An overheard conversation

“Be vigilant!”

Something I accidentally overheard:

Apparently, the economy is “collapsing” because of “that fucking war”, which Bush just “had to stick his nose in”. (I am not even sure what that means. We started the war — for a particular reason. We “stuck our nose” in it in the same way that a surgeon sticks his nose in a cancerous mole.) But of course, all this time, rich people were getting richer (this is what the war was really all about, apparently), having vacations on their yachts.

The rich people are not paying for the war, however. Look at your tax return: that’s who is paying (obviously, when liberal president comes to power, the taxes will be lower — right?).

The result of all this is that we should start learning Chinese (I kid you not — he said that). We may need it very soon.

(So, let’s see: the economic crisis on the real estate market was caused by Republicans starting a war in Iraq, not by Democrats forcing companies to encourage people borrow money when there was a good chance those people couldn’t repay it. Yes, this makes sense...)

First of all, my question is: are they stupid or are they ignorant?

Second, this is amongst two people working in an academic institution, one of them directly involved in science process, the other — circumstantially. What the hell happens to critical thinking when these people step out of a lab or a lecture room? If somebody presented a scientific idea like this, these same people would tear him apart, systematically, piece-by-piece showing how he is full of crap.

I don’t have a problem with stupidity amongst “the masses”. I have a problem, when stupid masses rule. The reason why American electoral system is representative is that the Founding Fathers were suspicious of masses’ ability to make long-ranging intelligent decisions (plus, federalism). When you allow uneducated, uncritical, emotional masses rule, you get the Soviet Union (read Bulgakov, for example). Unfortunately, this is what we are getting in this election. Stupid masses (↔ media) → president. I don’t care about the political aspect of it so much. I care about the increasing entropy of intelligence around me.