Take the phrase "Every village has their idiot" and extrapolate that to the scale of the internet. Now the village idiots have groups chats to come up with more stupid shit, conventions and focus groups to brainstorm the dumbest shit imaginable.
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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No Stupid Questions
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Keep in mind that the algorithms will push the most engaging content to you, so you'll see stuff that pisses people off the most. It's literally upvoting troll accounts automatically.
Anyway, whenever you encounter an actual account who is posting stupid false narratives, the best way isn't to start arguing or throw links to true explanations and such.
Instead, simply ask them "why do you believe that stupid shit?" and leave them to either investigate the matter themselves, thereby hopefully teaching them something, or let them back out with the typical non-answer like "do your own research" which itself undermines whatever they just said.
I never encountered such people on the internet which leads me to think you may be alone in this situation. Maybe they are not stupid and it is your superior intelligence that makes you wonder if anyone was ever faced with such events? They say doubt is a sign of intelligence!
Algorithms are designed for engagement.
Stupid shit generates engagement.
Funnel works as intended.
Because the human brain is a pattern-matching, rationalization engine and not a database with any sort of logic discrimination built into the interfaces?
I dunno. Seems like the same result happens when we dream; buncha random stimulus with no bearing on realty, brain "invents" a narrative that explains the anomaly, and hermetically seals off that "truth" from evidence that would implode it.
People where/are just as stupid. Now they have no shame and lots of platforms to feed their stupidity.
Before you climb on a high horse, we are all stupid in our own way, it's the ignorance of the stupidity that is the problem. Not knowing that you are stupid is the greatest super power ever
Being aware that one person doesn't know everything is different than being stupid.
That's not what they were saying.
They were saying "everyone is stupid" which is reductionist and frankly, stupid.
Everyone can make mistakes, especially when they don't know everything, but that doesn't make them stupid.
They were being flippant/hyperbolic about it, using stupid as a synonym for ignorant.
Their point was that not knowing your shortcomings is what truly makes you stupid.
Because you and you alone are an OMEGA brained GENIUS who is never wrong.
It only seems that way because the stupidest people are the loudest and spend the most time on social media.
They were always stupid. They are just more able to write out their stupidity.
https://youtube.com/shorts/i4TICZ67Ws4
I like this video from a London historian who goes through what common people knew before compulsory education.
I remember the time where basically every user on the internet was an academic. The net was very different back then. Then came AOL and the eternal September.
'Nowadays'? That's the kind of conversation my dad and his brothers would have at family get-togethers back in the 80s. It hasn't gotten worse, it's just gotten more in-your-face.
Lemmy has spoken.
They were always stupid, social media made them bold.
There were plenty of stupid people already and then covid arrived and caused brain damage everywhere.
"Wait... People are stupid?" 👩🚀🔫👩🚀 "Always have been."
Tribalism. We care more about being accepted by our desired peers than being correct. At least, that's what articles and podcasts have told me. Also, stupid. Weaken education and make people stupid and unable to think critically. Do you think Ted Cruz (Harvard) was complaining about the Paris Accord because he genuinely didn't know that it wasn't Paris-only? His voters are goddamned morons and he knows it. The contempt is sickening, but they see none of it.
"Why are people so ________ these days?" drives me nuts. People have always been that way. If today's behavior seems new and unique it's only because it's being presented through different social norms, fashions, or ways of communicating.
People are inherently stupid. It is an essential part of our species for a reason that's clever by no merit of our own. That reason is because fitting into social structure takes precedent over everything else. Without it being the highest priority, we are exiled from the goup which historically has spelled death and the end of our family line.
Above all we are a social animal. Of all traits, it is the entirety of our strength and survivability as a species. We believe what we are told to believe by people we believe. That's it. The adaptability of our world modeling systems is remarkable and the vast influx of environmental data is ambiguous at best.
From the moment you are pooped out onto the earth to the moment you sink into its chilly clutches, all of us, from the beginning of humankind, believe only what our socialization allows us to believe.
Except for the very few things you've objectively tested with rigor, everything you think you know falls within the category of second hand knowledge by trusting that certain people are telling you the truth.
Conversely, logical deduction, mathematics, statistics, etc., etc., are not natural to our instincts. They're skills that must be learned.
So just remember that. You, me, and the vast sea of morons that cover this planet are inherently built for fucking, hunting for resources, and being an integral part of our in-group way beyond things like understanding long term cause and effect, objective analysis, or anything else that paints a somewhat clearer picture of reality.
