To be utterly fed up dealing with the hard of thinking

[Wiggler1]

I am so so sick of listening to/reading the opinions of people who just fail to engage their brains for more than a nanosecond on any subject that takes their fancy.

“We voted leave/brexit means brexit”

“Trans women are women”

“Fed is best”

“Women just aren’t as good at corporate jobs”

“Vaccines cause autism”

“Animals don’t have emotions/opinions”

Ad infinitum. We KNOW that brexit is likely to lead to economic doom (at least for a period), trans women are not biological women, breast is actually best for the health outcomes of mother and baby at population level (although there are very valid reasons it may not be for individuals), women are just as successful in the corporate world if they’re not held back by men (or other women), vaccines do not cause autism, animals very visibly do have emotions/opinions, if you bother to watch them for long enough, etc etc etc.

I know this is likely to be controversial because of the examples I’ve used, but my point is that people just don’t seem to be able to engage with the slightest piece of research or evidence that their opinions are not in line with the facts.

I can understand knowing a surface level about a topic and getting things wrong, we’re all learning, but listening to people shouting their world view progressively louder, despite all evidence to the contrary, is utterly infuriating.

If you have a well thought out opposing view I’m more than happy to debate, tell me about the research you’ve done on potential economic outcomes of brexit, or why formula is as good as breast milk, I’m interested in differing opinions as a way to learn more myself. Yelling “BAN ABORTIONS” at me without any substance whatsoever and bashing me over the head with a placard makes me want to burn down the world.

Thank you for summarising Incoming, no I probably wasn’t polite or articulate, it’s been a long day of uninformed opinions.

To me, working in the pharma industry, it’s logical that if you blast a hole through regulation there will be consequences, particularly for people’s health. And if you create uncertainty businesses won’t invest, which will cause economic downturn, we’re already seeing this. We know that breast milk contains antibodies which are impossible to replicate with formula, and that at a population level, it has an impact.

I realise these are emotive issues and didn’t intend this to turn into a debate on specifics. I should also point out that I don’t go around spouting off my opinions in real life, I may be autistic (the jury’s out), but I know not to bash people over the head with my opinions.

As you insist that you haven't called anyone stupid, perhaps you can explain what you meant by "hard of thinking?"

Fed IS best though.

"How do you know that Brexit will cause financial doom?"

Well we do know some of the effects and they are all detrimental to our economy. A few years ago the Torys told us that we couldn't afford our Welfare system, the NHS and Police Force. But this year, we can magic up £39 Billion. The substacies will stop, for every £1 we put in we got at least £7 back. So you'd have to be incredibly thick to not see the issue.

MrsGrindah, it's interesting how people form those opinions. You'd hope there was a thought process behind it.

Most people don't have a clue about what they are talking about and they put little effort into reducing their ignorance.

They don't want a discussion. They don't want to hear what other people want to say. They are not interested in hearing opposing views. They want validation that what they think is correct.

I think what the OP is trying to say is that there are facts/proven statements/events based on research or experience. However, people have opinions that differ from those facts or simply don't like them. Yet instead of spending the time understanding the facts, simply disagrees.

I really hate ignorance, fake news, putting your head in the sand... whatever you want to call it. I'm a scientist, and can't understand how people can argue against facts. Obviously people are entitled to their opinions, but if you are unwilling to put in the time to back up your opinion and then put others down for having a different one, I have little time for that opinion.

I really enjoy a healthy discussion and many cases are not cut and dry. In that case, bring it on! But I get very frustrated when facts are ignored because someone doesn't like them. e.g. climate change and the autism-vaccine link. That last one makes my blood boil.

I really dislike the way you have lumped all the options into one pile for "stupid" people.
It's these sort of crap cliches that dumb us down.
You can have one of those opinions and not agree with the others.
There's always an economic downturn. Why did we get a referendum in the first place because they are never done just because stupid people fancy one.

@CrunchieFriday perhaps the OP can put me right if I have this wrong but I don't think they're having a go at IQs or intelligence here. They're talking about people not taking the time to understand the facts (or lack of) behind opinions and arguing the cause anyway. i.e. ignorance.

Badly worded yes but I get the point.

