Yeah, I was always shocked by the popsci factoid stats about communication happening primarily via tone and such, it seemed crazy to me that some people use that as primary meaning and not in addition to fully understanding the semantics of what was being said, or that they could even be influenced by the actual choice of words even if the meaning is unchanged, but I guess I was just lucky.

What's really shocking above all for me lately is how few people care about intellectual honesty, and will blatantly go for the most self-serving falsehood no matter how blatant.

I wouldn't claim something I couldn't back up in some way not because I'm just inherently a saint - on a purely selfish animalistic superego esque way - I wouldn't do it because it would hurt my self-esteem to blatantly lie in a self-serving manner because it's just kinda pathetic to have to resort to that.

Yeah, emotional intelligence is hugely overlooked, too, when interpreting what others say, and to also not be swept up by every little thing, and that low eq breeds for resentment, which is rife for the brainwashing that propaganda is. We all need to be focusing on teaching the next Gen how to step outside their emotions, as an observer, and reflect on the message they are for oneself, not a cue for how to treat others, or define oneself by, and to look inside and heal, or self care, if those emotional messages are extreme. That's your own little tamagotchi to care for. It's not even iq, it's eq (and eq can always be built as high as you want to go) , and the world would be a different place. It's easy not to care, when you feel like you have been thrown out with the trash, and knee jerk to all your emotions, rather than be an entity that observes your emotions.

ETA, added words, because distraction.

For me it was mostly just that I have really good reading comprehension and read ahead in the textbooks when I was bored in class. Basically I ADDed myself into studying.

Think of how stupid the median person is, then realise half of them are stupider than that - Not George Carlin

The joke works because intelligence tests follow a normal bell curve. Therefore, approximately half of the population would actually fall below average.

I mean, it is intended to be how averages work for sufficiently large sample sizes. That's the intent of a bell curve. For 800 people, maybe not, but for 8 billion? Probably extremely close.

Averages don’t always* work like that. In a lot of real world cases, that statement is accurate enough. When we are doing average wealth then yea, the numbers will be skewed a lot, but something like height would likely have similar mean and median.

Not true, because a fuckton of those stupid people erroneously believe they're smarter than everyone else in the world. The number of times I have heard "if I were in charge, everything would be straightened out" from these troglodytes is too damn high. I'm actually smart enough to know how insanely demanding "being in charge" and "doing things right" actually fucking is so I god damned know I am not up for the challenge so, yeah, actually they're still actually fucking stupid. Sorry, not sorry.

They're saying skeptics are perceived that way, not that they necessarily are acting that way. Just that other people clock you as "not nice" when you don't always take what they say at face value.

The conmen whom you question will make the effort to color your skepticism as demeaning and rude.

it isn't.

but people interpret it that way. because it's not 'friendly' to ask questions or be skeptical. people typically get angry if you ask them why they do something... and they regard your blind acceptance of them as positive.

News cycles are breeding grounds for hate. In return, hate is breeding grounds for ignorance, which is closely linked to either cognitive decline or unintelligence