stupid

Silly regulations

Posted on by backuphill

Not the dog, but the same breed.
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I was doing a little research this morning and seeing about scheduling an appointment to put the dog down (quality of life is diminishing fast for the ol’ gal). So, I was looking at a couple of vet clinics in the area. It appears they are still sticking with the silly regulations imposed during “that time that shall remain unnamed”. As nearly all other businesses and areas of life have returned to somewhat normal functioning, apparently vet offices are sticking with the stupid regulation of having customers wear a face mask while in the office.

I don’t get it. It didn’t make sense when it was started and it still doesn’t make sense now. Why would you keep an owner of a pet from entering a clinic with their pet? Why wouldn’t they want to minimize the anxiety pets feel just by being there, let alone (in most cases) the car ride there?

Let’s be honest, a vet clinic isn’t a “healthcare facility”. Sure, it is for pets but they don’t wear face masks so making pet owners wear face masks while it is literally them and possibly another person or two in the room is ridiculous.

Anyone else found this regulation highly unusual?

The Power of Stupidity

Posted on by backuphill

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I came across an article title the other day that almost screamed for me to read the article. I couldn’t avoid it. I looked at it. Ignored it. Went back to it. Ignored it some more, and then finally caved and read it. This article, “Bonhoeffer’s “theory of stupidity”: We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones” ended up making some great points, but it also confirmed what I have been thinking for a long while. I tried to avoid the confirmation bias, but the author is of like mind I guess.

Like I said, I didn’t want to read it. I already know the power of stupidity. I was a high school history teacher so I saw, heard, and witnessed it on a daily basis. But, for the most part, those days were silly and harmless and easily laughed off as adolescence doing and saying adolescent things.

The problem is now I am not in a classroom and in the “real” world of people, where the adults are supposed to be rational, logical, and somewhat levelheaded. Instead, what I see is a place that is really scary because the number of stupid people has grown exponentially over the last decade or so. Those students that were stupid in my classroom have gown up and they haven’t grown out of their stupidity.

Now they tout their stupidity like it’s a badge of honor. Now they are adults, spouting stupidity like a fountain in Vegas and haranging people who don’t fall in line with their stupidity because they are now self-appointed culture and social justice warriors. Their numbers grow and grow and grow because now they can use their social media channels the “cancel” those whom they can’t have an actual, rational discussion with.

One or two stupid persons is easy enough to deal with, but when they become a mob not so much. One or two stupid persons are easy enough to avoid but when they are members of your family it becomes a challenge to tolerate spending time with them. As a whole, it is getting harder and harder to exist in a society where stupidity now seems to rule the day. You can’t avoid them at home, at work, in your social circles, in your government, in your medical institutions, in your educational endeavors…the list just gets bigger and bigger.

I tried to influence those I taught so many years ago. I now fear (and see) that my efforts failed.

So, how do we get our society back? How do we recue the nation from the stupid people who now exist in every facet of our daily lives and, unfortunately, even control it?

Share your thoughts. Share an experience with a stupid person that left you shaking your head. Share an experience with a stupid person that left you in dispare for the future. Share a thought on what can or should be done to fix this menace to society/humankind.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Self-inflicted

Posted on by backuphill

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Anyone else find it really hard to find sympathy within yourself when you watch people cause their own self-inflicted pain? Maybe I am cold-hearted. Maybe I am callous. Maybe I am jaded. Call it whatever you want.

I just find it really hard to watch someone make bad decisions, sometimes directly against/counter to advice they were given, and then suffer the consequeces of the bad decisions. It’s as though they would purposely chop off their own arm just so they can prove they didn’t listen to a word you said.

I just can’t find anywhere inside of myself any sympathy where someone continually subjects themselves (and typically others) to the consequenes of their ignorance/stupidity/willful disregard for wise counsel. It’s as though they would purposely chop off their own arm just so they can prove they didn’t listen to a word you said.

Anyone else have a similar problem?

Should I feel bad about not feeling bad?

Just can’t do it.

Insane or stupid?

Posted on by backuphill

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Or both?

Conversations recently have me wondering if there is a different between the two. This might not make a whole lot of sense since I won’t be giving all the details (or maybe it will), but it’s got me thinking way harder about the conversations than I probably need to. Sometimes I wonder why I even care.

Generally, people learn or at least have the capability to learn. Some people learn by doing the right thing and having success. Some people learn by doing the wrong thing and having results that are less than successful. Others simply learn by screwing up so badly that they have (seemingly) have no choice but to learn. In any of these three cases, learning is someting that is vital to making headway in life and is a the essence of moving forward with moderate success.

The traditional definition of stupid is easy to understand. We usually associate lack of common sense, intelligence, discernment, etc. with being stupid.

Can you become not stupid? I would like to think so. I believe that is where learning enters in. If you learn from the results of being stupid, you should in fact be less stupid because you would alter your behavior or choices or thinking or reasoning or actions or whatever in order to not repeat the same stupidity. If you didn’t have common sense before, mistakes (even if a made a couple times) should help you learn from them and eventually you should have…common sense, thus making wiser and smarter choices going forward.

But. BUT…there is always a but…

The traditional definition of insane is fairly easy to understand as well. However, there is another definition that sometimes gets referred to as the definition of insanity – “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” This definition has been attributed to Albert Einstein and Ben Franklin, though it appears that neither actually said it. However, for our little discussion today it fits rather nicely no matter who said it. If you continually do the same thing, the same actions, the same approach, think the same thoughts, and you don’t get a different result, then you must be insane. At least it seems that way. But are they really insane or just stupid?

