Somethin' Stupid, like, I LOATHE you

[britpoptarts]

Are you smarter than the average American?

1. Name a country that starts with the letter "U".
A. Yugoslavia
B. Utah
C. Utopia
D. United States of America
E. United States of America, Uzbekistan, Uruguay, Uganda, United Arab Emirates (which includes Umn Al Qaiwain), United Kingdom, Ukraine

2. How many sides does a triangle have?
A. Um, four?
B. Five
C. One
D

Comments

[floopyboo]

Alright! Go Chaser!

If I find another copy of their dvd, I'm going to have to send it to you. You'll love these guys. :D

[britpoptarts]

I'm not familiar with Chaser, so I'm not sure what I said or quoted to prompt the reference. Link, plz?

EDIT: Ah! I linked to the wrong video. I saw the one I linked to, it's actually more relevant (original source?), but thought I was linking to someone named "kirby" or something. Duh!

[floopyboo]

At any rate, I can give you a link. I do think you'll love these guys anyway. http://www.chaser.com.au/

[britpoptarts]

Hoorah! I will go play. Or watch more of their stuff on YouTube when at the grad lab. :)

[kornmonkie]

Notice how that video and many others never show what the people answer correctly? You can cut up incorrect answers from anyone in any country and make them appear stupid.

The fact that this was shown on television and on a news station is more stupid than anything. It's the appearance of stupidity made by stupid people. I agree with your comment about books.

A sample size of 20,50 or even 100 people in a city (like Washington D.C.) is hardly an indication of stupidity in a whole country of over 300 million people. I'd like to take the same set of questions and ask 100 people in London, Paris or Honk Kong and cut together clips of the 20 people who get a few wrong.

[floopyboo]

Please see link above. I guess it'd be like saying Penn & Teller (I think that's the one) is a news channel.

It's satire, but it's very cleverly done. I can understand how it'd go over your head.

[kornmonkie]

In my own defense, I live somewhere, where it's hard to get cable news channels or comedy central(yup, they still exist), so exposure to news-esque satire is extremely limited to me. So I did actually think that was a real British news channel.

[britpoptarts]

Actually, I said something similar when showing the videos about stupidity to my professor. I said I wished they'd stop ME in the street, then I noted I would probably be edited out for not being stupid enough. :P

[jalfrdprufrocky]

I always included obscure facts in my college essays and newspaper columns. My professors thought I was super-intelligent. In reality, I just knew how to use Google effectively. (If you'll notice, I ended that adverb with an -LY.)

Just from a precursory look at the people interviewed in that video, I'd say that very few to none of them would even know what Google is. Several of them looked homeless. I think I'd have been more persuaded by the Chaser team's argument if they'd interviewed kids on a college campus, or at least people who appeared to be halfway intelligent.

Also, if you're watching some 'tard with puppets who comes on and proceeds to be completely unfunny for a half hour, you're probably watching a Comedy Central special, but if you're watching some 'tard with puppets who comes on and proceeds to be completely *funny* for an hour and a half, that's Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's good to know the difference.

[britpoptarts]

I did the same in my papers in the prehistoric era before Google, because I read damn near anything I can get my mitts on

[wonderbink]

Cyfishy LOVES MST3K. :P She should be sensing a disturbance in the Force and coming to investigate soon.

Heh. Yes, I did, but I haven't had time to read the responses in detail. I was skimming to see if anybody called you on Question 6 -- to the best of my knowledge, the White House isn't in ANY state, it's in a place called the District of Columbia, which is Not A State (much to the frustration of the folks who live there.)

Unless I've got that wrong? But that's where I was under the impression it was.

Will read and respond in more detail later. Must go to work now.

[britpoptarts]

It's a quote from a question asked by another interviewer. I'm aware Washington DC is, indeed, a "district."

I believe he implied that Virginia was correct (specifically northern Virginia). In truth, Washington DC was planned to include land from the state of Maryland and the then-Commonwealth of Virginia.

This precise and most nerdly response didn't make the list, somehow. Eups.

[sclerotic_rings]

Because both of our ex-spouses were television addicts (my ex-wife would sit in front of the television for fourteen hours at a time on weekends and nearly eight hours on weekdays, and the Czarina's ex-husband was so busy watching television instead of working on their mutual business that she'd have to check the top of the television to see if it was warm when she'd get home from work), my wife and I agreed that we wouldn't get cable. When we moved from our first apartment to our current house, we discovered that several large hotels in the vicinity blocked off access to standard television signals, so we just stopped watching television entirely. This was three years ago, and we haven't regretted the decision at all. What's funny now is that we have friends who ask us "How can I be as productive as you?", and they don't like the answer we give in the slightest because Lost is going to be on and they can't miss that.

[britpoptarts]

Been there! I went about 6-7 years owning but not watching (except for the very occasional video night with visitors) any television. "Because X show is on" is no excuse for being slack. If you don't watch TV at all, you never know Show X is on in the first place, and if you watch occasionally, you can wait for re-runs, watch online, rent or buy the DVD series later, or tape it with TiVo or a VCR.

The TV shouldn't interfere with responsibilities. It's supposed to entertain, and to do so when it is convenient.

I'm annoyed that "House M.D." is airing on Mondays while I am TAing this quarter, boo hoo, but I'm sure it will show in re-run eventually. I won't die. I'm not going to blow off classes to watch the tube.

[sclerotic_rings]

When you get to the point where you're flipping through the 90-plus channels on digital cable not because you simply can't live without seeing the show that's on right at that moment, but because you're looking for something that sucks marginally less than everything else on those 90-plus channels, it's time to get rid of the cable. In my case, this was aggravated by my ex's passive-aggressive stunts about the television: as soon as I'd decide "I have better things to do" and go off elsewhere, she'd promptly call me back with screams of "SWEETIE! COME SEE THIS!" By the time I'd get back to the den to see what it was, it was invariably some ridiculous thing that had no connection to reality, but she'd accomplished what she wanted to do in the first place. After a while, I'd just yell back "If you're not on fire, I'm not interested."

Sigh. By 2000, that marriage was best described as the absolute worst in Absolutely Fabulous/Farscape slashfic, and she was regularly snarking "If I can't come, I'll adopt a Hynerian baby!"

[britpoptarts]

A "Hynerian" baby? Must be a Farscape reference! :)

I do like my detective shows, like Law & Order, on cable. Some history stuff, and so on.

I find that most of the other stuff is like marshmallow fluff for the brain.

[nesmith]

And now you know why for the most part I either have TV on in the background so I can catch the weather at ten, or else I have on one of the many shows I have on DVD; commercial free and uncut.