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People Share Their Best 'Stupidity Has No Limits' Experiences

Reddit user Joker101001 asked: 'Albert Einstein once said "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." What are some examples of this that you have experienced?'

Man dressed a court jester or a joker
Austin Lowman/Unsplash

The human race is supposedly touted as a superior species compared to other lifeforms on Earth.

Sadly, the generalization does not apply to everyone.

And while the notion that "nobody is perfect" is perpetually expressed to console those who've made regretful mistakes, that is not entirely true.

We see them in the news all the time.

Dimwits–which may include those with no social graces or lack of basic life skills in order to survive adulting through life–are among us.

Curious to those who've face-palmed in response to an individual's intelligence level, Redditor Joker101001 asked:

"Albert Einstein once said 'The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.' What are some examples of this that you have experienced?"

People shared their observations about our intellect..or lack thereof.

Touché

"You shouldn’t believe every quote you read on the internet. — Abraham Lincoln."

– _PM_ME_PANGOLINS_

"I think he was re-quoting Julius Caesar who made this comment the morning he was warned not to go out that day."

– Emergency-Ad-7002

Humbling Realization

"I think the more educated we become, the more we know how little we actually know, and it’s humbling, but ignorant people really have no idea what they don’t know, leading them to be confident about their ignorant stances."

– PuzzleHeadedNinny

Reaching Limitations

"Physics has kind of reached a point where we realized we don't know how anything works at a fundamental level. Every theory breaks down at tiny or gigantic scales. There is a crisis in cosmology, spinning glaxies have either disproven gravity or proven undetected dark matter, and the vast majority of matter and energy is undetectably dark. We don't know why matter exists (as opposed to antimatter, given their symmetries). We don't know how time and space work inside black holes, how many dimensions there really are, or whether space and time are quantized. We've kinda figured out ordinary matter at human scales, but that's it."

– turbotong

The Thing About Doubt

"There are limitations to human knowledge and our understanding of things. Rather than acknowledging these limitations, people fill them in with supernatural explanations. When you express uncertainty or doubt, you are mocked or they ascribe to a lack of self confidence."

"Doubt is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it."

– RecalcitrantMonk

Knowledge Vs. Intelligence

"Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit."

"Intelligence is combining the tomato with other ingredients to make something better."

"Knowledge is what we learn, intelligence is what we do with what we have learned."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7183572/

"Charisma is the exact opposite of what I just did - citing an academic paper on reddit."

– egregori3

People shared their most dullest interactions.

Dumbfounding Stupidity

"Oh boy. I once met a guy who was so stupid that he thought the ocean was alive and waves was it breathing. I remember one time in school he was doing homework for another class and asked the teacher “Where were the Canaanites from?” She jokingly said Nova Scotia. He asked how to spell it. This guy thought Beauty and the Beast was based on a true story about a girl and a bear. He would constantly make bets that he lost and never learned his lesson. He didn’t know that chicken the food came from chicken the animal. I have met a lot of stupid people in my life but I have never met anyone quite so bafflingly stupid that I had to wonder if they, in high school, could even read."

– Not-sure-wtf-I-am

"A friend of mine once met a young woman who thought that fluttering leaves caused the wind to blow."

– Ancguy

"A former classmate of mine (in college, mind you) once said the sky was blue because it reflected the ocean."

"She thought the sky was blue everywhere, even hundreds or thousands of miles inland, because of the ocean."

– CrypticBalcony

Scam Fail

"I worked at an embassy. One day a guy came to me, completely explained a scam he did. It had failed and he wanted to know how I could help him "as we are countrymen".

"Called my colleagues at home and set them on his a** too."

– Dependent-Cress-948

Expected Expectations

"As a high school math teacher, I cringe when students hand in a test and say 'I think I aced it.' It’s almost always an F."

– kasgar77

"One time I left a stats exam in college and texted my friend, “if I knew a test was going to kill me and I went anyway, is that suicide?” She said “I think it’s more like when you walk through a bad part of town alone at night and get shot. It’s not really your fault.”

– FlockofDramaLamas

Kiwi Get A Clarification?

"When I was in middle school I convinced a girl that the kiwi birds laid the kiwi fruit as food for their babies. It wasn’t that hard to convince her."

– ChaoticCauldron

Conspiracy Theorists

"Flat eathers. It is difficult to find more dumb."

– DrowningInMyFandoms

"These days, there's quite a bit of overlap there. Flat earthers tend to be very anti-establishment, but because they also tend to be very religious and Trump is supported by many fundies, there's a definite connection there. Plus, his support of conspiracies makes him seem like 'one of them'; some flat earthers thought Trump would be the one to expose NASA and the fake ISS, but that never happened."

– SyntheticGod8

I think COVID pulled back the curtain on the lack of intelligence on display.

Irrational mob mentality prevented US citizens from critical thinking and drawing irrational and false conclusions from sheer panic.

Remember the toilet paper shortage and the anti-vaxxer movement?

I was more terrified of our lack of humanity and compassion than the virus that was being allowed to spread thanks to ignorance.

Historical Events So Ridiculous They Sound Made Up

A Redditor asked: 'What’s an event in history that is so ridiculous it sounds fake?'

historical reenactors
Sigmund on Unsplash

We've probably all heard some variation of the saying "Truth is stranger than fiction."

Real life isn't just strange, it can also be downright ridiculous.

History is riddled with moments of absurdity.

So ridiculous that people have a hard time believing real life is, well, really real.

Keep reading...Show less
person holding photo of three girls near chainlink fence
Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

Life is all about learning new things, including learning new things about the people in your life. Sometimes, the things you learn are shocking, disgusting, or even scary.