@MyShinyWhiteTeeth this.

On a slight tangent, I'm sick to the back teeth of trying to deal with businesses or organisations with hard of understanding staff in customer-facing roles.
From utility companies to my local gym or council, ime it's far more difficult than it used to be to communicate or get them to understand what you might be asking, even when spelled out in simple terms, either verbally or in writing.
I really think comprehension and communication skills have plummeted in the general population.

I totally agree op.

@FFSFFSFFS has it with this comment

Think about a person with average intelligence. That person is smarter than 50% of the population

Utterly depressing and incredibly frustrating but true and the reason why I refuse to work with the general public.

Fair enough - but by insinuating they are stupid is perhaps not the best start to opening that dialogue...

I'm slightly fed up with dealing with people who perpetually insult other people for having different opinions, but there you go.

I agree about the vaccine thing at least. I really despair of smug anti vaxxers telling those who follow the advice of scientists and medics to vaccinate to 'educate yourself' or 'do your research' as though hundreds of highly educated researchers studying these vaccines for decades isn't a patch on a meme that Sandra from the 11am Slimming World class posted about how the MMR contains formaldehyde.

I think people are focusing on my badly worded title, recent posters have worded it much better than I did.

I am absolutely not saying people are stupid, I clarified earlier I’m talking about people who don’t engage with whatever topic they are considering on more than a surface level, some of the people I’m talking about are incredibly intelligent with PhDs! I’m also not particularly bright, it takes me a long time to learn new things and I can be quite black and white thinking, shades of grey sometimes elude me. But I do take time to research things and can elaborate on why I think the things I do.

My gripe is that so few are willing to consider things at a deeper level, and doing things in a knee jerk way without considering the bigger picture is causing so many societal problems. There’s no depth to policy decisions that are being made. The worst thing for me is that most of these things are completely logical if you think about them for more than 10 minutes, it doesn’t need masses of research (although that helps substantiate opinions).

Also, to clarify on the ‘Fed is best’, I was absolutely referring to the slogan not the sentiment, of course fed is better than not fed, but arguably breast is better than formula (again, at a population level, I’m not taking into account maternal mental health which is a massive factor on an individual basis).

There are actually a fair few people who are not hard of thinking, who did engage their brains etc who voted in favour of Brexit. What their reasons are I can't get into as I didn't vote Brexit in the end, but was seriously having a hard time deciding due to those very people.

I do think that we need everyone to pull together to make the best of it, when it happens, to think out of the box if you like in order to solve the problems we shall no doubt face once we do leave. I think far too much time has been wasted complaining about how awful it's going to be and far too little thinking about how to make it work when it does happen.

Now, why would people sabotage our exit from the EU like that?

I don't know why you're getting such a hard time on here OP. Yanbu.

Although I agree with most if not all of the opinions in your op some of them are less black and white than you are giving credit for.
People who say ‘I’m right and there’s no point discussing it’ are generally the hardest of thinking imo.

I agree with you on all those slogans except for ‘fed is best’. I think you’ve missed the point on that one. It doesn’t mean that the speaker is denying the benefits of breastfeeding at a population level. The expression came about to support women who suffer with intense guilt about breastfeeding difficulties as a result of the militant ‘breast is best’ message. So I don’t think it’s a stupid phrase at all.

Agree with you completely OP

Why did we get a referendum in the first place because they are never done just because stupid people fancy one.

Actually, that’s precisely the reason we got the Brexit referendum. Cameron was hoping a) to unite his idiot party and b) win back UKIP voters. It was nothing to do with what was best for the country.

Agree with Pickupthephone and that is the kind of grey area that you miss when you have the attitude that your opinion is objective fact and anyone who thinks otherwise is stupid.

I understand there are nuances, as I said I’m talking about slogans, mantras and surface level beliefs based on nothing. There are some very good arguments for leave (I haven’t actually stated my position on brexit) based on long term forecasts and I think I was clear in my initial post that it was talking about the immediate future. There are already many companies that are delaying or deferring investment and some actively pulling out of the UK. We’ve lost the European Medicines Agency which will have a massive knock on in the local area alone. These are facts. “Sovereignty” and “no more immigration” are not facts. This is my objection.