Post: #1

I had this conversation with a Chinese-American colleague. This guy was born and raised in Southern California so he’s been around Hispanic people all of his life:

Him: Some Hispanic people look like white people
Me: Well there’s a lot of different types of Hispanic people. They can be white, black, asian, mixed, native blood etc.
Him: What do you mean? Doesn’t Hispanic equal Mexican?
Me: you’re so fucking ignorant. Of course not. Hispanic people come from many countries which were colonized by the Spanish. What do you think people from somewhere like Honduras or El Salvador are characterized as?
Him:….
Me: They’re Hispanic
Him: [visibly getting angry] So I’m a fucking idiot? How am I supposed to know this?

Me: Ok, forget it, here’s another question for you. Name me some countries in Asia
Him: China, Japan, both Koreas, Taiwan…that’s it right?
Me: What about SE Asia?
Him: Oh, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines…that covers all of Asia right?
Me: You think so? Where does the continent of Asia start on its western side?
Him: I dunno…China?
Me: No, what continent is Iran in?
Him: Middle East?
Me: That’s not a continent. Take a guess…
Him: I don’t know…
Me: OK what continent is India in?
Him: I don’t know – India?
Me: India is not a continent.
Him: Really? I thought it was!
Me: No India is in Asia. Do you know that India borders China?
Him: I kind of did
Me: So where does Asia start, on the western side? Do you think you could define Asia on a map of the world with no text on it?
Him: I don’t know? I’m not a fucking geographer. This requires expert knowledge. It’s a stupid question. It’s a bit like me asking somebody to calculate APR on a mortgage. It’s specialized knowledge.
Me: Now it’s not, I learnt this when I was around 10 years old. I’d give my 15 year old nephew shit if he couldn’t answer it.
Him: Well I disagree. It is specialist knowledge. I don’t watch the news so I don’t know about other countries.

This guy has an MBA from a good university, is a mortgage expert and makes around 6 figures. Wouldn’t you expect a guy of his background to know something so basic?

Have you guys ever come across many people who are smart on paper but don’t know shit about the wider world?

Post: #2

"Educated dummies". This sounds like many of the Ivy League types I've met, although you could lump in any "top school".

Post: #3

Out of the thousands of people I met at university (American Ivy League...whoohoo) only four guys 'got it'.

And I still keep in touch with them.

I also worked at another university and there were two philosophy professors there who actually were smart enough to live life. The others were pretty dumb when it came to reality.

Post: #4

All the time.

My theory is that as everything becomes more specialized in the education system, or irrelevant to real life, and people are able to bury themselves in niches/subcultures during their own time, a lot of common sense and general worldly knowledge will become increasingly lost.

Post: #5

Don't worry. Globalization will wipe away any annoying things like borders and cultures. It won't matter who dates who or where anyone is from. Your friend is a glimpse into the future.

Post: #6

This is the essence of academic life as a dead end, whether bookish nerd prof/TA's or omega students with no social life.
Book-smart, but not street-smart. There is no pride in this shit.
I'd rather be jack of all trades, master of maybe one, than locked into hyper focused academics where one is so overloaded yet unable to deal with basic social interaction, thus unable to apply their "superior intellect.".

Post: #7

The hispanic thing is consistently shocking.

The fact that, in Latin America, there are white people, descended from Europeans, is frankly shocking to just about everyone college educated white American I talk to.

Black and hispanic people, who deal with complex racial identities all the time, share no such idiocy about these things. White people have the "privilege" of completely ignoring racial realities to the point that they are shockingly ignorant. Lower ses races have no such privilege.

Its funny because white Hispanics in the USA often play the race card to their advantage, as if a rich white kid from the upper echelons of Latin America needs preferential treatment in the USA. Steve Sailer refers to these people as "Conquistador-Americans".

Post: #8

The whole education system is about specialization, so then you get a specialized degree in one area and are considered an expert in that field. This then leads people to believe they are intelligent, but are unable (more often unwilling) to gain knowledge on a variety of subjects. Just one of the byproducts of a shitty education.

Post: #9

The tassel in the academic graduation hat symbolizes a limp penis in the masonic traditions.

Is actually quite funny - the peasants may learn, but only according to certain guidelines, which serve to indoctrinate them and make out-of-the-box thinking more difficult. And in our current system education is highly specialized and becoming more so.

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/ for more info on the deliberate destruction of the education system

Post: #10

I've thought for some time that those with degrees are less intelligent than those without.

Post: #11

I lived in a shared dorm first year with several people. One of them was a girl studying law who had gotten perfect grades to get into uni. Everything straight A's. She was a hot redhead and she was also super dumb with practical information.

She put a tin can of beans in the microwave once and turned it on to heat it up.
She didnt know if the big bang or the dinosaurs came first.
You could tell her the most ridiculous stories and she would accept it as fact.

She had amazing memory and retention skills but zero analytical ability.

Post: #12

Being educated and having a thirst for knowledge seem to have diverged with very few ticking both boxes.

