To think that "common sense" isn't as common as people believe?

[SorcererGaheris]

This is inspired by the thread about the restaurant offered a free (birthday) meal as long as five people were dining - which turned out only applied to five ADULTS, but according to the OP it wasn't specified that it only applied to adults.

Many people are saying that it's "common sense" that such an offer would apply only to adults and some are questioning the intelligence of anyone who wouldn't realise that.

I commented that it would not have occurred to me that such an offer only applied to adults dining and a couple of people have been a little critical of me for that. Because apparently it's "common sense."

Well, maybe I lack common sense. My mother has often told me that I have none.

So my point is - surely so-called "common sense" isn't actually as common as many people believe it is?

People's minds work differently, people understand things differently. People who are neurodiverse sometimes take wording very, very literally and can sometimes need things spelled out to them that would seem obvious to others (I am autistic myself.)

I do find it unfair when people insult/mock or imply that someone is lacking in intelligence for not having "common sense". That doesn't make them stupid, it just means that their minds aren't connecting the dots in the same way that other people do.

I'm not sure that "common sense" should be as much of an expectation as it seems to be.

otoh I think 'keep away from small children' is generally good advice that could be written anywhere.

I think people who need to be told that a packet of peanuts 'may contain nuts' are on a steep learning curve.

Common sense is subjective. What I might think is the bleeding obvious, and common sense, others might not. 🤷‍♀️

I haven't read the other thread, but I assume it means not children having a meal from the children's menu, rather than over 18s only.

I grew up with ‘common sense isn’t common’, and I absolutely agree.

I volunteer in a community centre, I mentor people (so I help build people up, guide them in different roles). I help young adults deal with some very unpleasant customers at times. The young people learn at various rates (mostly down to self esteem) but make very little mistakes when comfortable. The amount of awful encounters with the general public is awful, common sense really isn't that common. Don't get me started on entitlement either.

My DH also has dumbed down other people's jobs within the company he works for as much as possible to avoid them making mistakes, turns out you can't teach lazy.

I almost feel common sense is the ability to solve a problem by looking at the bigger picture of what resources or capacity you have around you and making a decision that's efficient and the least hard work.

A colleague and I were working together. We needed to provide refreshments for a focus group. This was in the midst of a high pressure audit. We looked in our cupboard and noted we needed more crockery. Colleague's instant response was 'I'll go out and buy more'. This would have been time draining when when had a million more pressing things to do and costly.
My response...let's ask the onsite kitchen if we can borrow theirs. To me common sense to use what already exists. Colleague knew we had onsite kitchen (it was for another service in the building)

Is this common sense or just different ways of finding a solution? I don't know.

I worked with a woman who was completely devoid of common sense, it was infuriating. The job involved a fair bit of problem solving but she could only do it if she had set answers as templates.

It made me realise that having common sense is about anticipating various outcomes. Lacking it is like not being able to cook a basic meal you have all the ingredients for without a recipe.

yes! 'Alexa, what's the weather like today,' rather than looking out the window.
Or 'Chat GPT says....'

There was a post on here recently where the poster had an x month old baby that was quite small, so didn't fit in the 'correct' size for their age - say baby was 10 months old, they were asking 'The 9-12 month old size is far too big for her, but she's too old for 6-9 month sizes so what do I dress her in?' with posters replying '...just keep her in the old size until she grows out of them?' I mean, that's what I call common sense!

you could argue that the restaurant owner should have had the common sense to know that a) lots of patrons won't have any common sense b) chancers will try and get round anything that isn't watertight!

therefore it should have been common sense on their part to be explicit on the terms of the offer so it can't be misinterpreted. I think if OP took the restaurant to court (which would obviously be a complete overreaction) she'd probably win because technically she had met the terms of the deal as written. Using 'well obviously what I meant was x,' doesn't really stand up if what you said (or wrote) was y.

I agree about self esteem being an issue, constant criticism can be quite debilitating and eventually internalised. It's probably even more noticeable in the social media age. I've met a few people who are really good at giving feedback in a constructive way, it's a truly valuable skill.

A sense of humour is helpful and getting old enough to run out of fucks to give. I loved my friend's phrase, I'm not laughing at you, I'm not laughing with you either, I'm laughing towards you.😁

I think ‘lack of common sense’ is actually usually lack of questioning. I go straight to Who, What, Where, When, Why & How for pretty much everything. I find there are very few things I can’t figure through, no matter how unusual or difficult if I just work the problem

Any new scenario or uncommon event I start asking questions until I know I really understand it.

So many people I interact with seem to just accept everything at surface level. So in your example, I’d have asked if there were any rules about the 5 people or what they ate in order to get the free meal.

Having studied health and safety planning, managing safety and root cause analysis it's astonishing in looking at an incident and how people react when "common sense" should kick on

• people saying put when a clear danger is enclosing them.

My thesis was on a well known tragedy where highly skilled technicians waited for the rescue that never came - notwithstanding a wealth of knowledge, skills and technical ability. In a strange hotel, do you count the number of doors to the fire exit? Which way to turn outside the door? Because on the day of the races you'll not see anything due to smoke. Do you have a family safety chat - fire blocking your stairs? Sit on the bed and text help?

