I Like Being…
Every day I wake up, I thank God that I’m dumb. That might seem kinda counterintuitive. I’m sure most people would rather be smart than dumb. But I would have to say that I’m the opposite. The expectations on smart people are truly astounding, and I know that I would not be able to live up to the standards that most smart people have to go through.
Also, being dumb allows me to be consistently optimistic despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Global climate change; we might figure it out. Constant threat of nuclear war and annihilation; hasn’t happened yet, so hopefully it never will. Species dying at an exponential rate; I suppose there’s always cloning. We did it with that sheep Dolly, maybe we can do it with other animals too. Companies are hiking prices up, and governments aren’t managing monetary policy correctly; well, I don’t need much to survive. Just a good book and the occasional movie, both of which the library provides for free.
There are any number of catastrophic thoughts and realities that one is confronted with on a given day, and for me, well, I’m able to sort of brush them off with my stupid optimism. It makes living all that much more enjoyable. You see, if I was smart, then I would be expected to help fix whatever issues humanity is causing and/or going through. And, unfortunately, I’m kinda lazy. I figure it’s better to be lazy and dumb, rather than lazy and smart, since the former at least gives me an excuse for not doing anything to improve the human condition.
Also, I’m fairly certain the world will probably experience some sort of cataclysmic, near-extinction event where a majority of people will not survive. Probably not in my life time. But maybe? And if it just so happens to be within the next 50 or so years, then I’m the right level of dumb to where I’ll be wiped out with the majority rather than being left with the unlucky smart ones that happened to live through and have to figure out life after the apocalypse.
I would not do well in a post-apocalyptic world. I do not look back fondly or reminisce about previous times in history prior to electricity. Every point in history prior to the Industrial Revolution, or even the Internet Revolution, seems like it was a small slice of hell. Disease was rampant. Philosophy was built around survivability. Art was usually subpar, and when it wasn’t you more than likely would never see the good stuff because it was being hoarded by rich, incest dicks. There wasn’t too many books, since the printing press is a relatively new invention (at least when considering the entirety of human history), and nowadays printing presses rely heavily on electricity. In fact, everything does. Most every modern convenience relies super heavily on electricity. All of which I do not think would survive an apocalyptic-sort of event.
So yeah, I’m good with being dumb. Bring on the AI that will think for me so I don’t even really need to do that anymore.
I suppose there’s levels of dumb that I could also aspire to, but at the moment I’m content with knowing so little. I wouldn’t say that I’m in the running for the world’s dumbest person alive, but I’m probably closer in intelligence to the world’s dumbest person rather than to the world’s smartest person, and that’s kinda okay by me.