Common sense, or lack thereof...

[Brill]

Why is it that many academically smart individuals are the dumbest people when it comes to things that everyone knows...or can piece together? (I use --everyone-- as a broad term, of course, disregarding those who cannot decipher commonsense)

This summer, I volunteered to help my highschool revarnish the gymnasium (not out of the goodness of my heart, it meant I didn't have to take gym all year!)

Back to the story, this girl -Mable- and I were taking our shifts stripping the paint with (the name eludes me) paint-stripper! (for lack of a better term) There is a concrete strip outside the court floor with a drainage hole for floods. She poors this stripper down into the hole and takes out matches....
I am in no particular mood to see her become the Faceless Wonder , so I yell at her to knock it off.
She threatens to light it SEVERAL times, when I finally go get the superviser.

How in the world can anyone be that stupid?
Anyway, do you know anyone who does brainless things?

[HOBBIT]

bmilder - perfect example.


This kid is genius - gets straight As in school, always has. Top musician in the state on percusion instruments, scored very high on PSATS, SATS....

But when it comes to common sense - oh boy!

This is just something really smart people lack!

I could give you numerous funny stories about ben doing realllllllly stupid things, but I won't.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Geesh Tristan, I think common sense should tell you not to flame your own brother right on the board. Can I ban him Ben?

[HOBBIT]

see - thats another example

[Sheeana]

If you had any common sense whatsoever, you wouldn't be trying to pigeon-hole people.

[gdl96]

haha tristan. you took the words right out of my mouth

Anyway, there is another person at our school (he sits at our lunch table, tristan) who is even worse than Ben. He's just at smart (if not smarter) and really talented and all, and not only does he have no common sense, but he has the worst taste in things. Take movies for example. He hates every good movie out there with a passion (ex- Pulp Fiction) and hates me for making me see them.

[Khamûl]

I'm in college. I know bunches of people with less common sense than your average goat.

[Anglorfin]

Originally posted by Khamûl
I'm in college. I know bunches of people with less common sense than your average goat.

Sad but true, almost to the point of being depressing for me to witness.

[Bombadillo]

Ah, don't get me started. If there's anything I love, it's logic. I can't stand those people in my school, who ace their all accellerated classes, yet refuse to open thier mind to anything other than nonsense.

You're not the only one Brill.

[Brill]

Thanks for the response.

I tend to be hyper-critical, and so I didn't know if this personality trait was only in my mind, or that is was really a problem

OT
So this is a family run message board?

[Khamûl]

Originally posted by Brill
OT
So this is a family run message board?

Not really. bmilder is the guy that runs the board. His little brother, HOBBIT, is an admin here too. gdl96 lives down the street. I think that about covers it for people in charge who know each other. I'm in Alabama, Sister Golden Hair is in Ohio, IronParrot is somewhere in Canada (Calgary?), Fat Middle is in either Portugal or Spain, anduin is in Kentucky. That's the admins. We have moderators from Belgium to Florida to Canada. I'm sure you didn't need that detailed of an answer, but I have too much time on my hands.

[LuthienTinuviel]

there has always been this really smart girl who lives down the street from me, Stephanie, lets call her..
so stephanie always gets great, grand, good grades... always close to or at 4.0

so i've known this girl for 10 years (and 3 months haha) when she gets a job at the pet store where i work. (ive had this job for over a year and a half, so i know how to do things, when etc.. and i put in a good word for her, thinking she'd be talented at this like evertything else) did i mention that she's an accomplished flute player?
and band instructor?
and pom coach?
and marching band squad capt. and drum major?

anyways, four months into the job, she is still being trained ( average is 2 weeks) not formally, but someone always has to be close by for those "just incase" types ya know?
i never knew that someone so smart could be that dense!
the girl was b*tcy to customers, her boss, her fellow employees, and refused to work for anyone, and usually left the other cashier alone becuase of her calling off.. (ok, that's last bit was just me whining about her being not-so -nice, but back to the point)

she was fired soon after that.. it crushed her cause she finally wasn't "good " at something.

haha it's stories like these that make me think "there is a god"



oh... *looks around* what was i supposed to be talking about?

[Brill]

Originally posted by Khamûl
Not really. bmilder is the guy that runs the board. His little brother, HOBBIT, is an admin here too. gdl96 lives down the street. I think that about covers it for people in charge who know each other. I'm in Alabama, Sister Golden Hair is in Ohio, IronParrot is somewhere in Canada (Calgary?), Fat Middle is in either Portugal or Spain, anduin is in Kentucky. That's the admins. We have moderators from Belgium to Florida to Canada. I'm sure you didn't need that detailed of an answer, but I have too much time on my hands.

Khamul,

The detailed answer was great, and I appreciate the time (although you have an abundance of it from what I understand from your post) it took to write it!

Thanks.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Khamûl
Not really. bmilder is the guy that runs the board. His little brother, HOBBIT, is an admin here too. gdl96 lives down the street. I think that about covers it for people in charge who know each other. I'm in Alabama, Sister Golden Hair is in Ohio, IronParrot is somewhere in Canada (Calgary?), Fat Middle is in either Portugal or Spain, anduin is in Kentucky. That's the admins. We have moderators from Belgium to Florida to Canada. I'm sure you didn't need that detailed of an answer, but I have too much time on my hands.

So with all this time on your hands - when are you going to start adminning you slacker. So when do I get his job SGH?

Anyway - my sister was a person who in school was straight A's but no common sense. The one time when she was in high school - the ice cube tray was empty and I asked her to make more ice - she asked how. To this day she swears that that's not what she meant - but I have my doubts. Just so you don't think anything bad about my sister - we were all impressed when she moved out to LA on her own and worked in a PR firm in Hollywood - extremely high stress and dealing with a bunch of egotistical stars. She did a great job and I think she has a lot more common sense now - I think anyway.

I have always observed that many people who get straight A's can read a book and regurgetate it back to the teacher on tests and essays - but if they ever have to apply their knowledge without being shown step by step - they are lost.

I had a friend in college who was on the deans list, we were both computer science majors. We were in logic class and he raised his hand and said "wow - we learned about this in our programming class" All I could do was shake my head and wonder how he got straigt A's when he couldn't even figure out that all our computer classes would be overlapping and that logic was a key part of programming.

[HOBBIT]

I think thats it basically - a lot of straight A students are just those very good at memorization - some with photgraphic memories.

Read the book, take the test.

How do you work the vcr, check your voice messages, open a can?

[Falagar]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
So with all this time on your hands - when are you going to start adminning you slacker. So when do I get his job SGH?

Bah! There's enough Americans here, we need someone from Scandinavia! Someone young; someone with a nice nick starting with F and ending in alagar.

There's much common sense around, if you know where to look.

[Snowdog]

Common Sense is dead
It is so sparse in the world today that it should now be called uncommon sense.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Khamûl
I'm sure you didn't need that detailed of an answer, but I have too much time on my hands.

Are you avoiding studying for a test?

[Sister Golden Hair]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
Are you avoiding studying for a test?

Of course he is. He's a slacker.

[Bombadillo]

Ah! I'm in homeroom today, and all year I have to sit next to this braindead stoner! He does nothing but rant for the full 40 minutes about how much he hates Jews, loves gays (although he's straight), hates fat people, hates Canadians, and hates RASCISM! It doesn't make sense! I tell him every day that he obiviously doesn't know the definition of rascism, but it still won't sink in.