It's not about common sense, people panic. Unless you have specific training to learn how to react, all the common sense in the world won't help you if you are paralysed by shock, it's not a a choice.

I disagree that people with autism lack common sense and that generalisation is actually quite offensive.

@Algen I don't think that Autism precludes someone having common sense, I do think however that some people with Autism can have a very fixed view on how things should be done, if you can't see that your view might be wrong that can limit you. There's no one rule that works for every occasion

I agree with this and think OP is being disingenuous. As PP have said, some people have disabilities that make it very difficult to think something through in logical steps. They lack common sense and it's not their fault; the very fact that they have impairments tells us their lack of sense is uncommon.

I don't know why people have become widely incapable of thinking stuff out, but see plenty of everyday evidence that many have. To make matters worse, they then get really angry that nobody explained to them as you would to a toddler or a mentally impaired adult! The word 'entitlement' may be overused, but I can't think of another one to describe such people's sense of entitlement to have all the details of life explained to them, to be coached through the most basic of skills and even to have it all done for them.

I know a bloke who is generally considered a genius. I once gave him a drink in a pretty china cup. Curious about its provenance, he turned the cup over to see the markings. The cup was full, his drink went everywhere, he looked bewildered! I assume his genius goes with some kind of ND, but it's a perfect example of what 'common sense' means.

@GarlicPound

I'm not trying to be disingenuous - I just honestly don't think that common sense is quite as prevalent as some people think it is.

And even if it is "common", that does not mean it's universal - which means that some people will be lacking in what some people perceive to be common sense - so an ubiquitous level of sense shouldn't really be expected.

It just seems to me that there's an expectation that everyone will have the same basic understanding of things, and that's not always the case.

Of course everyone should have the same basic understanding of things, disabilities excluded.

This is why we teach children from a very young age about what happens if you do B without doing A first, what things are dangerous and why, and so forth. Did nobody teach you?

The specific example in your OP might not be common sense exactly, but the closely related skill of 'thinking for yourself' - ie, asking yourself a question such as "If my total bill's only £25, does it make sense that they're offering a free £30 meal?" You could call this intellectual curiosity at a very basic level, it's a type of common sense that should also be taught from a young age.

ETA: the free meal example should've been triggered by the thought: "That seems an impossibly good deal. have I misunderstood?" Perhaps the missing factor is an ability to self-question. Once you've questioned your assumption, you can ring the restaurant up to query the offer.

@GarlicPound

Of course everyone should have the same basic understanding of things, disabilities excluded

That would be the ideal, but in practice, it doesn't happen. People don't all have the same basic understandings of things, in my experience.

This is why we teach children from a very young age about what happens if you do B without doing A first, what things are dangerous and why, and so forth. Did nobody teach you?

Well, I got taught/learned about basic cause and effect.

The specific example in your OP might not be common sense exactly, but the closely related skill of 'thinking for yourself' - ie, asking yourself a question such as "If my total bill's only £25, does it make sense that they're offering a free £30 meal?" You could call this intellectual curiosity at a very basic level, it's a type of common sense that should also be taught from a young age.

I, personally, wouldn't think about it at all. I wouldn't ask myself the question, it's just not something that would occur to my mind.

We’ve been getting a lot of Reform literature though the door lately and the candidate uses the phrase ‘common sense’ about six times on every leaflet. It really makes me shudder.

OK, @SorcererGaheris, but I don't believe any society can be successfully structured to accommodate the lowest common denominator. It's more than enough to put "Contains nuts" in the allergy warning on a packet of nuts. That is really as low as we should go.

If you would genuinely expect a £25 spend to get you a £30 freebie, there is indeed something missing in your own mental processes. Maybe give it some thought. I have a tendency to take things too literally, but learned a long time ago that I may need to do a little more evaluation than others do.

I’m wondering how much the common sense is linked to emotional intelligence.
I raised a child. Said child is now an adult. Quite often she regales me with stories of her friends being completely void of any modicum of common sense. DD’s question is: do they live under a rock? Do they have staff? Didn’t they have to do/think/plan anything for themselves?!!!
The thing is: I know the families her friends come from. And it doesn’t surprise me. I blame the lack of common sense on shit parenting, frankly.

@GarlicPound

I don't believe any society can be successfully structured to accommodate the lowest common denominator

Nor do I, but I do believe that (as in the example that inspired this thread) clear and precise wording is needed.

If you would genuinely expect a £25 spend to get you a £30 freebie, there is indeed something missing in your own mental processes. Maybe give it some thought. I have a tendency to take things too literally, but learned a long time ago that I may need to do a little more evaluation than others do.

There may well be something missing in some of my mental processes. If there is, though, people shouldn't come down hard on me because of it.

I just think that it would be nice if people were more understanding of those of us who honestly just don't see/understand what they think should be obvious.

It's shit, but it's clever. They're lying - their arguments miss out a whole world of cause & effect impacts, just like the "£350 million a week for the NHS" anti-EU slogan.

Fixing a national economy, social & care issues, global migration and military threats are not matters of common sense. They're intricate challenges requiring expert, long-term planning, It would be common sense to point that out, but you're more likely to get votes by telling people they could fix it all themselves with a few swift and simple moves.

OMG are you with my OH?

Carbon copy if not.