Anyone else feel stupid

[Betty LaRue]

when it looks like a new thread has been started...you jump aboard with a comment, only to f i n a l l y pay attention to the start date and see it's a resurrected thread started months ago?

 

I need to get my head out of my....well, you know.

Betty

[Colblimp]

I feel stupid all the time, Betty.  Not because of the thread thing, but because my wonderful girlfriend always makes sure I know how stupid I am...

[Chuck Nacke]

Andy,

 

Girlfriend....LOL Wives are always happy to compare my IQ to my shoe size.....

[Betty LaRue]

Yes, Jeff.

Give me someone with common sense even if little education every time over the high IQ person without it. One example is the person who is getting ready to do something, but sees all the possible results in their head, good and bad, first. Some people only live in the moment. They plan on doing something without first thinking of the dangers or pitfalls.

 

Those are the ones, after a bad income, where you slap your forehead and say, "What were they thinking?!" But they weren't thinking. They were standing behind the post when common sense was handed out. Those people can't really help it. You are born with it or not.

 

Betty

[M.Chapman]

Anyone else feel stupid?

 

Yes. But I'm lucky, it only affects me some of the time. It starts when I wake up and finishes when I fall asleep. The rest of the time I'm fine. 

[Inchiquin]

There's no such thing as common sense. There's common perception, which may or may not be sensible.

 

Common sense said the earth was flat. Common sense said the sun revolves around the earth. Common sense said rocks don't fall from the sky. Those who disagreed were mad, bad and dangerous.

 

Alan

[Betty LaRue]

There's no such thing as common sense. There's common perception, which may or may not be sensible.

 

Common sense said the earth was flat. Common sense said the sun revolves around the earth. Common sense said rocks don't fall from the sky. Those who disagreed were mad, bad and dangerous.

 

Alan

There is common sense, at least in the ways that affect what you do.

Example...putting a brand new fishing rod and reel (gift) in the trunk of your car instead of storing it in the garage. Then months later, throwing a spare tire on top of it breaking it, before it was ever used.

 

Too much of a hurry to put your seatbelt on, so as you drive down a rutted sandy country road too fast, you try to fasten the seatbelt and end up in the ditch. Luckily, unhurt.

Lighting the rubbish in your barrel (allowed in the country) and when the fire acts like it's going out, pouring gasoline on it to revive it. 2nd degree burns. A spot or two of third degree.

That's the common sense I'm talking about. Maybe you'd call them poor decisions or stupidity. I call it lack of common sense.

[AlessandraRC]

all the time 

[Betty LaRue]

 

Common sense said the earth was flat.

 

How can we measure common sense...?  By example:

someone thinks they're quoting Albert Einstein,

but they're not, its a misattribution uncovered if one has

enough common sense to investigate further, knowing

the WWW is full of misattributions...

 

 

You guys are missing the point. I'm not talking about things you learn. Not history. Not dark ages, Not is the world flat or round. (science)

 

I'm talking about the everyday choices one makes. Do you have the common sense to check the bottom of the bowl to see if it says "microwave safe" before putting it in the microwave and exploding it?

 

Do you check to see if your house key is in your pocket before leaving the house? Or do you end up hoping a window is unlocked so you can crawl through.

 

Do you leave your dog roaming the house when you leave instead of putting it in its kennel?  The dog is known to destroy things when left alone, but after all, you'll be back in 20 minutes. Right?  Back to destruction.

 

When you get that phone call from someone who says they are from your credit card company and need to verify your personal information, do you give it out?

 

Do you wear your flip flops to climb around on the roof?  Do you pull over the rolling desk chair to stand on to change the lightbulb in the ceiling? 

 

Do you walk up to the grieving mother at her child's funeral and ask for all the details of the child's demise?

   

That's the "common sense" I'm talking about.

 

If you've never met those kinds of people, you must be living in a bubble.  I've met them, I'm related to a couple of them, and I'm exasperated by them when they've come to harm.  Until I realize again, they don't have common sense and don't know better. Yet they have college educations.  

My mother, with a 4th grade education because her father died young, her mother was sick and there were other children, dropped out of school to cook, clean and take care of them. She could whip up biscuits without a recipe by the time she was 8. She educated herself through reading many books. But the most important thing about her, is she knew when to come in out of the rain.  She had more common sense in her pinky that most people have in their whole body.

 

I think one is born to eventually have common sense. Those people take in, from an early age, what happens to people in their orbit.  They glean things from overhearing conversations about "happenings". They remember things they've done that turned out badly.  All of those things they are exposed to soaks into their skins without consciousness of it, but it is there when they go to do something and seem to know what the results of that action, good or bad, could possibly be.  They project ahead.  It comes from learning about life.

Everyone is exposed to the experiences, but with some people, it slides off their skins without absorbing it.  But with others, that information\experience becomes an integral part of their makeup.