The ancients had it right; that education, meaning "to bring out", was about fostering a desire to learn and think for oneself, not regurgitate meaningless facts and theories.

Post: #13

(07-30-2014 07:24 AM)Atlantic Wrote:  I lived in a shared dorm first year with several people. One of them was a girl studying law who had gotten perfect grades to get into uni. Everything straight A's. She was a hot redhead and she was also super dumb with practical information.

She put a tin can of beans in the microwave once and turned it on to heat it up.
She didnt know if the big bang or the dinosaurs came first.
You could tell her the most ridiculous stories and she would accept it as fact.

She had amazing memory and retention skills but zero analytical ability.

In the old times (pre 1990-95) no intellectuals you encountered at universities were that dumb - not men nor women.

Post: #14

Three examples come to mind.
Australian college-age guy, in my Indonesian exchange program many years ago: "The street our boarding house is on is called Mandala St, must have named it after Nelson Mandela." Some leeway here, but still, "mandala" is a key concept in Indian and Southeast Asian culture, and is spelled differently from Mandela.
Director of same college program, again Australian but in his thirties, examining a biography of the Marquis de Sade that was in my bag: "Huh, who's this? Never heard of him."
And worst of all, a Tamil girl I hung out with in college (US, top tier school), who often complained, for example, how racist someone was to ask her, "Where are you from?":
"Bali's part of Indonesia? No way." This one is pretty common, but from her position of privileged Asian victim, unforgivable.

Post: #15

(07-30-2014 07:48 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(07-30-2014 07:24 AM)Atlantic Wrote:  I lived in a shared dorm first year with several people. One of them was a girl studying law who had gotten perfect grades to get into uni. Everything straight A's. She was a hot redhead and she was also super dumb with practical information.

She put a tin can of beans in the microwave once and turned it on to heat it up.
She didnt know if the big bang or the dinosaurs came first.
You could tell her the most ridiculous stories and she would accept it as fact.

She had amazing memory and retention skills but zero analytical ability.

In the old times (pre 1990-95) no intellectuals you encountered at universities were that dumb - not men nor women.

We would tell her stuff like the batman movies are actually based on a real guy.
She had child like gullibility where everything was accepted as fact.

Ha just remembered that we should her how to cook the 'best' eggs but adding in pepper, butter and oil into the WATER as she boiled eggs (cause eggs soak in the flavour of course). I visited a year later and she was still doing it.

Post: #16

Paul Graham's perspective on the difference between being wise and being smart.

Post: #17

There are a lot of people out there with high IQ's who've never learned anything outside of what they had to learn in high school or university. They've never read a book they didn't have to and never consumed any substantive news. Although one usually does predict the other, just because they have relatively high brain power doesn't mean that they're intellectually curious.

Post: #18

To be honest; every single person on the planet can seem 'ignorant' to certain topics [You can't know it all].

This is an example of something you would assume everyone knows, but sometimes what you're exposed to can limit your education.

I know many highly intelligent people who would appear 'stupid' given specific subject matter. As an example: My cousin is medical graduate working for an 'infectious diseases' lab in the UK. His social skills are average & his public speaking skills are even worse. If he was to talk about anything other than his area of expertise he would stumble & mumble his way through likely leading to a perception of 'unintelligent'.

Post: #19

They're called "liberals"

Post: #20

I run a successful business based around creative properties. I could talk about this subject all day and am considered to be a minor expert in my field. Hand me a wrench and tell me to fix a lawnmower and I'd look like the biggest idiot on the planet.

Intelligence is subjective. Some guy who can fix cars or butcher a deer would probably consider a New York City lawyer to be stupid if they tried to talk auto-mechanics and hunting. Likewise the lawyer would think the other dude was dumb if they tried to talk law.

Everyone can teach you something.

Post: #21

I met these kind of people everywhere, United States, Europe, Asia, you name it. Then I ask myself why, but more importantly how these countries can be more developed than where I come from when most people from them that I meet don't know jack shit about the globe.

Post: #22

While I understand education != intelligence, nothing says "I've shut my brain off" like a Masters degree holder saying they don't read at all. I'm always reading in my lunch hour at work, and I've had one of the hr ditzes ask me about what I'm reading. I try to make polite conversation by asking what she reads, and got an answer along the lines of "I find it tough to just pick up a book and start reading." To me that's a sign of a lack of intellectual curiosity. I guess that's why she works in hr.

Post: #23

If an American's favorite book is "The Great Gatsby," it means they haven't read a book since high school.

Post: #24

It's not so much that they don't know basic facts; I find that highly educated people are linear thinkers. They lack the capacity for abstract thought and creativity. It makes sense when you consider that higher education is highly rigid and conformist. These people can ace a linear algebra course but seem to have great difficulty in discerning simple tasks. They're also much more susceptible to propaganda, given the fact that Ivy League institutions have close links to the upper echelons of society.

Post: #25

EVERY FUCKING DAY!