The Culture of Ignorance

Excellent post. I've never thought that deep about ignorance. However, I do kind of scoff at my peers who have no interest in politics because they cannot vote yet. Better start forming your opinions and learning about the topic because you'll be able to vote November 2012.
 
He wasn't complaining about finnish people he was clearly just talking about a certain event that invovled ignorant people who happened to be finnish. The ethnicity of these people is irrelevant to the story something you may have missed. But i have enjoyed your incoherent and crazy posts.
 
This is all completely irrelevant, and opinionated. Most interesting and unique is not factual. So I could say the Finnish culture is the least interesting and unique culture in all of Europe and you couldn't refute that either. He was not complaining about Finns, he was making an example of a group of ignorant guys who HAPPEN to be ignorant. That is in no way saying all Finnish people are ignorant. You are seriously stupid, john.stossel.
 
He never said he wasn't ignorant/didn't understand people being ignorant. We used the words WILLFULLY ignorant which I would say is something he isn't. Obviously one can't know everything, even about one's own country, but that doesn't put them on the same level as people who shun all forms of connection with the world.
 
When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know
 
this is for the entire thread including the OP... you guys argue like children and think you know what you're talking about.

OP, john Stossel and everyone else take heed of these words for you know nothing but think you know something therefore you are the biggest suckers of them all
 
Well aren't you just the bigger person. We all praise and worship you as you see what we do not, and we all hope to one day be as perfect as you.
 
O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?

Oh look I can copy and paste Socrates Apology as well. Just because we can't know everything doesn't mean we should avoid learning and choose to remain in complete ignorance.
 
Sometimes I wish I could take the route of George Carlin and just rip apart stupid people. However, I think it only proves as antagonistic and really will never solve the problem of an ignorant population.

There are a lot of politically and historically naive people who constantly post on this website. Americans are usually overworked and underpaid for that extra work. It's very hard to maintain a curiosity about the world when you get trapped in the same cycle day in and day out (or rich white teens who take their daddy's small business owner views). It's one of the reasons the media has absolutely no challenge polluting the majority's brain. It's also one of the reasons you will rarely run into someone who doesn't spit out emotionally and pre-determined talking points as their arguments. As big as this country is, we rarely have our population challenge itself outside our work environment. Then we sell ourselves short by convincing ourselves we live in the "greatest country" in the world. It's a vicious cycle of ignorance that can only be broken with each and every one of us being humbled by our own ignorance. Since we have a major materialistic ego problem in this country I don't see it happening for a while.

 
Thanks Kotke, and to all the others sharing their opinions on the matter, I think we can still get this thread back on track.

The Friday night issue, I don't know about you, but that simply wasn't the case here. Anyways, I'd say the average convo with my friends or acquaintances can go from group-singing Narwhals a capella to unknowing tourists to analyzing the human consciousness in thirty seconds flat, no matter the time or the day.

And to john.stossel, I really don't know what your issue here is or was. You seem like a complete lunatic, whose arrogant, piss-filled head is stuck so far up his ass that even Yao Ming in a hazmat suit couldn't get it outta there in the case of a terrifying brain fart, and those seem quite common for you. For shame.
 
my college essay was about our generation's ignorance and apathy.

glad to see someone else is thinking about it.
 
i think theres a difference between ignorance and a choice to not care.

kinda?

im very up to date on current events, but i dont find myself caring about some fucked up country like Bahrain
 
I agree. I'm down with the people who don't care, yet also aren't opinionated. That's simply not worrying about shit that doesn't matter.

Ignorance in that case would be the person who is strongly opinionated without any real knowledge or "caring"
 
To reiterate the main point, as WIELDS already answered, was that these willingly ignorant people, who have no want to learn and choose not to care, yet have very strong opinions that, in their minds, become facts. This phenomenon is increasing alarmingly fast in our world.
 
