Disbelief - shaking my head

[AstralTraveller]

Here's one for the 'how stupid' files. I've been shaking my head about this all day.

It's mid-year break here at uni and it's pretty quiet around the place. So today when I was in the food hall there was only me and the bloke who runs the store. I commented that the bread knife I was attempting to cut my bread roll with was equally sharp on both edges (ie the 'sharp' edge is no better than the back of the knife). He said they couldn't have them any sharper for safety reasons and that he had seen a student hold a bread roll in their hand and cut it with a knife while talking to someone and so slice their hand open. I suppose I wasn't too surprised.

He then went on to tell me they used to have an open griller but had to remove it. Some student wanted a grilled sandwich and so made the sandwich, wrapped it in grease-proof paper, put it in a paper bag, put that in a plastic bag and then put the whole lot in the griller !!! :screwy::screwy::screwy: This is someone who has passed exams to say they are smart enough to go to uni! Us tech staff often comment about how brains doesn't always equal common sense (we see it in both students and academics) but I've never heard of such a stunning example before. I'm trying to imagine what he/she was thinking - if they were thinking at all. The only thing I can think of is that every time they have had a grilled sandwich handed to them it has been wrapped in paper and a plastic bag. I just hope it wasn't a science student.

[multiweb]

:lol: I did hear last week from my dentist that the admission level in UNI right now is bottoming out. :P I guess it's part of the PC BS. No good or bad kids. Just various levels of 'satisfactory'

[koputai]

Perhaps they only wanted a small sandwich, so expected it to shrink like we used to do with chip packets back in the 70's.

Or perhaps (as you expect) they were a moron.

Cheers,
Jason.

[Barrykgerdes]

We had an "electronics technician" ?. He was given a simple job to test a batch of capacitors for shorts. Half an hour later he brought them back and said they were all shorted.

He worked on a metal topped bench and his way of testing was to press the meter prods onto the capacitor ends on the bench!

Barry

[Lee]

Just part of the devolution of our species....

[multiweb]

I went to Dicksmith in carnes hills last year and asked a young girl if they had any USB extenders. She said US what? So I turned around and went to BIG W instead. :lol:

[Lee]

I went to a tool shop around these parts (not Bunnings), and asked the counter jumper where their fractional metric drill bits were.... the blank look suggested I explain further - you know, drill bits like 3.2/3.3/3.4mm etc, sorry, drill bits only come in half mm increments.... he didn't believe me when I said I actually do own several of such bits.... after thinking I could of got that pearl of advice from Bunnings, I went elsewhere....

Don't get me started about AppleStore 'geniuses'..... :rofl:

[GrahamL]

apples now theres one , I walked up to the bar and asked the publicans wife what apple cider they had as a I couldn't quite see into the fridge behind the bar because someone was getting a couple of beers out.

She looked at me blankly and said we don't sell apple cider ,fair enough I said , then the fridge was clear again and theres the 3 types of strongbow right there , lots of them , I said yes you do I'll have a dry strongbow thanks ,she looked confused and said strongbow isn't apple cider to which I said what is it then ,She became quite cranky when she couldn't think of an answer and growled its "strongbow",I didn't show her whats right on front of the label :lol:

[Miaplacidus]

These threads full of dab hands of experience despairing over the ignorance of youth, I shakes me head. We'll all be rooned. Except t'was ever thus, and still here we are. Old people forget that they used to be young, and young people forget that they'll ever be old. Oh, when I think of all the things I didn't know when I started out in all the many realms of life. And astronomy not least of all. Good judgement comes from experience, so they say, but experience comes from bad judgement. Still, I wouldn't want someone to find out about plastic sandwiches by experimenting on my griller. And I do think that people — all too often oldsters more than the young — are too quick to disbelieve the existence of things of which they've never heard (fractional metric whatevers). So who wouldn't, when given a choice, want the world to be a kinder, more ingenuous place? But aren't apprentices still instructed by their prickish supervisors to go down to the hardware for a "long weight"? So here we are, stuck with skepticism triumphing over naivete because older, knowledgeable people have sometimes chosen to be bullies and orangutans. Oh, yes, certainly credentialed employees ought to know a thing or three about testing capacitors on metal benches (not that I would), but if they don't, it's surely the fault of someone older and wiser who for whatever reason scored them a pass that they didn't deserve. Say what you like, I won't ever blame anyone for anything if they've never been properly shown. The obligation of us all, the mission of humanity no less, is to make life better and easier for the generation coming after. War, for that reason, remains the great moral failure of everyone too old to fight. And the end game for humanity is surely the ability to wish for anything, anything at all, and to have it immediately, instantly. When a group of young hunters returned from slaying their first wooly mammoth with stone tipped spears, I'm sure that somewhere in a corner of the cave there was an old guy declaiming, "In my day... None of this stone stuff, you couldn't kill a wooly mammoth in the old days without at least someone ending up dead. You youngsters don't know how good you've got it..." When the bell tolls for humanity it'll be because some old dickless wonder is yanking on the sally.

