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Have you ever met an actual dumb person? (lemmy.today)

submitted 23 hours ago by 1984@lemmy.today 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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[-] AskewLord@piefed.social 2 points 22 hours ago

Yes, some people are cognitively impaired.

[-] Freeposity@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

In the US almost 20% of the adult population is functionally illiterate.

[-] AskewLord@piefed.social 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

literacy isn't intelligence.

nor is being good at math.

but in our society we seem to think that's what it is, because those are the primary metrics by which we evaluate children. because they are easy to measure and track scores on the tests for them, and we have been doing that for generations.

someone not being able to read doesn't mean they are stupid. and many folks, who can read, are stupid. and maybe folks who are genius readers, are stupid/illiterate about many other things. spend some time in a english dept at a world famous uni, you will meet plenty of complete idiots, who are just really good at reading books and analyzing them, and not much else, because well, that's all that they do really. and it's easy to be intelligent about something if you put 50,000 hours into doing it.

[-] 1984@lemmy.today 2 points 19 hours ago

I agree with this 100%. A lot of people are only booksmart and can't really think for themselves.

this post was submitted on 29 May 2026

122 points (90.7% liked)

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