Humans managed to dominate all of the other species across the globe primarily due to one key factor: a large brain with a frontal lobe.
Nonetheless, humans are uniquely dumb on so many occasions. One is left considering such far-reaching stupidity an outright disrespect for the gift of that brain, with all of its potential.
But at least humans are smart enough to accept their dumbness. They invent items and services to keep everyone safe and secure, despite people's seeming insistence on screwing everything up.
Or, humans are so dumb that something continues to be around despite obvious solutions that we insist on not pursuing.
Whatever underlies it, the outcome is the same: our world is full of things that do not need to be here
Heel-Hook asked, "What exists only because humans are dumb?"
Out of the Kitchen
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Worst Cooks in America.
I literally found out about this today.
Some guy decided to try to add more flavor into his steak (I think) by adding butter. This is a good idea, but it would have been a better idea if he took the butter out of the wrapping before putting it into the pan.
DUH!
Disclaimer before UFC fight: this may include violence.
Well yeah it better freaking contain violence, that's what I'm here for.
"no swimming"Â
No swimming sticker on places that are physically not possible to swim at.
Yeah they're for the people who are too dumb to realize it would be suicidal to try and swim somewhere, so really they're necessary because I saw a guy hop in to a river from a bridge over a wier and then go over it. He held onto the "no swimming" sign to stand on the railing to jump over. He was fine, but only because the water level up top was lower than usual.
Not at Home....
'Don't try this at home' warnings.
Let's be fair, the show Mythbusters needed this. Some of their things came from stupid people or were ideas that could possibly be recreated at home.
Dummy GIF by memecandy
End of Life
A lot of senseless deaths. Everyone who ever died of a preventable cause of death.
Less then 30....
Congressmen with 30+ years in office.
I guess that depends on perspective. The least corrupt and most honest person in Congress has been there that long.
Deep Cuts
Safety scissors.
Not even safe either. I have a scar from a pair. Go through skin just as well.
K Ok GIF by Originals
Bloodshed.
War. HOO. What is it good for?
Corporate entities not in the war-zone.
It's Whack.
Tik Tok.
Just saying this before someone else will say it.
the cycle
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Media, modern day as we know it. 24 hour news cycles, censorship, click bait, all of it.
Cool Off....
The "caution: hot beverage" labels.
The dumb ones in this case are companies like McDonald's that permanently disfigured a customer with super hot coffee, then did everything they could to make people think she was at fault.
All of the Above
Climate change, sea level rise, depletion of fisheries, whaling, War on Drugs, Global War on Terror, war, genocide, racism, wars of religion...
daylight savings GIF by ScreenJunkies
For Hope
Religions. Sorry if this makes anyone mad, but aren't religions made to explain things we can't understand?
It can do more than that. It brings many hope and purpose, and then there's always the imbeciles who justify hate with it.
It wasn't, but we like to view the politics of all history through the lens of today's culture. sure, maybe a peasant's life revolved totally around their faith-but that doesn't mean the primary purpose of the priests was to take his crops. before travel was easy and most people could read and write, the Church was the power and the social structure of most of Europe. but to say that it's history was wholly one of a desire for control was disingenuous.
The Best Dope
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The Darwin awards.
That is very true considering they're literally awards for the world's biggest idiots.
2020!!!
Donald Trump's presidency.
I'm not surprised anymore. 46% voted for that guy in the first place despite all the crap he'd done before. I swear if he wins again I give up on America.
This isn't lettuce?
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I found warning labels on fruit salad saying "Warning contains fruits."
Just Wait.Â
The loading progress bar was made because the people brought for testing thought something was wrong.
Yeah, providing feedback that the program is running and hasn't crashed is an important part of UI design.
100% sugar
Ingredients labels on flour, sugar, raisins, etc.
It's because of standards more than for stupid people. There aren't many people wondering which ingredients sugar contains (spoiler: it contains 100% sugar), but all products intended for human consumption are required to have an ingredient lists.
Putting the ingredients on items which are just a single ingredient may be a bit ridiculous, but it doesn't harm anyone and it's probably better than coming up with possibly confusing exceptions for that regulation.
