Random wandering of a slightly deranged mind

[crfriend]

Yep, that's me -- slightly deranged but entirely harmless.

A while ago a pal of mine (who's just as brain-damaged as I) was cruising the web and found this question searching for an answer: Is stupidity metallic? The answer still has me chuckling after several months.

I tend to agree with the man's hypothesis, as when hit hard enough stupidity makes a noise slightly like manure -- "dung!"



I also need to finish my morning coffee.

[Caultron]

I dunno... Stupidity is airheaddedness and that's clearly gaseous...

[partlyscot]

I dunno... Stupidity is airheaddedness and that's clearly gaseous...

Regular stupidity is gaseous, but wilful stupidity is obviously metallic, it's far denser. Probably plutonium...

[Big and Bashful]

I always thought it was wooden, hence the qualifying criteria of being a similar thickness as two short planks.

[Kirbstone]

That's OK for you, B&B....at least two short planks float!

Tom

[Sinned]

Thanks Tom, your remark, building on B&B's, nearly ahd me spraying the screen had I been drinking at the time. And stupidity is not dark matter even though I would like it to be, as stupidity is far too easily found and abundant even in myself at times.

Carl, why is it others can ask the questions we never thought of asking, appear ridiculous but yet on second thought do have considerable appeal.

[crfriend]

[... W]hy is it others can ask the questions we never thought of asking, appear ridiculous but yet on second thought do have considerable appeal.

That's part of the seductive joy of the sublime, and is something I try to ferret out of day-to-day existence because it make life not just tolerable but fun. We all need a little dose of the ridiculous in our lives: it keeps us honest.

The astrophysicists' crack about "There are three things in the universe -- hydrogen, helium, and metals." is, I believe, factual (although not knowing many astrophysicists can't really verify easily) and we also have Harlan Ellison's crack about stupidity (which Frank Zappa has also riffed on). The juxtaposition of those transformed ho-hum observations of the universe around us into the sublime. (The "What sound does it make if you hit it hard enough?" crack was mine, as well as the (hypothetical) observation of same (and I'm astonished I didn't get taken to task for that awful pun.)

Just a little backgrounder on the nuanced way I tend to use language: Ignorance and stupidity are two very different things in my world. Ignorance is the usual human state and implies a blank slate when it comes to something we've not encountered before (hence the "blank stare"); the good thing about ignorance is that it's trivially cured. Stupidity, on the other hand, is the state of wilful ignorance -- of refusing to take the time to educate one's self about the world around him. Whether this is caused by laziness, dogma, or superstition does not matter; it's still wilful. And altogether incurable (although, unfortunately, rarely terminal quickly enough).

Then we have the "Darwin Awards" ("Hey, you! Out of the gene pool!").

[dillon]

One would believe that with this country being a great melting pot, altering our national pedigree to a figurative alphabet soup, we would be surging intelligence like the Trevi Fountain. But when you look at the factions following Ted Trump and Donald Cruz, one has to think we're foundering in the shallow end of the gene pool.

[Kirbstone]

Denis,
At my age I'm on the look out for the lucid periods between Senior Moments, which tend to spread sideways and threaten to join up. When they do you'll know, apparently, as two white-coated operatives will come along and say 'Now you will come quietly, won't you'

Tom

[Kilted_John]

Then we also have Hillary Sanders and Bernie Clinton, who seem to be at the other shallow end of the intelligence pool. As this election goes on, I find myself becoming more and more libertarian. If my choices are between Drumpf Shortfingers and either Burny Communist (er, Socialist) Sanders or Hellary Clinton, I'll probably vote for whatever Libertarian candidate is available at the time. After all, the three of them are leftists. Just that one of them is pretending to be something he isn't.

Anyway, the reason why the two short planks of stupidity seem to sink, is that they've been coated with concrete.

[Disaffected.citizen]

One would believe that with this country being a great melting pot, altering our national pedigree to a figurative alphabet soup, we would be surging intelligence like the Trevi Fountain. But when you look at the factions following Ted Trump and Donald Cruz, one has to think we're foundering in the shallow end of the gene pool.

Then we also have Hillary Sanders and Bernie Clinton, who seem to be at the other shallow end of the intelligence pool. As this election goes on, I find myself becoming more and more libertarian. If my choices are between Drumpf Shortfingers and either Burny Communist (er, Socialist) Sanders or Hellary Clinton, I'll probably vote for whatever Libertarian candidate is available at the time. After all, the three of them are leftists. Just that one of them is pretending to be something he isn't.

The words of Johnny Cash come to mind: "...in rivers and bad government, the lightest things rise to the top."