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

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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 think an Eingangstrasse is a one way street?

I do a lot,of pub quiz t toe things. I am never surprised what people know, but I am always surprised by the basic stuff they don't know,

I’m overeducated and a fairly curious person but some of the things on this thread are news to me too - the Beatitudes for example (I just looked them up). I was raised abroad, so my English history starts at 1914.

NaToth lt is indeed! lt's astonishing that she'd lived there for two years and didn't even realise that, just thought it a bit odd that there were 'quite a few streets' called that!

Some years ago whilst at work and in the throes of planning a holiday to Israel, I'd always wanted to go there particularly to see the various religious sites pertaining to Christian/Jewish/Muslim religions, as well as a whole host of other things. Colleague said "don't know why you want to go there, it's not as if they'll be anything interesting to see, why don't you go to The Canary Islands, much more to do"

I spoke to someone last week that had a surprise trip to Ireland bought her parents!! She didnt know where Ireland was..she didnt even realise it was part of the UK ... she said is it near Belfast which she thinks is in Ireland she has' heard of that ' ...she thought Dublin was abroad ..which is where she was going ... she was born here to British parents

We can't all know everything! Someone on The Chase didn't know who Stanley Unwin was. He thought he was one of The Goodies!? But it's partly an age thing... How many people on here know who Stanley Unwin was?

I am often struck by people's lack of observance of the world around them. You don't necessarily need to know every last detail, but at least be aware that has happened.

How can you not, just from fleeting radio/tv/internet news/social media/people talking etc?

I know who Stanley Unwin was but I suspect I’m very rare amongst under-50s with that knowledge.

Careradvice, are you taking the piss or just typing in a hurry and getting a bit scrambled?

Careadvice Ireland isn't part of the UK though. and Dublin is abroad technically. Belfast is in the UK though as NI IS part of the UK!

Your friend isn't wrong but you are. Very wrong in fact...

I always use the old gameshow Bullseye as an example. 'Proper', ordinary working class people able to answer clever general knowledge questions.
Yeah, that doesn't really happen anymore.
Too much 'right children, let's do a role play about blah and evaluate our planning process' and not enough Jolly Interesting Facts!

I am one of these people who has probably no common sense according to some people on here!

I don't know anything about politics other than Theresa May runs the country but I believe this is going to change soon? I don't know which party she represents or who anyone else is. I know I could find out with a quick google search, but honestly I don't care. (I probably should)

I'm terrible at geography, capital cities and pointing things out on a map.

But I know a lot about sport, music and tv and in pub quizzes they are my strong subject!

We need that monkey question please soola
My general knowledge is reasonable, I am very well read and I have a great memory for stuff that interests me but my geography is shocking. If I was given a map of Europe I doubt if I would be able to distinguish all of the central countries, I just can't seem to retain that information. I mix up my left and right all the time too, and I have no idea how to distinguish east or west, I have never even tried to or thought about it.

How can you have avoided knowing which political party the Prime Minister belongs to? That kind of admission frazzles my mind I have to say.

Yep. I had a friend around 10 years ago who was shocked to learn that dinosaurs were actually real.

The irony careradvice2019 😂 Dublin is abroad, if you live in England, Scotland and Wales. Belfast is in Ireland but it’s also part of the uk

Skyremote you know a lot more than many .The fact you know that TM is the Prime Minister but is resigning for a starte, I can guarantee you that there will be lots of people out there who don't know that.

Yes, when I mentioned that dcs were learning about Florence Nightingale at primary school, my friend said "Who's he?".

I suppose it depends on what you do in your spare time or have been exposed to.
My parents were from ordinary backgrounds but my Mum loved reading and travelling and my Dad was obsessed with watching The news and reading newspapers so I picked up quite a bit from that. That helped me get a scholarship to Private school and then on to Uni
Also I love reading and will read most things so my general knowledge has always been really good - I’m a bit of a trivia queen.
I have a friend who is actually very intelligent, she works in accounts ( could have easily been an accountant but her parents insisted she leave school and get a job at 16). However, she doesn’t watch anything other than reality TV and never reads at all, so has no real awareness of current affairs or politics etc. She’s easily as “intelligent” as me but I suppose you could say not as educated. She probably doesn’t know a lot of the things mentioned on here but she doesn’t care and isn’t interested whereas I grew up in a family which had a lot of issues but we were exposed to a lot of information and experiences as well

I didn’t know much about Chernobyl but knew it happened. After watching the series I have done some research and have learned a bit.

I did however think that Gothenburg was a made up place and that Batman lived there. I did joke with a client (oh the shame) about them flying in from Gothenburg. And mentioned batman. They laughed. Politely. But still laughed. Turns out batman lives in Gotham.

As Chris Tarrant used to say, it's only easy if you know the answer.

Some (I can't be alone) don't have great memories, so a lot of the history/geography/art/languages I learnt at school I couldn't tell you about now.

Some of us are too busy with caring work to keep our general knowledge up to date.

My dad knew so many of the answers to both the easy and hard level of questions on WWTBAM. And if we didn't know the answers he'd say incredulously 'I can't believe you wouldn't know that'

I used to say to my mum, do you know why? Because while you were bringing up 3 children, running a home, looking after your parents and working part time, you didn't stop. Whereas my dad went to work, came home and had plenty of spare time to go to the library, read books and watch TV. Which he did.

So I think YABU. But if it makes you feel better that you know more about Rome than your colleague, crack on!

The answer is yes. I am amazed at people's lack of general knowledge.

I find Pointless fascinating as an insight of what people do and don’t know. The great British public are really good at films but they really really suck at politics.

It’s all very well in theory to say that you only need to know about politics when they ask you to vote, but if anyone can actually show me a human being who is totally ignorant of politics, to the point of not knowing who the PM is, and then when they get the polling card through their door diligently swots up from scratch in order to make an informed choice on Election Day then I will give them a shiny silver sixpence. Apart from anything else, if you don’t pay attention then parliament might be about to take a decision that will seriously impede your life, and you’ll never get a chance to protest, or to make choices to mitigate its effect.

But the people who really baffles me are the contestants who go on Pointless when they must know that they’re objectively more ignorant than average, and that that will be made brutally obvious. You’ll get a really vanilla round like European capitals. Most basic trivia subject imaginable. The available answers have scored 75%, 60%, 50%, 30%, 10% and 0%, so three quarters of the tested population could answer at least one of them. And they look at the board and say “ooh I’m not sure Xander, I’m going to guess Oklahoma”. Why would you do that? I know Xander and Richard are lovely, but nobody’s worth that degree of humiliation surely?

Oh and to go back to your original post what's Chernobyl? Never heard of it or it's disaster....I'm mid 20's for reference

The Chernobly Disaster

But how can anyone not know what's in Rome?

Quite easily I think - not everyone travels. I know what’s in Rome because my Mum came from there, and I have been there countless times.

However I have very little idea of what’s in Madrid for example. And lots of other places.