Thread: Stupidity Theory.

First of all let’s define stupidity. Stupidity is defined as the will to self-destruct unwillingly (source found from Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia). Stupidity is found everywhere whenever we look. Everything may look stupid to us. What though is stupidity? How did we get it? How it is measured?

Let’s give an example: Someone is giving you to choose between 2 pills; a red one and a blue one. He tells you that one of the two pills will give you immortality, and the other will kill you. If you had taken the blue pill for example, and it gave you immortality, people would say that you made a very clever decision, and therefore they would characterize you as lucky and, maybe as a very smart person; otherwise if you took the red pill, people, and you, will say that this was the stupidest mistake you had ever done, since it has killed you.

Another example is Einstein’s Letter to Roosevelt. Einstein is said to be thought as the smartest person of all times. During World War II, he thought it would be wise to send a letter to President Roosevelt at the time, in which he told that the Germans were thinking of developing a nuclear weapon using his famous equation (E=mc2 ). President Roosevelt knew that a letter from Einstein would not to be ignored, and he started a program to develop a nuclear device. The result is that the bomb was used on Japan killing thousands of innocent people and polluting the atmosphere with high radiation in which even today people suffer from. Einstein then knew deep inside him that he had made a stupid mistake, a stupid act that in first was thought to be wise, but now seems infinitely stupid.

My definition of stupidity is “to go from place A to place B but not from the closest direction” i.e. going From San Francisco to Los Angeles though New York. I believe that this would be characterized stupid my most of the people.

Let’s take then my example: If it is stupid to go from A to B without using the smallest route available (in which much times is a straight line), but we can find this stupidity elsewhere rather than humans, in animals i.e. cats, dogs etc not following the same direction, in the physical phenomena i.e. rivers not going on a straight line, and most importantly inside the atom! The quantum theory states that for a particle to move from place A to place B, it can take ALL possible routes from A to B. So, even the sub-particles in the atom behave stupidly, therefore they are stupid!



One of the most famous quotes of Einstein was: “Two things are infinite: The universe and stupidity, and I’m not sure about the first”. I agree with Einstein up to a point. Universe and stupidity are infinite, but if we doubt about Universe’s infinity, we must doubt about Stupidity’s infinity since, as I have shown above, stupidity relies on matter to be achieved.

As the term that stupidity is just “lack of intelligence” let me ask you something; you consider yourself intelligent, right? Well if you are reading my article, then you must be. My question is: What is the last time you did anything stupid? A month ago? A year ago? Or 2 hours ago? You spilled your coffee by accident on your trousers while reading a newspaper. How stupid! Does this mean that you are lacking intelligence? Or was Einstein stupid when he considered wise to mail a letter to Roosevelt? I think not.

I think since stupidity is found on atom sub particles, and it is random, then stupidity might be considered as “bad luck”. No matter how intelligent a person is, there is always the possibility of falling off the stairs and making fool out of herself. Then why are intelligent people considered less stupid? Well the answer is that they are intelligent enough to eliminate some possibilities that could “unwillingly self destruct them”, and the lest risky solutions are left to exploit them.

So the next time you do something stupid, don’t feel bad. Its just random sub particle movement. It can happen, and probably has, to everybody.



Name: Nikos Nikolaides.
Year of Birth: Feb 18 1985
Email: nikosyn17@yahoo.gr

Special thanks to Giancarlo Livraghi writer of the book “The power of Stupidity” one of the 8 books available in the world that actually study the nature of stupidity in a serious manner.
I would also like to thank the people that made the Documentary Stupidity (Trailervision) http://stupiditythemovie.com/ for their inspiration to the subject.

Originally Posted by nikosyn18

Another example is Einstein’s Letter to Roosevelt. Einstein is said to be thought as the smartest person of all times. During World War II, he thought it would be wise to send a letter to President Roosevelt at the time, in which he told that the Germans were thinking of developing a nuclear weapon using his famous equation (E=mc2 ). President Roosevelt knew that a letter from Einstein would not to be ignored, and he started a program to develop a nuclear device. The result is that the bomb was used on Japan killing thousands of innocent people and polluting the atmosphere with high radiation in which even today people suffer from. Einstein then knew deep inside him that he had made a stupid mistake, a stupid act that in first was thought to be wise, but now seems infinitely stupid.

