on stupid

Category: comedy/sarcasm/satire

Everyone is worried about whether intelligence is heritable, whether there are gene pools with intelligence differentials between them. So much hand-wringing. I honestly find that all the intelligence talk boring and uninformative. 

I'm interested in stupidity. Stupid is interesting. Stupid tells me a lot about humanity and human psychology. Hell, it challenges the theory of natural selection, especially the selection of a prefrontal cortex where stupid thrives right next to smart. And there's so many different kinds of stupid -- stupid ideas, stupid reasoning, stupid analogies, stupid models, stupid attitudes, stupid biases, stupid advice, stupid priorities, stupid narrowness, stupid generalities, stupid explanations and stupid people. So much to learn about stupid. Are all humans amazingly smarter than any other species, and are all humans equally capable of reasoning? ... yeah, sure, but so what. Stupid challenges all that. Stupid is an evolutionary puzzle. Now that's interesting! Because it's stupid -- it makes no sense. Stupid is stupid!

A friend argues that dairy milk is naturally meant for calves to become cows, and humans are neither, so milk must be bad for us.

I point out that tomatoes are made by tomato vines to make more tomato vines, and humans are not tomato vines, so tomatoes are bad for us. I add that we should learn from squirrels: they don't eat nuts or acorns. That's because nuts and acorns are meant to make trees, not to make squirrels. Squirrels aren't stupid. That's why you see squirrels eat baby squirrels only. 

Same friend says the gov't supports the dairy industry and the gov't cares about rich corporations not people, therefore milk must be bad for us. 

I point out that the city government supports bicycle shares, so bicycles must be bad for you. But ten years ago, the government didn't support bicycle shares because ten years ago bicycles were good for you. You see what they did?!? Bikes were good for you, and then the government started promoting them and made them bad for you. You didn't know that, did you? You're welcome.

Another friend informs me that humans are the only animal that drinks the milk of another animal! We should rethink our use of dairy, he insists. 

I point out that cats, mice and rats used to drink dairy milk and eat cheese if you laid it out for them. (The reason you have to lay it out for them is because mice are too small to milk cow udders, rats frighten the cows, and cats are too lazy to squeeze udders and have no patience for fermenting cheese.) But now they don't drink or eat dairy at all because they've read that the EU banned bovine growth hormone. Dogs still eat ice cream though. That's because dogs don't read. They're stupid. 

If Martians visited us and heard the stupid beliefs we hold and share, they'd wonder how such a species survives. Was Darwin maybe wrong about his whole story? I think the Martians would write long research papers on how we come up with stupidities and why they don't lead to extinction. If they find an answer, I'd like to see their answer, 'cause I don't have one. 

Well, actually I have several. This whole blog is all about why we hold beliefs, including false ones and most interestingly, stupid ones. Why are the stupid ones interesting? It's not just because they are the most challenging for a naturally selected social species. The true beliefs, if they're believed because, being true, there's good evidence for them, then they tell us nothing about humanity. All the good stuff is in that dark box of stupid. 

Btw, folks, dairy milk is at least mammalian, tomatoes aren't even animal. Watch out! You may wake up one day as a tomato rolling off your bed. You are what you eat!