[Starless]

I love the sales people that don't have a clue about the products they are selling.
Years ago went to a computer store to buy some bit of hardware, can't remember just what.
The sales guy is standing there watching me as I pick up a box and slowly and carefully read all the info printed on the box, front, back, top and bottom.
I then put it back on the shelf and asked the guy some question about the thing that was not written on the outside of the box.
He imediatley picked up the box and started to read what I had just read.
I asked him if he thought I could not read or did he just think I was an idiot.
He gave me a blank look so I left and bought it somewhere else.:P

Anyone found shop staff that have supposedly finished high school that can't calculate change?
How do these people get out of school with no arithmetc skills, it's not like you need calculus to make change.:shrug:

[noeyedeer]

it happens both ways... I like it when people come in to buy ink for their printer and either they don't know the model of their printer or the number of the cartridge or both.

I tell them to buy all of the cartridges and sell the wrong ones on eBay ... no one falls for that. they usually ring home and find out, but it is funny. who goes to buy something without knowledge any more? .... a lot of people!

matt

[Lee]

Speaking of yanking on the sally..... :rofl:

Anyway.... I was buying some printer ink last week....

[el_draco]

Similar, dry grass, camel dick......, been to Gagebrook lately? :eyepop::eyepop:
(translation: "Like hay duuuude"),

Sorry everyone, Tasmanian humour :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Momma, if the chiggers found out I said this !:shrug:

Gawd, I'll have to move to Bridgy :help:

No more wine... No more wine.... No more wine :screwy:

[Fox]

They're probably not 'stupid' - instead they might have had all the basic things in life 'done for them' by others during their whole life up to that point. It might be a sign of having been spoilt (and thus lazy) in learning some basic skills in life. And/or they simply have no concept for cooking - again, a real sign of laziness in my book. Sorry to be harsh, but I have little time for people who don't have basic cooking skills. Fox

[Camelopardalis]

Define "basic" :D

[multiweb]

I agree they're not any stupider than we were. Maybe they lack curiosity and innovation. Technology and information availability are so overwhelming some kids are literally bogged down in social media. Numbing effect. They're not driven. Their world is their iPhone. They don't even look up when you address them. No social skills whatsoever. :lol:

[mithrandir]

Can boil water?

[BPO]

I know a lot of academics, mostly Ph.D.s, from a lot of different institutions and nations and they're often much the same: A belief that their training, skills and experience in the narrow confines of their highly specific area of research in their particular field makes them equally knowledgeable in all things.

This doesn't apply to every academic, obviously. Many are as humble as they are intelligent, and an absolute delight and pleasure to work with. But there's no shortage of insufferably arrogant types who will instantly dismiss out of hand the opinions of anyone without a doctorate.

And for the record, I would rate the general intelligence of the majority of that type of person as quite low. They are responsible for some of the stupidest things I've ever heard, or seen done. It's one thing to be preeminent in some very obscure and esoteric field of study; quite another to be the smartest man or woman alive, as so many of them appear to believe of themselves.

[PCH]

I can't comment on Astral's (OP) exact situation re the sandwich on the griller there. But it might not be as cut and dried as you think.

When I was at college in the 70's, we would go down the pub at lunchtime and get a toasted sandwich along with our drink. When the toasted sandwich was brought to us, .. wait for it ... it was always still in the plastic bag that it had been grilled in.

Seriously! And I can't say what the plastic felt like before it was put under the griller, but by the time the cooked sandwich was handed to us, the plastic was quite brittle but could still be pulled off in one piece easily enough.

I could be that the student in question had previously been served this type of sandwich, either in the UK or elsewhere in Oz - who knows.

Just my 2c - but I am still appauled by the sheer ridiculousnes (is that a word?) of the nanny state we live in these days generally :)

[Ausrock]

Ahhh, the joys of the ignorance of youth ;).


"........... — all too often oldsters more than the young — are too quick to disbelieve the existence of things of which they've never heard (fractional metric whatevers)."

If the life one's led hasn't exposed oneself to such things as number drills, letter drills, BSP thread (parallel), BSPT (taper), and Lord knows how may other "mysteries", then those of us that have been "blessed" with a familiarity in these "Black Arts" should know better than to look down upon the uninitiated regardless of their age ;).


"...........I know a lot of academics, mostly Ph.D.s, from a lot of different institutions and nations and they're often much the same: A belief that their training, skills and experience in the narrow confines of their highly specific area of research in their particular field makes them equally knowledgeable in all things."

