Opinions which really do prove stupidity

[Teleros]

Hmm, has anyone mentioned astrology yet? Or is that considered too complex for a child to figure out as being nonsense or something?

Although one of the most funny case about a person's stupidity is a person thinking that the government did something to our 'air supply' and water supply because her water sprinklers formed a rainbow.

Ok, I can understand why you might believe in a 9/11 conspiracy or YEC nonsense, but words fail me here...

[wautd]

Does falling for glaring obvious money scams count as an example? How stupid and naive do you have to be to get ripped of by a Nigerian money scam.

Hmm, has anyone mentioned astrology yet? Or is that considered too complex for a child to figure out as being nonsense or something?

Yes

I'll go for astrology. Propably vastly underrated in terms of the number of people who believe in it (after all, you can be of any faith and still believe in astrology on the side).

[The Spartan]

Speaking of conspiracy theories: Chem trails. I knew what a contrail was when I was a child even if I didn't fully understand the mechanism. Yet there are people that have become convinced that they're chemicals being dumped on us from 10k meters.

"Some days there's maybe one or two but, other days they just criss-cross the sky like a checkers board."

[Edi]

People who insist that communism really was a good idea but was just done wrong. And for another, people who seriously thought that the Soviet Union was some workers' utopia, when all the available evidence indicates that it was mostly a shithole unless you were one of the elites.

This is not to deny any of the things that Stas has said in other threads regarding how the healthcare and some other things worked. I'm referring to the wide-eyed, gullible morons who were recruited by the crapload as KGB dupes and informants without their realization. The second I run into one of these idiots, I will automatically consider everything they say bullshit unless they can back it up with evidence, because that level of disconnect from reality means they are stupid beyond belief.

[Eleas]

In a vein similar to other conspiracy theories, I always get disproportionately annoyed whenever some gormless UFO nut starts trotting out Area 51. Particularly when modern technology is claimed to be the result of reverse-engineered alien artefacts.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm referring to the wide-eyed, gullible morons who were recruited by the crapload as KGB dupes and informants without their realization.

You mean the "Western communist kid" type of dude who says everything about communism was okay and Stalin was all right about everything - and if you press them hard enough, they would even say Stalin wasn't extreme or "hardcore" enough and Mao and the cultural revolution was the real deal - met some of those, heh. They also tend to be from nations most removed from the Second World... like Europe and the US. Little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Oh, and a common reference to most industrialized First World nations as "decadent". Yeah.

[defanatic]

Does falling for glaring obvious money scams count as an example? How stupid and naive do you have to be to get ripped of by a Nigerian money scam.

Oh god. I knew I saved this link for something.

Woman out $400k to Nigerian Scammers claims she wasn't a sucker or easy mark

After reading up a lot about evolution, I think that people who don't think it happens (or has happened) hasn't really researched the subject at all.

[Lusankya]

Saw another one today. People getting all worked up and scared because[an asteroid or something] will hit with a force "1000 times as great as the Hiroshima bomb". I guess this requires having some knowledge of atomic bombs, but how old or intelligent do you have to be to realise that bigger and more powerful atomic bombs have not only been created, but have also been detonated? And surely even the biggest idiot realises that the world hasn't been destroyed yet. Does it really take much to put these two facts together?

Another example of stupidity: "disasters are happening more often now". I think I realised when I was pretty young, that lots of the stuff that I knew (say, all foreign affairs, and even stuff in the next closest city) came from the television or the radio or the telephone, and that without these long-distance communications, I wouldn't know most of these things. Maybe it helped me, though that my grandparents actually communicated with me and described how back in the past, the cricket used to be broadcast on the radio wireless, but international matches were first relayed via telegraph, and they used to bang pencils against the desk to mimic the sound of the bat hitting the ball. This helped me to make the connection that hey, today we get live international transmissions of the cricket, so therefore communications now are better than they were when my grandfather was a boy. Hell, when my grandfather was a boy, he thought that a crystal set was absolutely marvellous. And now I can engage in free international video calls with my father via skype. How someone can actually live through some of these changes in communication technology and not recognise the implications is quite beyond me.

[General Zod]

I wonder if the idea that homosexuality is evil falls under this. I remember my first experience meeting a homosexual couple when I was a kid when my mom went over to the place of some friends of hers and brought me along. They were fairly up front about being a lesbian couple but otherwise I didn't think anything of it at the time, and until my bitch of an aunt married my uncle I never had any serious pressure from relatives about homosexuality being some horrible thing. So it really never seemed all that big of a deal to me. It's obviously just anecdotal, but thought I'd toss it out.

