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There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons. It might be derogatory jokes, but this can also include things like spreading urban legends whic
by AJ007 11y ago
There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons. It might be derogatory jokes, but this can also include things like spreading urban legends which were debunked four decades ago.
Just like Usenet and countless other online communities, what starts a a small group of fairly privileged and elite eventually degrades in to garbage as the reach increases. This is not so much an overall size issue but a relative one. I saw it happen to very small online communities in the 90s. In some respects, I watched it occur on a community I ran nearly 10 years ago.
Facebook's aggressive censorship along with non-public networks give each user a white washed micro-community. Public forums, such as Twitter and Instagram, do not.
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- sesutton 11y agoThis is an amusing comment because that's not how averages work.
- tlrobinson 11y agoWell, if you're talking about median it is.
- logfromblammo 11y agoAnd in a normal distribution--which measured attributes like height, IQ, and birth weight typically have--median, mean, and mode are all the same.
- typon 11y agoYea and I'm sure none of them are on this thread. The self congratulatory opinions in this thread are super cringe worthy.
- sterl 11y agoHalf of all people are below 'median' intelligence :P
- hodgesrm 11y agoTechnically shouldn't you say "at least half of all people are at or below median"? (Sorry, I just couldn't resist. It seemed apropos to the overall conversion. :)
- Tiksi 11y ago>"at least half of all people are at or below median" Take the median of 1 2 5 5 5 5 8 9 11 23 58 46 48 37 28 67 39 Much less than half of the numbers are at or below the the median of 5. (also median would be a bad way to get an average for this set.)
- imron 11y agoThe average person (median) has less than 2 legs :-D
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- mcguire 11y ago"Think of how stupid the median person is, and realize there's a 50% chance you're stupider than that."
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- chasing 11y ago> There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons... I hate this super-condescending attitude. Even if you do happen to be smarter than the average bear (which, don't pat yourself on the back yet: there may be things these "morons" know way more about than you do), it's still asshole-ish to assume that everyone else just be completely dismissed...
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- toomuchtodo 11y ago> Even if you do happen to be smarter than the average bear > it's still asshole-ish to assume that everyone else just be completely dismissed... Devil's advocate: If you're above average intelligence, you're smarter than a majority of the populace by definition. Why would you not then dismiss the thoughts and ideas of those less educated? One person's condescension is another person's logic.
- rictic 11y agoBecause your brain is going to lead you into thinking that your ingroup are the smart minority and your outgroups and people that you don't understand are the simple minded majority.
- GhotiFish 11y agobecause people don't exist on a continuum of smart and dumb.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI'm surprised to hear that, considering the story on HN the other day about how educated woman don't marry down. It seems a non-insignificant number of people want to partner with and befriend those of the same or higher intelligence. Anecdotally, I gravitate towards above average intelligence people for friendships and romantic relationships. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/07/06/has-being-single-in-america-changed/for-the-college-educated-there-is-a-man-deficit-in-the-us http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/07/06/has-being-si...
- bpatrianakos 11y agoI couldn't agree more about the mass market being morons. It's hard to say and not often said so bluntly in public though. Not because it's untrue but because the person saying it could be afraid they might be a part of that group of morons. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a moron call everyone else morons. So is there ever any way to know when "the mass market are morons" means what it says literally or when it's a stand-in for "most people aren't agreeing with my strongly held beliefs".
- mcguire 11y ago"The majority is always sane."
- enraged_camel 11y ago>>So is there ever any way to know when "the mass market are morons" means what it says literally or when it's a stand-in for "most people aren't agreeing with my strongly held beliefs". Absolutely there is. We have a measuring stick with which we can measure the validity of one's beliefs: empirical evidence. If you believe X, and scientists say we have sufficient empirical evidence that confirms that belief, and the mass market doesn't believe X, that makes the mass market a bunch of morons. This is inarguable.
- _yosefk 11y agoThere are many kinds of evidence and many ways to interpret it - and many kinds of science (physicists disagree with each other less than economists for a reason.) Incidentally, most "morons" disagree with you on matters where they can find a scientist on their side, or on issues of morality, or on inconsequential matters (like the origin of life, which is interesting to most but doesn't affect any practical decision.) Few "morons" jump out of windows in defiance of gravity, and those who do no longer bother you on Twitter. Also, scientists err, falsify results, cherry-pick them, etc. Of course, so do "morons"...
- Eiriksmal 11y agoWell said. Even when science means well, it can suck to be on the non-moron side. For ~120 years, science "knew" that an element existed inside all ignitable substances that was released during burning. When the air was fully saturated with phlogiston, the burning stopped. Just put a candle in a jar and watch what happens. The theory's sound, right? 120 years is a few lifetimes, who knows what revelations will drop before the 21st century winds down?
- majani 11y agoI think the friendly way to say it is that most people(yourself included) only achieve a medium/expert level of competence in one or two areas of their life. In the other areas, most of us are just bumbling through. Unfortunately though, manners require us to speak about various topics, leading to the bumbling side of humanity to be exposed in droves.
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- poof131 11y agoThe mass market isn’t so much “morons” as just the lowest common denominator. Everyone is “smart” about the niche areas that interest them. These niches seldom overlap. So the mass market is more about things that cross the boundaries: sports, weather, politics, jokes, etc. So what starts as a niche (not so much privileged or elite) either stays as a niche or appeals to a mass audience by finding the common denominators. Personally, sports bore me and I find the hero worship disgusting, but I recognize that I lose the ability to relate with a lot of people because of this disinterest. I wish more people were interested in computer science, political-economics, and defense policy, but most aren’t. While at times I want to scream, “stop worrying about bread and circuses,” I understand peoples desire to find common ground with others. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
- picrow 11y agoIn the same boat as you, dude. It's rough.
- Someone 11y ago"There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons." Yes there is, to some extent. The trick is to start with observations, not interpretations. If you ask a really angry guy "Why are you angry?" chances are the reply is "I AM NOT ANGRY", possibly combined with a punch to your nose. Instead, ask "Why are you slamming with doors?". That starts the discussion with something that is harder to deny, and doesn't directly relate to the person, but only to his behavior, which he can change. Because of that, you are less likely to be punched, and it is more likely that you will get the answer "Because I am angry", which can be followed up with a discussion about the why, about whether he likes to be angry, and about the fact that you don't like it, either. If you want to be really inoffensive, start with "I don't like the noise of those slamming doors", but that feels a bit too indirect to me. Similarly, don't say the mass market are morons, say they behave like morons or, even better, that they come over as morons on the Internet (my theory is that that is because people do not see facial expressions there) That not only is more polite, but likely also closer to the truth. At least, I haven't met someone who is like a real life Internet troll.
- corysama 11y ago> "I don't like the noise of those slamming doors" I've seen that described as a good way of dealing with children. IMHO, that pre-qualifies it as appropriate for aggressive Internet commenters.
- dclowd9901 11y agoI always say "if you have any doubt about the average person's intelligence, spend a day at the DMV."