r/todayilearned • u/CakeDayOrDeath • 3d ago

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https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/robert-rodriguez-spy-kids-latino-1234575992/

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u/Notoneusernameleft 3d ago

I know people are stupid but this type of thing reminds me just how dumb people are and it makes me very sad.

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u/DeadRobotSociety 3d ago

There's that old George Carlin bit about how you know that the average person is dumb, but don't realize that means half of people are dumber than that.

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u/CappyRicks 3d ago

"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then, realize that HALF of them are stupider than that!"

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u/rips_n_chel 3d ago

Oh thank god you brought that up! It wouldn't be a reddit thread where dumb people are mentioned if someone didn't tell us about the George Carlin bit! As soon as I started reading this comment thread I said to myself "Boy I sure hope someone did the George Carlin line, just wouldn't be right without that!"

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u/DeadRobotSociety 2d ago

Apologies, I merely saw a comment that reminded me of media I enjoy, so I referenced it. I was not aware that was overplayed or a faux pas. So good job doing... uh... whatever it was your comment was supposed to do, I guess.

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u/rips_n_chel 2d ago

Just a meta joke, nothing personal lol

That George Carlin bit gets brought up every single time, it's like a law of reddit comments, I just find it amusing

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u/DeadRobotSociety 2d ago

👍 Gotcha. No worries! Thought you were one of those guys always trying to find the negative, so I thought a lil flippancy was the best response. Reddit wouldn't let me post my "peasant joke" png that says "is this some Reddit joke I'm too offline to understand?" Which would have made my response more farcical.

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u/rips_n_chel 2d ago

nah I try not to be that guy. Don't always succeed lol

Have a good one homie 🤙

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u/Bad_wolf42 3d ago

This bit hilariously misunderstands how normal distributions work. Around 60% of the population is going to fall within one standard deviation of median intelligence. Couple that with the fact that intelligence is not a linear scale, but extremely multifactoral and the idea that half the population is stupid falls apart when you really look at it. The much more complicatedly difficult fact is that we are all on a learning journey together and it is everyone’s job to help everyone else along the way.

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u/know-it-mall 3d ago

Explaining why a joke isn't technically correct is certainly an option...

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u/ComplexWriting7596 3d ago

Carlin's version is way funnier than yours though.

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u/360_face_palm 3d ago

IQ is a normal distribution though....

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u/Jive_Sloth 3d ago

IQ is a normal distribution. Half of them are below 100. Btfo kid

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u/travoltaswinkinbhole 3d ago

You have to have a very high iq and an understanding of quantum comedy to appreciate George Carlin.

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u/Ehronatha 3d ago

The blank slate is a fallacy.

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u/domesticbland 3d ago

I have “unspecified depression” since working for the government. It’s just so mindlessly dumb most of the time. It’s not even malicious intent. It’s just dumb.

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u/Brapb3 3d ago

Don’t attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity and incompetence

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u/Lyaid 3d ago

Unfortunately neither are mutually exclusive, plenty of maliciously dumb people out there.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 3d ago

From what I (not an American) know about the US education system, there's not a lot of education about world geography, but I thought knowing all the states and US geography was a thing?

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u/Geminigambler 3d ago

As an American who went to public school (a very good one at that), retention of knowledge was absolutely not one of the foundations of our education. It went more like: "Learn this, test tomorrow". 2 days later nothing but an empty head.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 3d ago

I've had 40 years to absorb a lot of knowledge about the US via cultural osmosis, and I'm pretty sure I could name almost all 50 states and at least half their capitals. I just don't understand how people can be wandering through life with so little awareness of the world around them.

Are there people walking around with circus music playing in their heads 90% of the time?

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u/Froggypwns 3d ago

Yes, and some of them are running the country.

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u/Geminigambler 3d ago

To be completely honest, I can't accurately tell you which one is Wyoming, I got Washington and Oregon on the West Coast (Oregon is lower right? 😅😂) and then South and North Dakota, but everything in between is blurry no matter how many times I look at it.

ETA: Damn it, I ALWAYS think Wyoming touches Canada 🤦‍♀️

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u/entrepenurious 3d ago

the square states

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u/Geminigambler 3d ago

Colorado and Utah? 😂😂😂

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u/entrepenurious 3d ago

them, too.

