Why are apparently intelligent people so f*in' stupid?
Discussion
Facebook. It's there like some kind of guilty pleasure...having a look at what people you haven't seen in five years are doing with their lives. I look at it all the time. What an utter waste of time. Stupid thing is if I go off somewhere where I don't have mobile signal etc I don't miss it one iota...it's just there as a little distraction during the day I guess. Some stuff is very interesting though...like a guy I know who has just won a gold in Rio. Kinda makes up for all the crap I suppose.
I guess I'm a typical PHer. Early 40s, decent standard of living, professional guy with a decent career, and as such most of my "friends" will be fairly similar.
So why oh why in the name of all that is holy, do apparently intelligent people fall for these f
king ridiculous "like and share" scams that are on Facebook all the bloody time? Yesterday, a business owner I know "liked and shared" one of those "win a camper" posts. And actually, there are going to be 99 winners. So, let's see, this was a very posh camper, call it 60 grands worth. So for liking and sharing a post on Facebook, this person seriously expected this company to give away £5.94m worth of stock. This is a business owner FFS who thought this was real!
Someone else I know, a senior sales person in IT, has updated their post that, well fk me with a greased bargepole, whoever would have thunk it, the post where they invited all of their friends to "like and share" to win a £75.00 Waitrose voucher for answering a short survey, wasn't actually real! Wow! Thanks for telling me, I was just about to throw away a load of wine to make way for my Waitrose Prosecco delivery...that was lucky!
Another one, some gold wrapped Bentley parked in front of a hotel..."like and share" and it could be yours! Rolexes! Range Rovers! Emirates first class tickets! All this aspirational stuff that needs no advertising...just like and share and wait for that call!
I think you can group people on Facebook, family, close friends etc. Well I'm going to set up a group of "Special Friends" who fall for this ste. "Like and share", and I will sit there, jaw dropped, with my head in my hands wondering how I could have been so wrong about you. Shuffle off to the Special Friends list, there you go, and you can start planning that camper van road trip with my other Special Friends.
This might...just might...be the thing that gets me to shut my FB account, then again it's perhaps quite a useful tool for muppetry detection...
I guess I'm a typical PHer. Early 40s, decent standard of living, professional guy with a decent career, and as such most of my "friends" will be fairly similar.
So why oh why in the name of all that is holy, do apparently intelligent people fall for these f
king ridiculous "like and share" scams that are on Facebook all the bloody time? Yesterday, a business owner I know "liked and shared" one of those "win a camper" posts. And actually, there are going to be 99 winners. So, let's see, this was a very posh camper, call it 60 grands worth. So for liking and sharing a post on Facebook, this person seriously expected this company to give away £5.94m worth of stock. This is a business owner FFS who thought this was real!Someone else I know, a senior sales person in IT, has updated their post that, well f
k me with a greased bargepole, whoever would have thunk it, the post where they invited all of their friends to "like and share" to win a £75.00 Waitrose voucher for answering a short survey, wasn't actually real! Wow! Thanks for telling me, I was just about to throw away a load of wine to make way for my Waitrose Prosecco delivery...that was lucky!Another one, some gold wrapped Bentley parked in front of a hotel..."like and share" and it could be yours! Rolexes! Range Rovers! Emirates first class tickets! All this aspirational stuff that needs no advertising...just like and share and wait for that call!
I think you can group people on Facebook, family, close friends etc. Well I'm going to set up a group of "Special Friends" who fall for this s
te. "Like and share", and I will sit there, jaw dropped, with my head in my hands wondering how I could have been so wrong about you. Shuffle off to the Special Friends list, there you go, and you can start planning that camper van road trip with my other Special Friends.This might...just might...be the thing that gets me to shut my FB account, then again it's perhaps quite a useful tool for muppetry detection...
Edited by Hard-Drive on Thursday 1st September 22:14
I actually posted to a friend who a liked & shared one of these things telling her "you do know these are scams sites set up to get your details and you'll then be wondering why you are getting messages from some dodgy site in the near future".
She replied - And I quote " Yeah I know - but I might get lucky".
Un-Friended
She replied - And I quote " Yeah I know - but I might get lucky".
Un-Friended
While I agree this is bad/stupid, far worse is the recent relentless posting of animal cruelty, it may be a video of a puppy being thrown into a river or off a building, or animals in a abattoir being beaten senseless.
It's sickening, but and it's a big but, what the fk am I meant to do about this? Am I meant to stop eating meat because someone beat a pig with a metal bar? Or do I go out and hunt down animal abusers?
Really starting to piss me off tbh.
It's sickening, but and it's a big but, what the f
k am I meant to do about this? Am I meant to stop eating meat because someone beat a pig with a metal bar? Or do I go out and hunt down animal abusers? Really starting to piss me off tbh.
m3jappa said:
While I agree this is bad/stupid, far worse is the recent relentless posting of animal cruelty, it may be a video of a puppy being thrown into a river or off a building, or animals in a abattoir being beaten senseless.
It's sickening, but and it's a big but, what the fk am I meant to do about this? Am I meant to stop eating meat because someone beat a pig with a metal bar? Or do I go out and hunt down animal abusers?
Really starting to piss me off tbh.
