The Idiot’s Guide to Stupidity

Most people are stupid. It’s pretty obvious. They say stupid things. They do stupid things. They are just plain stupid. There are many ways to tell if a person is stupid, but one of the most obvious is if they believe most people are stupid.

In days gone by there were few career choices for stupid people. Politics and organised religion were (and still are) the preferred destinations for stupidity. Sport is another. Breakfast radio has also become a popular career move in recent years, and anyone willing to argue with a public servant about rules and regulations will discover another major intelligence vacuum.

However, a simple and brief trawl through the internet not only shows that most people are stupid, it proves they have taken over. In the aforementioned days gone by, there was a stigma involved with stupidity. It was swept under the carpet and stupid people pretended they were not stupid in the time honoured tradition of keeping their mouths shut unless it was absolutely necessary to say something.

The internet has changed all that. Stupid people now have a voice and they flaunt it. They rejoice in their stupidity. They revel in their ignorance. They frolic in their idiocy. They have come out and achieved equality.

How do you identify someone stupid on the internet? Ever heard of shooting fish in a barrel? It’s that easy. Just post an opinion in a public forum. A non-stupid person will either agree or disagree and, if inclined, will counter your opinion with one of their own. This expression of opinions will then end, or develop into an interesting discussion. Good luck with this, because the stupid person is lurking and becoming angry. He or she cannot discern opinion from fact. One or both of you have just said something that threatens the very fabric of society, world peace and possibly the existence of the universe, so this needs to be rectified immediately. Using all the meagre faculties at their disposal, the stupid person leaps into the fray with a comment that can be summarised as, “you’re an idiot.” Or, “you are both idiots” (I have corrected the spelling for this article).

The people who were having the discussion will now grab some popcorn and make themselves comfortable, because the flame has been lit and stupid people from around the world are on their way, attracted to a small distant puff of stupidity in the same way sharks can detect blood in the water from many miles away. The next comment will be, “YOU’RE the idiot!” (I have corrected the spelling for this article). The row will then reach heady heights of foolishness and, if we (the non-stupid people) are lucky, a certain level of unsophisticated entertainment. It’s a kind of online Dumb and Dumber.

There are times that stupid people exhibit an element of cunning or accidently say something sensible. However, if you agree with them they will turn on you, as you can’t possibly be intelligent enough to have the same thoughts as them on anything. Remember, most stupid people cannot remain undetected for long.

But what about the stupid people who have turned stupidity into a virtue, pretending, and convincing non-stupid people, that they are intelligent. Those people are arrogant and superior or – the biggest giveaway of all – people ‘who don’t suffer fools gladly.’ They are often described as unpleasant characters, but are excused because they have a ‘fierce’ or ‘sharp’ intellect. They don’t. These very stupid people are actually dangerous, as people can be fooled into voting for them, and stupid always reverts to type afterwards.

So, what are we, the truly intelligent people, to do if most people are stupid? Ignore them? Lower our expectations? Reclassify the level of stupidity to reflect the times?

For me, I don’t care. THEY’RE ALL IDIOTS!

Do you agree with Steven? Has stupidity gone too far?