Do other people ever astonish you with their lack of general knowledge?

[Ohnotanothernamechange]

Just recently I've spoken to a few people who expressed amazement when they disocovered that Chernobyl is a real place. I know that we all have gaps in our knowledge but how the hell you can not know about the Chernobyl disaster? It's a bit like the simpleton on a twitter some years ago who was amazed to discover that the Titanic was a real ship and not figment of James Cameron's imagination....

I remember one time a work colleague was going to Rome and when I told them I'd been they asked me if there was lots of stuff to see and do there. I was like well of course, it's Rome. And they asked me what they were. I then had to list the coliseum, the Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps, The Vatican, the countless Roman Ruins etc not to mention the countless designer shops and fabulous restaurants. They genuinely had no idea what was in Rome. I was gobsmacked. This was someone I'd assumed was pretty intelligent as well.

I can't work out if I just know too much, or these people are just really ignorant?

I didn’t come across virtually anything about WW1 in school or in general life. I knew there was a WW1 and lots of people died but that’s about it. We also didn’t do anything another WW2 in school it was only something that the school did at GCSE level when I was at school I don’t know if some schools are different. I did however know a bit more about it because my dad’s grandad was a prisoner of war and my dad told me a few things about it but not great details and I don’t know exact dates. However I do know lots about other things like I know quite a lot about Greek philosophers and historical literature. I’m not sure if I couldn’t even name one famous athlete but I know a lot about gothic architecture and the crusades. People are different. People have different knowledge. I didn’t know about Chernobyl until last year when I saw a YouTube video about it because it’s not something that has ever been mentioned at school or at home or in any movies or books I’ve read etc. It’s just never come up.

I do feel that a lot of British history gets missed out of school education but on the other hand in my city alone it has a history as a settlement as far back as the fest century BCE so over 2000 years of history to fit into school years amongst everything else they want kids to learn just isn’t possible.

Phew CurlyhairedAssassin.

I'm glad to see I misunderstood.

General knowledge isn’t the same as intelligence

Christ OP you would hate me then. I am useless with knowing if a place is a country/continent/city/town let alone what is actually in those places!

Some people just dont know certain things. Those things may be interesting/important to you but not so to someone else. Likewise they may have an interest in something you have never heard of and be gobsmacked that you didn't know what it was!
Just dont judge people

It has a lot to do with whether someone has a curious mind (I do, I'm constantly looking up facts/places/people - all sorts of stuff!). I guess some people just don't have it.

I think when it comes to significant world events or even current events a lot of people switch off if they don't understand it - and given the amount of crap that comes out of the various news agencies these days I can kind of forgive that

It all depends what you think general knowledge represents. It seems to me that perhaps you think it means less intelligent. That's surprising, becuase knowledge is just knowledge. Wisdom is what defines your intelligence, in other words what you do with your knowledge. Additionally to be surprised at other people's lack of general knowledge seems lacking in wisdom. There's 7 billion people in the world, even those in close proximity to you will have had vastly different experiences to you, to be surprised that their knowledge doesn't match yours isn't very bright. All in all I find this post mostly about ego and how one might find ways to prop up a flagging one.

derxa
You're wrong, sheep meat is mutton, baby sheep meat is lamb. Beef is grown male cattle, veal is baby male cattle. It's not ignorance to be mistaken about different names for meat.

I very frustratingly don't retain trivia very well and it has got worse as I have got older, however I can work things out well and I am reasonably intelligent. I look things up all the time but retaining it is something else annoyingly.

It's just what interests a person + a person's natural curiosity + how big a person's world is (some people small town others multiverse).
On the other hand I've known intelligent xxxxs and really nice numbnuts. Takes allsorts.

My son is 27 & he knows all about Chernobyl. Not from me, but from reading history, listening to news. Investigating when something takes his interest...social media has alot to answer for, most people are on it more than they are in real life

I'm not surprised by anything anymore. I work with one girl who didn't know a boy chicken was a cockerel. Also another that had never heard of battle of Hastings. I'm not particularly well educated. But thing these two are just general knowledge.

I think it comes down to attitude. I had a normal education but read at every opportunity. Anything and everything so have picked up a huge quantity of odd information of varying degrees of usefulness. Problem is, I tend to assume that if I know something, it is general knowledge and I’m surprised when others don’t. As other posters have pointed out, they probably know stuff I don’t and feel the same way about me😊.
What did genuinely horrify me was an incident from my daughter’s time at school. We live in Germany and the education system is very biased towards grades/ tests etc, rather than general knowledge. My daughter said she had been talking to her friends about something that had been a major news story for days and was surprised that they knew nothing about it. One girl then asked if it was a test subject. When my dd said no, the other girl replied that she had no need to know about it!

@Bluebluered yes this I love and the fact the tomato is actually a fruit

Yes they do OP. I get you. And I agree with some previous posters that it’s due to a lack of curiosity about the world. And I think that the current model of education in most schools - not just in Britain - doesn’t help to develop that curiosity. The focus is on learning to pass exams, not on learning for the sake of it because it’s fun to find out things about other people’s experiences past and present. I’ve come across people who didn’t know about libraries and that they are free to use. On the other hand, as you can see from this thread, ignorance is considered normal and if you question it you will be mocked and branded a snob. So many people don’t have the incentive to learn. But ignorance is nothing to be proud of.

Reading books is a good way of learning about the world. I’m old and still have masses to learn!

I’m amazed at people’s fake knowledge and how little real knowledge there is going round. I guess academia is not viral

My daughter is 16 she knew Chernobyl was real.
People are dumb and ignorant these days.
Thu don’t educate themselves.
You learn from books, family, internet.
People think it’s clever to be thick these days

In the UK meat from an animal up to 18 months old can be sold as lamb.

There is so much information out there, which, if learned can enrich your life incredibly.
As for history, Ethelred the Unready, Arthur and his cakes, King John, Runnymede, Wat Tyler, Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, Armada, Sir Walter Rayleigh, Witchfinder General, Luddites, Light Brigade, Boer War, WW1, WW2. Slip off slopes, Zygomatic arches, Siegfried and Maginot Lines. Your Anus is a planet, ask that of some people and the replies are funny. A marathon is really a chocolate bar, as is Mars. Tangyanika, Nyasaland, Cecil Rhodes, Stanley Livingstone, and the list goes on.
Read, look and listen, the world will open up for you.

Same here, OP. I've always thought my general knowledge was pretty good - but don't ask me anything about pop music (except for about 1973-78).

‘Oh no....’ you have hit the nail on the head. In the Dark Ages about five per cent of the population was literate and well informed.

I reckon we are living through a Dark Age of our own.

I was in a supermarket the other day and there was a woman who must have been in her 30s maybe older and didn't know what a cauliflower or leeks were. There are some weird and wonderful fruits and vegetables out there but I thought these were fairly bog standard but I suppose if you don't know you don't know

My lack of awareness of the brutality of the British empire when it was at its peak etc... then it makes sense why we’re not taught in school (well I wasn’t anyway!) as we fucked up a lot of countries.
It bothers me when people don’t know where countries are and then blame it on ‘oh I didn’t do geography at GCSE’
Maps are everywhere just look at one occasionally!!!

@JonSnowIsALoser you are spot on- so true

There are people who have never watched the news, never read a newspaper and never watched a documentary.

There are people who have never left their local area let alone the U.K.

There are people who don’t do google searches and have never had an atlas or encyclopaedia in their house.

There are kids who have low school attendance and stop going by their teens who become adults who havent had much education beyond primary.

There are people who can’t read so have no way of learning this stuff.

We can laugh online but in a democracy it matters that ignorance is such a widespread social problem.