Unfollow or unfriend is your friend !It's sickening, but and it's a big but, what the f
k am I meant to do about this? Am I meant to stop eating meat because someone beat a pig with a metal bar? Or do I go out and hunt down animal abusers? Really starting to piss me off tbh.
Oh, and 'look at MEEEE doing press ups for all the servicemen that have committed suicide!'
That's not to be unsympathetic about those poor servicemen, but what does some oik doing press ups to impress everyone have to do with it? It's not raising money, I suppose they'd argue its raising awareness, but so what? I'm now aware, will that make a suicidal serviceman less likely kill himself?
That's not to be unsympathetic about those poor servicemen, but what does some oik doing press ups to impress everyone have to do with it? It's not raising money, I suppose they'd argue its raising awareness, but so what? I'm now aware, will that make a suicidal serviceman less likely kill himself?
The latest one is apparently to post a black and white profile picture to raise awareness about cancer, with the status of "Challenge accepted".
What fking challenge? It's just a filter applied to a narcissistic photo.
And why the fk do we need to raise awareness of cancer? Who the shuddering fk doesn't know that cancer exists? It's not even about fundraising, it's specifically to "raise awareness".
Fortunately I've only seen two of my friends do it, so maybe this one will be a non-starter?
What f
king challenge? It's just a filter applied to a narcissistic photo.And why the f
k do we need to raise awareness of cancer? Who the shuddering fk doesn't know that cancer exists? It's not even about fundraising, it's specifically to "raise awareness".Fortunately I've only seen two of my friends do it, so maybe this one will be a non-starter?
Issi said:
I'm a little concerned about the statistics of 22 ex servicemen committing suicide every day-154 a week, 616 a month, 7392 a year?
I've served, and I may be lucky but I don't know anyone who has committed suicide following their time in.
This, like many of these stupid like and share things on Facebook have all come from the US.I've served, and I may be lucky but I don't know anyone who has committed suicide following their time in.
I am sure there there is a recorded, approximate number for British Servicemen committing suicide due to mental health issues but 22 is the American number.
By the way I am not an unsympathetic Guardian reader, I am a squaddie in the middle of being medically discharged which has caused me some mental health issues.
I think the worst ones on facebook are the important changes to the law meaning something is going to be banned, again they are normally america in root or are just plan inaccurate
I ignore all the chain-mail 'post a record cover that means something to you' stuff, the stupid 'what animal would you be' st, all of the guilt-chasing 'only 3% of people will share this, but those that do are my true friends' bks, and of course the 'share this for a chance to win a £1M house and a footballer's life-style for ever' stupidity. It easy to do, and as someone points out above, a simple indicator of those that you should probably keep at a distance.
However, what I find infinitely worse, is that fact that Facebook is full of narcissistic fools who think for some utterly stupid reason you'd be interested in the fact that they're 'at work' or 'picking the daughter up from school', or that they're 'off to the pub/quiz night/Indian', in the vain hope that they'll find some sort of self-assurance that they're living la dolce vita... Yes, post when you've done something/gone somewhere very interesting - the rest, well, you can bore off.
t, all of the guilt-chasing 'only 3% of people will share this, but those that do are my true friends' bks, and of course the 'share this for a chance to win a £1M house and a footballer's life-style for ever' stupidity. It easy to do, and as someone points out above, a simple indicator of those that you should probably keep at a distance.However, what I find infinitely worse, is that fact that Facebook is full of narcissistic fools who think for some utterly stupid reason you'd be interested in the fact that they're 'at work' or 'picking the daughter up from school', or that they're 'off to the pub/quiz night/Indian', in the vain hope that they'll find some sort of self-assurance that they're living la dolce vita... Yes, post when you've done something/gone somewhere very interesting - the rest, well, you can bore off.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 2nd September 06:23
I think theres a big difference between having intelligece and using it. I've lived with PhD's who I wouldn't trust to boil a kettle and people with hig earning jobs who didn't know that you had to clean filters on hoovers and tumble dryers.
Re facebook campaigns, the Ice Bucket Challenge did actually raise awareness (and a whole ton of cash) about lou gehrig's disease so I think they can have their place (actually I think ailments that are rare make a good case for charity, as there's little that classical capitalism can do for them), but a lot of it is bandwagon nonsense.
The ones which annoy me are the "90% of you won't repost this, but 10% are true friends who have been touched by cancer. Share if you agree" type posts. WTF is that supposed to be about? Also am slightly annoyed by the whole personalisation of cancer by some charities. We really seem to be turning into a society led by our emotions instead of our reason.
Re facebook campaigns, the Ice Bucket Challenge did actually raise awareness (and a whole ton of cash) about lou gehrig's disease so I think they can have their place (actually I think ailments that are rare make a good case for charity, as there's little that classical capitalism can do for them), but a lot of it is bandwagon nonsense.
The ones which annoy me are the "90% of you won't repost this, but 10% are true friends who have been touched by cancer. Share if you agree" type posts. WTF is that supposed to be about? Also am slightly annoyed by the whole personalisation of cancer by some charities. We really seem to be turning into a society led by our emotions instead of our reason.
What are people actually trying to achieve with the whole 'pray for <insert name of place here> or by changing their photo to resemble a rainbow?
I am genuinely trying to work out if people think they are making a difference or sheep mentality of wanting to portray something about their personality.
I am genuinely trying to work out if people think they are making a difference or sheep mentality of wanting to portray something about their personality.
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