There are exceptions, of course.
And as much as there are people who ask ridiculous questions, there are those who make ludicrous declarations about things they know nothing of.
Curious to hear more examples about the things people say or ask without using brain power, Redditor JadoreB*otyNoir asked:
"What's the dumbest thing someone has ever said to you that made you lose respect for them?"
Are people really this clueless? Or are they just extremely unkind. You be the judge.
About Astrology
"Something along the lines of 'If you're a cancer, don't raise your voice against me. I'm a leo and I can make you cry in one sentence.'"
"I mean believe what you want but if you believe in Something so much you need to more or less insult people.. thats a bit too much for me."
– Smij0
Living Recklessly
"'Not my fault I want to live my life.' My old room mate's wife as she justified cheating on her husband who has to stay at home with the kids."
Just One Drink
"I met someone recently and he knows I'm sober."
"He asked me to meet him at a bar and have some drinks. I told him I don't drink anymore."
"He told me just once is fine."
"No, dear, people who are sober can't get away with 'just once.' Would he tell a recovering addict that just once is okay? Good god."
Arrogant Coward
"i only listened to the other presentations to see how much better i am than everyone else."
"i enjoy seeing people fail."
Lasting Insult
"I had really sh**ty teeth as a kid. My best friend at the time once said to me, 'you remind me of the orcs from the Lord of the Rings!' Then she turns to her dad and asks, 'Dad, doesn't kazoologist look like an orc?' I haven't spoken to her in almost four years now. I'm much better off without her."
When there's no vacancy upstairs in people's heads, they might say the following:
An Impossible Surgery
"Someone in my office said that I should have my sinuses removed."
"Say what? I said. How the f'k do you remove an open space."
Window Cleaners Share The Best Things They've Ever Seen | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Rainbow Stroke
"I worked at a paint store mixing paint from 14-19, a lady asked for rainbow paint. Like, with a single brush stroke it makes a rainbow."
Reason For A Breakup
"Had a boyfriend who didn't believe that dinosaurs were real. Thought it was all either fake or misinterpreted fossils. We broke up soon after."
Real Wizards Among Us
"I had a girlfriend who thought Criss Angel could actually do magic. Like bend the laws of physics. Criss Angel released a video showing how he does one of his levitations. When I showed her it she said 'He just released that so the CIA wouldn't abduct him and experiment on him.' She's no longer my girlfriend."
These are majorly inexcusable offenses.
What The Hack?
"Among many other things, he told me about a 'life hack' (his words) where you go into the store, grab a sandwich from the deli, and leave without paying for it... because then it doesn't cost any money."
"It's not petty theft. It's a life hack."
Unwarranted Punishment
"A girl I knew said that she keyed another car, because the driver parked too close to her car in the car park."
"I hate people who purposely vandalise other people's property. I blocked and deleted her contact details the same day."
Deserving Of Cancer
"My ex friend once told me that maybe I deserve to have cancer because my life is too good as he thought..."
The Costume
"They said their KKK Halloween costume wasn't problematic because no one they knew was offended by it."
Sadly, it only takes one thoughtless comment from someone to be seen as dim-witted.
While people saying they don't believe dinosaurs ever existed and that fossils were fake may raise an eyebrow, there are more inexcusable offenses.
Like when someone thinks a person is deserving of cancer.
Those are the kinds of remarks that one Redditor kindly put as a "punchable phrase."
The Most Ridiculous Things Someone Said With A Totally Straight Face
Reddit user ButterflyOverkill asked: 'What's the most ridiculous thing you've heard someone say that they were 100% serious about?'
We've all heard someone say something totally inaccurate and thought to ourselves, "What?"
But the really troubling incidences are when the person speaking clearly believes what they're saying and they make the misinformed comment with a totally straight face.
Redditor ButterflyOverkill asked:
Swimming with Tsunamis
"My brother, against all laws of known physics, is absolutely certain that if he was ever in a tsunami he could just 'swim under it.'"
"We've both been in the ocean plenty of times, surfed a bit, and have definitely had our share of waves wreck our sh*t, but he's still certain he could do it if he got the timing right."
- Magic_Man_Boobs
Accent-Based Geography
"The Caribbean coast is off the coast of England because they have British accents in 'Pirates of The Caribbean.'"
"This man was in the military and had no knowledge of geography."
- Aware_Statement_205
"Man, the Death Star must have been built in England, too."
- Faust_8
The Earth is Flat
"My co-worker. We were all having a conversation. I don't remember what we were talking about, but I said something to the extent of, 'Crazy, it's like someone thinking the earth is flat.'"
"His response was, 'Well, it is.'"
"My other co-worker and I looked at each other, confused."
"Our Flat-Earth co-worker continued explaining why the earth is flat. He was saying it like he was stating facts."
"We're engineers for crying out loud. You paid too much money for your glasses and degree to see things this way!"
- Boyblack
"One of my good friends I had once respected went down this route. He effectively said because he hadn't seen the earth from space, he doesn't believe it's round. He believes nothing he hasn't seen himself."
"I proceeded to show him the red bull guy literally land on Earth from space, and it was round, but he still didn't believe it because it wasn't him."
