On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity
Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014
Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com
Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Journal Founding: August 2, 2012
Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year
Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed
Access: Electronic/Digital & Open Access
Fees: None (Free)
Volume Numbering: 12
Issue Numbering: 3
Section: E
Theme Type: Idea
Theme Premise: “Outliers and Outsiders”
Theme Part: 31
Formal Sub-Theme: High-Range Test Construction
Individual Publication Date: August 15, 2024
Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2024
Author(s): Rick Rosner
Word Count: 526
Image Credits: R. du Plessis on Unsplash.
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN): 2369-6885
*Original publications here, December, 1994.*
*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citations, after the publication.*
Keywords: chaotic violent strategies, Era of National Stupidity, increasing population productivity, Individual Stupidity, political propaganda arguments, self-destruction through misbehavior, sociobiological math theories, widespread dumb behavior.
On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity
While we debate the stupidity of material in Noesis, lemme say a few things about dumbness in the outside world. Observation one: Fifty years ago, the Era of National Stupidity reached its peak. We are now in the Era of Individual Stupidity. During WWII, nations were psychetic, but the individuals that comprised those nations generally behaved themselves according to the rules established by their crazed leaders. Today, the world’s largest nations generally behave with some restraint, but the individuals in those nations misbehave.
I blame an increasing population and productivity for widespread dumb behavior. Since WWII, the U.S. population has doubled, and productivity has increased five or ten times. This is too much productivity. There’s not enough stuff to do, and people must fritter away their time, going to college, watching cable, playing video games, filing lawsuits, pursuing meaningless (and usually vicarious) sex. This is fine with me, except that, as a professional moron, I can’t keep up with all the amateur manna.
Self-destruction through individual misbehavior is certainly preferable to the destruction of populations through national aggression. It’s fun to wonder when this trend will lead. (Incidental) Observation two: In political propaganda, ‘Where it will lead’ is the type of argument most frequently made. Most court cases, most political decisions, are pithily and can be seen as significant only through the magnifying glass of trend-mongering—’If stuff like this keeps happening,’ the argument goes, ‘we’ll end up in some politically-extreme dictatorial dystopia.’ (That’s how I feel we’re trending now under the Republicans, but I should know better.) Most trends exist only to fill newscasts. Piddliness in one direction is usually scuffed out by a succession of other oddly trends.
But, maybe individual media-abetted techno-sexual-criminal foolishness is an actual trend. Then things can only get more interesting. With more people with more resources to create their own little worlds, each individual slice of life, each biography, is going to be thinner, more tweaked, a more distant random divergence from some 1950’s average. And, sociobiologists et al like to argue that altruism is genetically based. They do the math and show how genes survive better under cooperation. Observation three: I bet there’s some other math to be done showing that when a species is too successful, some genes survive better using chaotic, violent strategies. EvGybusly knows when too many rodents are crammed in a cage, they engage in antisocial behavior. There’s gotta be some sociobiological math behind that.
Quick review of I.Q., in which Walter Matthau plays Albert Einstein—Much of the movie takes place at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies. Podolsky and Kurt Godel get lots of screen time as Einstein’s sidekicks. So during the first few minutes, I was pretty excited. But the movie is real dumb, even for non-physics people. President Eisenhower comes to campus to congratulate Einstein and Tim Robbins for developing cold fusion. Einstein rigs a car to malfunction by remote control. There’re enough moments of oksyness to keep you interested, but the movie ends with a messy cluster of coincidences and unlikely behavior. You might impress a date by pointing out all the wrong stuff, but you’ll probably just sound annoying.
Footnotes
None
Citations
American Medical Association (AMA 11th Edition): Rosner R. On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity. August 2024; 12(3). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/high-range-12
American Psychological Association (APA 7th Edition): Rosner, R. (2024, August 15). On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity. In-Sight Publishing. 12(3).
Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): ROSNER, R. On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity. In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Fort Langley, v. 12, n. 3, 2024.
Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (17th Edition): Rosner, Rick. 2024. “On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 12, no. 3 (Summer). http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/high-range-12.
Chicago/Turabian, Notes & Bibliography (17th Edition): Rosner, R “On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 12, no. 3 (August 2024).http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/high-range-12.
Harvard: Rosner, R. (2024) ‘On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, 12(3). <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/high-range-12>.
Harvard (Australian): Rosner, R 2024, ‘On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 12, no. 3, <http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/high-range-12>.
Modern Language Association (MLA, 9th Edition): Rosner, Rick. “On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity.” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vo.12, no. 3, 2024, http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/high-range-12.
Vancouver/ICMJE: Rick R. On High-Range Test Construction 12: Rick Rosner, On Stupidity [Internet]. 2024 Aug; 12(3). Available from: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com/high-range-12.
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