Is it just me or is this person an idiot?

Post Reply New Topic

Merriam-Webster Dictionary says: "a foolish or stupid person" is the definition.
Link

There are, in fact, a lot of foolish and stupid people in the world, so it does actually exist. It's not about making assumptions (social or otherwise) and it's not about what they think, it's about how they act and what they say.
And despite what some people think, it's not about making judgement calls either, it's about fitting into a set criteria that was established years ago using both common sense (not common knowledge) and logic.

That definition is not helpful either, especially as defining "idiot" as a "stupid person" is just circular.

People can do foolish things, and I think the majority of people do foolish things at some point, but this doesn't mean that an enduring label of "idiot" should be applied to them.

And I don't know how you can claim "it's not about making assumptions" when people constantly make assumptions about other people based on limited exposure (this is a tendency called "fundamental attribution error").

Also, "common sense" is not really what it is claimed to be. People often appeal to the notion of common sense to deny reality and facts and stick to whatever they prefer to believe, even though that belief may have nothing at all to do with reality. "Logic" is often used similarly, to reject notions that people have an emotional and even irrational dislike or hatred for. I often see people claim they are being logical, but they appeal to multiple fallacies in order to force their claims into a logical format.

I am not saying that logic is useless. But rather, that appealing to logic is not necessarily helpful. In this case, claiming that one can classify someone as an idiot because they did something deemed to be "foolish" is not particularly logical. If anything, it is often an irrational reaction based on limited data.

Calling someone "stupid" is the same problem. Neither of these terms has an objective meaning that can be applied in every situation, and are often misapplied to people who are trolling, mistaken, or simply ignorant.

"Foolishness" also carries a certain degree of subjectivity. I am sure that many people could agree that certain actions are foolish. But many other actions are deemed to be foolish due to a lack of understanding and a surfeit of ignorance, or - again - an antipathy toward a person taking the actions, or dislike of the actions themselves.

It seems to me that the need to label people as "idiots" says more about the person doing the labeling than the person who is labeled. It just doesn't seem to me that it's a useful label that can describe much with any kind of accuracy.

I have also noticed how people throw that word around when someone doesn't have any knowledge about something. Also if you have never heard of a celebrity or something about history or something that happened out there in the world or somewhere in our country, you're "stupid." I don't get that logic.

Okay by their logic, we're all stupid and an idiot because we don't know everything. People are technically hypocrites when they call others that because I am sure they don't know everything themselves nor heard of every single song out there or person or disaster or everything in history and I doubt they heard about all conditions out there and diseases.

Yeah we all do stupid things and I still think the person at YA could have bothered looking up AS than going on that website and asking what it is. I think that is what made him an idiot, not because he didn't know what AS is, but because he didn't bother looking it up. Maybe that is what the OP was saying.

Well, first off, be calm.

Now that that's out of the way. I'm just going to simply say this, I'm not going to bother with half of this because you've dismissed what is accepted as fact regarding the matter by experts and specialists who actually set the standard for everyone else in the world, and you yourself have demonstrated a subjective view on it. So giving you more facts is pointless as you'll simply deny them and put in whatever truth people commonly want to believe instead.
Now, Common sense is (as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary): "the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way". Common Sense Definition at the bottom of first paragraph
When you say common sense isn't what it's made out to be, you're in fact refering instead to Common Knowledge. Which is information that people tend to commonly believe as truth, not necessarily actual truth however. Definition Here
Logic itself, cannot fault. People however can and their understanding of logic is what the common problem is, not logic itself. There are plenty of intellectuals who'd agree with that as well, since they themselves use logic to deduce fact and would naturally come to the same conclusion.
Take it or leave it, I only offer fact as established by experts who everyone eventually falls back on.

It does seem a bit daft, but maybe he wasn't familiar with the internet and didn't know about Google. I'm trying to be kind, but perhaps the person was actually a troll, in disguise as one of the uneducated.

If you deal with enough people, you will realise that they are more stupid than you previously realised. So it is very possibly that the guy is serious. Even if he's not serious, he is still an idiot.

You're reading emotion into my post. Simple disagreement is not emotion.



There are experts defining "idiot" and "stupid" are there? You simply quoted a dictionary, which provides a fairly basic definition of words. It's not really a way to resolve a disagreement. The two words in question are practically vernacular, not scientific definitions. They're primarily used to insult people.



What makes your usage of "common sense" actual "common sense" rather than "common knowledge"? You seem to think that your knowledge on this matter is objective and factual on the basis of a dictionary definition, and mine is strictly subjective and emotionally driven. Apparently it is somehow wrong to question something that "everyone knows"? I can't imagine why a commitment to defending the status quo would not itself be emotional - rendering an interpretation of your post as an emotional backlash to questioning the need to label people as low intelligence because of snap judgments about their behavior and actions. I am not saying you are being emotional and thus need to calm down, but I am pointing out that your response is as subject to such a judgment as mine is, and perhaps has as much chance of being correct.

