[Disregard the insanely redundant title.]

Its amazing how many times a day I’m absolutely shocked by people’s stupidity.

I’m sure I’m not alone with that, either. Think back on the last few days, and I’m sure you can find a few examples in memory.

Until a few days ago, I usually just passed it off as a simple mistake, that most of us do everyday, and I’m sure this does happen, however, the other day changed everything.

I was in a parking lot about to go shopping with my uncle. This particular parking lot consisted of one-way lanes, angled in a way to allow easy parking… for those going the right way. Each lane was clearly marked with directional arrows, and “Do Not Enter” signs on the opposite lanes.

Just as we found a good parking space, we noticed a man race into our lane, going the wrong way [he must have seen a good spot].

Once he was in the lane, he tried to pull into the spot forwards. Let me remind you that these spots were angled for those going the right way.

Once he discovered he couldn’t pull in that way, he backed up and tried to do a three point turn, nearly trapping himself between the two rows of cars.

On his third try he finally backed up, effectively saying, “I’m an idiot, parked the wrong way, and will have to drive out of here the wrong way too.”

Baffled after watching this, I simply took it as, “everyone makes mistakes”. This was until my uncle made an amazing comment, which will forever shake the way I look at these happenings.

“Just goes to show you, half the population is stupid.”

He went on to prove his point by saying that half the population is below average intelligence, effectively making them stupid (in the eyes of IQ).

Now, while this point is a bit crass, and I’m sure people can argue that IQ is not directly correlated with intelligence, its still a great way to determine the functioning power of someone’s brain.

And even if you still don’t agree with that, think back into your memory, and think about how many stupid people you have known.

It may seem a bit biased, because in general, people fraternize with those in their near their own IQ, which means running into these idiots probably doesn’t happen as much as with regular friends, or acquaintances, but I’m sure any person has met more then their fair share of idiots.

A smart person in that man’s scenario would have realized something was wrong, drove (or backed) his car carefully out of the wrong way lane, and gone and parked in the next available spot, going the right way.

When you’re out there, just watch out for these people, because they’re on your roads, they’re running companies, they’re even on your internet, and if they can’t figure out how to park a car, I don’t even want to think about the other things they can’t figure out.

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Technorati Tags: Common Sense, Community, Idiots, What?

Common Sense, Community, Idiots, What? Hide

It seems everyday I read a story about a big blunder from a large corporation, and even more often the government.

With my experience these companies (used in the large group sense, as to include the above two examples) are built on people watching people watching people, and so on, to the point where the guy at the bottom literally has everyone watching his every move.

(Some great satire on this is in Office Space, where the main character is told several times, by several bosses, to include cover letters on his TPS reports.)

If this is the case, how do these blunders happen?

Is it a matter of it being the big guy on tops idea, so no one has the courage to tell him its a bad idea, and will garner bad press?

Is it a matter of these people being brainwashed?

Or is it just a matter of no one in the entire company having any common sense?

Professor David Nutt gave his (controversial) opinion as Chief Drugs Adviser in the UK. What was he doing? He was using common sense. How did the company react? They threw away common sense and fired him, causing a huge backlash. Now the UK government looks bad, and he looks great. Its amazing isn’t it? Common sense prevails in the eyes of the public.

MTV builds a wall to block people from seeing a free U2 commemorative show of tearing down the wall. Seriously? “Comprehensive security plan” they said. Translation? So more people have to watch it on TV to make them more money.

That a decision completely devoid of all common sense. A part of me understands why they would from a selfish and monetary view, but its a show to commemorate an amazing day in history, about public freedom and human unity, this is not the occasion to show the public how much your company hasn’t learned from these types of events.

These things do make their way to press, and they make the company look bad, really bad.

How can these things be avoided?

Common sense. Use it, love it, abuse it, because abusing it is one of the best things you could ever do.

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Technorati Tags: Common Sense, David Nutt, Money, MTV, What?

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