An Introduction to The Stupidity Disease "Should the human race not be extinguished by a nuclear war it will degenerate into a flock of stupid, dumb creatures under the tyranny of dictators who rule them with the help of machines and electronic computers. This is no prophecy, just a nightmare." -- Max Born (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1965) Let me start by asking, how many times today have you called someone an idiot (or something similar)? Maybe you've been cut off while driving to work, or maybe you were given the wrong change for your newspaper, or you had to sort out someone's mistake at work. No matter what the time of day, you've probably had to deal with a large number of idiots already. "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe." -- Albert Einstein Now, before you get upset, we're not saying that you are an idiot. In fact, you are far from it. The mere fact that you're reading this article proves you're almost certainly not an idiot. However, we all have "our moments" of foolishness, and we all make mistakes. Well, we can't all be perfect, can we? We can't help it, it's the way we've all been brought up. Think back over the day, and the chances are you have done something stupid today. You probably didn't realise it when it happened. But someone behind you probably cursed you and you didn't know about it. It depends on the time of day, but the chances are you have done something foolish, even if it was only very minor. I should start by explaining that there are many different things that can be classified as stupidity. I will go through some of the main ones now so that you can identify them in both others and yourself. Not paying attention We're all guilty of this on a day-to-day basis. When you dropped that glass, was it really an accident? How come everyone called you an idiot for doing it? Little "accidents" like this ARE avoidable, if necessary care is taken. We are often "absent minded" when things like this happen. The problem is, one day you could be in this state of mind at exactly the wrong moment whilst driving a car. That's all it takes for you to die horrifically, and take your passengers and a few innocent bystanders with you. Being constantly aware of your surroundings is hard work, but it's worth it. Not only will you avoid accidents, you will enjoy every moment of your life more. You will also make better use of your time by not wasting it by daydreaming. We live in a competitive world - absent-mindedness is a symptom of stupidity that you need to cure if you want to be successful. Not thinking the situation through This is the form of stupidity that most people habitually exhibit. I had a neighbour who parked his vehicle diagonally opposite another so that he almost blocked the entire road. He actually parked where he normally parked, but he didn't take the other car into account. Small cars got through, but it took a 4x4 with an impatient driver to tell my neighbour what a moron he was. He didn't think the situation through. Kids are often guilty of this, throwing stones at cars or starting fires. They don't think of the implications of their actions. As adults, we're more likely to think about the implications because we have been there before. However, if the situation is new to us, we can actually be as guilty as children for not thinking things through. Scams are where we often get caught out - if something sounds good, we'll be likely to ignore the dangers in favor of the supposed benefits. Stop, and think things through. As you get better at it, you will be able to think of more and more implications of each action, and also be able to see further ahead. This is a vital skill for success - one that will be discussed in more detail in future articles. For now, playing chess is a great way to improve your skills in this area. Not using your own mind This is what we at Power Essence will spend a lot of our time discussing and working on with you. We want people to be able to think for themselves, to make their own decisions and not be influenced by other people. You may think you do make your own decisions, but there may well be times, when you don't have your guard up, and your self-direction in gear. Typically, you won't realise your guard is down, but by being aware when you're not focussing on making your own decisions, you will be able to avoid letting your guard down and being manipulated. Salesmen and advertisers are excellent at manipulating our minds so that we make a decision that we wouldn't normally make. Politicians tell us only what we want to hear to sway our decisions, i.e., our votes. Many people live their lives by what they've learnt in "some book" or via some craze. People even hunt down, and follow to the letter, guidance from publications like Power Essence… ;-) Feel free to listen to the advice given to you, but learn to use your own mind and make your own decisions. Don't be influenced by anyone or anything! One of Power Essence's main goals is to help remove the stupidity disease from everyone. In order to be successful, one of the things you need to do is to eliminate all the different types of stupidity from yourself. It will take a lot of work to get rid of them all completely, but you need to work on ridding yourself of them as much as possible and as soon as possible. In our flagship book EVOLVE, we'll go into how to do this. We'll also give you examples of stupidity in the world and discuss the implications. Finally, we'll talk about the benefits of curing the stupidity disease worldwide. |