Talk:1386: People are Stupid

Isn't that a reference to the Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence? 103.22.200.119 04:49, 25 June 2014 (UTC)krayZpaving

White Hat being burned? This certainly will not end here.--141.101.102.208 04:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb. This wiki is founded on the very principle that people are stupid. 108.162.223.29 05:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

This comment is one that makes me scratch my head and wonder... surely Randall is able to see that intelligence is not a relative but rather an absolute thing (if one were to kill the 10% most intelligent people the rest wouldn't get dumber, nor smarter). Surely intelligence is not to be measured in units of the common denominator. Surely it is obvious that 2nd panel is a pure strawman. Sigh... Oh and btw an IQ of 100 is the median, not the average. 141.101.104.17 09:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The mocking "award", which is an analogy of saying "intelligence isn't everything" (an EXTREMELY common cliche), reflects the fact that Randall, like just about anyone, is oblivious to the magnitude of the totality of positive correlates of intelligence, and even (TRIGGER WARNING, TABOO CONCEPT AHEAD) I.Q. Intelligence, I.Q., not only makes you happier, it also makes you more helpful to other people, more creative, more socially stable, better-to-do, less susceptible to mental illnesses, more likely to remember events in your life, etc. etc. etc... Basically, there isn't a positive trait or quality of life with which intelligence doesn't correlate. But people positively LOATHE awareness of how highly intelligence, in fact, matters. Hence the vehement denial whenever someone indicates its importance, all the "I know an intelligent person who is miserable/mean/...", all stressing of exceptions, all ridicule of the notion of intelligence in general, all the "don't think about it"-mentality, all writing off of I.Q. as "antiquated, grossly limited, racist, metric" rather than the extremely potent predictor that it is. tl;dr Randall at all, take time to actually STUDY intelligence or the g factor before you mock it like that. 141.101.89.211 09:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

In other words (and this is going to be my last addendum to this note, because it is a vast subject), whenever people say (or imply, as in the comic's case) that "intelligence isn't everything", the question to ask in return is, "okay, now what is the degree to which intelligence enables, facilitates, contributes to, 'the rest' to which you're opposing intelligence here?". People minimise the depth and breadth of the intellectual substrate of achievement. 141.101.89.211 09:33, 25 June 2014 (UTC)