It's for Health.Â
Marijuana criminalization.
That had more to do with taxes and lobbyists from the cotton industry.
In the U.S. at least.
Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies
"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," zomboromcom
BACK UP FOOLS!!!
Fences and railings at the Grand Canyon.
This one made me chuckle. I visited the Grand Canyon Visitor's Center last year in July, peak summer, peak tourism. Lots of tourists.
Thing is, the visitors center is right up at the side of a freaking cliff. A several hundred foot high cliff. Sheer rock, no incline. And yet, on that day, I could not fight my polite urge to let people be themselves. People were literally getting on top of the rock railing and doing poses for Instagram, dancing, jumping, doing handstands. People are freaking stupid.
Meow Time
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Cats videos. I agree that cats are funny, but when it's the most popular thing on the internet, it makes me think that people aren't interested in self-development.
How?
Wikihow.
Yeah the majority of wikiHow articles are useful, but every now and then there's one that's hilariously dumb.
Comedy gold a while ago, just from a wikihow.
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Dear Prep H....
Certain Warning labels....
"Dear Preparation H, I love your product and it has made me feel so much better; but boy does it taste bad!"
We is Dumb
Math: we're literally incapable of the kind of information processing and abstraction needed to deal with things directly. So, we came up with systems of symbols and rules for manipulating them that allow us to sidestep our cognitive limitations. Also, the lottery (unless it's a charity lottery or something).
How Free?
Bags of nuts, vegetables, meat, etc. that say "gluten free."
Those labels can be pretty helpful for people with severe allergies. The "gluten free" labels typically indicate that the product hasn't come in contact with any gluten products at any point during processing, such as on shared machinery. It doesn't matter for most of us, but guarantees can be important for people who can't tolerate even trace amounts of gluten.
Everything & Everyone....
Climate Change
Jersey Shore
Kanye West's presidential campaign
The modern day Flat Earth movement (even the ancient Greeks knew it was round bro)
You (the person reading this not OP), I've met your mom.
Issues with Shade
Racism, not just for the whole BLM, it is known that genetic diversity is the key for species survival, and we are looking waaaay too much at what shade of black, Brown or white a person has.
Also, "race" is one of those things that people won't give importance until some one mentions it.
In the books....
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From the biblical perspective, clothing.
Protip: if a snake starts to talk to you, you probably shouldn't eat the food it suggests you eat.
to inflame
The word flammable.
The original word was inflammable, from the word inflame. But people thought it meant non-flammable. So the word flammable was created.
It's a good word because it keeps innocent children from being burnt because of their dumb parents.
System Shock
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The charge of an electron. Benjamin Franklin had a 50/50 chance and he guessed wrong. This has made teaching electronics harder to do for the rest of eternity.
Scientific Understanding is Only Half the Battle
"Measles. In the 2000's, measles was nearly eradicated. However, because of antivaxxers communities, it went on a rise again. In the same vein, wear a goddamn mask people."
"I should also mention measles was always very prevalent in other nations, so I'm just referring to the US in this comment."
Because Yes, Someone Has Tried That
"warning labels" -- Ocean_Beast
"This was exactly what I came to comment. My most favorite warning label was on a baby stroller. 'Remove child before folding!'" -- kaismama
"I found this on a hair dryer: 'Do not use while sleeping'" -- MEScout
"My fav warning label was my coffee maker saying 'do not hold above peoples head'" -- twolimbooctopus
Drop Cloth
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Food Bibs, Not all of us can be like Hannibal Burress and have the confidence to not drop or spill our food on the way to our mouths.
Debatable
"Lawyers. Source: am lawyer." -- fendaar
"Even without dumb people I think we'd still need some lawyers to handle things like contract law or patent law." -- adeon
"Oh really? Name every law" -- Darkmaster666666
1 Foot Doughnut Claims
"NOT REAL SIZE Logos on posters."
"I used to work in a grocery store that had a bakery, and we had a poster that was hanging from the ceiling with the bakery's logo and a few pastries beside it."