Stupidity is relative. You probably wouldn't think the dropping of the a-bomb on Japan was stupid if you were a U.S. marine waiting for your orders to invade the Japanese home land, who had a strict "no surrender..fight to the last man" policy...where casulties from such an invasion were estimated to be over a million. Dropping the a-bomb (along with Russia declaring war on Japan) helped end the war, and saved 10 of thousands of American lives, and 10 times more Japanese.

Originally Posted by MacGyver1968

Stupidity is relative.

My Aunt certainly was, bless her....

stupidety is often missunderstood,
forinctance in russian roulette if you win you are rich if you loose you die. It is stupid to play this because of the fact that you can die... but thats not the point. Dieing while playing dosnt make you stupid.

Stupidety is the absence of intelligence.
And intelligence is very hard to mesure, it is not stupidety that you have to define it is intelligence (its not the shadow that you have to define, it is light)
and intelligence is allot of things, some say it is if you learn 100pages of a book by hart (what a computer can do in a second) others say it is the imagination of a person. Another idea is knowing allot of little stuff like what is the capital of germany? or what is the longest river of the world?

define intelligence before absence.

someplace in all this "ignorance" has a place.

President Truman, made the decision to drop the big bombs to show force and win the war. the destructive power was a little more than expected and long range affects unknown. we devised reasons to excuse the results and saving American lives was the first. if he dealt with all politicians deal with today we might be speaking Japanese and we wouldn't be worried about buying American.

Well intelligence is different than knowledge. Knowledge is when you know a lot of facts; Intelligence is when you know how to come up with a situation. Lets say you invent a worthless product, and you make people buy it when they really dont need it. This may not require a lot of knowledge (ie What is the Capital of Zimambwe) but it is an intelligent idea because it is making you money. The product may be stupid (ie might brake after a couple of uses or may be completely useless) but if you sell a lot of them with profit, then this is not stupid at all, for you, the buyer is stupid.

The thing is that I am actually trying to find what is stupidity and how to avoid it; So i am trying to discuss it here.

Thank you.

Stupidity?

Isn't that where you take a course of action (without good reason) where the result may cause some suffereing?

E.G It is stupid not to move out of the way of a moving vehicle, but if that is because you choose to save the life of a child at the expense of your own then it can be said to have been done with good reason.

If kids play 'last across' where they leave it as late as possible to cross before fast moving traffic (through bravery) then natural selection tells us the less brave will survive, where as the brave are 'stupid'.

Stupity usually applies to the young, as they play they find through experiment what hurts and what does not. They learn what is stupid through expreience. Adults accuse children of doing stupid things, remember it is the experience of the adult having gone through the same 'stupid' period that allows the judgement.

So I'm not sure that kids can be stupid unless they repeatedly fail to learn through trial and error.

Stupidity (in my humble opinion) should be confined to adults (e.g. Michael Jerkson hanging his kid out of the window. He could have dropped the child involuntarily for any number of reasons).

not bringing "ignorance" into the discussion of stupid, seems a little obvious to me. adults are capable of ignorance as kids, neither being stupid. stupid and ignorance both reflect lack of knowledge and if this knowledge is added to ignorance and the act still done, becomes stupid. Jackson, could well have been ignorant but the act of hanging a kid out the window
is certainly stupid, because most do know what could happen. frankly i am not sure he understands anything contrary to his own personal desires.

any one not knowing the capital of the UK, is not stupid. many people live in a world of ignorance, knowing or understanding only what is needed to survive in that world. i like the phase "street smart" since most Ive know, that were considered stupid, were street smart or understood things pertaining to the world they lived in. maybe i am taking a long route to calling stupid a perception, ignorance a reality and knowledge something to relieve ignorance. seems to fit...genetics not in play.

We agree that stupidity has nothing to do with ignorance, because ignorance has to do with a person's location, ie A person living in France is quite ignorant about facts that happened in China,due to the fact that China is far away, and the media are not interested of showing anything about China (this applies to ALL of distant countries,not China (: ).