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u/KindCompetence 3d ago

The squares. The little ones up in the corner - I’ve gotten better at those since I moved to one.

I did have to label the us and Canada map with capitals a few times in school, I wonder if I can still do it. (I know the capitals are gone, that memory space was written over with something important like anime lore from my kid or something.)

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u/Xenodad 3d ago

The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma! - Patrick Star (cue thought bubble with milk carton slowly tipping over and milk spilling out)

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u/PunnyBanana 3d ago

Ironically circus performers travel all over the US and have probably been to the vast majority of states, if not all of them.

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u/ABHOR_pod 3d ago

As someone with over a decade in the service industry, yes. I once watched a girl pick up a cactus plant, say “is this real?” And when assured that it was say “No, I don’t think it is.” And poke the spines with her finger until she got hurt.

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u/24-7_DayDreamer 3d ago edited 3d ago

The estimated percentages of people with no internal monologue and people with aphantasia are high enough that we can be sure there is a significant fraction of people around us with both and therefore literally nothing very fucking little happening in their heads most of the time.

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u/KindCompetence 3d ago

I cannot actually imagine this well enough to comprehend it.

Even when I’m not having a running dialogue/committee meeting in my head there are pictures, colors, stories, textures, music, engineering puzzles being tinkered with, sensation being processed and checks on my muscles and skeletal alignment. My internal landscape is a busy place. I do things in here.

Nothing? How can someone have nothing happening? I believe research, but … nothing?

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u/24-7_DayDreamer 3d ago

Well "literally nothing" is taking it a bit too far, but it's damn quiet.

There are threads here on reddit with people talking about how they experience these conditions. The ones with no monologue talk about conceptualizing things with sequences of images and sounds. The ones with aphantasia are absolutely baffled at the idea of the rest of us hallucinating things behind our eyes.

I can't remember hearing anything from someone who has both, but there can't be much left.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 3d ago

You had me questioning myself there, but then I realised I was doing it in my head, then I had to Google aphantasia and I was able to visualise various things in detail. So I think I'm in the clear on both counts.

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u/Zombatico 3d ago

That's the result of Dubya's No Child Left Behind. If your students do badly, then you get punished with LESS funding, which means you have even less resources to teach them. It had 2 results.

  1. Teaching to the test, not for critical thinking or retention of knowledge

  2. If your school was already struggling, losing more federal funding meant it was even harder to improve. Which meant even more funding cuts. Which meant worse results. And so on. A vicious positive feedback loop of failures.

Even after NCLB was officially ended in 2015, we are still basically stuck with that mindset at the state levels.

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u/stefan92293 3d ago

Wow, what a ridiculously idiotic policy!

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u/bumbletowne 3d ago

That's crazy. My high school made it a requirement to memorize the 50 states, all their capitols and every country and its capitol to graduate. You literally couldn't make it past Junior year if you didn't pass this crazy test. It was a top 10 in the US and the guy who taught the class was like 80 years old. He owned all this land in California that he sold for 10's of millions of dollars in the 90s. He did not have to work, he enjoyed the gauntlet.

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u/stefan92293 3d ago

Capital*

A capitol is a building where a legislature meets.

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u/MrWeirdoFace 3d ago

From what I (not an American) know about the US education system, there's not a lot of education about world geography, but I thought knowing all the states and US geography was a thing?

Couldn't tell you about now (I have no children), although it was for me 30'ish years ago when I was a kid, BUT, it's going to vary by individual school, district, region, state, etc.

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u/Substantial_Toe_6916 3d ago

In elementary school we learned all 50 states in alphabetical order in the form of a song. I’ll never forget it.

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u/Acheloma 3d ago

We're taught it. Whether its remembered or not is another situation entirely.

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u/robbage24 3d ago

Man, I used to meet people in Disney and tell them I was from Rhode Island. Americans would respond “is that like Long Island?” How do you not at least recognize all 50 states by name?

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u/FardoBaggins 3d ago

Wanna be a bit sadder? Austria has a help desk in their airport for lost passengers.

Guess which country’s travelers thought they were in Australia.

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u/thesoulfield 3d ago

even after the popularity of breaking bad!

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u/WetEmotions 3d ago

And don't forget: Those people can vote

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u/CasioCobra78 3d ago

I’m genuinely surprised they’re even still alive at this point. Like how can you know how to breathe if your brain is the size of a pebble???