War on Ignorance; Do People Choose to be Stupid?

I am just not so sure anymore.... is it okay to say that people are stupid? I think the term has many meanings, but for the purpose of this discussion we will define it as ‘Lacking intelligence or common sense’. In that case, I believe we can make the argument that there are many stupid people out there.
Don’t be a sensitive sally. Hear me out.
Can we save our species from self-annihilation? One might argue that humans are competitive by nature, or we could use the excuse that we are still at the mercy of our genetics. Our fear response causes us to panic and think less clearly. Our sexual urges cause us to make hasty decisions regarding safety, or we are willing to lose friends over jealousy. Surely these play a role in who we are, but enough with the bullshit and excuses already. We do have a choice as rational beings to look at the information for any situation and make a decision which will minimize harm others.
Indeed sometimes we make the wrong choice due to our ignorance on a situation, and to be sure, that is exactly what this writing is about. ‘Ignorance’ seems to be a choice these days, and some people appear to go as far as to have ‘pride’ in their lack of insight. The enemy of these people are the ‘intellects’ and ‘smarty-pants’, or even science as a whole. Those scientists, always trying to ruin our beliefs, telling us things we don’t want to believe, so they become the enemy.
Science…. The enemy?
Intelligence… Something to avoid?
What is happening here? Why are we so divided on issues and ideas that should be simple to discuss, and obvious to anyone who researches the issue? Are things really as two sided as they appear to be?
Well the answer is far too complex to answer here, and covers many angles. We have unsettled science and scientific dogma, we have liars and charlatans trying to take our money, we have primal instincts and drives which cause us grief, and a complex zoo of neurochemicals that are all balanced carefully to give us our individual realities. That said, this is unapologetic, and although we do have different theories and opinions, some issues are too important to leave to ‘opinions.’
We have elected officials in office that cater to lobbyists for the oil industry, so they tell the people we need to mine more coal to be ‘self-reliant’. The people believe it, because they are also told it is ‘American’.
We have clergymen and priests telling people they need to give their money to the church, or tell others how to live their lives, and they gladly do so.
We have parents telling their children to behave or they will burn in ‘Hell’ for eternity, and they believe it.
We have thousands of businesses vying for attention, telling you that you need their products, and without them you will be unworthy; and people happily drive to their local mall and wait in line for the latest iPhone. It is ridiculous.…. But if that moves you, who am I to say you shouldn’t? What business is it of mine?
None. And I could care less if people want to buy shit they don’t need. Sure, the more we manufacture goods, the more resources are wasted, and the environment suffers; that does not mean we should not enjoy our lives. Commercialization is just part of life, and consumers have to do their own research.
My point here is that the stupidity that affects someone’s personal life is their own. The stupidity I am trying to attack here is the confirmation bias and ignorance that allows a person in charge of a country to delude the people for profit- but it is even worse when they do it out of lack of knowledge. We are too afraid to just admit we don’t know something, and this causes many problems.
Believing what you are told, by anyone, without doing your own research is tantamount to being a complete buffoon. No person can be trusted to know everything, but some folks would like to think they do. This is the problem we face- not wanting to know something because it is right, but because it makes us feel better, or confirms what we already believe.
We use fallacies so often that the word has lost meaning. Reasoning requires careful consideration, not just repeating a line we heard from a friend, or on the news. Nor can we dismiss the media completely because someone else tells us to, or we don’t agree with the claims made. We must overcome the desire to be right, and to see our group is superior. This goes for politics, religion, family and the workplace. When the term ‘mainstream’ became an insult, I knew this had to be said.
In the alternative news world, it has become normal to insult and demean anyone who is in the ‘mainstream’, as if a few people researching from their bedrooms on the internet are giving a full account of what is ‘really’ going on. The problem is, most of these people source their news from….you guessed it, mainstream media! Then they give their twist on it. We have become a nation of skeptics, which could be healthy if we were skeptical of the right things. But it seems very few people choose to look at things objectively.
We are suspicious not of what we are being told by those in power, but what we are being told by millions of scientists around the world. For example, global temperatures have been rising steadily, and most climate science agrees that we are at least contributing to it. There is a specific CO2 footprint for fossil fuels, which can be measured and examined, compared to ice core samples and give us an idea of where we are. At the very least, we are polluting the air in the cities we live in, and air is an important thing for living. We need it.
All this aside- there are millions who believe what a few rich oil barons have told them for so many decades- that it makes us energy independent, we need it to survive, it’s the Mercian way, on and on….and it is all bullshit. Meanwhile the rest of the world is working on new less polluting energy sources. The US, supposedly this great nation, is the only one not involved in the reduction of fossil fuels that the rest of the world agrees is important. I use this example because of the magnitude of ignorance that must go into believing such nonsense, and being able to claim that the whole of science is wrong, and they are right. It’s absurd, and ignorant, and needs to be addressed.
I could have used religion as the example- but since there is no consensus on how to measure something that has no evidence, it would go nowhere. Personal beliefs are not a problem to me, I feel people deserve the right to believe what makes them happy. They do not, however, have the right to dictate public policy and law based on archaic beliefs about god, politics, race, sex or freedoms. We each deserve to live in a world where the people take a little bit of time to research things before they pretend to know.
The more people who repeat something they heard, without confirmation, the more it becomes history. Much of our past was written by those who never witnessed the events they wrote of; stories passed down generations, dictated and twisted. This continues today. Our history is written by the people, and as long as we choose to live wearing blindfolds, we will continue to walk in the dark.