To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. -Thomas Paine
I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed. -William Shakespeare
They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge. -Thomas Brackett Reed
America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men. -Alexander Graham Bell
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. -Thomas Jefferson
The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it. -Alexander Cockburn
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them. Laurence J. Peter
As a non-stupid person, I’ve struggled with accepting how prevalent stupidity is in humanity.
I still have a hard time with it.
I have come to understand why it happens through studying evolutionary psychology.
This is what I’ve realized that I think is a little bit more compassionate to my fellow homo sapien sapiens...
Most people have the intellect not to be stupid... they just struggle to avoid stupid thinking because of their preconceptions and biases.
So they act and think stupid because of a lack of self-awareness.
Does being unaware and biased make you stupid?
Maybe, maybe not.
It leads to you acting stupid, but maybe it doesn’t make you stupid.
Maybe it comes down to desire.
Do you desire to improve your thinking, or are you sinking deeper into your crony beliefs?
Examples include mainstream media and so-called “journalists” as well as politicians.
They put on such an act and have so many incentives not to think clearly that they eventually lose all ability to think outside of their warped world view.
I understand why they are stupid, but they are still stupid.
In some ways, stupidity represents intelligence.
Smart people are usually better at deluding themselves.
After all, they can form a good argument and cite stats and figures. So while this is usually one-sided and not objective at all, they are still showing a certain level of intelligence in their ability to deceive (themselves).