Everyone else in the entire world is a moron

Monday, December 10th, 2007

Supporting evidence for my hypothesis:

  • The writers of second season of Heroes are so incompetent that they have managed to make me retrospectively hate the first season, which I had originally quite enjoyed. The basic premise for Heroes season 2 is that all the characters forget everything they learned from the first season and run about behaving like utter douchebags. They get angry at the wrong things, they trust the wrong people, they forget to use their powers at crucial times. It is so dumb it makes the later seasons of the X-Files seem like high art.
  • Sherri Shepherd is co-host of a US television show, and yet she is so unbelievably stupid that she believes and doesn’t know .
  • The advertising I see here in New Zealand seems to consistently need to have narration added, leading me to believe that we are all so stupid that we can’t understand subtext* And now there’s a service which lets you bypass the actual content and just watch ads online for "mint dollars" !
  • Publishers of most webcomics tend to provide RSS feeds without images and so even though I try to subscribe, I’ll never notice their new comics when they update. Apparently it hasn’t occurred to them to at least provide a preview image, and I can only assume this is because they too are morons.
  • Feature stickers on big screen televisions in consumer electronic stores which betray the complete technical ignorance of the staff. Full HD Ready 1024 + 76 DPI!
And on a slightly less facetious note, it does trouble me greatly that large numbers of people still believe one or more of the following, even in an age which gives the average bozo in the street access to more knowledge than scholars in previous ages could have dreamed about:
  • Atheism makes people do bad things
  • Astrology is useful
  • Bumblebees fly despite the fact that science says it is impossible
  • God created man and all the animals in more or less the forms we know today— meaning evolution is just a giant atheistic conspiracy to discredit the teachings of the bible
  • Aliens have visited the Earth and the governments have been covering it up
  • John Edward can talk to dead people, learning all about the initials and favorite nick-nacks of loved ones
  • Uri Geller can bend spoons with his mind
  • Homeopathy is more than a placebo

  • 9/11 was an inside job
  • People will go to hell if they don’t embrace the one correct religion
  • Reincarnation allows people to live multiple lives (but only if they are historically interesting)
  • Everything happens for a reason (ie events are part of a grand plan, rather than a logical sequence of cause and effect)
  • Crop circles are created by Aliens (or some other non-human agency)
  • Oil companies bought out and covered up the technology to run a car on water
  • Vaccinating children can cause autism
  • Spontaneous Human Combustion (ok so maybe people don’t still believe in this, but it was big in the 80’s [CORRECTION: Yes they do apparently])

  • Global warming isn’t happening
  • Global warning is happening but it has nothing to do with us, and is in fact a Marxist conspiracy to destroy free-market capitalism, the greatest force for good that has ever existed

__________

* Some examples of moronic advertising in New Zealand:

  • Stupid Rexona Antiperspirant ad… first version of the ad was kind of cute, boy meets girl, montage of shots of them dating, spoiled only by the firehose spray of sweat coming out from under his arms. Second version has girl describing to camera how sweat would spray from under his arms, totally detroying the whole visual gag by referring to it directly.
  • Stupid Euro Chocolates ad… again, first run was at least slightly stylish, and had no dialogue— The whole story was told in images and music. Sensual young woman comes home to run-down apartment building and her mere presence appears to bring life back to her fellow residents, who suddenly feel like dancing and singing and shagging, and her magic comes from eating brand X chocolate. The second run added a stupid voiceover, explaining that this was exactly what was going on, because we were clearly too goddam thick to work it out for ourselves.
  • Stupid "V" energy drink ad… these ads suck anyway, but adding a stupid sniggering narrator telling us what is going on makes them even worse. One of these animated commercial spots begins with a bouncy-titted girl crying hysterically while her skeezy boyfriend glowers at her from across the room, no doubt annoyed that she won’t stop bawling when all he did was give the stupid bitch a slap. Hahaha.
  • Stupid radio contest/campaign… the prize is to live rent-free for a year, and somehow it is implied this will lead to bikini clad women cramming into your house to be showered by trampolining midgets, because apparently having subsidized rent for a year makes you a magnet for this kind of thing. This is a campaign developed by morons, for morons. But then, it’s hosted by a commercial FM radio station, so no frikkin surprises there. Actually this is not narration related but is just so unbelievably stupid I felt I had to squeeze it in here, and the ad for this campaign was voiced by the same chortling fucknut who does the aforementioned V ad, which is why I thought of it just now.
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10 Comments

  1. RichardN says:

    I too have entertained this theory and here’s what I came up with…

    The examples you observe can be achieved with zero moronism.

