• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    14 hours ago

    I don’t think it is even an intelligence issue. I think you hit the nail on the head with the last sentence: Americans are not taught to think critically. That is a skill you have to be taught and once taught, you have to exercise it. And the latter isn’t happening because most schools don’t do the former.

    You can be very smart, but without that skill in your tool belt, it doesn’t matter in many situations. Especially not with politics.

    And I think it explains why there are so many evangelicals in the engineering field. They aren’t stupid people, they just don’t know how to think critically and they are in a field where they don’t necessarily have to but can still use their intelligence.

    • droporain@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      My fine aviatorial cephalopoda, they have to put warning signs to not drink battery acid from your car and that hot coffee will scald you. There are people out there that intelligence is indeed the issue.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        7 hours ago

        I think you need to look more closely at the McDonald’s coffee incident. The warnings are there so that they no longer get sued for causing customers ridiculously bad burns. The battery acid one is like “keep out of reach of children.” Again, a way to not get sued.

        That is about American litigiousness, not intelligence.

        I’m sorry, but suggesting that Americans are just stupid as if there’s some sort of stupidity field you enter when you cross the border or it’s some sort of genetic thing is silly. There are people of all levels of intelligence in the U.S., just like everywhere else.