The Stupidity Graph
You may be dumber than you think...
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It’s not your fault. It could happen to anyone. You just got stuck in a mode, a way of thinking, perhaps even a way of feeling about the world. The quest for meaning in your life drove you, set you on a path toward mental, emotional, and spiritual ‘expansion’. You dabbled in books by Marx or Rand or Orwell. Before long you were micro-dosing online conclaves like Bluesky, Twitter, or Reddit. You started freebasing tech-bro podcasts or overly earnest New Yorker articles. From there is was just a short, wild trip to mainlining opinion pieces from the Heritage Foundation or snorting talking point lines directly from the Democratic National Committee website.
It was cool. You had a handle on it. Sure, you loved the intellectual highs but you didn’t need them. You were just having fun, right? Unfortunately, that’s not how this works. You thought you could quit at any time, that you could stop before anyone got hurt. But one day you woke up and it was too late. It all came to a head that morning when your mom walked into your room. The woman who raised you, loved you, nurtured you. That morning you broke her heart. That morning when she found you curled up in the corner like an abused animal reading a hard copy issue of…The Economist. You didn’t want to admit it. No one does. But the truth doesn’t wait for validation. You finally realized you were hooked on an ideology.
So, what’s the big deal? Why does it matter if you identify as a MAGA devotee or a moderate ‘dyed in the wool’ Democrat. Well, it turns out your newfound (or lifetime) world view might be making you dumber than you think. New research based on some semblance of scientific principles points to the possibility of a massive surge in idiocy specifically from people who can’t seem to remove their head from their ideological asses. It turns out that rigid thinking, coupled with a tendency to consume biased information from sources that support that thinking can lead to a body sounding - and acting - like a complete dipshit.
Ideologues spouting gibberish is, of course, nothing new. We’ve been pushing ideological points of view since before neanderthal created the concept of simple interest. But the prevalence of social media has given an unprecedented voice to the some of the most virulent and poorly educated strains. This has emboldened many of us to ‘double down’ and dig our own ideological trenches as we lob political grenades at indiscriminate targets. Now the battlefield of ideas is an intellectual No Man’s Land pock marked with the craters of asininity (How’s that for a tortured analogy?).
In a recent study, scientists have not only pinpointed the connection between political ideology and it’s preference for biased information, but were able to effectively quantify the potential willful ignorance (stupidity) produced by that phenomenon.
Based on a survey of 749 study participants, The Stupidity Graph was created by Dr. Heinrich McSham, Phd., an ad hoc professor at the New Bollochs University in Shrewsbury, England (not accredited).
The participants were chosen based on the following ideological criteria.
Moderate Liberals
MAGA Conservatives
Identitarians
Anarchists
Nazis
Vegans
Dr. McSham explains his findings here:
As you can see, the x-axis of the graph represents the subjects propensity to consume biased or unverifiable information. Referred to in the sociological sciences as ‘bullshit’. We rate this scale from its lowest measurement (sitting in a dark room without electricity) to it’s highest (watching cable news for 16 hours per day). This is also the equivalent of watching 2 hours of Andrew Tate’s newest ‘self-help’ video series “How I Score Chicks in Prison.”
The y-axis represents the subject’s political ideology, or if you will, their desire to view the outside world within a very specific set of parameters. For the baseline, we used the ideological preferences of Billy Rosenblat, a 10-year-old boy from Winona, Minnesota. At the top end of the axis, we have ‘Full Nazi’ represented by the xenophobic insights of Joseph Goebbles and the KKK’s Men’s Acapella Choir.
You’ll note that ideology is the key factor in the overall propensity to say or do something stupid. A Nazi sitting in a dark room that isn’t connected to the internet is relatively harmless. However, even if that Nazi does nothing but engage in listener supported, community radio he’ll likely still blame high health care costs on Jews and the Great Replacement Theory. Conversely, an individual who is less inclined to subscribe to a particular ideology is also less inclined to make moronic statements. We’ve found that these subjects have a better ability to identify bullshit then your typical, outspoken online jagoff.
Note also that we do not conflate ‘biased information’ with ‘misinformation’, as the latter tends to represent any new data that "I don’t like”. Knee-jerk reactions to reasonable statements are an ideological dead giveaway. For example:
Suggesting an old man acting erratically might have early dementia: MAGA plot
A virus might have escaped from the very lab in which it was being researched and manipulated: Racist.
Due to budget constraints, Dr. McSham was forced to employ the services of his wife’s 3rd grade class to construct a graph approximating the area of concern during their St. Hubbin’s Day pizza party.
