Is human stupidity a bottomless pit?
Don’t try to answer the question, it is an unanswerable one. How do you measure stupidity? And, even if you could, for every one that qualifies for that description, you’ll find another human who is highly intelligent. It’s the same Bell curve we have had to deal with all through our evolutionary history.
So why did I start this blog? Answer: I was watching the news (again) about Trump’s first rally that is to take place today, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the COVID-19 infection rate just jumped by 150% from one week to the next. Reporters interviewed many of the thousands gathered around the venue, without mask (“if you wear one it means you hate Trump”) and had to listen to them saying that the pandemic is only fake news, that they trust Trump telling them it is OK, in spite of every one of them required to sign a waiver, just in case they get sick, that they would rather die than wear a mask. Six staffers of the Trump organizing committee have already tested positive and, to make things worse, the event will be held indoors, with close to 19,000 people crowded in close proximity. If I were cynical (which I am not) and a Trump antagonist (which I am) then I would wish for as many of his followers to catch the virus, just so they might learn a lesson. However, stupidity is not a crime punishable by death, so I hope that most will get away with it. All medical experts interviewed are horrified by the prospect of a mass outbreak after the rally but, as Dr. Pouci recently said: there is a strong anti-science sentiment in America. Still, I am sure that in spite of that, when they get sick they’ll see a doctor and go to a hospital, hoping that science will cure them.
I can almost understand climate change deniers, because it is not an imminent danger for most citizens (only to their children) but it is not as highly visible and as demonstrably threatening as COVID-19 is. What is the current virus-related death toll in the USA? 115,000 to date, expected to rise to 300,000 by the end of summer.
Apart from the bottomless pit metaphor, I see no other explanation.
So why did I start this blog? Answer: I was watching the news (again) about Trump’s first rally that is to take place today, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the COVID-19 infection rate just jumped by 150% from one week to the next. Reporters interviewed many of the thousands gathered around the venue, without mask (“if you wear one it means you hate Trump”) and had to listen to them saying that the pandemic is only fake news, that they trust Trump telling them it is OK, in spite of every one of them required to sign a waiver, just in case they get sick, that they would rather die than wear a mask. Six staffers of the Trump organizing committee have already tested positive and, to make things worse, the event will be held indoors, with close to 19,000 people crowded in close proximity. If I were cynical (which I am not) and a Trump antagonist (which I am) then I would wish for as many of his followers to catch the virus, just so they might learn a lesson. However, stupidity is not a crime punishable by death, so I hope that most will get away with it. All medical experts interviewed are horrified by the prospect of a mass outbreak after the rally but, as Dr. Pouci recently said: there is a strong anti-science sentiment in America. Still, I am sure that in spite of that, when they get sick they’ll see a doctor and go to a hospital, hoping that science will cure them.
I can almost understand climate change deniers, because it is not an imminent danger for most citizens (only to their children) but it is not as highly visible and as demonstrably threatening as COVID-19 is. What is the current virus-related death toll in the USA? 115,000 to date, expected to rise to 300,000 by the end of summer.
Apart from the bottomless pit metaphor, I see no other explanation.
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I mean, you have NBA players making $35,000,000 per year who say the earth is flat, and instead of people throwing rotten tomatoes at them for such unfathomable idiocy, they pay money to go and see them.
Yet lately I've realized there's something that bother me even more than stupidity.
It's hypocrisy.
I recently read that in the updated WB cartoons, Elmer Fudd won't chase Bugs Bunny with a shotgun, because that would be offensive; he'll use a scythe instead.
The (never materialized) death from a shotgun - involving a fictional cartoon man hunting a fictional cartoon bunny - is not OK, but that from a scythe is.
Meanwhile the US drop about 20,000 bombs per year - in 2015 they dropped so many bombs, they almost ran out.
Speaking of climate change, the US military alone - not counting corporations - pollute the planet more than 140 countries combined. It's natural (no pun intended), since they use up to 270,000 oil barrels per day, producing 25,000 kilotonnes - that's 25,000,000,000 kilos - of CO2.
But yes, it's your fault you impudent citizen, for using a plastic straw.
If disgust could kill, I'd be dead long ago