“It’s just that the truly stupid, biased people are so noisy that there seem to be more of them than there actually are.”
Law 1: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
LOL - not me ;) I’m actually an expert on being stupid. One of the things I realized long ago is that the more a person becomes expert in one or 2 areas, the more they forget how to “not know”. They get frustrated dealing with areas where they have little or no knowledge and jump to conclusions without considering what they don’t know. This makes them appear stupid and even do stupid things.
I am acutely aware of what I don’t know in most areas and tend to do very thorough research when that area of knowledge or expertise encroaches on my otherwise placid life. Because of that I have a great deal of knowledge in many areas; not to the extent of “expert”, but enough to discuss them intelligently and ask good questions of experts when I encounter them. Then, people think I’m a ‘know-it-all’ but it’s actually the reverse. I’m just really good at “finding out”, i.e., an expert in knowing how to “not know”.
Average people are much more comfortable with not knowing and have no egotistical interest in projecting greater knowledge than they possess.
I strongly suspect that these universal laws were written by an expert in one or two areas who thinks that everyone who doesn’t know what he does must therefore be stupid. The person who sees stupidity everywhere is projecting.