Nowadays compared to when?
https://xkcd.com/202/ was published in 2006, so you must be thinking of much earlier than that…
No barrier to entry, successful bait, the machine knows that type of content makes you feel something (happy, angry, who cares?) because you looked at it for 6% longer than other posts or some shit so it shovels more into your face. Combination of things. The only winning move is not to play.
I fully agree with your statement but I was referring specifically about the comment section, it seems like people tend to be stupid there no matter where you go even if I don't interact with any of it whilst being in guest mode; maybe I'm misinterpreting something from your statement but feel free to correct me
It's okay to be stupid, at times, on a "I just don't know" level. Nobody knows everything, not even experts.
It's just not okay to pretend that you're smart and know everything while demonstrating just how stupid you are. You're only truly stupid also, when you don't question, don't have a sense of awareness and aren't curious to know more of something.
That's exactly what online engagement has largely degraded into. People who think that because they're louder, that they have more karma points, that they brown-nose to mods/admins make them smart and therefore not stupid. It just turns you into a stupid asshole who has a fragile ego.
Because we don’t make it hurt to be willfully ignorant. We need to start kicking the shit out of dangerously stupid people when they start spouting off about subjects they know nothing about. But instead we seem to elect them and invest in their stupid bullshit.
People online say the most disappointing things. What's worse is that they influence hundreds of people with each stupid comment.
I recommend reading up on human history beyond what your government decided to teach and not teach you.
Social media has allowed all the individual village idiots to unify under one banner.
It used to be that every village had their idiot that everyone in the village knew to ignore. However, now the idiots can post publicly just like everyone else. So the idiots can now talk to each other. And as a group, they manage to achieve a perceived credibility by sheer number. So you end up with people that aren't quite at that level that see the group and think they're smarter than they are... and this just keeps growing at each level.
Eventually you have people with literal brain damage running major government departments.
The algorithm extrapolates stupidity.
I wish I had a good answer. Unfortunately it’s on social media because people believe what they want to a lot of times. I was at a geology conference this one time presenting a poster and was approached by a seemingly nice gentleman. After hearing my spiel he starts lecturing me about how none of this is possible because the Earth is only 6 000 years old. A little bit later I actually got to meet a flat earther in person! The fact that those two people not only hold those beliefs but felt the need to go spread the word at a geology conference is quite confusing to me. When you compound the effects of social media algorithms a lot of people don’t stand a chance.
It's just that stupid people are often the loudest. Just look at Trumps posts on his "Truth" Social. And we only get to see the gems that make it over here as screen shots, not the hundreds of others he seemingly spams each day...
Those people always were, it just got amplified because everyone has a soapbox to stand on with the internet and social media. There’s also another faction, the ones that are deliberately spreading misinformation and causing confusion.
Bad example.
I was there in 2010, and during the Snowden scandal, and I have a laptop running libreboot. We thought back then than the ME could have a backdoor even without vPro, just because if could have undocumented access to the network (it has higher than ring 0 access to the CPU, after all).
Algorithms push emotive ragebait at people. Then, when they're angry and not thinking rationally, they push bullshit-merchants at the same people. As its now something they're motivated to believe, they don't check. Then they share the story to their contacts/friends/followers and now you have a big group of angry misinformed people who are now all also following the original account - and then lo and behold - MAGA. Or Reform. Or AfD and all their associated podcasters, youtuber 'citizen journalists' and tiktok flagshaggers.
Well if you're mainly on the English speaking web maybe the decline in education since 2013 plays a role.
I'd also imagine tech and specifically internet illiteracy of older generations plays a role.
https://longevity.stanford.edu/older-adults-and-technology-moving-beyond-the-stereotypes/
Not to mention all the bots pretending to be users commenting on things.
The icing on the top is that the algorithms on social media probably know that this kind of wrong will keep you engaged enough to research and make posts about this kind of thing and so it sends it your way to keep your attention.
They always have been. Long before the internet political parties have been using rage bait to fund raise and get the vote. You might not remember it, and it might not have been as in your face if you were not an identified person who would respond, but I have got snail mail from various groups that are some variation "guess who is harming our children" every few months from some group or another - often from opposing groups in the same month.
There is also the proven method of finding the right answer to anything, post the wrong one on the internet and let people argue.