 

Betty

[M.Chapman]

Common sense said the sun revolves around the earth.

 

Alan

 

Depending on your frame of reference, the sun does indeed revolve around the earth. Given that everything in the universe is moving (mostly in different directions) and everything is gravitationally attracted to everything else, why should we choose the sun as a static point of reference? (Especially as the sun is also moving as our galaxy rotates). Isn't it just that we find it easier to comprehend our solar system when we think of our sun as "stationary"?

[Inchiquin]

 

Common sense said the earth was flat.

 

How can we measure common sense...?  By example:

someone thinks they're quoting Albert Einstein,

but they're not, its a misattribution uncovered if one has

enough common sense to investigate further, knowing

the WWW is full of misattributions...

 

 

The only problem being that I wasn't quoting anyone. I was simply making a point from my own perspective.

 

Alan

[John Mitchell]

 

There's no such thing as common sense. There's common perception, which may or may not be sensible.

 

Common sense said the earth was flat. Common sense said the sun revolves around the earth. Common sense said rocks don't fall from the sky. Those who disagreed were mad, bad and dangerous.

 

Alan

There is common sense, at least in the ways that affect what you do.

Example...putting a brand new fishing rod and reel (gift) in the trunk of your car instead of storing it in the garage. Then months later, throwing a spare tire on top of it breaking it, before it was ever used.

 

Too much of a hurry to put your seatbelt on, so as you drive down a rutted sandy country road too fast, you try to fasten the seatbelt and end up in the ditch. Luckily, unhurt.

Lighting the rubbish in your barrel (allowed in the country) and when the fire acts like it's going out, pouring gasoline on it to revive it. 2nd degree burns. A spot or two of third degree.

That's the common sense I'm talking about. Maybe you'd call them poor decisions or stupidity. I call it lack of common sense.

 

 

I'd call this just plain "good sense" not "common sense" since it is not really all that common, or at least not as common as it ought to be, not in my life anyway. I make all kinds of dumb mistakes, as my more sensible half never fails to remind me.

 

On a collective level, what passes as "common sense" is often just "common ignorance" based on convenient and inflexible beliefs. Look at how long it took the Church to accept that Galileo's discoveries weren't just fake news. Look at... OK I'll stop here before I get carried away.

[Betty LaRue]

I give up.

You call it what you want. People in my part of the world call it common sense.

As in, "That boy is nothing but trouble! He doesn't have a lick of common sense!"

I've heard the expression my whole life. Just because you haven't doesn't make what I'm saying invalid or need to be parsed or attacked.

We say diapers, you say nappies.

Sorry I brought it up. I'm using my common sense ending it.

Betty

[Betty LaRue]

 

Common sense said the sun revolves around the earth.

 

Alan

 

 

Depending on your frame of reference, the sun does indeed revolve around the earth. Given that everything in the universe is moving (mostly in different directions) and everything is gravitationally attracted to everything else, why should we choose the sun as a static point of reference? (Especially as the sun is also moving as our galaxy rotates). Isn't it just that we find it easier to comprehend our solar system when we think of our sun as "stationary"?

+1

[M.Chapman]

I give up.

You call it what you want. People in my part of the world call it common sense.

As in, "That boy is nothing but trouble! He doesn't have a lick of common sense!"

I've heard the expression my whole life. Just because you haven't doesn't make what I'm saying invalid or need to be parsed or attacked.

We say diapers, you say nappies.

Sorry I brought it up. I'm using my common sense ending it.

Betty

 

We call it "common sense" over here too. It's in the Oxford English Dictionary. Common sense - normal understanding, good practical sense in everyday affairs, general feeling (of mankind or community).

 

Some here may have their own personal variations, but IMHO "common sense" is the most widely used and understood. Whether it's the best terminology for this attribute is another matter. 

[Betty LaRue]

 

I give up.

You call it what you want. People in my part of the world call it common sense.

As in, "That boy is nothing but trouble! He doesn't have a lick of common sense!"

I've heard the expression my whole life. Just because you haven't doesn't make what I'm saying invalid or need to be parsed or attacked.

We say diapers, you say nappies.

Sorry I brought it up. I'm using my common sense ending it.

Betty

 

 

We call it "common sense" over here too. It's in the Oxford English Dictionary. Common sense - normal understanding, good practical sense in everyday affairs, general feeling (of mankind or community).

 

Some here may have their own personal variations, but IMHO "common sense" is the most widely used and understood. Whether it's the best terminology for this attribute is another matter. 

Thank you Mark.

[John Mitchell]

The term "common sense" is of course used here in Canada as well, but interestingly enough, you don't hear it as much as you used to, which is a pity. The world could use a lot more of the Oxford English Dictionary's brand of common sense these days. Too bad someone hasn't invented a common sense app.