My friends asked me whom do I call stupid. Considering my loathe to stupidity, they wanted to understand my model. Here are my 10 criteria for identifying a person as stupid. Two questions for you. How many do you disagree? What percentage of the world do you think fall under this group?
- Anyone who thinks the earth is flat or universe was created 5000 years ago.
- Anyone who looks at the evidence and turns the other side to say my belief is the truth
- Anyone who thinks that they have a divine commandment to impose their will on others or discriminate against them
- Anyone who preaches against contraception or the empowerment of women
- Anyone believes they are superior by the accident of birth
- Anyone who is expecting logic to prove the non-existence
- Anyone who wants to procreates indiscriminately
- Anyone who acts like the reason for all their problems is someone else
- Anyone who wants to take the world to the values from the Bronze Age civilisations
- Anyone who looks at a new scientific evidence and claims that their faith encompasses those evidence.
So far the answer to these questions has been
Agree: 100%
Population percentage: 80% approx
I feel there are two main reasons why it is hard for people who agree with the above facts and still not able to distil it.
- The erosion of the premise that the majority of the people are not decent and not stupid is beyond their realm of acceptance. It shakes the foundations of camaraderie and kinship.
- People have friends and family who fall into this category. It creates a cognitive dissonance when they have to deal with the two. It is hard to call someone you love, adore, respect as stupid.
The one point I keep telling myself is reality and as an extension truth has no obligation to be to my liking. It is for me to stare, admire and feel challenged.
I am definitely looking to convert this into a model and introduce a dangerousness coefficient based on it. I will definitely update the blog after that.
Demystifying a skeptic's world 