Most People Are Flaming Idiots

This is a statement made by someone who is frustrated that people don't do things his/her way. The person who says this can't understand why other people are making different decisions. It usually indicates more about the speaker than the "people" under discussion.

Now there's a perfect example of how MostPeopleAreFlamingIdiots. The person who says this is simply acknowledging that people are given to self-serving, arrogant, half-baked, undisciplined twaddle. Of course I mean me too. Both of us. And all the rest of them. People just aren't all that smart - assuming that they aren't flaming idiots is a big part of what makes 'em flaming idiots.

In addition to referring to people doing things "differently", this phrase can also be used by those who believe that others are not performing adequately. "I could have written that program in two days! That team of flaming idiots has been working for two months, and it still doesn't work! Am I the only halfway-intelligent person around here?"

Keep in mind though that statistically half "the people that you meet when you're walking down the street" are below the median.

Do we expect more than, less than, or exactly half to be below average?

I heard that some US president (Eisenhower?) was aghast when an advisor told him during a meeting that half of all Americans have below-average intelligence. I'm not sure whether the story is true. -- He's not the only one. I think it is due to viewing "below-average intelligence" as being mentally handicapped. And Ike was really quite intelligent himself, just to avoid a common slur.

One of the likely causes of grade inflation in US schools (in many classes, the average grade is around a "B" rather than a "C") is that the grade of "C" is considered unacceptable in many quarters. Of course, the opposite might be true; and/or it might be a feedback loop; as the higher the average GPA goes, the more unacceptable a mark of C becomes, which puts further upward pressure on GPAs. Which is unfortunate, as the common grading system has many more levels with which to distinguish underperforming students (C, D, F) and few levels with which to distinguish overperforming students (A, A-, B+).
Then there's Lake Wobegon, where "all the children are above average"...

You know, it's funny... I don't have a high opinion of myself. I just have a remarkably low opinion of almost everyone else...

So, what do you do if you find an idiot who's not on fire?

Those ones are harder to find, aren't they? Maybe you should tag him/her/it with reflective tape.

Or you could set light to them?

It's true that most people are flaming idiots. The elite prefer moron tartare.

I have come to the conclusion that people just think differently, and wish to shape the rest of the world to fit their mind better. If everything else fits the shape of your mind, then you can absorb knowledge quicker. Thus a manager who thinks in diagrams will make all subordinates communicate with him/her through diagrams.

It gets ugly whan people think that others should also think like them or else there is something inferior with them. Thus, some will try to shape others simply to improve interaction, and others will do it out of some moral imperative to make the world fit what they believe is the "proper" way to think.

I would have to disagree with the title of this page. It should read "All People are Flaming Idiots". - JayOsako

That reminds me of the frequent observation that we humans tend to be inordinately proud of our ability to think, sneering at animals and computers for not being as smart as we are, and yet actually humans don't think very well as individuals, on average. Almost everything humans can be proud of resulted from cumulative development over time, and of peak accomplishments by rare individuals.

Heinlein's Lazarus Long, for instance, observed that "Man is not the rational animal, man is the rationalizing animal."

Re: "I could have written that program in two days! That team of flaming idiots has been working for two months, and it still doesn't work! Am I the only halfway-intelligent person around here?"

If someone says that, ideally I would reply with something like: "That would be interesting to see. Perhaps we would could observe your techniques and all learn something such that we save the company millions of dollars over the next 5 years instead of doing it the slow, plodding way."

Then watch their face turn red. I like to be proved wrong with actual evidence. Either it turns out they are full of it, and you get to watch them eat crow; or you learn something new. You just have to live with some crow eating of your own for a while. A "true" geek is not afraid to trade ego for knowledge. CodeOfGeekdom.

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