I wouldn't highlight Ph.D.s., although you may be right...........I've known too many (professional) tradesmen working in the "service industres" eg: builders, brickies, etc., who have experienced this from especially teachers, lawyers, etc., and I won't even go into my own experiences :lol:

[telemarker]

Damn.

[Baddad]

MUM!!! I can't find it. Where do you keep the boiled water??? :lol::lol:

True story. From a friend whose son was in the kitchen trying to make coffe.:)

[TrevorW]

My wife took 4 years to do her hair dressing apprenticeship at TAFE, people can now do it in 3 months at a private training organization. One must wonder at the quality and level of training that are young people are receiving these days. It has become a numbers game as far as the Govt is concerned.

[CJ]

Not quite the same but......

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UHNMM0

[sophie]

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless
beyond words.

When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of
elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of
restraint.
--- Hesiod, Eighth Century B.C.

[AstralTraveller]

I don't know why this has morphed into an 'old vs young' debate (or slanging match). That was not the intention of the OP. For what it's worth, I spoke to a 10 year old yesterday who assured me he would never be so dumb. (I met him because he had been asking his dad what is at the centre of our galaxy.) Looking back, I'd have to confess to doing some silly things but never anything so ignorant.

[el_draco]

They obviously failed to cull adequately over 2k years ago.
Ah Huh!!! its his fault.... :rofl:

[ZeroID]

Be very afraid, these are the people who will pick out your nursing home...

It's alright, the 'Darwin' principle will weed out the more gullible and the rest will learn by example ...... I hope.

[Starless]

Unfortunatley the nanny state we have protects the idiots from the
natural "Darwinian" outcome of their stupidity.:screwy:
Then they start breeding and the cycle continues.:mad2:

[el_draco]

Dont think its a slanging match as such.:question:

In fact, I have met some young people who are simply amazing on every level but, alas, the ratio of brilliance to "other sapiens like species", has shifted substantially in the wrong direction.

Why? pick your hobby horse... anything from food additives to the Simpson's. I could dump 50gb of data on you if you like.

Bottom line, It's scary out there and getting more scary by the day.....:(

P.S., I'm NOT old!

[AstralTraveller]

I simple bit of insulation could have avoided that. Put a piece of shrink-wrap on one of the probes and you will never get another short. :P

[AstralTraveller]

Has it? The present generation does better at IQ tests than any preceding generation. If they face a problem maturing it's not the nanny state, it's helicopter parents. I'm of that generation that were allowed to go out and get a few bumps and scrapes (and I have the scars to prove it) and so learn boundaries, consequences and independence. Not long ago I saw a 6yo who was stopped from jumping off a rock about 1m high in case he hurt himself. I used to jump off the shed roof! (and the pain in my ankle told me not to jump off anything higher). I see too many kids who never get out from under the wing because mom is afraid of the big bad wolf. I blame the sensationalist media for that. By any measure the crime rate is going down but parents are more scared than ever of what might happen.

[sjastro]

Nothing more than the Flynn effect in operation.
Various factors such as improved nutrition and health help boost the low end of the IQ spectrum while better education and a greater familiarity of IQ testing improves the average score.

The news at the high end of the spectrum however is rather depressing.
If one looks at the pre WWI US officer academy entrance tests which were based on IQ, one finds there has been a progressive decline in the percentage of individuals that are able to meet the standard.

Regards

Steven

[Starless]

This quote from an article from Scientific American
by Gary Stix sums it up quite well I thought.

"A hunter–gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his/her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate. Clearly, extreme selection is a thing of the past."

[avandonk]

As a 64 year old wrinkly I have found most young people to be better than my generation was. They have had the good foundations of correct nutrition and fluridation. They can take to a smart phone better than my generation could take to a 'Super Computer' even though we invented both.

It is both crass and futile to compare generations with malice.

Our young are the future. Just remember they choose the retirement village for you when you are GAGA.

Bert

[Steffen]

There is in fact an argument (backed by physiological evidence I believe, but can't point to any) that the human brain has devolved in the last 10,000 to 20,000 years or so. There simply isn't as much pressure for the brain to perform anymore as there used to be. Many of the environmental factors that shaped our brain and its performance have gone away.

Cheers
Steffen.

[Astro_Bot]

Like hell they will! I'll be choosing my own retirement home, thank you very much, and will have a plan laid out in full for the time when I can no longer think or speak clearly enough to chat up the nurses.

-----

On the other topic, I agree that the absence of natural selection for most of the human population may be "devolving" us in certain ways. However, since we do not know what the future holds, perhaps the "backfill" of the population with characteristics that were not an advantage in the past may be an advantage (for species survival) if conditions change rapidly in ways we don't anticipate. That is, perhaps the sections of the population we expect to dominate won't do well. Nature has been doing this for a long time - she's pretty good at it.

