Active stupidity is its own reward

Human intelligence is a spectrum, from people lacking in the most basic functionality on up to people so smart that they are virtually incomprehensible to regular smart folk. And there is precisely zero morality attached to any level of that spectrum… it’s neither “right” nor “wrong” to be either dumb or smart. It is, of course, generally more *useful* to be smart than to be dumb. There is also evidence of statistically measurable differences in that spectrum between different populations; one of the more interesting (to me, anyway) variations is the much argued about “variability hypothesis.” This holds that the *average* IQ of men is 100… and the average IQ of women is *also* 100. The difference, though is that women *tend* to cluster around the mean, while mens scores are more spread out. This means that there are more very smart men than very smart women… and more very dumb men than very dumb women. Like so:

This is one of those things that just *sounds* right… when you think of someone doing something profoundly stupid, chances are good you’ll think of some drunk guy saying “hold my beer” just before he sets himself on fire and blows himself to bits.

But it doesn’t say that there are *no* very dumb women. And just to prove the point…

It takes a special kind of stupid to climb over zoo barriers to go take a selfie with a predator that can shred you. I have little to no sympathy for the woman here, but I do feel bad for both the zoo (likely to get hit with lawsuits and other legal issues) and the jaguar. Unfortunately, animals that attack humans often are made to suffer for it, even though what they did was *entirely* predictable.

“Did something dangerously stupid” immediately makes me think it was a guy. “Did something dangerously stupid while taking a selfie,” makes me think it was a gal.

The weird thing is that it often seems to me that lower-IQ people who *know* they’re not that smart generally don’t behave stupidly. If you want truly stupid behavior, look to people who really aught to know better.