    Two conditions must be met:

    1. The bulk of people must be at least partially entertained/distracted by moronic materials.

    2. The tiny percentage of people actively generating mass media are required [or at least encouraged] to believe as you propose… ie. everyone but me is a moron.

    I think the human desire to achieve the most with the least - which could be seen as a search for efficiency/elegance/simplicity or just as laziness - will lead towards these results.

    In addition -> Imagine how much more intrusive advertising would be if every single example of it was deeply provocative, genuinely intelligent and profoundly moving…

  2. Ross says:

    You missed a biggy, Anthropogenic Global Warming.

  3. mark says:

    Ross, you forgot to add a winky, which makes me wonder if you are at all serious there.

  4. Ross says:

    Completely serious. Start here: http://www.icecap.us

  5. mark says:

    You know, I think I might prefer to start here: http://www.ipcc.ch/ — Maybe you could point me at a site with more science and less whining?

    Also, for the record, when the vast majority of the scientific community asserts that something is very likely true, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that they are probably right. When they manage to make this assertion in the face of considerable political opposition, it is reasonable to assume that they have considered their statements very very carefully.

    I would trust a dedicated scientist over a dedicated lobbyist any day of the week, because being a scientist means you choose your conclusion to fit the data; not the other way around.

  6. mark says:

    Which reminds me of a great article by Tim Lambert on Chris Monckton’s denialist dickery:
    http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/monckton_watch.php

  7. Simon says:

    Satisfying analysis there Mr Newton! I am personally not bothered so much by ambient moronity, as by what seems to be pervasive sadism in the media. Or so tv show advertising would suggest — every time I watch The Simpsons they promote Neighbours by promising that something traumatic will happen to a nice and/or innocent character that night. The same goes for the river of “nasty crimes/nasty minds” shows, who seem to be in an arms race of atrocities. Is that really what people want to see? Do they get pleasure in spectating unhappiness? Or is it just a convenient way for tv advertisers to get attention, as in the zero moronity argument?

  8. mark says:

    I am in total agreement on the “nasty criminals” TV drama being spewed out right now (see earlier post), but must also admit a particular fondness for Deadwood, which is jam packed with evil nastiness, murder, cruelty etc. I think the difference for me is in the attitude of the main characters; in CSI they peer and scoff and make snide comments, whereas in Deadwood they are all swimming in the same muck, and good and bad are not so clear cut.

    You’ll probably want to avoid this remake I suspect…

  9. RichardN says:

    I’ll probably give myself away as someone who hasn’t read McLuhan but it seems to me that if you want to sell something or “entertain”, then it makes sense to let the cerebral cortex sleep.

    Keeping your message in the realms of impulse & instinct keep the critical/analytical parts of thinking safely off-line.

    I agree with Simon regarding ambient moronity - I am almost completely unaware of it it my daily life - but when it intrudes it does so with great ferocity [the ads at cinemas for instance].

  10. sitakali says:

    You stated your stance on global warming beautifully. I think I’ll just copy and paste it to the next person who tries to convince me that global warming doesn’t exist/isn’t caused by humans/CO2, or frequently a confused combination of all three.

    I am unfortunately one of the morons who believes 9/11 was an inside job…well, at least it worked in the Administration’s favour and they didn’t do shit to stop it. Please forgive my profound idiocy and continue to like me as a human being.

    Regarding reincarnation: Those who believe they were once historically important are morons…but what if you think you were a skunk in your past life? Just something for you to think about next time you condemn reincarnationists. Skunks have souls too, you know.

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