I was the new kid in town when I was in fifth grade and my first friend was this quiet (and cute) boy in my class. He and I remained friends through middle school, and even though we drifted apart in high school, our interactions when we ran into each other in the halls or the cafeteria were really nice.

All throughout school and even beyond, he remained quiet, polite, and reserved. Just a few years ago, I read a news article written about him. He had apparently fatally wounded his father after an argument.

I had to reread the article several times to make sure it was really about my old friend. I think about it a lot, and still can't believe it!

I'm not the only one that has a shocking story like that. A lot of Redditors learned shocking or scary things about people from their childhood, and are ready to share.

It all started when Redditor ValuableHovercraft90 asked:

"What's the scariest thing you have found out about someone from your childhood (old friends, teachers, etc)?"

So Creepy

"That the boy who lived across the street and moved when I was 6 is still obsessed with me and my sister 30+ years later and posts ramblings on Facebook with our names and that he's going to be with us. Pretty terrifying honestly."

– mrscrawfish

The Worst List

"A neighbour died when he was 30. Police searched a trailer he owned and found weapons, bombs and a list of people he wanted to kill. My uncle was on that list."

– Flashy_Somewhere_648

"I'm glad this ended the way it did."

– CreepyCandidate4449

Terrifying

"One of my best friends (and locker partner) from high school was kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq. After a nightmare of 6+ months, all went silent. We buried an empty casket in his memory 10 years later."

– francois_du_nord

"This is horrifying. How incredibly sad for family to never get any closure. Very sad to read this. :("

– fizzycherryseltzer

"About 15 years ago my dad received a very good offer for work in Iraq, as a construction specialist. He was considering going, since at the same time the financial crisis started in Europe, but then one of his friends, a civil engineer, was kidnapped. Never returned back either."

– 19lgkrn70

"Same thing for my dad old coworker told him how great the money was. Dude got sniped working on a radio tower or something. My dad luckily was like, "I got a wife and family that would kill me for doing something so dangerous.""

– tristanjones

End Of The Friendship

"One of my dad's good friends, and my "uncle", just stopped coming around one day. I was told he was always busy with work, away, etc."

"Turns out, he killed 3 people in a drug deal gone bad and got life in prison."

"What's scary, is that we were over at his house for a weekend BBQ with a bunch of people earlier in the day of the night he did it, and it happened at his house."

– pnwking509

School Friends

"Don't know if it was scary, but I grew up with a kid whose birthday was the day before mine so we almost always shared birthdays in elementary school. We were friends, even spent the night at his house growing up. Later on in our teens, he started getting into some really dark stuff. I recognize that now as his being a sociopath, but like most everybody else at the time, figured it was just him going through some kind of emo phase. Over the years, we lost touch but I would occasionally run into him around town and our meetings were cordial, if not friendly."

"Last year, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing a man back in 1993, roughly 3 years after we got out of High School. Apparently he, his sister and another man lured this guy out to the boonies and killed him to steal money he had gotten in an insurance settlement."

"The only reason they were caught is the other guy got religion, felt remorse and went on the local TV station and aired a confession before turning himself in (He got 25 to life)."

– 530_Oldschoolgeek

"A girl I went to school with did the same thing. She was the nicest girl, got good grades & was kind of a dork. Mixed with the wrong people after graduation. She and two others lured an old man into an abandoned building, stabbed him and robbed him. He later died from his wounds."

– HereF0rTheSnacks

The Worst Afternoon

"I had a friend in grade school who was being raised by her single dad. She had a unique name and pretty face. She never talked about her mom, and she was super outgoing, so all us kids just made friends with her quickly. It was weird her dad never brought her to our birthday parties, even though she was always invited, but we didn’t think much of it. A couple times, she was allowed to ride the bus home with me after school, and we played and had fun until her dad came to pick her up. Later in the school year, she invited me to ride the bus to her house, and my mom agreed. I was 10. It was the scariest afternoon of my young life. I cannot articulate the extreme tension in her home. We weren’t allowed to make any noise, and we mostly stayed outside, me desperate for my mom to arrive."

"Her dad screamed at us for opening the door, and I was too nervous to go into the house to use the restroom. I knew she was embarrassed that there were no snacks or comforting interactions, like at my house. I didn’t really tell anyone how uncomfortable the experience was. After that day, I didn’t hang out with her a lot. We were in different classes, drifted apart, and decades later, when my own daughter asked to go to a friend’s house, I thought about that girl."

"As an adult, I figured out her dad probably worked a night shift and tried to sleep during the day…or he was an alcoholic who was really angry. Maybe both? I looked her up on social media, and thanks to her unique name and face, I recognized her immediately. She’s a perfectly well-adjusted woman with a beautiful family. She even had pictures of her kids with her dad and tributes to him as the greatest father and grandpa. Her whole page made me wonder what the hell I experienced that afternoon in the 4th grade?"

– OlderAndTired

School Is Supposed To Be Safe!

"In our school, we had something called "de halte." In English, it means "the halt" literally translated. Basically time out. BIf you had a meltdown in class or you were just a little sh*thead, you were sent there for 15 minutes or so to cool off.

The de hatle teacher got fired and jailed for breaking 4 different wrists of 4 different students by bending them the wrong way..."

– Ok_Win7358

*Skin Crawling*

​"There was this classmate a grade below me but all grades shared the same drama class. She was weird and kind of "off." I tried to befriend her at one point and was rebuffed. It later came out that she was actually an almost 30-year-old woman who would show up in a new area claiming to be a 15-year-old runaway. Kind of freaked me out."

jackfaire

It turns out it was a good thing that the friendship didn't work out!