<story><title>Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)</title><url>http://www.zoon.cc/stupid/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kdamken</author><text>What makes a person stupid? If I have a friend who squanders their money while I save and build up wealth, are they stupid? What if they have a much happier and more fulfilling life than I do?&lt;p&gt;If you have a difficult job (like brain surgeon), but are terrible at most of the other parts of your life, does that make you stupid?&lt;p&gt;Are slow readers stupid? What if they invent a product or start a business that makes them a lot of money?&lt;p&gt;“Smart” and “stupid” are such harsh, black and white terms. They leave no room for the many shades of gray in between.&lt;p&gt;We all think we’re smart, even if we say we don’t. No one wants to be the dumb kid.&lt;p&gt;I feel like being “smart” usually just means you can think and process information a little bit faster than others. But like having a super fast cpu installed, it’s really a matter of what you do with it. You could write a bestselling novel on a slower computer. You could have a super computer and just go on Facebook all day.&lt;p&gt;It seems like every time I feel like I’m smart, I see someone who I thought was dumber who is more successful or happier than me, and I wonder if I was that much smarter in the first place.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeash</author><text>One thing that really fascinates me is that stupidity is one of the few genetic handicaps that society considers acceptable to criticize and blame people for.&lt;p&gt;If a person gets hit by a bus because they have some muscular disorder which causes them to fall in front of it, we would have nothing but sympathy for them. If they get hit by a bus because they&amp;#x27;re too stupid to remember to look for traffic, most people would criticize them harshly for being stupid.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s really amazing is that there&amp;#x27;s a cutoff point. If someone has an IQ of 90, you can blame them for all their stupid actions. I&amp;#x27;d go so far as to say that not only can you, but it&amp;#x27;s expected. But if the person has an IQ of 70 suddenly everything changes, people become sympathetic, and blaming them for their own stupidity is super taboo.&lt;p&gt;To be clear, I&amp;#x27;m not trying to pretend that I&amp;#x27;m superior in this respect. I do this just like most of the people I see. But when I start thinking about it, I really can&amp;#x27;t figure out how it makes any sense.</text></comment>
<story><title>Basic Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)</title><url>http://www.zoon.cc/stupid/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kdamken</author><text>What makes a person stupid? If I have a friend who squanders their money while I save and build up wealth, are they stupid? What if they have a much happier and more fulfilling life than I do?&lt;p&gt;If you have a difficult job (like brain surgeon), but are terrible at most of the other parts of your life, does that make you stupid?&lt;p&gt;Are slow readers stupid? What if they invent a product or start a business that makes them a lot of money?&lt;p&gt;“Smart” and “stupid” are such harsh, black and white terms. They leave no room for the many shades of gray in between.&lt;p&gt;We all think we’re smart, even if we say we don’t. No one wants to be the dumb kid.&lt;p&gt;I feel like being “smart” usually just means you can think and process information a little bit faster than others. But like having a super fast cpu installed, it’s really a matter of what you do with it. You could write a bestselling novel on a slower computer. You could have a super computer and just go on Facebook all day.&lt;p&gt;It seems like every time I feel like I’m smart, I see someone who I thought was dumber who is more successful or happier than me, and I wonder if I was that much smarter in the first place.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alain_gilbert</author><text>From the text:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  &amp;quot;A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.&amp;quot;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
I think all of your examples give the person some gain, or causes good to others.</text></comment>