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first you complain about being surrounded by stupid people, then you complain about a pandemic that kills off millions of the weak and unvaccinated

pick one

@sneak are you trying to start a new war here? C'mon man. We're tired.

@arh it occurs to me that the average IQ on the earth is going up faster than usual due to covid. it kills indiscriminately, and it has killed many very smart people, but it kills more stupid and un-clever people than it kills smart people, on balance. the average intelligence on the planet is going up.

sitting back and watching people die of their own lack of education, and poor decisions they make as a consequence, doesn't sound very ethical to me.
it's not really like the lack of education was their choice. I think the ethical response should be to try to educate before it's too late.

@lxo "sitting back"?

people dying of their own lack of education and poor decisions has nothing to do with me. you can try to construct some narrative about how all of the idiots doing idiot stuff is my fault, because with enough handholding some of them might become not-idiots, and thus I have a moral obligation to burn up my limited time and resources to help some subset of them stop being so dumb.

to that I say: not my circus, not my monkeys.

it's absolutely not your fault, but that doesn't imply it's not your problem. you and I suffer the consequences like anyone else. that moves me to act because I don't wish those consequences. whether that moves you is up to you, of course

@lxo i will suffer the consequences of there being billions of fools for as long as i am alive, irrespective of any amount of effort i put into reducing that figure

you're probably right about that, unfortunately
if you and a lot more people give it up without even trying, that's nearly assured, and democratically chosen
me, I still think it's worth trying, and if a lot more people did so, we might stand a chance

@lxo i don't agree. i think almost all important human progress has been carried out by small groups, working mostly unknown to the majority of humans.

i look at all the progress we have made, and i see this, and i have come to realize that the median level of human reasoning ability has not really changed much in several thousand years:

youtube.com/watch?v=wvMPuS_A1a

Exactly. No-one is manipulated here or deceived into doing things. It's their choices, and their consequences to bear. Nothing of a "sitting back" man's problem he'd had to tackle with.
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