know that's true but I still find that to be stupid.
Because emotions has nothing to do with whom me I support, and probably neither you.
So if you and me instinctively do it, then why not others?

I can point to the claims you were making about Modi and show that's very decisively false.

Remember how you were claiming his support was totally based on economic development and good govenance and refused to believe me when I demonstrated otherwise? Have you been following the elections this year and last? Did you see how Modi has been running 100% on pro-Hindu nationalism and not at all on "electricity" like you were claiming? Did you not see how EVERYTHING their party has been doing has been focused on divisive religious issues (Kashmir, the Ram temple, the CAA, the NRC, and anti-Pakistan rhetoric)? Yet due to your Indian background and emotional family connections with certain pro-Modi boosters, you refused to let go of the notion that some sort of development was the driving force behind Modi's movement and not his open pro-Hindu prejudices.

That's the perfect example. So many of us choose our positions based on who we're connected to and then try to justify it via other reasons.

Wait, weren't you a Tulsi supporter too? And do you really believe that your dispassionate analysis of the positions is what brought you to that, and not your shared connection to India? (Yours by family of course, while hers was adopted via her Hindu faith.)


You just perfectly validated my point. You're probably booksmart, at least your screenname suggest you think you are. You claim that emotions have nothing to do with your positions. Yet you just happen to cape for Modi and Tulsi, two politicians who you just happen to have social reasons to be emotionally connected to. Hmmm....

 

[Airfeezy]

7.5 don’t let the election skew the fact that millions of people didn’t vote for Donald trump skrew the idiots that did

 

[ogc163]

You guys overrate the decision making and critical thinking skills prevalent among "smart" people. Cognitive and cultural bias impacts everyone, although how much those biases impact our decision making varies.

Some of the most important critical thinking skills and decision making systems I have were acquired AFTER I finished law school. Grade school, college/university, and even grad school's don't necessarily provide students with critical thinking skills.




This entire conversation is great, but I timestamped where Chatfield discusses how we overrate the ability of college to provide critical thinking skills

 

[Prince.Skeletor]

I can point to the claims you were making about Modi and show that's very decisively false.

Remember how you were claiming his support was totally based on economic development and good govenance and refused to believe me when I demonstrated otherwise? Have you been following the elections this year and last? Did you see how Modi has been running 100% on pro-Hindu nationalism and not at all on "electricity" like you were claiming? Did you not see how EVERYTHING their party has been doing has been focused on divisive religious issues (Kashmir, the Ram temple, the CAA, the NRC, and anti-Pakistan rhetoric)? Yet due to your Indian background and emotional family connections with certain pro-Modi boosters, you refused to let go of the notion that some sort of development was the driving force behind Modi's movement and not his open pro-Hindu prejudices.

That's the perfect example. So many of us choose our positions based on who we're connected to and then try to justify it via other reasons.

Wait, weren't you a Tulsi supporter too? And do you really believe that your dispassionate analysis of the positions is what brought you to that, and not your shared connection to India? (Yours by family of course, while hers was adopted via her Hindu faith.)


You just perfectly validated my point. You're probably booksmart, at least your screenname suggest you think you are. You claim that emotions have nothing to do with your positions. Yet you just happen to cape for Modi and Tulsi, two politicians who you just happen to have social reasons to be emotionally connected to. Hmmm....

LMAO, you had to bring Modi in this lol
Dude, i'm not a Modi supporter, he's allowed massive amounts of corruption to continue. This all started with us talking about electricity and you thought oh he's 100% a modi supporter.
don't be an absolutist.

Yes i'm a Tulsi fan, I don't care about religion, I'm an agnostic.
I like Tulsi because of her stance on war, and I also support Sanders because of his stance on war.
But yes Tulsi more than sanders because she's 100% what I want in a leader, that war part.
Secondly there are no good parties in India, just like in the U.S.

 

[MMS]

3

 

[Professor Emeritus]

LMAO, you had to bring Modi in this lol
Dude, i'm not a Modi supporter, he's allowed massive amounts of corruption to continue. This all started with us talking about electricity and you thought oh he's 100% a modi supporter.
don't be an absolutist.