[AstralTraveller]

They tell us that
We lost our tails,
evolving up
From little snails

I say it's all,
just wind in sails
Are we not men?
We are Devo
Are we not men?
D E V O
:D

[AndrewJ]

Thats probably because there is an "app" for it now :lol:

I still remember the words of our physics professor after we had graduated and were about to go into the "real world".
He told us to remember we were now just highly educated idiots.
The ability to use the IQ and knowledge to work through unknown problems is whats missing in some cases.
Again, we were taught to use lots of mental shortcuts to get an approximation of an answer, just in case we went astray with the buttons etc. I see that ability seems to be disappearing fast.

Andrew

[Octane]

You all need to watch Idiocracy.

H

[Astro_Bot]

"Seat of the pants understanding" and "the calculator is for precision, not getting the basic answer" were drilled into me as a science student.

[AndrewJ]

What channel and when????

Andrew

[Ric]

There's a saying which springs to mind after reading this thread.

"I have to stop saying how stupid can you be, people are starting to take it as a challenge"

Cheers :D

[IanT]

I find the aggressiveness, greed and pig ignorance of tradies just about balances the arrogance of academics. What does that prove? Nothing of course, except that we all have our own prejudices. Every group has it's fair share of insufferable fools - stargazers excepted of course!

[AstralTraveller]

Who have an unfair share?? :shrug:

:poke: :evil:

[Fox]

... although I should remind myself that I am just as guilty as doing similarly 'stupid' things from time to time, and above all, I should count my lucky stars if nobody gets hurt or injured as a result...! Fox

[TrevorW]

Google it :thumbsup:

[GrahamL]

Tonight:) Nice little eatery up the road , not cheap ,but they do nice food and great wood fired pizzas.

The catalyst for tonights offering IS worth mentioning , some months back we went there for a birthday and my wife ordered a woodfired pizza with no dairy as she allergic to it , out it came with fetta all over it.After some consternation from the kitchen it was decided the mistake was made because fetta isn't dairy!,, I still have visions of farmers chasing there goats round a paddock with a bucket going" ya aint going to no stinking dairy on my watch",, anyways must get back to tonights effort.

Same order again this time a take away, I made the point of saying ,please no fetta ,as it does mention it on the menu,thinking they couldn't mess this up again I didn't check before driving home , well there was no fetta there but covered in mozzeralla this time :)

Call them up and explain this and of course they are very appolagetic and off I go to pick up its replacement, common sense isn't one of my strongest attributes, or I would of looked before heading back home for the second time , not that I would of noticed , but during the second attempt someone did realise they wern't supposed to put cheese on it ,,after the fact ,,and tried to scoop it all off,doing a pretty poor job of the exersise.

So this ended with us having two pizzas sitting on the table , my wife cant eat either , 2x 10 km road trips , and two free ones at a later date
:question: I'm thinking nah can't be done easier not to go back there again :)

[Starless]

This tale reminds me of a similar incident at a roadside eatery many years ago.
I was in a truck with two other roadies on the way to a country gig and stopped for fuel and food.

The front house sound guy was a vegetarian and so ordered a hamberger with everything, exept meat.

Got our stuff jumped back in the truck and are about to head off when vegetarian checks his burger and finds nice big rasher of bacon.

We head back in and he opens up the burger and says to the
woman "I said I did not want meat on the burger"
she says "there is no meat"
he holds up the rasher and says "what do you call this?"
her reply, and I quote
"that's not meat, that's bacon":screwy::screwy::screwy::screwy::sc rewy:

[AstralTraveller]

I'm a vegetarian. I only eat chicken.

[Steffen]

I only eat vegetarians, too.

[Peter Ward]

Last human to walk on moon : 41 years ago

Last commercial supersonic flight: 10 years ago

Yes, I see humanity is progressing well.

The Bard nearly got it right in Henry VI:

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

I guess CEO's, bean counters and spin doctors simply were not useful occupations back then..:rolleyes:

[AndrewJ]

I like a movie that lives up to its topic
Wiki says it cost 2-4mill and brought in 450k:rofl:

Andrew

[Octane]

It's a pretty funny movie which ties in with this topic. Thought I'd mention it so people might have a laugh. :)

It's by the people that did Office Space.

H

[BEVAN5433]

Aldi sell a brown paper bag that can be used in a griller for about $2.50 .It is reusable UP TO FIFTY TIMES. no wonder us Oldies get confused.

Bevan

[Matt Wastell]

We have peaked!

[cfranks]

Years ago I know, but when I first got a credit card I went to Woolies and used it a the checkout. Wrote my signature on the receipt with the clerk watching and she checked it against my card. Bummer, I had forgotten to sign the card! She gave me the pen back, I signed the card with her watching and she then checked the two signatures again. :shrug:

Charles