Am I just too damn smart for this world? Or are the people here just too stupid?

Question

Everywhere I go, I feel dissasociated with the rest of mankind. Nobody cares about philosophy, economics, history, deep politics anymore. Nobody cares about anything but the boring everyday rat race, their little meaningless jobs, their ties, theirs suits, their clothes and their petty materialist lives.
I don't care about the snickers you bought, I'm not interested in knowing who won American Idol, I don't want to know what happens in the soap opera, what cellphone you like best, or what new stunt has the spoiled hotel heiress pulled. It's just not important.

Don't you care about the military coup in Thailand? Or why are there multinational corporations that have a higher income than that of small countries? Don't you care about the ballooning chinese-financed trade deficit that will probably cause the world economy to fall in a recession in 2008?
I'm sick and tired because nobody else cares about this. No wonder the world is in such disastrous situation.

We will all regret not having learned what we should when we could.

Individual thought is dead. We have completed our transformation into a herd of mindless sheep.

Don't get me wrong. I can have fun, party, dance, enjoy life, make love, and enjoy the simpsons as much as anybody else. I love the mundane.
The problem is that I also have very serious moments too, I love to read, to learn and reflect on this stuff, and I feel that few people besides me do that.
Thanks for the feedback so far.

Also, the title question should not be taken literally. I'm no genius, alright.

Answer 1

Well, you're wrong on both questions, really. There ARE some of us, who still care about the important things in life, like what you mentioned -- philosophy (and, if I were you, I wouldn't go around quoting Voltaire, if you really want to be intelligent...), economics, history (the real stuff, not just memorizing dates and places etc, etc etc. AND real politics, which is not what goes on at the party conventions, or the voting booth etc.

As to the "stupidity" of many of our fellow citizens, frankly, they ain't that dumb. People have an eerie sense, that "something" is really, really wrong, in the way the country is headed. The problem is cultural -- look at the "morality" of the Baby Boomers; most people tend to think as you indicated -- they feel "disenfranchised" from any meaningful decision-making on the larger questions that will determine the future for ourselves, and our posterity. The problem is in a certain kind of cowardice / smallness, in which most people these days, are not prepared to make a fight, based on principles.

Do not despair. As the angel said to Elijah in the wilderness, when he despaired that all of his countrymen were pagans,
"There are thousands of your countrymen, who are not prepared to bend their knee to BAAL {the pagan god of the time}. Go and find them...." {not a direct quote, but you get the idea}

You are not alone.

Answer 2

You are not alone. The problem is that people are so rapted up in them selves that they seem to be not interested in what is important. We live in a modern world moving at the speed of light it seems some times to me. People are just trying to keep up and as a stress release they talk about things that don't upset them. To you it seems they don't care. That isn't the case they just don't want to talk about it. Like an animal hidding form the hunter because they just want to excape. So people hide be hind what ever they can to hide from life.

Philosophy is a live and well. If you don't believe me just go to any collage and ask where their class is that day. We all think we have the answers and we do. There just our answers not everyone elses. Our own truth not theirs.

As for the meteriall world there is something my mother told me it gose like this. God give the strangth to change the things I can the courage to except the things I can't change and the wisdom to know the differance between them.

As for the chinese I must agree with you. They are playing on the greed of this country. However they can do what they will we are a strong country and we will over come as we have in the past. If you are as smart as you think you are then history should make you feel better. For each genaration has over come all kinds of adverity.

With out sounding like a preacher nothing you or any one can do about man kinds disastrous situation. If you read the book of revelations in the Bible you will find that things are going exactly according to Gods plan. Since you or I are not God's there isn't anything we can do about it, well maybe just one. Pray...This is just one mans opion...

Answer 3

Most people don't want to consider their serious thoughts in social contexts because it usually gets them nowhere.

The day you meet someone like you, and try to have a discussion, will be the day you discover you didn't want to know about all these serious thoughts that person had.

Personally, I've already given up on serious issues. I think physical laws also apply to the intellectual realm. That is, for every (smart) action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. The human existence is a very Sisyphean one, and its much easier to go through such an existence without considering how pointless it all is.

Artificiality sucks, but we can't help ourselves.

Answer 4

It is a little sad, seeing people act this way sometimes, but it may be just the time we live in. My sister thinks she should live in a different time. She finds Ancient Greece would be a more suitable time for her. People had different values back then. We live in such a future with amazing accomplishments, such as landing on the moon, the invention of the computer, and other very astounding innovations. If people can't appreciate that, then that's their problem. Truth is, we're not as tough or smart as we used to be. Who knows, people 100 years from now could be (though it is hard to believe) even more attached to possessions or focused on even more unimportant things. I don't know if this answer is too "stupid" for you, but I personally like being different from other people. The sense of knowing that I understand what is truly important to me is plenty satisfying for me.

Answer 5

If your greatest concern and upset, is the view or mindset that individual thought is dead...Then, wouldn't it be wrong for me to take a like minded position to your opinion?
I think people care about all of those things. That's why they make some of the most highly viewed topics of interest on 24 hr news channels. However, does interest in that override the simple steps, concerns and unrelated interests in our day to day lives? If all of those topics are somehow making us prisoner's, in a "doomed and disastrous" world...then, wouldn't forgetting the simple pleasures in life- the trivial, the materialistic, the mundane, the self-gratifying and focusing on NOTHING but those topics lead to our world becoming even far more devastated? Must we wretch and burn in agony and suffering in every waking and breathing moment of our days to pay attention or tribute to those topics?????
I think not! ....and perhaps... that is the very reason why we are as strong as we are!

Answer 6

It might be that this is not the right forum for you. It seems to me that most people are on these sites due to boredom, myself included. The others are on here for an escape from the realities that you mentioned. So start a thread on a subject you are interested in or join a club or find some friends and make a difference. Or just relax and have fun.

Answer 7

It seems to me that you are smart and many people couldn't care less about what is happening in today's world. Yes, I do care about all the things that you have mentioned. I wish that we could do something to prevent having the world being in such a disastrous situation.

Answer 8

Called Sheeple, I believe. Any number of things can happen, none of them good. The multinational cororations are amassing monstrous wealth. We owe our souls to China, our President is a loose cannon, who may well being on his way creating a police state of our country, starting a religious, or worse yet, nuclear war.
I voice my concerns for our future on the computer, the telephone, writing letters and by supporting political action groups. It is made difficult by by the petty distractions of our weak kneed politicians and the ever present in-fighting.
God help us all!

Answer 9

I do not think that your problem is that you are too smart. I think that your problem is that you want to intellectualize everything. Of course people care about what is going on in the world and if they don't; they should (I am in complete agreement with you). But sometimes people come on Yahoo! Answers to unwind. Sometimes I look for deep, intelligent, stimulating debates and at other times I just want to answer questions about bodily excretions and stupid stuff.

Don't take yourself too seriously! No one else will.

Answer 10

THAT question is absolutely amazing. because i was just in the bath room. thinking about the very dumb . scary things people say. and. was thinking of asking people a question about that .then i come in here and you have this question.damn. there is so much in the world to care about and people here don t even care about there neighbors. so that is why nothing is done, people don t care.not but for there own little worlds they live in. we can not all be saviours. we can just try to do the best we can.my friend.I wish you the best..