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Have you ever met an actual dumb person? (lemmy.today)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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I was thinking about this. I went to university, and I worked in tech for decades. I met many assholes but I didn't meet anyone that would fit on the left half of the bell curve (less than 100 iq).

Since I've been living in that bubble my entire life, I'm curious of your stories. Have you met someone who was actually quite dumb (not just having opinions you don't agree with) and do you have an example situation you remember you can share?

Hopefully this becomes more funny than hateful since intelligence is not the value of a person, but it can be funny to read the stories.

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[–] 1 point 2 months ago* (1 child)

I mean maybe? But even if it's frustrating it sounded like you tried and that's the key point I'm trying to make about intelligence.

I've been there too, and I think finding shortcuts to communicate is part of the process, right? Also I notice people tend to LOVE helping new people learn their language here and there. People love it when others are trying their best even if they're awful at it. I wouldn't call that dumb, for sure. :)

My experience with these folks felt more like those stereotypical cringey tourists or expats, who would move somewhere foreign to them and just get louder and more indignant at everybody: "WHY ISN'T EVERYTHING IN ENGLISH?! CAN'T YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?! I WANT TO TALK ONLY IN ENGLISH ABOUT HOW ANNOYING YOUR LANGUAGE IS AND HOW FRUSTRATED THAT MAKES ME. ABSORB MY NEGATIVE EMOTIONS!!"

It struck me as demoralizing and sad how often the first words someone would utter in my presence were "I hate computers."

I guess I just realized something about computers makes stupid people very mean. 🤔

So I'm happy to help people learn computers, who actually want to learn something new.

Computers are for anyone! But it was a mistake to push them on everyone. Especially if the school systems weren't going to bother with teaching them.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Certain types of stupid people get mean around computers because they are frustrating to use if you don't understand what you are doing.

    Computers are complex machines with a lot of options and no understanding of intent. When dealing with simple machines, someone can just poke random things until they get the outcome they want, limited understanding required. When talking to a person, the other person can recognize their question makes no sense and try to find their misunderstanding or explain in simpler terms.

    A computer responds to these things with an error message they don't understand or don't care to understand. It won't use simpler language if they seemed confused. It won't try to calm them down if they start showing frustration. It will just keep doing what it's doing and make them feel stupid, leading to frustration and anger.

    On the flip side, a lot of stupid people love LLMs because they will accept any insane input and will output a reasonable looking answer(correct or not) while showering them in validation.

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