Being a long-suffering thoughtful inquisitive type that can turn their hand to anything I have spent many hours pondering why it seems that most people around me show traits of 'stupidity'.
I've come to the conclusion 'stupidity' is not the issue; 'unthinking' is, and the specific sub-type is 'unable to apply logical analytical thinking'.
I have a relation who, when challenged that the way they're doing some task is the opposite of optimal, responds along the lines "I thought ...". In this case it is a sure sign that no logical analytical thinking took place.
Maybe the crux of the issue is that in general our societies have become so complex and fast-moving that technology, standard procedures (best practice), and fundamental measures of performance are changing so rapidly that very few individuals have the mental energy to keep up throughout their lifetime.
Some I'm sure have become tired of it and given up thinking altogether.
I would suspect many HN readers may have experienced this in their own highly technical fields alone.
For the general population who aren't - or don't want to be - interested in the world in general it's easy to deliberately avoid learning simple tasks and instead 'leave it to an expert' and continue in ignorance, or to expect someone else to have done it for 'convenience', or not want to attempt it because of the dangers due to 'health and safety'.
Here in the UK at least there's a very simple example of the culture behind this: the electric plugs on AC mains-powered equipment.
In the 1970s when a new item of white-goods for the kitchen arrived
it was unlikely to have a plug fitted to the cable although some equipment came with a plug - you fitted it yourself and were expected to have the basic knowledge required to unscrew, strip the insulation from the cores, attach wires to poles, screw-down, insert fuse of specified rating, and screw back together.
It often had a piece of card slid over the prongs with a diagram to help.
In the 1980s the cable almost always arrived with the cores cut to length and stripped and if you were buying a premium item the plug fitted by the supplier.
By the 2000s the plug was always fitted and more often than not it was molded onto the cable; and yet some of these still have the wiring diagram card attached. The plugs mostly no longer required the 'lid' removing to get to and replace the fuse - there is a captive sliding carrier that pops out when pried with a flat-blade screwdriver.
By the late 2000s the three metal prongs (earth longest, live and neutral slightly shorter) were encased in a plastic sheath which you have to remember to remove or else it won't fit into the wall socket.
Now, all of these incremental creeping changes can be seen as product improvements to provide greater convenience.
But the result is we now have several generations that have no idea about even the basics of the second most important technology in their lives: electricity (after water and food). They need an 'expert' to do it for them.
Ditto for basic plumbing skills, routine car maintenance, and more and more I notice even preparing basic meals, cooking and baking from raw unprocessed ingredients.
Oh, and a humorous anecdote on the subject of food: about 15 years ago a 17 year-old friend of mine was visiting for a week and I asked if she would like fish and chips (fried potatoes to the North Americans!). I grew up on a farm and so fetched the 25kg bag and selected some potatoes ready for peeling and chipping.
This 17 year old (who ate chips from chip-shops frequently) had no idea that to make chips required peeling and slicing raw potatoes and was incredulous at the process; she 'thought' chips just grew as long square pieces of potato - see: "unthinking".
I was left speechless that something that I considered so obvious and fundamental had escaped her for 17 years!
Multiply these examples up for every major and minor aspect of coping in a modern technology-based society and the result is the appearance of 'stupidity'.
There's a difference between "clever" and "not stupid." One can be a stupid "clever" person. These people are "clever," because they know what butters their bread. That doesn't mean they aren't also dumb hicks.
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