Are People This Stupid?

Yes.  They are.  The mantra:  Half of all people are below average intelligence.  First corollary:  average intelligence ain't much. 

Jury duty two weeks ago.  A one and done.  Jury selection, trial, and deliberation all completed between 8 AM and 5 PM.  That includes 90 minutes wasted as the jury pool was seated, reseated, and questioned.  The case ended without resolution.  8-to-4 to acquit on the first count and an even 6-6 split on the second.  The judge said it was OK for us to discuss the trial, then reversed herself after the DA went up to the bench to explain that the State might retry the case and might even select jurors from the same pool.  Not bloody likely when the jury was so far from conviction.  But, that's just one part of the day's stupid. 

One juror looked exactly like the Gilda Radner's Roseanne Rosanadana character from SNL.  The makeup matched.  The real woman's hair was even worse.  Straw thatch dyed blue-black and covering half her face.  Everything she said was painfully stupid.  i don't know how she can get out of bed without getting hurt. 

The case was a domestic dispute.  One detail is that the father was annoyed by his 7-year-old son's disrespectful comment over the phone.  Several jurors including RR referred to the boy's attitude.  His lip.  (We never learned what was said.  Only that the content was disrespectful.)  Men and women shook their heads, clucked their tongues, became indignant about the boy's sassiness. 

Jurors projected their experience onto the poor schlubs whose lives were exposed to us in court.  "There's still a lot of love, there," the fat middle-aged guy told us.  Two women explained how they had dealt with emotionally abusive partners and damned the women for not doing the same.  She didn't go for counseling!  She didn't take photos!  She didn't have her mother testify!  The youngest juror, a woman with green hair, became exasperated:  She is not you.  Her experiences are not your experiences.  Blank looks in response.  Average intellects grinding on data and spitting nonsense. 

A few days later the NY Times published over a dozen pages describing the Trump crime family's financial history.  About 10% tax evasion and 90% tax fraud.  In response, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse.  Numbers and math.  Boring.  Reading and understanding the lengthy article required time and focus.  And several days after that the most conservative international climate study organization -- the UN's IPCC -- published an exceptionally scary report on global warming.  Blink.  Blink.  Snore. 

Politicians and most reporters have learned that people don't respond to global warming news.  Reporters blame scientists for lacking communications skills.  Have you ever tried to explain science to a newsman?  Simplify, simplify, simplify until there's nothing left.  You have to travel so far back to find a common bit of shared understanding that the forward process takes forever.  John Oliver once tried to cover the long term effects of annual fees paid on 401(k) funds.  He kept having to slap the audience in the face to keep viewers awake, "I know this sounds boring, but it's really important."  Imagine, having to condescend to your audience when you are explaining how their savings are being pissed away.  But, numbers and compounded interest.  Too much to expect average people to understand.