People Will Acknowledge You’re Intelligent and then Ignore Everything You Say

Ignorant people make bad choices and there’s no way to talk them out of it

As we rode the bus on the way to grade school, we used to fight about who was the smartest. We’d argue about who had the biggest brain. One day a friend of mine read an article that detailed how it wasn’t the size of the brain, but the wrinkles on the surface that determined intelligence.

“You’re right, your brain is bigger than mine,” he said, “but it’s as smooth as a sheet of glass.”

That was the kind of thing that passed for a devastating argument in those days.

It’s silly to discuss how intelligent you are because nobody is immune to making absolutely stupid mistakes. In my lifetime, I’ve made a number of colossally terrible choices. Sometimes when I’m sitting around minding my own business, I get blindsided by a memory of something stupid I’ve done and it makes me cringe and shake my head in shame.

That being the case, for the most part I manage to make at least a profitable choice. Even people who dislike me rarely accuse me of being stupid (There are plenty of other things they call me, but usually “stupid” isn’t one of them).

That’s why it’s so infuriating when people completely disregard everything I have to say. This can happen even in the course of a single conversation.

“You’re one of the smartest guys I know!”

“Thanks! By the way, you should stop supporting Trump.”

“No!”

People don’t listen! What is it about people that makes them incapable of hearing anything you have to say? I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried facts. I’ve tried sources. I’ve tried screaming. I’ve tried crying. Nothing works with some people. At least, it doesn’t work when they listen to me.

When they listen to some treasonous, conman, charlatan imbecile who can’t take a breath without spewing six lies, they eat it up. These aren’t garden variety lies either. Nope! They are the worst kind of lies. They are self-destructive lies. They are world-destroying lies. They are BLATANTLY OBVIOUS AND MALICIOUS LIES! And people not only believe them, they live by them (or die by them as the case may be)!

Why is it so darn hard to get people to listen to the truth? What’s with this blind, stubborn, unquestioning obedience to immoral cheats, and liars? Why do we celebrate them? Why do we elect them? Why do we follow them?

The database wizard

I have a friend who has developed a reputation in his industry for being a computer wizard. He claims that part of his advantage is that he doesn’t have an engineering degree. He says that stops him from knowing all the things that aren’t considered possible. He stunned everyone in his department one morning when he showed up with a report that nobody else had ever figured out how to generate. They’d assigned the project as a practical joke just to make him suffer. They never even considered he might succeed. When they asked him how he did it, he told them. The engineers with the six figure salaries told him his strategy couldn’t work, but the numbers in his report checked out.

To this day, they all refuse to listen to his method, but they keep asking him for new reports. His reputation spread outside of his workplace. It grew to the point where a local businessman tracked him down to hire him as a consultant. The businessman took him to lunch.

“The only reason you’re sitting at this table with me is that I hear you’re a database wizard.”

The businessman then told him the issue he wanted resolved. My friend told him the method he’d use to get the answer.

“Well, that isn’t going to work,” said the businessman.

A tough nut to crack

It’s tough to go through life when everything you say is instantly dismissed. This is why intelligent people turn into comedians. The truth often sounds more absurd than anything you could ever invent.

A friend once told me, “When you talk, I can never tell when you’re being serious or when you’re just joking around. I only think you’re serious about half the time.”

“Why does whether or not I’m serious even matter?” I asked.

He didn’t understand this, so I elaborated.

“If what I’m saying is serious, does it really matter if I put it in the form of a joke?”

“Well there are things you shouldn’t joke about,” he said.

“Like what,” I replied.

“Like racism.”

“Well, think about it like this: Is it better that I make a serious statement about racism that everybody ignores, or is it better for me to make a statement in the form of a joke that inspires you to become an anti-racism activist?”

“But if it’s a serious subject then you need to discuss it seriously.”

“BUT THAT DOESN’T WORK!”

Repetition works

The only thing that works is repetition. You have to repeat a message over and over and over. You have to repeat it to the point where it stops being fun. It probably gets to be like what Paul McCartney feels when he has to sing “Yesterday” over and over. When you come right down to it, people are susceptible to being programmed. That’s why we have advertising.

I was traveling by bus from Peru to Bolivia when I had a revelation. We were on a winding dirt road in the mountains. We hadn’t seen a living thing for hours. We came around a corner, and there was a mud hut. On the side of the mud hut was painted the Coca-Cola logo.

That’s when it hit me.

If it wasn’t for advertising, everyone would forget about Coca-Cola. It doesn’t matter that, no matter where you’re sitting, you can take three steps and run smack into a Coca-Cola advertisement. If the corporation quit spending their millions and millions of dollars on advertising, people would forget about them in a matter of months.

Why do you think they keep paying for the advertising?

That’s why Coca-Cola paid to paint their logo on the side of a mud hut that was visible only to a busload of tourists twice a year. You have to repeat your message. Repetition drowns out truth. When you repeat something enough, the imbeciles in your life will start to think it was their own idea. They won’t have any memory of the thousands of times you tried to tell it to them.

“Oh, I came up with that myself on the basis of my own personal thoughts.”

Most Americans don’t think about anything on their own. They aren’t even aware that they don’t think about anything. That’s how ignorant they are.

Racism messaging is constant

I find it exhausting to fight the mechanism of blatant racism that’s descending into blatant fascism in the United States. I can turn on my computer in the morning, and there’s guaranteed to be attacks on Democrats, attacks on Progressives, and multiple articles denying the existence of racism and fascism. Few articles point out that Trump’s disastrous policies are still wreaking havoc on our economy.

Have you seen even one article connecting inflation to Trump’s disastrous tax cut for the rich? Nope! If the media is going to blame somebody, it’s Biden or Harris, never Trump the destroyer of worlds. It’s ever present.

Most people passively go through their lives never questioning the lies that are a constant part of our existence. When a blatant lie is presented as truth and propagated by the ignorant masses, no amount of evidence will get average people to change their minds. For them, it’s easier to believe the lie than to endure the pushback from challenging a socially accepted belief, even if that belief is clearly false.

A mechanism of perpetual ignorance

The majority of people are used to being wrong all the time anyway, so their inaction doesn’t bother them. Most of the time, figuring out the right choice in life entails nothing more than doing the opposite of everyone else. The United States has weaponized ignorance and turned its use into an art form. Our society disparages intelligence to the point where the average person would rather be wrong than take even a moment to try and consider how to make a good choice.

This mechanism is well-established and highly functional. It does not rely on intelligent people to operate.

Obey the messaging. Do what you’re told. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Say the pledge. Stand for the flag. Vote your social security away. Math is too hard.

But don’t listen to me. Why would you start now?