Education has no bearing on intellect. Or appropriate life experience.
Also, when people say someone is stupid, crazy, etc, it's because they don't understand that person's perspective.
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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Intelligence and Wisdom are two separate stats.
My mom worked as a university professor, then advisor, and what she said about college was "it just shows a prospective employer that you can follow rules and commit to doing something for a few years and follow through on it. That's why they want the degree. Also cuts down on applicants, fewer to sort through."
So, from someone on the inside, she didn't think the main reason was education, in terms of specific jobs. I know in accounting I don't use so much of what I learned and that's a pretty specific degree. Anyone with a mind for numbers & systems could be trained on the job to do what I do.
I've used the advanced systems analysis math I learned in university as an actual calculation in my job precisely zero times.
I roughly think about how those models apply to situations and how that will effect the various likely outcomes and behaviours etc on a literal daily basis.
University isnt just about training you to do a job.
College degrees mean you can read and write with a purpose. It doesn't mean you can think. There's a reasons you don't see a ton of conservatives in research science.
I taught college for a few years.
Only about 10-20% of my students showed any evidence of engagement or understanding with the material.
The other 60% were just parroting everything, but that's good enough to get B/C and pass the class and that's all they care about.
And about 20% were total idiots who didn't belong in a college classroom, but the school won't fail them even when they cheat because money. 10% of my students cheated and I reported them and only about 3% of those that cheat get punished for it, the others get passed with a low grade.
These ratios hold pretty true with regards to competency in the workplace, too.
education doesn't fix stupidity Education can however help with ignorance.
Depends on what you mean by that.
Stupid as in not grasping some concepts quickly?
Education is just a narrow overview of a particular field. Once you're out the narrow scope of what you're taught - it's all about your general knowledge. I know a world-class physicist who does not comprehend basic things about society, economy, relationships etc. And, working in a scientific field, I see plenty of such examples.
Stupid as in unable to aggregate data and synthesize understanding?
The state of modern tech and media more broadly eats heavily into people's attention span. People have harder time concentrating, and it gets so much worse when they need to aggregate all the sources they have. They just don't have enough short-term memory to keep it all together.
Stupid as in making weird life decisions?
Everyone's life experience is drastically different than yours, and, seeing only the surface, people often downplay what others went through and how it shaped their thinking. Sometimes it introduces genuine logical errors into the behavior, and sometimes it just comes from a much different perspective than you can imagine. In their world, the decisions they make makes sense. In your world, you also normally make sense for yourself, even if you're actually irrational in one thing or another. This does, by the way, include all the typical political rants - high-ranking politicians and their numerous advisors are unlikely to all be stupid. More likely, these people pursue different interests from what you imagine.
Overall, the word "stupid" is heavily overused and applied to a lot of different things. So, it always makes sense to clarify, or else it looks more like a rant rather than a genuine question.
Complaining about people being stupid is as old as the world itself, yet it's not very productive or done in good faith. Before claiming anyone stupid, try to ask them for their perspective and the way they look at a problem. And if you're able, unpack what you think is wrong.
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I don't think they're acting.
I know someone who earns six figures who can't spell, doesn't know that he's Caucasian, doesn't know the difference between Chinese and Japanese people, thinks it's a fine idea to sit in a swimming pool during a lightning storm, and once wrote a $1000 check to himself, thinking the bank would honor it and he'd suddenly have an extra $1000 in the bank.
Some people are really good at studying and terrible and doing anything else, specially thinking.
They are the perfect drones, they are smart enough to work the machines and produce for their boss, but dumb enough to ask why.
I'm continually amazed at how fucking idiots have jobs, buy houses and cars and stuff.
most of them inherited their money.
most stupid people I meet who have all that stuff, it's because most of it was inherited from mom and dad, or mom and dad had the connections to get them a 100K+ job straight out of college at a friends' company.
And they think anyone who doesn't have all stuff that is expensive as their stuff is stupid, because if they were smart, why wouldn't they be richer than them?
It's worth noting that college degrees are often not hard to get, assuming you have ample finances. Colleges are businesses, and they care more about cashflow than education.
I have a bachelor of science in electrical engineering. Of my graduating class, probably only about a quarter of us actually understood anything. And now working in the industry, it seems like that's a pretty reasonable average for other institutions in my field (there are exceptions, a few colleges have higher standards).
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Intelligence and wisdom are separate things.
E.g. you are intelligent enough to know smoking is bad for you, but lack the wisdom to stop smoking.
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is knowing to not put it in a fruit salad.
can't be smart at everything 🤷♂️
Education in one field doesn't mean so in all. I still do some things that may be considered stupid, it's just habitual at this point.