[Ryan Thunder]

I wonder if the idea that homosexuality is evil falls under this. I remember my first experience meeting a homosexual couple when I was a kid when my mom went over to the place of some friends of hers and brought me along. They were fairly up front about being a lesbian couple but otherwise I didn't think anything of it at the time, and until my bitch of an aunt married my uncle I never had any serious pressure from relatives about homosexuality being some horrible thing. So it really never seemed all that big of a deal to me. It's obviously just anecdotal, but thought I'd toss it out.

Just to counter that, I don't seem to recall anybody actually telling me it was wrong. I already thought it was gross and then found the Old Testament's stance on it on my own. I don't know how much influence that has over my current gut feeling on the matter, but even now I have to actively remind myself that there's really nothing wrong with it...

[General Zod]

Just to counter that, I don't seem to recall anybody actually telling me it was wrong. I already thought it was gross and then found the Bible's stance on it on my own. I don't know how much influence that has over my current gut feeling on the matter, but even now I have to actively remind myself that there's really nothing wrong with it...

Given the Bible is what most people use to justify their hatred of it, it's probably safe to say it plays a fairly big part.

[Ryan Thunder]

Just to counter that, I don't seem to recall anybody actually telling me it was wrong. I already thought it was gross and then found the Bible's stance on it on my own. I don't know how much influence that has over my current gut feeling on the matter, but even now I have to actively remind myself that there's really nothing wrong with it...

Given the Bible is what most people use to justify their hatred of it, it's probably safe to say it plays a fairly big part.

Let me put it this way; I haven't had much trouble dismissing many other things from that part of the book out of hand.

I don't want to hate people for that stuff. Unfortunately I'm subconsciously bigoted or something...

[wautd]

Any layman who thinks their opinion about a certain subject is at least as valid as an expert in this subject

[Samuel]

Just to counter that, I don't seem to recall anybody actually telling me it was wrong. I already thought it was gross and then found the Bible's stance on it on my own. I don't know how much influence that has over my current gut feeling on the matter, but even now I have to actively remind myself that there's really nothing wrong with it...

Given the Bible is what most people use to justify their hatred of it, it's probably safe to say it plays a fairly big part.

Let me put it this way; I haven't had much trouble dismissing many other things from that part of the book out of hand.

I don't want to hate people for that stuff. Unfortunately I'm subconsciously bigoted or something...

Probably because whenever you think about gays you think about anal sex. Seriously, people don't get the same reactions thinking about lesbians.

Saw another one today. People getting all worked up and scared because[an asteroid or something] will hit with a force "1000 times as great as the Hiroshima bomb". I guess this requires having some knowledge of atomic bombs, but how old or intelligent do you have to be to realise that bigger and more powerful atomic bombs have not only been created, but have also been detonated? And surely even the biggest idiot realises that the world hasn't been destroyed yet. Does it really take much to put these two facts together?

How about "nukes are special"? When people think that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were really different then the firebombing we carried out.

[General Zod]

How about "nukes are special"? When people think that the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were really different then the firebombing we carried out.

The big difference is that firebombing with traditional explosives won't render an area completely uninhabitable for decades thanks to radiation contamination after the fact. So in that sense, yes, nukes are special.

[Darth Wong]

Any layman who thinks their opinion about a certain subject is at least as valid as an expert in this subject

That's a good one: people who are hostile toward expertise, particularly scientific expertise. This is often associated with conspiracy theorists (part of conspiracy theory mentality is to dismiss "mainstream" or "establishment" thought, which is a buzzword for "all of the people most qualified to discuss the subject").

There are smart people out there that I disagree with, but I don't think I have ever met a smart person in my life who would engage in the practice of categorically denigrating "mainstream science".

[Edi]

I'm referring to the wide-eyed, gullible morons who were recruited by the crapload as KGB dupes and informants without their realization.

You mean the "Western communist kid" type of dude who says everything about communism was okay and Stalin was all right about everything - and if you press them hard enough, they would even say Stalin wasn't extreme or "hardcore" enough and Mao and the cultural revolution was the real deal - met some of those, heh. They also tend to be from nations most removed from the Second World... like Europe and the US. Little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Oh, and a common reference to most industrialized First World nations as "decadent". Yeah.

Yep, them. There was a really sizable contingent of those in Finland and many of them are still in prominent positions, but that particular poison is slowly being purged from the system. But one telling fact is that the List of Tiitinen being kept in the Security Police's archives has not been made public despite repeated demands to do so. It would expose a fuckload of current and retired politicians of the older generation as dupes and collaborators of Stasi, the DDR secret police. As far as I know, there is no similar list of KGB collaborators/dupes, but if there was, that would be even more explosive stuff.

