The cause of most problems?

[OldWiseGuy]

Isn't the reason we have so many problems is that we are really .......stupid? I know that most of the problems I've had in my life were due to stupidity on my part and that of others close to me.

Doesn't laziness, greed, thoughtlessness, carelessness, and dishonesty really add up to stupidity? And can't one stupid act undo much of the good we've done?

Can America face the fact that our national problems are the result of our national stupidity?

Can we 'educate' the stupidity out of ourselves? When would we start, in grade school, or would it be a post-graduate course?

Is stupidity too strong a term? Is this a valid claim or is there not enough stupidity to worry about? If so how can we end the scourge of stupidity that plagues America?

 

[revanneosl]

Cue the bashing of school teachers in 3...2....

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Cue the bashing of school teachers in 3...2....

Are you, by any chance, a school teacher?

 

[com7fy8]

Isn't the reason we have so many problems is that we are really .......stupid? I know that most of the problems I've had in my life were due to stupidity on my part and that of others close to me.

In my case, yes I have fooled my own self and didn't know the difference.

And can't one stupid act undo much of the good we've done?

And with God we can start fresh and do more and better than however we have messed up

Can we 'educate' the stupidity out of ourselves?

no

Stupidity is included in sin in our nature. Only God can change us, with His correction > Hebrews 12:4-11.

Without Jesus, "you can do nothing" (in John 5:15).

"'Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.'" (Mathew 11:29)

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Im stupid.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Not bashing school teachers but…

My oldest daughter graduated high school in 2014. She took geometry, algebra II, and trigonometry and passed with B+ grades. She still remembers all the formulas but cannot balance a check book or figure out interest on loans. Perhaps the schools could throw in some stuff that is used in the real world. Loan officers and car salesmen don’t really care that the battle of New Orleans was fought after the treaty of Ghent.

 

[Locutus]

I think laziness causes more problems than stupidity. But then, you have to be stupid to be lazy (because it kills you faster and makes your short life harder), so chickens/eggs.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

"In her mordantly compelling Lugano Report2, Susan George vividly draws attention to the inadequacy of rational argument as a means of influencing people. In starting to consider alternatives to the potentially disastrous practices of global capitalism, she writes:-

This section has to start on a personal note because frankly, power relations being what they are, I feel at once moralistic and silly proposing alternatives. More times than I care to count I have attended events ending with a rousing declaration about what ‘should’ or ‘must’ occur. So many well-meaning efforts so totally neglect the crucial dimension of power that I try to avoid them now unless I think I can introduce an element of realism that might otherwise be absent.

…because I am constantly being asked ‘what to do’, I begin with some negative suggestions. The first is not to be trapped by the ‘should’, the ‘must’ and the ‘forehead-slapping school’. Assuming that any change, because it would contribute to justice, equity and peace, need only to be explained to be adopted is the saddest and most irritating kind of naivety. Many good, otherwise intelligent people seem to believe that once powerful individuals and institutions have actually understood the gravity of the crisis (any crisis) and the urgent need for its remedy, they will smack their brows, admit they have been wrong all along and, in a flash of revelation, instantly redirect their behaviour by 180 degrees.

While ignorance and stupidity must be given their due, most things come out the way they do because the powerful want them to come out that way." (emphasis mine).

Source: Power, Responsibility and Freedom, by David Smail.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Isn't the reason we have so many problems is that we are really .......stupid? I know that most of the problems I've had in my life were due to stupidity on my part and that of others close to me.

Doesn't laziness, greed, thoughtlessness, carelessness, and dishonesty really add up to stupidity? And can't one stupid act undo much of the good we've done?

Can America face the fact that our national problems are the result of our national stupidity?

Can we 'educate' the stupidity out of ourselves? When would we start, in grade school, or would it be a post-graduate course?

Is stupidity too strong a term? Is this a valid claim or is there not enough stupidity to worry about? If so how can we end the scourge of stupidity that plagues America?

Sometimes we have problems because we are too smart. Too smart for our own good.
Or so smart that we invent potentially dangerous technology while lacking the maturity to deal with that technology in a responsible manner.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Its usually clever people who pick on the stupid ones, its a term of abuse for people who sholdnt be taking the blame. After all, "clever", is that meant to entail a bullying attitude?

terms like retard, idiot, backwards, slow. Theyre emotive as well as descriptive.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

While ignorance and stupidity must be given their due, most things come out the way they do because the powerful want them to come out that way." (emphasis mine).

True, and very disturbing.

A few years back the 'powerful' in my county helped a company build a 'green energy' plant in the form of a large manure digester facility, for the purpose of 'cleaning up our lakes' from manure runoff. The county spent millions of taxpayer dollars on one of the processes. The outcome (ref. above bolded statement)? Huge manure spills, lawsuits, and no benefit to our lakes (the manure used is so far away from the lakes that it never posed a danger). And a second digester facility is being built nearby.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Sometimes we have problems because we are too smart. Too smart for our own good.
Or so smart that we invent potentially dangerous technology while lacking the maturity to deal with that technology in a responsible manner.

It's worse than that. Our snowplow service driver of many years retired, replaced by others who were instructed how to plow our parking lots. They must be deaf, stupid, just don't want to be told how to do their job. They push snow into parking places, tear up the grass, and push over parking signs. This is what I meant in the OP, not so much the decisions made by the rich and powerful, but the everyday activities of the common people.

 

[com7fy8]

@OldWiseGuy Since when were only the rich human?