No, it didn't start with us talking about electricity. I started a conversation about Modi and the high support level for Hindu Nationalism in India. I didn't talk about electricity at all. You stepped in and tried to claim that Modi was big because of "electricity." lol

It does not work that way, india has coalitions, so 70% BJP in polls does not mean 70% for BJP.

Also I speak with customers in india everyday.
Modi has high approval ratings because of electricity.
India was always having blackouts all day, Modi ended that. Now its electricity all day everyday.

I provided numerous receipts to show that your entire comment was bullshyt.

#1. India doesn't have electricity all day every day.
#2. Modi has not made a significant impact on electricity access
#3. Modi's BJP has been campaigning almost entirely on Hindu Nationalist issues, not electricity, and was putting Hindu Nationalist extremists into the most powerful positions.
#4. Absolutely zero media outlets, not even the BJP or Modi, were attributing BJP's wins to electricity.

I provided receipts. But instead of providing your own receipts (which you didn't give a single one of the entire conversation) you attacked me personally and emotionally:

But you obviously dont understand indian politics.
You hate the BJP & you hate Tulsi Gabbard.
You are clearly biased & have hatred for hindus.
Your coli name is a muslim one too, what is your ethnicity?

If that isn't a perfect demonstration of exactly what I'm talking about, I don't know what is.

Yes i'm a Tulsi fan, I don't care about religion, I'm an agnostic.
I like Tulsi because of her stance on war, and I also support Sanders because of his stance on war.
But yes Tulsi more than sanders because she's 100% what I want in a leader, that war part.
Secondly there are no good parties in India, just like in the U.S.

I don't think you do care about religion. Like I said, this isn't logical, it's emotional. Because you're Indian and don't want to think bad things about your Modi-supporting friends and family in India, you reflexively latch onto this weird theory that "Modi is popular because of electricity", a theory that even Modi himself doesn't buy.

And notice how when I challenged your theory with facts, your only response, rather than dealing with the evidence I presented, was to assume that I must "hate Hindus" (even though I've never said anything bad about Hindus, just Hindu Nationalists) and that I must be a Muslim (I'm not and never have been). You don't see how that's an emotional response?

 

[Lucky_Lefty]

9.9

there’s a .1 that gets “it”

 

[Serious]

Going with a 7. Trump is President but he didn’t win the majority of voters.

Still low high breh....

I'd say a 8.5 or 9......

I think we underestimate how dumb Americans are.

 

[Joe Sixpack]

I’m at 7.5-10

Americans are DUMB it’s very scary

 

[Isaiah Bradley]

...it's so stupid that foreigners would give anything to swap places with disgruntled American citizens

 

[rapbeats]

People actively convince themselves not to vote

as they should if the candidates on the roster are not giving them some reason to vote for them. And sorry folks, a reason to vote for you is not "Because you dont want that other person in office."

Its 2020, we off that. Yall gotta do better than "well vote for me because that other person is worse than me." PATHETIC line of thinking. A smart person would know this. dont get suckered into voting for another bad choice just because they wear a blue jacket to the party. There will never be vote blue no matter what. thats dumb logic that takes ZERO brain power to pull off. a child could do that. "Just check off the blue boxes little Franky."

Yangs problem was simple, yang could have 1000 plans on his website. But if all you ever hear him say on the debate stage and in non joe rogan interviews is "We got UBI for that"

THen thats all you will or most will think he's pushing. If he wanted to push other things he should've made that clear during every interview he got a chance to do. its that simple. tell the people your ideas. and hope they rally around said ideas.

I like yang but at the same time there's something a bit to ANTI government about yang. And me as a black person, I know quite a few of us work for the government and need to the government to work on our behalf(legally among other ways) to keep the nonsense down and to keep the system fair-er. Yang may not feel he needs that even though he has that thanks to black folks marching for decades. I get it the Govvy has failed people in the past in many ways. but it has also helped people in many ways as well. and the govvy isnt some robot AI. It's a bunch of people that you and I voted for or people the people we voted for have chosen. So whatever the govvy is, its our fault for better or for worse. you want a better govvy that works for you? Then vote for those types and make sure to get rid of the other types every chance you get. stop being so silly and low level thinking to the point where you find yourself as a BLACK person talking about Bloomberg aint that bad. STOP IT.