If stupidity is lack of intelligence, how can you explain the fact that ALL and I do mean ALL people make stupid things; there is no person with a PhD that you can say "He is not stupid at all" or "Hey! He has a PhD! So now he can't be stupid!"

If it makes it easier for you, think of the last time you did or said anything stupid. My guess would be that even today,or this week, you said or done something stupid. Does this means that you are less intelligent ? No! I believe that its natural selection that did this to you.

Originally Posted by nikosyn18

We agree that stupidity has nothing to do with ignorance, because ignorance has to do with a person's location, ie A person living in France is quite ignorant about facts that happened in China,due to the fact that China is far away, and the media are not interested of showing anything about China (this applies to ALL of distant countries,not China (: ).

If stupidity is lack of intelligence, how can you explain the fact that ALL and I do mean ALL people make stupid things; there is no person with a PhD that you can say "He is not stupid at all" or "Hey! He has a PhD! So now he can't be stupid!"

If it makes it easier for you, think of the last time you did or said anything stupid. My guess would be that even today,or this week, you said or done something stupid. Does this means that you are less intelligent ? No! I believe that its natural selection that did this to you.

no; stupid is not the lack of intelligence. a stupid act can be self perceived as stupid or so by someone else. my not accepting your definition of stupid, to me is based on my understanding and not stupid, but to you my lack of understanding your view, is ignorance of one of us but perceived stupid by you.

a perception can't be genetic, stupid being perception. ignorance could be genetic, some function not properly working and intelligence is probably genetic or the ability to learn.

a baby is not stupid but the acts a baby may do could be perceived stupid to a child who is ignorant of a babies ability. i understand all you say but really think you have some word definitions confused.

Well I just wanted to add that I got the whole idea of stupidity from the documentary Stupidity. I think that in order to understand my definition and beliefs, you should at least rent the documentary and see it. Its quite funny, and at the scientific site scary ...

Documentary Stupidity (Trailervision) http://stupiditythemovie.com/

Thank you.

i think you all passed over the answer. I percieve stupidity as being relative to the person witnessing the action. if a deer watching some guy cross the road and get hit by a car, the deer would not think, boy, that guy sure was stupid to cross the street while there was traffic, while you and i would have that train of thought(hopefully). Simply because the deer does not have the processing ability does not mean its stupid. It might do whatever it needs to do really well, which might make it "smart" to other deer.(kinda abstract, just keep with me)

If theres nothing with the ability to process situations witnessing an action or performing an action, then there is no stupidty, it is all relative. Just like time is relative to space. if you were in spaceship A and another person in Spaceship B passed by, you would have no way to tell if that person was moving, or it was you moving. You have nothing to reference movement, just like without society you cannot measure stupidity.

An action having undesirable consequences for the individual carrying out the action occurs. There are three possibilites:

1) This is a form of self-harm related to mental illness.
2) The individual was ignorant. That is, (s)he lacked the knowledge, training, or experience to determine that the action would likely produce the undesirable consequences.
3) The individual was stupid. That is, they possesed the knowledge, training, or experience necessary to avoid a wrong action, but failed to fully process that information in the current context.

The italicised words convey my impression of what stupidity is.

your theory is bogus. You didn't even define your version of stupidity. Ok maybe that's not quite true you defined it a number of times, by looknig at all the aspects that stupidity could be view as. Then you jsut decided to sum up all of these aspects again and go back to square one, saying nothing more than stupidity is random.

There are lots of things that might seem like stupidity, but aren't. Falling down the stairs is not stupid, people may say it's stupid, but they are usually the type of people with limited vocabulary.

Making a 'stupid' mistake - like pulling the trigger and shooting your foot, and making and intellectual flop - like failing a test, are in very different catagories. You can just compile them.

I have no idea how you get off saying atoms are stupid. Stupidity is a human condition, and using it to describe atoms is just ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Draculogenes

I have no idea how you get off saying atoms are stupid. Stupidity is a human condition, and using it to describe atoms is just ridiculous.

Would you go so far as to say its stupid? :?