Can you “unlearn” insanity? There may be a debate about that. I tend to lean towards, no, but then with treatment (and maybe drugs) I guess maybe that is something that can be unlearned. But that might not actually be learning so much as adjustment.

Can you “unlearn” stupidity? Most definitely.

So why are there so many people who refuse to unlearn their stupidity and just act like they are insane?

Conversations as of late make it difficult to tell the difference and certain perplex the hell out of me because it makes so much common sense to me, but they fail to see it.

Maybe I am the insane one…for continually hoping they unlearn their stupidity…

Sticky situation

Posted on by backuphill

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Warning labels can only go so far. Warning labels exist because people are stupid. Warning labels can’t possibly tell you all the things you are NOT supposed to do because the label isn’t big enough, the packaging would be horrendous, and no one can think of all the stupid stuff you shouldn’t do. Truth be told, if you see something stupid on the warning label it is because someone actually did it. No kidding.

People still need to use common sense. I realize the stuff is in short supply these days, but we really really gotta have people think before they do stuff.

So, I am sure by now you have heard the Gorilla Glue incident. I don’t know about you, but I have been glued to it since I heard about it. I have read every story I can get a hold of. The tears of laughter just spray from my eyes because I can’t believe the ridiculousness of it all.

If you haven’t of it, good job not paying attention to what is going on in the world! Ignorance is bliss, so they say.

Anyway, I think the lesson here is that you can get into a pretty sticky situation if you let your vanity get in the way of common sense. You’re going to get stuck with something you didn’t expect. And once the consequences hit, you’re probably going to come unglued.

All right, I’ll stop.

It isn’t nice to make fun of stupid people. But it sure it fun!

Doorknob

Posted on by backuphill

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WTF? Who is this doorknob and who the hell let him pray? An utter embarrassment to himself, to those who listen to him, to those he represents, and to all people of faith in general.

Leave it to the Democrats to make a circus out of something so basic.

“Amen and awoman“? You gotta see it to even believe it.

I am stumbling all over myself at the stupidity of this. It’s hard to even put into words how uneducated and unnecessary something like this is. It doesn’t take much research to know that “amen” means “so be it”. It has nothing to do with gender.

But this doorknob has to make an issue out of a word he clearly doesn’t know the meaning of. Actually, I believe there were quite a few words in his “prayer” that he didn’t know the meaning of. Not because he is ignorant (actually, he might be), but more because his speech writer likely used a thesaurus to write the speech. It sounded a lot like the essays I would get from my high school students who were trying to fill space by using words that made them sound smarter than they were and sometimes didn’t even fit in the sentence correctly. Whatever is going on there, it was a piss poor display of speech writing and intelligence.

Please, sir, never pray again. You obviously don’t actually know what it means, understand how it is done, or have a concept of where a prayer comes from – the heart. It isn’t a political tool, or stunt.

IBAF

Posted on by backuphill

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I am creating a new acronym. IBAF. There you go.

Actually, it isn’t new because apparently there are others out there that use it for inane purposes like the name of organizations or something like that. For me, think if it as a new text acronym.

I am sure you are familiar with “WTF,” right?

Think of this one along the same lines.

IBAF = Irritated Beyond All F*cks.

How is that defined? When someone does something that is so beyond comprehension AND irritates you to a level you haven’t known before, you just stop caring but can’t at the same time.

Yes, I know that makes no logical sense. But, if illogical can explain the illogical, then it is logical. Make sense?

Ah, never mind. I don’t expect that you can understand.

Just know that I am irritated enough that I am making things up just to deal with it.

Group texts

Posted on by backuphill

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I feel very strongly about this. Like, VERY strongly.

Group texts (and even group chats, for that matter) are impossibly stupid and annoying.

I don’t want to participate in all the inane drivel most people have to talk about. I especially don’t like my phone getting lit up because of a stupid conversation.

Please don’t include me, unless it is an emergency or something needs to be coordinated. Otherwise, leave me out! AND once those few instances need to be used, stop using the group chat asap. Delete it so there is no accident in choosing the wrong one.

UGH. I despise their use…and, quite frankly, I despise people who feel the need to use them often.

Now you know why I am so grumpy all the time. I just don’t like people. Really.

“News to me”

Posted on by backuphill

Uh, excuse me?

This is national news. It has been national news for days. It’s been BIG news in WA for days.

So, the governor says it’s “news to me”? It would appear he REALLY IS AS CLUELESS as he has come across in the past.

OMG!! This guy is the epitome of stupid and his response baffles everyone.

He has already proved he doesn’t actually govern a state so much as dictate over it. His agenda has been busted wide open by his own admission. He has been wrong nearly this entire time when it has come to Covid-19 and how the state operates, and he won’t relent and open the state up for business and livelihoods to recover from his crappy leadership.

Maybe I’ll adopt his response when it comes to following the rules he set.

Wear a mask? “News to me.”

Stay home? “News to me.”

Can’t go to work? “News to me.”

Not supposed to go to certain businesses? “News to me.”

Listen, gov, your feckless leadership should result in an immediate resignation from your office. THAT news would be greeted with exultation by nearly everyone in the state. How about you make that kind of headline?

Between the lines

Posted on by backuphill

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Sometimes, things going unsaid is best.

Then there are other times where being blunt is the only solution, awkward or not.

And then there are those times where trying to be tactful sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

Anyone feel me on this?

Just saying…