 

[quatona]

It's worse than that. Our snowplow service driver of many years retired, replaced by others who were instructed how to plow our parking lots. They must be deaf, stupid, just don't want to be told how to do their job. They push snow into parking places, tear up the grass, and push over parking signs. This is what I meant in the OP,

Faced with this phenomenon, I wouldn´t even know if it is owed to stupidity or laziness/indifference/thoughtlessness/carelessness/incompetence/clumsiness... Actually, stupidity would not be my first guess.

 

[Locutus]

Faced with this phenomenon, I wouldn´t even know if it is owed to stupidity or laziness/indifference/thoughtlessness/carelessness/incompetence/clumsiness... Actually, stupidity would not be my first guess.

Laziness, for sure

 

[OldWiseGuy]

@OldWiseGuy Since when were only the rich human?

I don't exclude the rich and powerful from doing stupid things. It's just that I see the others more often when I go "outamongum".

 

[Cearbhall]

Isn't the reason we have so many problems is that we are really .......stupid?

It only seems like stupidity because of our needs and expectations in modern civilization. Evolution has given us the mental capacity to form complex societies and machinery without giving every person the impulse control and rational thinking needed to manage these things. We're creatures of instinct and survival. We're the best on the planet at the things we were built for.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

We're creatures of instinct and survival. We're the best on the planet at the things we were built for.

Right behind cockroaches.

 

[com7fy8]

It's just that I see the others more often when I go "outamongum".

I'm looking up "outamongum" on the Net > oh . . . ok. You mix more with the not so rich.

While I was living out homeless, I mixed with a variety of not so well-to-doers, but also I shared with rather educated and well-to-do people. And I found there are ones of any group who can be surprisingly caring and kind and helpful, and others who can be very mean and into themselves. Even among humanitarian activists and professionals > there can be both.

And now I have access to sharing with people who have mansions for summer cottages, and I share with town housing residents. "At every level", there are caring ones and ones not exactly.

So, I think, Old Wise Guy, each person's character, not circumstances and connections, can be more or less his or her dictator. Doing what is stupid, then, can be not about education, but what one's nature dictates that the person is able to accept and perceive and do. How we are ready to react, right in a moment unexpected, can be an indication of our real nature.

And because I can still be controlling and not first about caring with hope for people, I can still be easily stupidified by paranoia. But as I become more naturally caring, my reacting and mind things get better, too - - like they are the caboose

So, may be we could say there are people who are going caboose first . . . downhill . . . with no locomotive. And this stupidity brings the evil.

I think Satan in Heaven was the definition of stupid. He was in such perfect circumstances, with all the loving and worshiping God, putting God first where He belongs, for everyone's best good . . . yet Satan was not satisfied and tried to change Heaven itself > the definition of stupid > trying to change from all that is so good, and trying to fight God!!

And part of the reason for the stupidity of humans is we are, like Satan, not satisfied with "enough". Because deep-down inside us we have still the biting and gnawing of sin eating us alive (1 Peter 5:8), so that we are desperate to feel something nicer by using pleasure. But physical pleasure can not solve a spiritual trouble. Physical meds can not cure a spiritual personality torment. So, the stupidity of sin has people driven for pleasure for pseudo-relief. And a lot of the fighting and hurting is connected with how ones are seeking their fake pleasure relief, and there is how they react to not getting their treasure pleasures.

"Therefore", the Bible says, "be content with such things as you have," in Hebrews 13:5. In God's love, having Heaven's goodness of satisfaction (Romans 5:5), we can be unconditionally content And this helps us not to do things stupid, of trying to use material means to get true rest and peace and joy.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I'm looking up "outamongum" on the Net > oh . . . ok. You mix more with the not so rich.

While I was living out homeless, I mixed with a variety of not so well-to-doers, but also I shared with rather educated and well-to-do people. And I found there are ones of any group who can be surprisingly caring and kind and helpful, and others who can be very mean and into themselves. Even among humanitarian activists and professionals > there can be both.

And now I have access to sharing with people who have mansions for summer cottages, and I share with town housing residents. "At every level", there are caring ones and ones not exactly.

So, I think, Old Wise Guy, each person's character, not circumstances and connections, can be more or less his or her dictator. Doing what is stupid, then, can be not about education, but what one's nature dictates that the person is able to accept and perceive and do. How we are ready to react, right in a moment unexpected, can be an indication of our real nature.

And because I can still be controlling and not first about caring with hope for people, I can still be easily stupidified by paranoia. But as I become more naturally caring, my reacting and mind things get better, too - - like they are the caboose

So, may be we could say there are people who are going caboose first . . . downhill . . . with no locomotive. And this stupidity brings the evil.

I think Satan in Heaven was the definition of stupid. He was in such perfect circumstances, with all the loving and worshiping God, putting God first where He belongs, for everyone's best good . . . yet Satan was not satisfied and tried to change Heaven itself > the definition of stupid > trying to change from all that is so good, and trying to fight God!!

And part of the reason for the stupidity of humans is we are, like Satan, not satisfied with "enough". Because deep-down inside us we have still the biting and gnawing of sin eating us alive (1 Peter 5:8), so that we are desperate to feel something nicer by using pleasure. But physical pleasure can not solve a spiritual trouble. Physical meds can not cure a spiritual personality torment. So, the stupidity of sin has people driven for pleasure for pseudo-relief. And a lot of the fighting and hurting is connected with how ones are seeking their fake pleasure relief, and there is how they react to not getting their treasure pleasures.

"Therefore", the Bible says, "be content with such things as you have," in Hebrews 13:5. In God's love, having Heaven's goodness of satisfaction (Romans 5:5), we can be unconditionally content And this helps us not to do things stupid, of trying to use material means to get true rest and peace and joy.

I wouldn't slice and dice it quite that way. I see people not like a "bull in a china shop" but more like 'cows in a china shop', simply unaware of what they are doing.