[Junghalli]

Any layman who thinks their opinion about a certain subject is at least as valid as an expert in this subject

Oh God yes. When somebody starts saying that "mainstream scientists" are wrong because their armchair googling or gut feeling tells them so, it's one of the surest signs that you're dealing with a total wanker. I'm thinking of global warming deniers right now.

[Jade Falcon]

Ah yes, that's a good one. I recall scoffing at Holocaust Deniers even when I was a kid.

I remember there's a documentary on Youtube called "Auschwitz, the Nazis and the Final Solution". There was a comment there that the BBC were not a reliable source on this because 'they didn't properly report on Palestine recently'.

First off, what that has to do with a historical documentary produced by the respected historian Lawrence Rees I don't know. Secondly, the guy said that the claims were vastly inflated of the number of jews killed in the camps. He again parroted that both Rees and the BBC were not reliable sources. I challenged him as to what he called a reliable source and he basically said that unless you were living and were there, you were not reliable.

Now bear in mind, this documentary also had interviews with former SS staff from the camps who fully admitted all that went on.

A second holocaust conspiracy theory I've heard is that Auschwitz and other camps in the East were in truth rebuilt by the Soviet Union after being destroyed by the Nazis, but on a far larger scale so as to make the Germans look even worse.

[Zadius]

Anyone who bought the book "Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About" from that infomercial scam artist Kevin Trudeau. If you think some random guy on TV knows more about how to treat your ailments than a doctor, you're a moron.

I'm sorry to say that my Grandma has both the hard cover and paperback versions. And she's a YEC.

[Forum Troll]

The big difference is that firebombing with traditional explosives won't render an area completely uninhabitable for decades thanks to radiation contamination after the fact.

Hiroshima was never abandoned as uninhabitable, and its population returned to prewar levels by a decade later, while a far greater population than that now, like Nagasaki. Anything with a long half-life like a number of years doesn't release radiation at so much as 1 / 1000th the rate of a similar isotope with a half-life under a day.

[Civil War Man]

3. That Christianity has no external influence. I remember getting into an argument w/ my mother a few years back that eggs and bunnies at easter were hold-overs from pagan fertility festivals while she exclaimed that they were symbols of "rebirth" and "the empty tomb!" and such.

This is not necessarily a sign of stupidity. It could simply be indicative of a sheltered upbringing.

My mother, for example, didn't know about Greek and Norse mythology until she was in high school. Granted, once she learned about them, she very quickly became effectively atheist (I say effectively because she considers herself agnostic) because she was immediately able to think, "If this is mythology, what is Christianity?" She later went on to teach, and at one point taught mythology in a junior high social studies class (and included religions like Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam instead of just focusing on dead ones like Greek and Egyptian).

If you had asked her about pagan influences on Christian holidays before she took that class in high school, though, she would have had no idea what you were talking about.

[Darth Wong]

It's true, some myths require academic knowledge to defeat. Unlike the Noah's Ark story which I used as my first example, which anyone should be able to see through if he knows about basic concepts like "animals need to eat" or "polar bears don't live in Egypt".

[Samuel]

The big difference is that firebombing with traditional explosives won't render an area completely uninhabitable for decades thanks to radiation contamination after the fact.

Hiroshima was never abandoned as uninhabitable, and its population returned to prewar levels by a decade later, while a far greater population than that now, like Nagasaki. Anything with a long half-life like a number of years doesn't release radiation at so much as 1 / 1000th the rate of a similar isotope with a half-life under a day.

It requires a bit of knowledge to know that. It isn't immediately apparent to anyone who doesn't have at least basic knowledge in physics. So it is stupid, but not a sign that an individual is stupid, just ignorant.

Say one walking to the lab "Newton was a fraud". Anyone who thinks they can completely re-write physics...

[Forum Troll]

The big difference is that firebombing with traditional explosives won't render an area completely uninhabitable for decades thanks to radiation contamination after the fact.

Hiroshima was never abandoned as uninhabitable, and its population returned to prewar levels by a decade later, while a far greater population than that now, like Nagasaki. Anything with a long half-life like a number of years doesn't release radiation at so much as 1 / 1000th the rate of a similar isotope with a half-life under a day.

It requires a bit of knowledge to know that. It isn't immediately apparent to anyone who doesn't have at least basic knowledge in physics. So it is stupid, but not a sign that an individual is stupid, just ignorant.

Oh, I was just replying to the inaccurate comment earlier in the thread, not meaning to imply that such was an example of the thread title's topic.