Day 41: How stupid can it get? 2nd Part

Following up the obsession idea, I just discovered a new one: actively noticing and recording how stupid people can be. Last time I wrote about it, it was more like a pressure release than an elaborated essay about human stupidity or lack of common sense. Since once in my life I took Psychology courses, I am willing to understand that some factors, such as fatigue, anger, hunger, stress or simply wanting to visit the loo are likely to affect our judgment at certain moments. On the other hand, we happen to live in a complicated world, where technology and human relations are more complex than ever, and some of us may seem a little slow at understanding things that are a piece of cake to others. But what I can’t understand is why people seem to use their brains less and less every time, as if the reasoning process hurt. Are we becoming more and more stupid due to pollution? Is it that people who show a hint of intelligence have been ostracized in our society for centuries? Or is it that we are desperate to fit in a dummy world?

Here you have some examples I had the bad luck to experience:

1. Finding a seat: here we are, my hubby and I, sitting exactly at the center of the projection hall, down at the center at our favorite locations and, right after the movie had started, there arrives this couple, standing right in front of us, wondering for five, five long minutes, where to sit. How long can it take you to decide when the hall is almost deserted?

2. Technology dummies: I left for home, ready to forget about the office work, and then I receive a phone call from the Systems Manager (believe it or not), asking me to unveil the mysteries of Fax Operation. I know these devices can be tricky but, isn’t that the reason why they have this enormous icons on the front to depict how to place the paper to be sent?

3. The phone number: do you really have to wait for your co-worker to arrive in order to decipher an address book? If the fax number is not indicated there, couldn’t you call the company to find out? I assumed it would be a matter of pure logic that, if the indication was not there, the same number serves as phone and fax, you dummie!

4. Language: If you are asking a yes or no question (in grammar terms, a direct question), the least you could get is a yes or a no, isn’t it? The answer is no, as you can see in the following example:
Me: Co-worker A, would you happen to know were the VGA cables are?
Co-worker A: I gave them to you. It was your responsibility to keep and eye on them. Besides, if they got lost, you will have to…
Me: Thanks for the extra info, but a yes or a no would have sufficed. Do you know where they are?

Co-worker A: No!

Me: Thanks. That's the only thing I needed to hear.

Which was the right answer from the very beginning.

And these are only the few examples I found mildly amusing, among another dozen I found just plainly annoying. Feel free to share your own.

In conclusion, I must say that it is not my intention to make public my intellectual superiority (I rarely screw it, but when I do, I do it big time!), but to make evident that something really creepy is happening among us, maybe some sort of evolutionary treat that is regressing us back to the dawn of humanity, or a conspiracy from the governments to make us so stupid that Americans might vote for Bush again and Mexicans for Lopez Obrador, or something. I don't know for sure, but I wonder if the truth might be out there.