"We had to reprint the poster with a message under it that said, 'Not real life size' because some Karen got mad then when she got her donut and it wasn't 1 ft. in diameter."
"She complained for 'False advertising' and corporate had to send a new poster."
-- jman857
Unnatural Phenomena
"Pugs" -- Lil-Sleepy-A1
"Have you ever seen the skeleton of one of those monstrosities?" -- zookeeper4980
"If you keep a pug in good shape, it will breathe easier" -- maxipad2008
In Case You Had Other Interpretations
"The label on milk bottles that says it contains dairy. If I'm buying milk I'd kinda hope it contains dairy?" -- thebibarista
"Allergy info: This peanut butter contains peanut products. Gee thanks" -- Heel-Hook
"Disclaimer before UFC fight: this may include violence. Well yeah it better f***in contain violence, that's what I'm here for" -- ZoFarZoGood
A Momentous AccidentÂ
"Penicillin, because someone didn't clean the Petri dish" -- drempire
"Worked out though" -- Heel-Hook
"Or a cantaloupe" -- naivemetaphysics
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
"The [virus] death toll in the US" -- Snow_Da_92
"How is the US media reporting the country's response for [virus]" -- Heel-Hook
"Pretty much like you'd expect. The left says everyone's stupid for not wearing masks, the right says everyone's stupid for wearing masks...."
"It's a sh** show....." -- Snow_Da_92
Who Was The Last to Leave?
"Africanized honey bees, a.k.a. killer bees."
"Some scientist accidentally let out bees and now they have the intent to kill anything in site. Worse than wasps my opinion."
-- Cheese_Boi20
Buying Power
"In the call center I work at part of our greeting is that we have to thank customers for the number of years they've been with the company because we legit had people complain about us not doing that."
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That kind of thinking, however, does little to keep us from feeling dejected for days on end.
Curious to hear from heartbroken strangers on the internet, Redditor whitecheeks-24 asked:
What's your sad love story?
Death never comes at the right time.
A Difficult Decision
"The love of my life and soulmate who I was married to for 20 years and together for 24 passed away about 8 months ago. I feel alone and empty inside. I have nobody to love or to love me. My life is an empty waste of space now."
"I took her off of life support because I know that's what she wanted and I had to respect her wishes but I sometimes wish I was a little more greedy. I just want my doll face back."
– StraightSho
Deep Despair
"I am so sorry. I had to do the same thing with my love, married 40 years. It's been 28 months and I'm sinking deeper into despair. We had so many plans, did everything together, and I am honestly lost without him. I send you warmest regards."
– imrealbizzy2
The Shy Admirer
"I was a shy teenager, in love with a cute neighbor. His sister and my mom were friends. He died in a car accident. Nobody knew how I felt about him. I overheard his sister tell my mom that he was in love with me. We never got to share our feelings with each other."
The Illness
"I think a guy I found on match.com died but I have no way of knowing. We had only been dating for 2 or 3 months and we were taking things slow. Then he got sick..tumors in his back and he needed surgery. We still hung out but he was in a lot of pain."
"At the time I was frustrated because I felt he was pushing me away. I just adored him and he was sending mixed messages. Now looking back.. I'm thinking he was just trying to survive. He went in for surgery and I never heard from him again. I didn't know his family and he didn't have social media."
"My mom would check the obituaries in the paper for me and I just always wondered. I hope he didn't know how to end things and just felt this was easier. It's been 5 years and I have a family of my own now but Michael..I hope you're okay."
It's hard for these Redditors to accept the fact their love was never meant to be.
Long Distance Fizzle
"I had to leave my first boyfriend behind because I moved out of state and didn't even get to say goodbye because I didn't know we were moving when I left. We left to see my aunt who had been traveling and was diagnosis with brain cancer in another state, she was too sick to travel home so they rented a house and stayed there essentially until she passed away."
"My mom liked the area better than my hometown tho so we ended up staying, our stuff was shipped to us so I never got to say goodbye to my boyfriend in person."