If they pay tuition, do the bare minimum to get the bare minimum grades, they'll graduate with a degree, and you'll never know where they fell on the scale. Having a degree has nothing to do with how smart they are. I have met plenty of dumb people with degrees, and plenty of seriously intelligent people without one.
You know what they call the guy who graduated last in medical school? Doctor.
I found that if something seems stupid to me, most of the time I just don't understand their viewpoint. We are all living in our own world based on our limited experiences.
As a person who has recruited technical engineering staff: a degree will prove only that someone has been able to write about a subject, not that they actually know anything about it or are able to practice.
The proof of the pudding is in the probationary period.
Education has no bearing on intelligence, or how "smart" you are. Sure, being more educated CAN make you smarter, but most people can skate by and get a degree while learning next to nothing. Plus I think a lot of higher educated yet ignorant people have the nose-above-ear holier then thou complex and can't be told anything they don't agree with or believe in already without throwing a fit. Plenty of educated people are very intelligent, but I think the stupid educated people make a lot of noise and appear as a larger group than they are as well. You know that whole loud minority thing.
Education isn’t intelligence. Academic achievement is done through effort in studying.
Because people have different standards and don't agree on what smart or stupid is.
I see people praising something as total genius, that I think is stupid as shit. And I see really smart things people say, downvoted into oblivion and called stupid.
People generally think stuff they agree with and makes them feel good is smart, and stuff they don't agree with and makes them feel bad is stupid.
To put it simply, there is a difference between "intelligent" and "smart".
Not all colleges and not all degrees are equal. Some people can excel in a single field but struggle in everything else. Some people have excellent memory function but precious little ability to reason. Some people change dramatically from their late teens to their late twenties. The list goes on…
I went to school for business like a dumbass, so I didn't learn shit about shit. That and genetics made for one dumb bitch.
College degrees just ensure we're specialized.
Or becoming better just ensures you get more work done, and thus more work shoved onto your plate.
I know a guy who was smart enough to go to University, but went to a basic college instead (or rather, a Dutch equivalent). "I don't want to do all that" is his defence in not going to Uni.
In addition to the many other fine comments here, I will add that when you think someone is so stupid there is often something missing. You may not understand what information they are acting on or you might be interpreting the context according to different values than theirs. As an observer, not understanding someone else’s choice can feel exactly like “damn what a stupid choice.” I try as much as I can to take these as opportunities to dig further and use my imagination to figure out what they must be thinking. Occasionally I come up with something.
I appreciate your outlook and empathy. I think I'm smart. I know I ignore certain things and probably look stupid. But you are absolutely right that you can't know what exact information they're working with as the basis for decisions/statements/opinions. Being able to identify some base misconception can bring about resolution so fast. I still have sudden realizations that uproot some belief I had based on some bullshit my dad said decades ago. If you never had reason to question it, it doesn't enter the critical reasoning part of your head.
Only example off the top of my head is he once said tetanus was, effectively, caused by dogs urinating on rusty metal. I was probably under 10, who am I to question? Well, tetanus is such a rare topic that I never thought about. Working under rusty cars from my teens onward? Not a problem, dogs aren't peeing up into my car. Well, a friend mentioned he'd was updating his tetanus shot around 30 since he also works on rusty cars. "Wait, any rusty metal?" it was a dolly-zoom moment. Turns out, any source material that's contaminated while puncturing skin can do it. It just happens to often be lost nails or broken glass. But I carried that belief for like 25 years.
Certification is given to anyone with the money for it
There's no major correlation between IQ and wealth
There are only two options: Either they're stupid and can't comprehend things, or you're stupid and can't comprehend what they can.
Formal education is just a means to an end, end being typically independence/jobs, not actually intellect (no matter how much it's marketed as such).
(Academic) education is not intelligence, and certainly not wisdom.
The worst part is this education doesn't protect you from falling for certain loopy ideas. Critical reasoning is a skill and like all skills it needs to be learnt and maintained.
What makes you think it's an act?
Yeah some of them are.
Having rich parents makes it pretty easy to get a higher education. And you can pay people to do your homework.
A lot of rich kids cheat. Like. A lot of them.
Masters and PhDs is where it starts to get harder to fake it but occasionally you still get a few that make it through who are nepo babies.
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Why do billionaires/oligarchs do it?
Principle of Least Effort.
It isn't particular to the "lower class" or to the "less educated" or to any particular faction of the population.
That's normal.
Some people, no matter how you "slice" the population up, still act so fucking stupid.
'Tis a fact of life, is all.
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Idk all the reasons, but I watched this yesterday and it blew my mind. Ppl are crippled now
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