Telling someone to calm down, however, does strike me as a commonly used rhetorical tactic to put another on the defensive. That is an emotive tactic, and one that you did not need to invoke to make your argument. Casting aspersions upon my arguments and characterizing me as close-minded because I do not agree with a dictionary also strikes me as a means of raising the emotional stakes in this discussion. It is a weak argument on your part, as you are directing that argument at me as a person, and not at my actual arguments, which you dismissed out of hand while criticizing me for apparently dismissing entire legions of experts (which is an inappropriate appeal to authority on its own).



Logic is vulnerable to GIGO, and if it could not fault we would not have logical fallacies. Using logic to deduce fact can easily lead one astray if one's premises are flawed.



You offered dictionary definitions, which are of limited usefulness and tend to be fairly incomplete. They don't reflect "experts who everyone eventually falls back on." They reflect how words are used, but my disagreement is with how the words are used. I do not see what it is that makes people decide that someone is "stupid" or an "idiot" as such observations are by their nature flawed and subjective. There is no objective measurement of "idiocy" or "stupidity" and these words are not used on people in such a manner that they can possibly reliably reflect anyone's true intelligence level. At best the reflect on what someone might have been observed doing at the time they were judged to be "stupid" or an "idiot."

It's circular, just as defining "idiot" as "stupid" is. People use these words to insult people. The dictionary reflects that usage, so you use the dictionary to show that this is how the words are used, which was already established and that usage was what I questioned in the first place. Using the usage to defend the usage is not a convincing argument.

I quoted this because I stopped reading in the middle, just so you know.
First off, who do you think wrote dictionaries? Experts at language, that's who. So yes I quoted experts in language by giving the definitions that has been applied to those words since the first dictionaries were written, and likely since the words came to existence.
Second, I've provided proof of fact that has been established by the english language and even given links to said facts. All you have done however is dispute it without real evidence and attempted to convince me that you're correct. Without real substance, you can't prove that you're correct. I however, do have substance and have listed my sources.

As far as logic goes: Logic itself isn't flawed, but people can be (as I stated previously). This doesn't mean that people come to false conclusions based on "bad" logic, it means they come to false conclusions because their understanding of logic is flawed.

I commend you for sticking to your beliefs, but it's a matter of language and meanings of words, and that is what dictionaries are for.

Huh?

What are you talking about? There are no meds for aspergers, and it is indeed "untreatable". There maybe medications for depression or other secondary effects of aspergers, but thats not the same thing as treating aspergrs itsself.

I didn't say they treated AS directly nor did I imply there was direct treatment, I said "there are meds that help some people with the condition". That's not the same thing.
People who have AS are usually medicated with certain meds that make the condition managable in certain aspects, but these meds only work on some people because no two cases are exactly the same and alot of people don't have the symptoms that are helped by said meds. In case you're wondering what meds I'm refering to, I'm talking about anti-anxiety meds, some are prescribed anti-psychotics to help manage stress and help them manage social situations better. This isn't a new concept, it's been in effect for years as a treatment for managing the condition and is prescribed by psychiatrists all over the place.

You have provided reliable sources written by reliable people for the definition of a word. But to me it looks like Verdandi isn't disputing the definition of the word but instead is examining the social forces behind how the word is used. Is somebody an idiot if they don't know what Asperger's Syndrome is? Not by that dictionary definition, since knowledge of what Asperger's Syndrome is has not entered the realm of common knowledge so one can't be considered an idiot for not knowing it. Is somebody an idiot if they use YahooAnswers instead of googling in order to find out the meaning of a word? Yes, I think they are according to colloquial use since my own bias says that using an obscure resource to possibly find something out is not as smart as using a ubiquitous resource to get far more accurate information.

Verdandi is examining that bias. This is the point of her posts.




Logic isn't flawed but people can come to a false conclusion even if their understanding of logic is correct and they use the logic perfectly. This is because logic is just a way to process data and incomplete or incorrect data will lead to a logical yet wrong conclusion. GIGO, as Verdandi said. This isn't an incorrect understanding of logic. It's just bad data.

The OP is using the premise "all questions to yahooanswers are written by people who do not already know the answers to those questions". This is probably bad data, as other posters pointed out. The likely possibility of trolling is what makes this bad data.

I agree with the posters who think the question was trolling and the person already knows what Aspergers Syndrome is. But suppose it was not and the person honestly doesn't know. Are they then an idiot? I think so because I think it is idiotic to use yahooanswers for what is actually a single word definition. I think it is smarter to use yahooanswers for complex questions that google can't help with because the question is more than just the sum of its words and so can't be answered by a search engine. But that's my bias. And that bias is what Verdandi is examining. Which I think is a good and worthwhile subject to examine.

1)Does doing something idiotic make a person an idiot forevermore?

2)Is it actually idiotic to use yahooanswers rather than google? Just because I think so doesn't make it so.

It's just ignorance.

Here is the guys other questions:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 927AArBbXs

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 547AAVLIXL



http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 834AA0PflZ





I would say that the guy was simply being a troll.

I actually laughed at his questions.

I feel sorry for the girlfriend, it sounds like her boyfriend lacks understanding.
She needs to find someone who cares, or someone who at least understands what the inter-net has to offer.

How old is he anyway, 8 years old?

A least he went online and asked about it, that is trying to understand it.