Stupidity cannot be cured
with money,
or through education,
or by legislation.
Stupidity is not a sin,
the victim cannot help
being stupid.
Stupidity is the only
universal capital crime;
the sentence is
death,
There is no appeal,
execution is carried out
automatically,
without pity.
(natural laws have no pity)

***

The truth of a proposition
has nothing to do
with its credibility.

***

You live and learn,
or you don’t live long.

— R. A. Heinlein

My last morning at the Inn here in Eagle River Wisconsin.  This has been a comfortable accommodation.  It is quite early here in the breakfast space to the side of the front desk.  The wall-mount TV yammers away above my table.  The discourse is 100% about the covid-19 virus.  To my mind almost all of the TV audio has a link to the topic of the quotations featured above.  The ads, those that I have taken note of as my fingers move across the keys in front of me, bank on, assume my stupidity.  The adman knows that I likely can be manipulated by the visuals, and the audio to desire whatever product they happen to be shilling.

Stupidity is a human disposition, and yours truly is no exception.  Stupidity is not synonymous with ignorance.  Children are ignorant, as their experience is minimal, but they are naturally curious, and will ask questions of any adult who they know and trust.  Stupidity is the state of being so comfortable emotionally within one’s preferred world, that one reflexively defends that intellectual world-view, whenever one encounters an alternative reality.   Think about it.

When I cannot or will not think about it — then I am in a hazardous condition of stupidity.

I salute R. A. Heinlein for his austere truth telling.  Perhaps these, and similar stern words are the only antidote to stupidity.

---

Tu Stultus Est

….a phrase in Latin that serves to remind me of the liability of my humanity.