Researcher, John Wellington, described the scientific process of selecting the study participants.
We scoured the internet, viewed thousands of social media accounts and picked out some the most overwrought, deranged prattle available from various political and religious persuasions. Once selected, every candidate was offered a $5 Starbucks card and the chance to proselytize for 15 minutes to our volunteers in exchange for their participation. It was the first human contact most of them had encountered in months.
The researchers keyed on specific phrases as part of the selection process which included but were not limited too:
Property is theft
We need to focus on implementing incremental change
Meat is murder
Vote blue no matter who
I blame the Jews
Wokeism caused the LA fires
Study coordinator, Dodgy O’Leary shared some of the most surprising observations:
While moderates routinely fancy themselves the ‘adults in the room’, preaching the eminently reasonable virtues of ‘incremental change’, most of them don’t know what the word ‘incremental’ actually means…aside from their assertion that watering the plants whilst the house is on fire counts as ‘change’.
We had an entire group of MAGA’s wearing ‘Fuck Your Feelings’ t-shirts suddenly scream out in terror like shocked howler monkeys after seeing a video of a David Bowie impersonator using the lads’ loo.
Turns out the anarchists still haven’t worked out who’ll fix supper or clean the toilets after the revolution. No government. No authority. Just 8 billion people sitting about trying to decide who’s got kitchen cleanup.
Vegans. Blimey. I just can’t…
Professor Blaine Jorgenson, an independent researcher studying energy conversion and applications believes the Stupidity Graph could be the key to a vast new energy source. He was able to mathematically convert the proclivity for utter imbecility into units of energy.
According to Jorgenson:
Right. Well, the amount of ‘idiotons’ (though we’re toying with the name ‘dumbassajoules’) expelled during conversion could be harnessed to create a new trans-dimensional drive for interstellar exploration and/or instantaneous travel on a planetary scale. Or it could power the entire continent of Asia for approximately 3 hours and 47 minutes every day.
Though he believes his theories are sound, Jorgenson has noted that his work has run into funding trouble as of late. Most recently, he traveled to the United States to meet with chairman of the US Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Brian Babin (R). When presented with research for a process that could potentially reduce worldwide oil consumption by approximately 80%, Babin balked. According to Jorgenson:
I believe his exact words were: ‘Get bent, you unreconstructed hippy!’
Jorgenson admits that utilizing ‘dumbassajoules’ would not necessarily be a ‘clean’ process. In fact, maintaining current output levels could prove disastrous. The data indicates that the emotional intelligence of nearly 90% of US adults could be reduced to that of a rabid wolverine in heat by the year 2037. He then suggested:
Yeah…maybe it would be better if we all just got outside a bit more and took a hike.
Psychologist, Dr. Samantha Haverman, tried to put the study findings in perspective. She pointed out that being an overly-opinionated shithead is not, necessarily, a permanent condition.
Stupidity is a choice. We can all choose to take in new and reasonable information and learn from it. We don’t have to let our ideology force us to eschew new knowledge just because that information challenges our worldview.
Harkening back to the Stupidity Graph, itself, Dr. Haverman echoed Dr. McSham’s point about the out-sized role of ideology.
Sometimes what we ‘believe’ isn’t constructive and can cause more problems than it will ever solve. Set down the Mein Kompf, turn off the cable news (all of it), and pull that giant piece of timber out of your butt.
It’s alright to support universal health care and fair wages for workers, but trying to ruin someone’s career just because they don’t know what they think about 30 different genders isn’t going to grow your coalition. It just makes you an asshole?
If you hate women because you can’t get a date, you might try taking a shower, getting a haircut, and not acting like such a twat all the time. Ask questions, show interest in their answers. It might just work. Remember, just because your favorite podcaster is a complete tit doesn’t mean you should be.
Party loyalists…I’ve got nothin’. Aside from the point that it doesn’t matter what ‘faction’ you belong to. Billionaires and SuperPacs are not going to save you.
In conclusion, there’s nothing wrong with having an ideology…mostly. I’m a bit ideological, myself. It can be a nice guideline for one’s general principles. However, adhering to an ideology without considering new information just isn’t helpful, for you or anyone else. Going through life thinking you’re right about everything is not only alienating to others but a sure path to embarrassment. Instead, ask questions. Find out what other people think. Listen. And most importantly, try to take people where they are. You might just learn something. And, most importantly, you’ll be less stupid for it.
Mother and Daughter - Drug Free Kids Canada
Brian Babin Photo - The New Republic