"We kept in contact for a couple years but being 16 and 18, it wasn't easy for me to just pack up and head back to move in somewhere with him. We both knew we weren't ready for that so we tried our best to keep the long distance romance going."
"Eventually he messaged me one day and told me that he can't do it anymore and he didn't want to hear from me again because he couldn't handle it."
– MotherOfBorzoi
Unrequited Love
"When I was in my early 20s, I've had a love at first sight experience. It completely broke me. He actually was into me too, but not in love like I was."
"I had never had a boyfriend before and I got so excited, I came in like a wrecking ball to cite a great poet. Long story short, I scared him off, he broke up, I couldn't get him out of my head and couldn't imagine a world without him, so I tried to kill myself."
"Though let me reassure you all, it's been years and I'm over him (as long as I don't see him IRL, I just know that I'd fall back in the spiral), I even had a long-term relationship after him."
– marie-llama
Tough Reality Check
"I got left out of a 5 year relationship. I got injured, lost my job, and had to go take care of my dying mom. I was not in a good way. I come back from the ER and she calls our entire relationship off because I was not 'passionate' any longer. Right."
"My entire life fell apart. Lost the house we had gone in on. Lost the dog we had gotten together. And I lost my girl. She was my bestfriend, my first love."
"Huge reality check but at least I'm only 22. I'm glad I saw her true colors when things went bad. Easy to stand by someone when times are good. Saddest part is I would take her back in an instant. I lost a piece of my soul with her."
– schassis408
Some of the biggest heartbreaks come when someone shows their true colors.
Deception
"FOUND OUT MY BOYFRIEND WAS MARRIED WITH KIDS ON THE INTERNET. I was happy and in love for two years. One day while doing my research for a client work, I come across a research paper. The research paper matched what I was looking for, scrolling through it, I realized the owner had some names as my boyfriend."
"But this time he acknowledges his wife and two children for being patient with him as he was busy doing the thesis. I got curious, I took a screenshot and sent him a picture and asked if it's his paper."
"Also, I asked if it's true that he has two kids and a wife and he why didn't tell me. He answered 'DOES IT MATTER '. That was the end of my relationship. Never talked about it, never told any soul what happened."
– MURKOMEN
Heartbreaker
"I finally got with my best friend and soul mate. He knows more about me then anyone and knows what I've been put thru my whole life. When we first got together he promised he would never do anything to me that others have."
"One year later he cheated, lied and and broke my spirit. Something i never thought was possible with me, yet he accomplished it. It's been a year since i left him and he still tries to get back into my life. The sad part is I know he doesn't love me and I can't stop loving him."
– shortgirl1978
Ungrateful
"After four years of supporting my lover through his depression and alcoholism, he announced tonight that he is leaving me. I'm pretty depressed."
– Jackie_Mojica
A Devious Scheme
"Wife moves our small family across the country for a promotion at her company. When we arrive and settle into our house, she leaves me for her boss."
"The move was a scheme for her boss to leave his wife and kids, and for her to leave me, while being able to be close to all their children. So I unknowingly left my career, family and friends behind to move to a state where I don't know anyone so she could be with her new guy."
– ramos1969
Unexpected tragedy will always be, to me, the saddest break up story.
A co-worker of mine used to date a young man who was a patron at the store where we both worked.
Their budding romance was new and exciting and absolutely adorable to watch.
He told me he planned to propose to her before he went away on a family vacation, but sadly, my friend never got the proposal. The guy drowned in a horrible boating accident during his trip.
Although my friend is now happily married with two kids, I wonder if she still thinks about him.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/Want to "know" more?
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I swear if every single person was forced to work in the hospitality industry for at least one month in their life, y'all would be beside yourselves. The amount of craziness and laziness could keep you eating at home for every meal until death.
Play Big
martin scorsese casino GIFGiphy"Casino dealers really do want the players to win. We don't work for the house. We get paid crap hourly rates and rely on tips. Unless the player is super nice they only to tip if they win so we really do want you to win." ~ thedevilsgame
Not the Good Stuff...
