To wonder why so many people are so inexplicably stupid?

[fanjofarrow]

I saw a comment by someone in another thread that said ''People don't think that a bank cashier is a banker, do they?'' and it has set me off on a Major League Rant (not aimed at the person who wrote that, but at people who DO think exactly that.)

My fella used to be a cashier at a bank for years before he got promoted. EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail, he'd get moronic customers moaning at him for being a ''banker on a massive bonus''. He was a cashier on minimum wage, and even the bank managers didn't get the ridiculous sort of bonuses these imbeciles were on about.

I asked around and it seems that cashiers at various banks get this crap all the time.

What sort of moron really believes that a bank cashier is a millionaire banker? Why are so many people so dim?

...AND BREATHE!

I don't think anyone would infer that London don't worry

I think the whole concept of what "educated" is will have to change soon.

Many of us regard a certain level of general knowledge as a reasonable guide but I have noticed with DDs friends at university (all intelligent young people doing good degrees at a high ranking uni) that their general knowledge is awful so, despite being intelligent and highly educated, they can appear absolutely clueless. Their argument was "Why do I need to know those things when I can Google stuff?"

Maybe this younger generation who have been brought up with computers and instantly accessible information via them will have a new judgement on what intelligence or educated is.

I google stuff all the time - it adds to my general knowledge like it would if I opened a book and read it there. No shame in not knowing everything.

Warning labels need to be removed, litigation for 'where there's blame' banned and let nature take its course!
One that make me smile was the urban myth that anyone on benefits gets all their bills paid too. My DGF believed this and on completing his form went off to the benefits office with the gas/electric/water etc bills to get them paid. He came home in a bad mood!
I knew people who also believed the homeless get benefit allowances to keep a dog.
I work with a girl who is at uni who thought a rhino was a extinct dinosaur. Her lack of knowledge of the world is astounding. When she went on holiday she didn't know on an atlas where she was going.

My BiL agreed with a FB post about how disgusting it is that illegal immigrants were claiming benefits.

I tried to gently question how someone here illegally would rock up to the job centre with their passport and NI number and claim their 'giro' but I didn't get anywhere.

I've had that argument with bigots before too.

You wanna hear something really stupid... in the US, the website for the new universal health care progam, sometimes called Obamacare, is very slow and balky.

The model for the photograph on the website front page is getting all kinds of abuse "the most hated face in America" - like it's her fault the website is super-slow.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10447849/Face-of-ObamaCare-website-speaks-out-against-cyber-bullying.html

I passed all of those questions laqueen so you may feel able to have a short chat with me, without catching my " thickness "

I did have to google the language of Norway.

It's not so much lack of intellect but a mind often dulled by celebrity dross, incapable of enquiry and generally reliant on prejudice and lazy opinions gleaned from others with similarly narrow minds.

Very well said ilovesooty.

I use google all the time, despite not being up to the very high intellectual standards of MN I like learning stuff , I often get lost on a google trail.

Add message | Report | Message poster Fairy1303 Sat 16-Nov-13 17:39:21
I'm a social worker and I constantly get 'I pay your wages'.

To be fair the tax payers pay my wages, I pay some of them but by definition I can't pay enough tax to cover my whole wage. I do rely on all the posters of MN who all seem to earn six figure salaries and work hard harder than everyone else, after being far cleverer than everyone else.

Continuing on the well-worn track of stupidity in the US, I recently had a woman ask me if London was near England.

The same woman also thought that Canada was east of the US, despite living less than three miles from the border with Canada, which she had visited several times. She is over 1000 miles from the east coast.

I was fascinated by someone who feels relief at not having to mix with " thick" people, I don't know anyone like that in real life. I also don't know anyone who grandly claims to be intellectual. It is like putting my grubby nose up to a posh shop window watching people on here.

I didn't really single you out I don't think the Norway example was yours.

I remember Adrian Mole claiming to be an intellectual. Not that he was real.

It's Barack, not Barak.

The Norway example was mine. I was aghast as the person who didn't know was a primary teacher - the kids in her class knew though.

There's plenty I don't know. Google is my friend.

YANBU

Why can people not work headlights? What is it about headlights that is so fundamentally difficult for people to grasp!

Sorry you described your self as very intelligent, again it is just a fascination and you clearly have much more confidence that me.

I could just about call myself a bit clever without feeling so self conscious that I would feel the need to do put my head in a bucket. I blush filling in a CV. Despite knowing lots of other "very clever " people I don't know anyone else who calls themselves very intelligent.