i vote for scary

 

it is.

it is so widespread too. i did an experiment. and asked 20 people in the pub if the earth went round the sun or vice versa (it was a bet!). the answers i got shocked me. not that so many people got it wrong but even how long they had to thinkabout it. try it.

 

That is so funny and so true

 

i posted one of these before and someone asked (i think it was fatrobot) if there is a shortage of maps in the US or something?!

 

and welcome to you beardie

 

Senior year of high school, 1994, back in New York: we had this extremely lovable, eccentric teacher of current events and recent history. He tried this one day, simply asking students similar random facts. My high school was one of the best funded in the US. A number of students were not able to name the current president or the former president. They couldn't differentiate between political parties. They couldn't name the states or place them geographically. Why bother with international issues? "Nobody home" as Vonnegut says.

 

the thing is though, there is a difference between intelligence and knowledge and i bet a lot of these people are intelligent in their own way.

furthermore, i bet their retention of knowledge is probably superb when it comes to sports, celebrity gossip and shit that doesn't matter generally

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or it might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies -- the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

Aldous Huxley, 1958, Article –
"The Capitalist Free Press"

 

Whoo! USA! USA!

and of course it's the sun that goes round ... er wait, was that a trick question.?

 

There is only one thing to remember, that is:

"We are the smartest, the most generous, heh-heh the kindest and lovingest peoples on earth (if you only got to know us). And if you don't like it... your DEAD!"

So many of those interviews were shot just down the road from me (Venice Beach). I not only have to live with these people, but even talk to them on occasion. It always reminds me, half the people are on the stupid side of the bell curve. One of the most serious drawbacks of being intellectually challenged, is how easy it is to have your brain reprogrammed by someone else.

Don't forget, from a genetic standpoint, most of us Yanks are descendent from those least capable. Of course, the Aussies are from a more clever bunch ;-)

 

hot crackers that was funny!
holy shit
i know there are smart americans, i know some, i just don't understand how these people got so dumb?
mixing ignorance with arrogance
lovely

not that those people in particular are arrogant but saying you live in the greatest country on earth yet knowing nothing about anything is silly

 

ah, but then you can't say you know it IS the greatest country on earth and you can't say if you know it IS NOT.

add a pinch of "glass half full" optimism and you get your answer

 

USA, the country with the geatest ability to destroy shit.

 

Thanks for the laughs, dude. I KNEW IT! I KNEW Star Wars was based on a true story! Reminds me of a program called 'Street Smarts' that used to air over here in the U.S. Frightening program...

 

I think they are called Chavs over there in Scotland, right? Ah God or somebody bless em, they don't have a chance and probably never will. Alarming to think they might be voters too. Shish!

 

No, Tubbie - you really SHOULD keep posting these things!

Peacechick, unless the langusge has migrated in the last year since I was back home I think you'll find that Chav is more of an English thing... The Scots equivalent would be a Ned.

 

thanks binty (and also for the ned clarification)

i knew the french were up to something. all along we thought there was only one eiffel tower but it turns out there is ten.

and the berlin wall is in israel!!

 

Thats why in Hollywood films EVERY hotel room in Paris has a view of the Eiffel tower!