"That you can take a gallon of paint and give it a different label, price point, and warranty depending on the store it is sold in." ~ big_d_usernametaken
"My professor told me the same thing. He was a job coach and erased the due dates on food products with I believe acetone or some product in nail polish remover."
"Would slap a new date on it, and the food would get shipped to poorer neighborhoods. That crap blew my mind." ~ Additional_Bar_2013
"Oh crap, I may actually go to jail."
"That if everyone being charged with a crime insisted on it going to trial, no plea bargaining, the system would crash." ~ mikenyle
"When I was a juror, the judge also commented before everything started that trial by jury is the only thing causing people to plea bargain and "getting the system moving."
"Many trials sit in limbo for years, and it's only the threat of "Oh crap, I may actually go to jail."
"That really negotiations start. That's exactly what happened in my case - jurors got selected, and that afternoon (after being 2 years in the system), the defendant pleads out." ~ zealeus
Fake Care
"Safety. It's not really about your health and well being. It's about saving the company money from medical expenses, lost time, lawyer costs, etc. Very rarely does your company actually give 2 craps about you, no matter how much they preach safety, they just don't want to pay if you get hurt/killed." ~ WhenThePiecesFit
"pen to paper"
New Girl I Give Up GIFGiphy"TV/screenwriter here. If you're established and well connected, it's very easy to coast and be a TV writer for YEARS and do very little actual writing. Most of TV writing is just talking in a room with other writers spitballing."
"This is why there's so many old, unfunny dudes still "writing" on TV shows. They're hired by their friends and in TV, a lot writers don't actually do much "pen to paper" writing. Plus everything gets rewritten to death." ~ GardenChic
So much mess. Someone hire me to write for TV. Why are you just giving away jobs to unqualified people? Life is so unfair. This list makes me mad. Let's continue...
Carbon Copies
mail GIF by RabbidsGiphy"I work in the print industry, we print cheques for companies and there is so little security involved in hiring, or keeping the materials secure, or running the actual work, or shipping the work to customers. I'm shocked we haven't had a problem with stolen cheques." ~ Jeff_Cunningham
Followers
"Advertising. I keep reading that advertising is leading people to be more woke, or multicultural. Companies don't lead, they follow. They do lots of research and know where the future markets are."
"I worked for a very conservative global brand. 5 years before gay marriage became legal, they told us it would happen and we needed to start targeting the LBGTQ community." ~ leftside72
"connection"
"Visa agent and I've seen people be refused because the manager didn't like their face." ~ Ok_Albatross9395
"Omg this happened to my sister. She couldn't start her semester in time because she kept being refused a visa even though she fulfilled all conditions."
"Finally my parents found a "connection" in embassy to see what's going on; turns out someone just didn't like her when she came to give her papers the first time. I never knew if I can fully believe that story." ~ animal7239
So much typing...
"I'm a writer, among other things. I used to ghostwrite. You'd be amazed how many popular books are partly or fully ghostwritten. I specialised in taking people's crappy first drafts and rewriting them so they were actually good. Not "good" according to people's taste, which is subjective."
"But objectively better in the sense of being properly spelled, not having gaping plot holes, making sure characters were consistent. By the time I was done there was often very little left of the draft the "writer" had created, but there was a marketable product."
"Pisses me off no end when I see all the bull the publishing industry comes out with about how writers submitting a manuscript must make sure it's perfect because only excellence will get you anywhere."
"I don't know how they can say that and still sleep at night, knowing full well that they're hiring people like me to do large-scale rewrites (or to take a half-baked plot and create a draft from scratch)." ~ iwillckingbiteyou
Thieves
Joseline Hernandez Facepalm GIFGiphy"I work in payroll. The number of payroll reports I see where people are conned out of their overtime is saddening."
"Also, taxes paid by a business shouldn't actively dissuade them from paying employees less. The system shouldn't be based on paying a percentage of employee salary in taxes (FICA, Workers Comp), in other words." ~ ThongofSekhmet
I think some investigations need to be launched. I always knew payroll departments were running a scam. Too many people are being ripped off. Time to expose some people.
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