Jesus mike o why do you have to be such a nasty bitch, if you want me to be completely honest with you, i would say you absolutely embarassed the fuck out of yourself in this thread. You complained about people who "refuse to take in new information" so i then gave you some true, politically toxic, but absolutely true facts about the long history of the finnish culture and the correlation between iq and the wealth of a nation. You VERY HYPOCRITCALLY told me that the facts i put out were to mind blowing for you to accept. So you proved yourself to be just the type of person you despise so much-- someone who is happy being ignorant. If you or any of you other assholes in this thread want to say another word to me, bring some links and some evidence from science journals, otherwise fuck ur mother, because ive dropped about 4 or 5 links in this thread from university studies that prove my point. Or you could just all kill yourselves... which would save us paying your unemployment checks/ welfare. so i recomend the latter because 1 of you is enough in this world already.
 
and as for ignorant people mike, the bang bang men in china who work 18 hr days and make nothing probably dont know or give a fuck what is the latest queef of wisdom that came out of nancy pelosis stupid italian face
 
^ dude you're missing his point. there's ignorant people and then there's people who knowingly don't seek out the facts and then proceed to splur out a bunch of bullshit that they really have no idea about. kind of like ur doing here. not on mike-o's dick but when you call out everyone in the thread you should really have a better idea about what ur talking about. wow first real ns rant good job stossel!
 
It's funny how in pretty much every thread one person can turn the basis for an interesting thread into a shit show.
 
I seriously think you have mental health problems. How can you spin anything I've said to being hypocritical or said anything about mind-blowing information? You're on a completely different level here, and I don't mean intellectually.

The isolated gene articles that you throw around, along with five years old random message board questions about "Finnish mentality"... You're clearly out of your mind if you think that's somehow related to this topic of ignorance, and somehow I kind of want to understand - you are not a balanced person, so I feel sorry for you.

I am 100% Finnish, never stepped on American soil, yet I am not proud to be a Finn per se. Why? Because I was born on this soil, that we as a species have 'conquered' and thrown invisible, arbitrary lines on - that's nothing to be proud of, that's ultimately chance, nothing else. You don't know anything about Finland, I assure you. Unbiased, Finland has the best public education system in the world. We started learning about our people's history from 2nd grade onwards, so at least in theory we are very well-versed in that area, so stop your bullshit before you embarass yourself any longer.
 
To each his own... There's situational ignorance, such as the "bang bang men of China" Stossel-boy mentioned, and then, as said before, willful ignorance. Even the second option may be out of judgement's reach, but when those ignants transfer their opinions into the knowledge and truth department is where the literal shit will hit the fan.

There's a lot of room here for sub-discussion, such as willfully ignorant religious sects, who suspend their disbelief to take the word of a book over scientific theory, but we don't have to go there. I'm more interested in analyzing what is the main driver, or actually the lack of a driver for these kind of people. I'm quite certain that taoism is not the deciding factor for this specific group of people I'm talking about.
 
CAME IN HERE EXPECTING A WELL THOUGHT-OUT WALL OF TEXT, YOU NEVER FAIL ME MIKE-O.I WILL BE BACK TO READ LATER.
 
well i'm sure the same thing was said for by your parents, and their parents etc. The world is forever changing and this change brings new ideas which sparks different thinking. It is true that people today are pretty stupid and don't give a shit about things, but this has always been the case from the beginning.

Now it is just easier to spot ignorance because of TV and internet. People will forever be stupid and proclaim it aloud. Although we don't think that there were stupid people in the early 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, there certainly were! They just aren't the famous ones.

 
I think you are ignorant.

so you continue to do all the BS you've been trained to do, like follow the news, probobly go to church, and all the others stuff a "good citizen" should do? right?

lolz

fuck all that, i don't put up with BS.

so i'm going to sit back rip this bong shotgun a beer, and head to the skatepark to blade. you can watch those monkey ass politicians all day, but you watching them won't change shit.

those politicians have enough personal issues to be worrying a bout rather than trying to fix a nations.

so to all you kids

FUCK IT ALL, BLACK OUT
 
Neither will your ignorance.
And +k for this thread man, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one whos noticed this.
 
If you've already given up the gtfo and go crawl under a rock somewhere. And why the fuck would I brown nose on an internet forum? Thats the dumbest thing i've ever heard. I don't care about what people on NS think about me, I was trying to give Mike-O some props for what I though was a good thread.
 
read it all, totally agree. so many people dont even follow the news, read the papers or make conscious efforts to stay well informed its almost sickening.
 
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