Really Real

Is reality so complex, so multifaceted, such a large data sample that it's impossible to tell it from even a poorly constructed fiction?

Or are people just stupid?

I suppose it could be both. 

I'm not saying wishful thinking is the same thing as stupid. No wait; I am saying that. Hearing what you want to hear, regardless of its basis in fact, is intellectually lazy at best and okay, forget the "at best," it's just stupid. To be fair, we're constantly bombarded by information that may or may not have some relationship to reality. Messages, notifications, badges, sounds, follows, recommended for you have mail. We're consumers (or charlatans), not analytical thinkers. Like toddlers, we only eat what we like and not necessarily what's good for us - we throw that pureed kale and quinoa and gluten-free shit on the floor.

Lately, I can't help but wonder if stupid is still (or if it ever was) evenly distributed. 

I've been up and down that bell curve analogy before; if you think of yourself as average then half the people you meet will be dumber than you. Of course, half of them will be smarter than you, too. This is why most of us like to think of ourselves as "above average" even if it only pushes us into the 52nd percentile. 

Did the Industrial Age, the rise of automation and robotics, and the advances of the Information Age make it possible for the human race to get more stupid? Does anyone with a smartphone and Internet access actually need to know anything? Has Google stolen not only my personal information but my brain, as well? 

If I liked this, would I really love that?

Has the bell curve of human intelligence shifted right? Are the odds now 60-40 or 70-30 that the person you just met is dumber than you? 

Feels like 80-20.

Maybe this is just recency bias on my part. We've been burning witches, demonizing Jews, enslaving other human beings, telling our children bedtime stories about the evil in other people who live deep in the dark woods beyond our village's borders, killing for profit, and re-writing history for polite company for as long as there has been history. I won't deny that progress has been made but I would also have to say that things are, paradoxically, the worst that has ever been, too.

Because we know better.

Well, 20% of us do.