"He also couldn't explain why nobody had ever fallen off the edge of our flat earth since if it is flat; it clearly has to end somewhere. He just said, 'I don't know. I just know it isn't round.'"
"I thought I would lose my f**king mind."
- QuaintHeadspace
"Has he seen his BRAIN?"
- dpet_77
That's not how this works
"My cousin was not the sharpest tool in the shed. He was convinced he could have unprotected sex with any woman because his current girlfriend was pregnant, so there was no risk he could get another girl pregnant…"
- joeyboii23
Drive to Hawaii
"A nurse I used to work with asked why we can't drive to Hawaii. She was absolutely serious and I wasn't surprised when she didn't last beyond her training period."
- Veritaserum25
Hawaii's Neighbor, Alaska
"I was asked, 'Why is Alaska so cold but Hawaii is warm when they're right next to each other?' because on US maps, they're always both in a little cutaway box down by Mexico."
- Msktb
Misunderstood Roundabouts
"Putting in a roundabout was stupid because now they had to stop four times instead of the one time if they had just left it as a four-way-stop."
- SaraSmashley
"We recently got a few in my town. People treat them like stop signs and come to a (somewhat) complete stop before entering."
"If it’s clear, I just breeze through without stopping like you’re supposed to. I’ve had passengers tell me I ran the stop sign. It’s a yield sign."
- caseyjosephine
The Caribbean Moon
"That when we were in the Caribbean we were seeing a different moon. Their moon."
- robkat22
"I’m living in the Caribbean and went out to look at the moon after reading this. It’s such a clever duplicate, I never would have known."
- inconsistencyItself
No Accountability
"My ex-husband was a horrible driver. Wrecked everything he ever owned and then some, but he somehow thought he was an excellent driver."
"We were riding through a town with a four-lane main road. He started to change lanes oblivious to the car that was located exactly where he was headed. I told him to stay in his lane, and fortunately, he did."
"He said, 100 percent seriously, that if he'd changed lanes and crashed into the car that was already there, it would have been their fault because they didn't honk their horn to warn him."
- sirdigbykittencaesar
"This reminds me of an old joke:"
"A man is driving to work when his phone starts ringing. It's his wife."
"She says, 'Be careful darling, the news has just said there's a maniac driving the wrong way down the road.'"
"The man replies, 'Not just one maniac, f**king hundreds of them!'"
- Mackem101
The Sun and the Moon
"'Why do they call one side of the Sun the Moon?'"
"This 30-year-old legitimately thought the moon was just the other side of the sun."
- JoisChaoticWhatever
Seatbelt Safety
"'I never wear a seatbelt.'"
"And why the h**l not?"
"'Because if I am in a wreck, there’s no way I’d be thrown to safety.'"
- BreatheMy
"I had a friend with a similar theory. She didn’t wear them because she had heard stories of people wearing seatbelts ending up with serious head injuries in car accidents."
"She honestly couldn’t grasp what the results would be without them."
- ghjkl098
Scary Orb in the Sky
"Former 911 dispatcher here. I had a guy call once freaking out about the white orb thing in the sky."
"The moon. He was very worried."
"I made him promise not to drive or leave his house. I told him to call back if he felt sick, but we never heard from him again."
"I wonder if there’s a dude out there who remembers that time he got [baked] and called 911 because of the moon."
- Here4TheShinyThings
Bluetooth Shower Head
"She was very serious that she wanted a useable hand-held shower head without a hose because the hose was 'ugly.'"
"I asked if she meant an overhead or a wall-mounted shower head because those didn’t require a hose."
"Nope. She wanted the water to flow from the wall into a handheld shower head without a hose."
"I tried to tell her that wasn’t possible and ended up sending her to a different home improvement store."
- Lone_Ronin_
"She wanted the wireless version."
- thatvixenivy
Those Darn 5G Headaches
"My wife’s grandmother was complaining once how her phone’s 5G was giving her headaches and asked my wife to turn off the 5G."
"My wife works with phones and was easily able to tell her grandmother that her phone wasn’t even capable of 5G."
"Her grandmother didn’t like that answer and later took her phone into her carrier to only be told the same thing."
- croyalbird13
Trapped in "The Oregon Trail"
"I'm 43 now but used to do a fair bit of traveling in my younger days, up until I was about 30. I always came back home for Thanksgiving and Christmas."
"Anyway, I had hitch-hiked back into town and was walking to my Grandma's house where I'd be staying, carrying my Alice pack."
"A girl got to talking with me on my way, and it came up that I'd just got back from Oregon."
"Dead-faced confused, she was like, 'They have towns out there, like cities and stuff?'"
"She genuinely believed it was still like the Oregon Trail days... except this was in 2005, lol (laughing out loud)."
- lightsaber_lobotomy
"People on travel forums sometimes ask if the roads in Arizona are paved, especially the road to the Grand Canyon."
"I always want to reply, 'No. You need to rent a covered wagon.'"
- mesembryanthemum
We've all been misinformed about something at some point, but these accounts were very surprising.
It's tough decide if these instances would be worth talking about, to help the person know better next time, or if it's just better to smile and nod.