To think some people are so thick it’s almost beyond parody

I was recently in the building society and a young man was arguing with one of the staff. He couldn't understand why his home was being repossessed. Apparently he and his girlfriend had split up but he was still paying his half of the mortgage and didn't understand why he had to leave. They couldn't get through to him that the whole of the mortgage payment was still due.

Of course conveyancers also have to constantly deal with estate agents. [wince]

Yes, a relative works in conveyancing and says that the job is made unbearable by people simply not understanding the process, not reading documents (perhaps because they can't), or just wilfully ignoring all requests from her but still expecting the sale or purchase to progress. As laws around money transfer have tightened, this has become increasingly problematic.

I work with the for a solicitors and there seem to be a lot of people who are very low intelligence, sometimes they’re aware of this and say ‘I’ll need your help to understand this’ which is great because we all know where we stand, but most of the time they have no critical thinking skills and no awareness that their limited experience of life doesn’t necessarily translate to everyone else. Recently I had to explain to someone that we couldn’t send them their inheritance money because they hadn’t yet sold the deceased’s house and that was the only asset, I think that they expected the solicitors firm to give them money from the solicitors bank account and be reimbursed once the house had sold, because in their mind it was taking ‘too long’.

Yes , I agree with you about Boots self checkouts .
My advantage card is on my Boots App , but it only scans properly if you go into wallet 🤪 I found out when I got a new iPhone I was taking photos of the bloody checkout instead of my card scanning 🤣🤪.
I am definitely above average intelligence too 🤣

There’s a funny bit from a Micky Flanagan show where he talks about thick people, something along the lines of it used to be the case that you ignored thick people and now they’re put on the telly and celebrated!

As above. The general thickness of many people never fails to amaze.

The general thickness of many people never fails to amaze me.

Take a look at our Government front bench.

What more is there to be said!

Yes, I always find myself watching those rounds where they're asked to write down the date of the Battle of Culloden or put a dot on Paraguay on a world map through my hands.

Though I mean, it's a mild comedy programme, with mostly comedians and the odd sportsperson or TV presenter playing -- they're not going to cast someone who would take getting it utterly wrong in any way seriously.

Watch any episode of House of Games and you’ll see “thick” in action.

People Born and Educated over here that can’t point to London on a map, think James 1st was on the throne in 1860, don’t know the dates of WW2.. the basics of History and Geography passing them by.

Whats worse is that the basic lack of knowledge is seen as funny.. when it really isn’t

To be fair to the late Jade Goody, I expect she was exploited by the programme who no doubt edited her comments

I wouldn't blame her personally for the many thick celebrities on TV - she was an uneducated working class girl who made good copy and died very young

I've just had a post suggested to me on Facebook about a house swap. It goes like this (with details edited for privacy)

2 bed house near Big Shopping Park wanted 3 bed house near Big School.

Comments
Your house is messy (well yes but it's overcrowded see sentence above) and if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all (all done on an anonymous account e.g. GreenLlama234)
Tag person has a 4 bed in Middle Place (close to Middle School but not Big School)
I have a 3 bed in Little Town (which is further away from Big School that current 2 bed house!)

I really feel for 2 bed person as they have to scroll through the rude comments and thick as replies.

That's just as mad, though! Surely most people would have an old receipt, shopping list or other scrap of paper around somewhere - long before they would even think to effectively hide a tenner in a place where they very well may not see it again!

On the other hand, I suppose it could be a deliberate act by a local philanthropist hoping to brighten up a random person's day; or it could be a genuine sign of cognitive decline or somebody otherwise vulnerable

I don't even think they get as far as deciding that intelligence is overrated; it's just that, if you've never known or been able to understand something, it simply may as well not exist in the first place to you.

It's a bit like trying to discuss the mechanics and ethics of compound interest with a newborn baby; although at least there's a chance there that the baby will understand the concept at some stage in the future!

I was once lucky enough to find a £10 note bookmark.

Even if they do venture to try to read them, they're probably still the ones who use a rasher of bacon or a cheese slice intended for a burger as a bookmark!

I did not realise how stupid most people were until I got a job as a library assistant (age 16) and began working with the public. And those were the ones who could read! Well they borrowed books so I assume they read them.

I'm not usually one to criticise bad grammar on MN threads, but just a little hint to at least two people on this thread: it's probably better to avoid using 'alot' as though it were an actual word when commenting on how thick people are!

Why do bots want to earn all that money, though? What does a bot even have to spend money on?!

On the surface, it does sound stupid; BUT to be fair to Pamela, it isn't necessarily. By confirming that she's been able to book for the summer of 2027 already, might she not be intending to clearly convey that you definitely can book in the spring of one year for a holiday in the summer of the next year, and don't need to wait any later than that?

After all, if poor Pam had simply said "They/at least some will be on sale by spring 2027 at the latest", somebody would probably reply and demand to know how she can know that - and then she's left giving her own extrapolable experience as 'proof' anyway!

I’ve always wondered what would happen if they had a genuinely intelligent person on something like Love Island. I mean, they’d never make it past vetting; the entire point of Love Island and all the shite like it is to keep people drunk 24/7 so you can hopefully catch them acting in the most dramatic way possible.

I’ve seen 15 year olds today who are a hot mess - they can barely type, they can barely spell, and EVERYTHING is a huge fucking drama to them. They’re like… the post-TOWIE generation? They’ve spent their whole lives watching people act stupid and get paid for it and live glamourous, idiotic lives. So, not a big surprise that they assume it’s fucking tickety boo to be lacking intelligence and imagination.

fear of using anything apart from stock phrases and answers

Yes, I find people's reliance on clichés on MN (which is where I get experience of more people than RL) really irritating.

I wish people would think for themselves.

I dumped an ex because he'd get arsey when I used a word he didn't know. He was a copper, funnily enough.

Not true. I was automatically given this label when I went over 1K followers on FB. I didn’t even realise until a while later! And I’m definitely real and post nice things not clickbait.

Well no, not quite.
’Average’ isn’t a precisely defined mathematical term. While its commonest usage is as a synonym for the mean, which is what you describe, it can also be used for other statistical measures such as the median or mode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average