Dumb People In College

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That doesn't sound like an incident of dumbness at all. It sounds like a girl with an excellent, deadpan sense of humour who made a cute quip that just sailed right over his head because he took her literally. Think about it. Do you really think a girl with enough sense of cultural history to know the plot of "West Side Story" and who can use "derivative" correctly in a sentence doesn't know that Shakespeare came centuries earlier? I've made lots of silly, off-hand jokes of just that type over the years.

major bullsh***. the consensus made x*10^6 scientists to produce so little that we still use things/ideas from the 60ties not to mention edisons lightbulb (even the fluorescent one is designed by tesla). they all have computers and can make fancy images to hide the lack of substance.
but of course they are always happy to discuss how smart they are compared to the plebs.

"original" can be pretty streachy thing (i have probably more stringent rules what is original).majority of them will admit (privately of course) that their research is not going to produce anything. honestly i know maybe just a couple of them who are actually trying to do something real (idea or a problem). majority is just simulating real work, doing incremental stupid things just for the sake of publishing and mainitaning their status.

the problem is that majority of them is required to stay in their phd area and basically wander around the same topic/material. so than they spend most of their time just trying to fit round peg into a square hole i.e. idea that is at least 5 years old. i admit it is not just their fault, partially it is the grant giving agencies who prefer big names and large agglomerates that are rarely radical in ideas.

yeah, i am angry because i feel like i am living in dark ages (not very impressed by a civilization that needs animals to survive) because people parade their "intelligence". sorry.


anyway, i have high hopes for the internet, knowledge will flow and truly talented people will have (some) chance.

That's not how my friend perceived it. He thought she was one hundred percent serious.

I'm not talking about technological innovation at all, or innovation in general. I'm talking about a person's thinking pattern. There aren't too many lone technological geniuses these days, but that's partly because of the bureaucratization and higher cost of innovation. Outside of IT and life sciences, no one but large corporations and ambitious start-ups can innovate technology these days.

Didn't your friend ever stop to think how implausible it is that somebody would know that a 50 year old musical makes "Romeo and Juliet" references yet not know that "Romeo and Juliet" was written centuries before? He clearly thought she was serious but it is truly illogical. "West Side Story" is a standard of highschool theater. And drama teachers routinely introduce it to their class by explaining the "Romeo and Juliet" reference. It is hard to find a serious discussion of the play that doesn't refernce "Romeo and Juliet".

Since I've been making jokes just like that one for decades, now I wonder how many people overhearing them just didn't get that it was a joke. Staggering!

Ask your friend to see if he can come up with a plausible way that somebody could know both the plot to "Romeo and Juliet" and the plot to "West Side Story" without knowing which preceded the other. I really don't see how you could learn about both things without also learning that.

When I was a junior in high school, I had this one teacher. He was half German, half Japanese, and he said people would make jokes about him being "the enemies of World War II." I was the only one who laughed. I was the only person out of 35(?) kids who knew our 2 major enemies in WWII.
All of those other people are now in college, too.

Yeah that is sad when people are too stupid to remember very important events like that. Ive always felt that history is the most important 'subject' to be honest, but society likes to shove it to the side and then repeat the mistakes of the past.

nope. innovation in thinking or technology requiers non-consensus initailly that is why it is innovation. and when a person risks his/her life and career and (maybe) makes it, then the crowd gets in to blab and elaborate whose' is bigger.
also here almost all profs have their start-ups that started at the university.

Are you sure they didn't laugh because they don't know who the enemies of WWII are? What if they didn't laugh because they simply didn't find the joke funny, or that they're busy worrying about other things?

Well sometime afterward I think we had to get into groups, and the 3 people in mine said that they had no idea...

A lot of professors are a**holes and think that because they have a PhD they are better than everyone else. I find that a lot of professors have little time for students, and are only teaching because it is a necessary component to be able to conduct research in a university.

What grade were these kids in?

look closely, he said junior year in highschool.... this is why its important to actually read into the posts instead of just glancing at em briefly, you have a chance of overlooking stuff that can be important to forming your own thoughts on something.

Well, people have gotten used to the fact that a lot of people know very little.
So it is not really surprising that one would take you seriously.
Also, it is very easily possible for someone to know the plots of both West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet and not know the latter preceded the former.
Although improbable, and not seeming to have any purpose, such a scenario could very possibly take place.
I find it odd that you somehow think that knowledge of literature and applying words correctly are tightly connected, in such a way that someone cannot use the word derivative and be unaware that Romeo and Juliet precedes West Side Story.
Also, you made a typo.
These sorts of jokes do not seem very humorous to me.
Although it is my opinion, it seems that too many people either know too little to get it, or are too aware of the stupidity of humanity as a whole.

Replying to the topic itself;
dumb people in a university is not much of a surprise.
Of course, it depends how you characterise these dumb people.
It seems rather improbable that they all give you their IQ scores and I know people do not judge by using numbers.
Grades, less improbable, although people with low grades would rather not show them.
Low, I would regard as being 70% or less, or a failing grade.
So that brings me to the final solutions.
Either opinions, statements or actions.
Maybe you see them as bigoted?
Maybe they say something that seems illogical or is untrue?
Maybe they lack any common sense or have difficulties grasping concepts?
This is all rather superficial.
Are these dumb people your friends?
Why would you call your friends dumb?
If not, why are you judging them like this?

Some people never grow up unfortunately. My college orientation was very sugar-coated to look more friendly that it was. Are there wonderful people there? Yes there are. Are there idiots there who have nothing better to do with their time than annoy other people because they find it funny. Yes. Does it end in college? No. Is it all around the world, yes. Wherever you go, unfortunately there will always be idiots, hacks, jerks and back-stabbers. As a person with aspergers, its very important for me at least to be very careful about the friends I choose.