By Michael J. Talmo May 26, 2025 Published in State of the Nation
Most people don’t know stuff—they believe stuff. They don’t understand that believing stuff is not the same as knowing stuff. What I just said doesn’t apply to knowing how to get ready for work, drive your car, pay your bills, clean your house, get your kids ready for school, or wipe your tush after you go to the bathroom. Granted, there are some people who aren’t smart enough to do some of those things. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about one’s views on science, religion, politics, sex, and human nature. Not knowing much about these areas doesn’t make you stupid. Not wanting to know and thinking you know more than you actually know is what can make you stupid.
When you believe something because it makes you feel good, soothes your fears, pleases friends and family members, or because you identify with a particular group or ideology, you are making a faith-based assumption. The problem is, faith isn’t a reliable path to truth. This is why there are around 10,000 different religions in the world today.
Some people are criminals. Some people are stupid. But some people are a combination of the two. In fact, the most dangerous person of all is someone who is a combination of criminal and stupid. To our great misfortune, too many politicians and world leaders are both.
Planet of the apes
Human beings are animals. That’s not an insult—it’s a biological fact. All of our technology, lofty titles, and fancy clothes don’t change the fact that we are fauna, as in mammals, as in primates. We humans are great apes along with chimps, gorillas, and orangutans. Like it or not, that’s basic taxonomy. Like the other great apes, we evolved from common primate ancestors over the course of millions of years.
The fact that we are apes is in our DNA. The genome of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans, is made up of 48 chromosomes. But we humans have 46 chromosomes. So, as Professor Kenneth R. Miller explained, if we are indeed great apes who descended from the same common ancestors, at one time in the past we also must have had 48 chromosomes. And we did. Chromosome 2 provides the answer. At the ends of each chromosome, we have telomeres. These end caps protect our chromosomes and prevent them from fusing with other chromosomes. But chromosome 2, in addition to the telomeres at the ends of it, also has telomeres in its center, which resulted from the fusion of two primate chromosomes.
Our closest relative is the chimpanzee, with whom we share 99 percent of our DNA. Chimpanzees can be empathetic, provide help when needed even to humans, and respect their elders, or they can be ruthless and brutal. They can be serial killers, make war on each other, rape and beat their mates, and hunt and eat monkeys by tearing them apart and eating them raw. They will even eat other chimpanzees.
It’s the same with us humans. Despite the fact that our brain is larger and more complex, we are capable of the same brutal acts. At this stage of our evolutionary development, we can both love and nurture each other and prey on and destroy each other.
The Bible also teaches that we are animals. In Genesis 1:24, animals are called creatures, while in Genesis 2:7, humans are called souls. But in the original Hebrew, long before the English language existed, no such distinction is made. Both the word creature and the word soul are translated from the same Hebrew word nephesh, which means “a breathing creature, animal of, vitality.”
Our human brain consists of three different parts. The more primitive parts are the reptilian brain and the limbic brain—they evolved first. The neocortex came much later and is the part of our brain that deals with reason, logic, self-control, and self-reflection. To make it simple, let’s just call the two older parts of our gray matter the primitive or monkey brain, which, although vital to our survival and our happiness, are disastrous when allowed to have free rein.
As explained here, here, and here, humans, like our primate cousins, are tribal and territorial because we evolved in small, close-knit dominance hierarchies that provided safety and security from predators along with a cohesive social structure that provided access to mates and essentials like food. To be ostracized from the group meant certain death. So, the need to fit in, to belong, to be accepted by the social groups we identify with, to believe what they believe, and to not question those beliefs is very strong because it’s part of our animal nature.
The problem is that if the tribe we identify with fears those who have different beliefs and wants to harm and persecute them, members of that tribe who, for whatever reasons, don’t have the self-awareness and capacity for empathy to see what they are being told to do is wrong will just blindly go along with the agenda. This kind of destructive behavior rooted in hate and fear of the other and the desire for power is stupidity in its worst form.
Simply stated, our brain forms beliefs and makes decisions for emotional reasons and then rationalizes, or comes up with intellectual reasons to justify that belief or action. This isn’t a problem if your reason is trained to be self-critical so you can correct false beliefs and errors in judgment. But this has to be learned. Too many people, even if they are well educated, aren’t trained critical thinkers who know how to question themselves so their brains will automatically rationalize anything they want to believe, no matter how ridiculous it is or how much destruction it causes.
Examples of stupidity
Most people are outwardly directed. They follow the leader. They follow the voice of authority. They believe what they are told. When people who are ruled by their primitive monkey brain get into positions of power and dominate the political landscape and the media, the veneer of civilization falls away and the decline into barbarism begins. We are seeing this happening in the United States, in Israel, in Russia, in El Salvador, and in many other countries at this very moment.
It’s vitally important to understand that it doesn’t matter how rich a person is. It doesn’t matter if they’re a king, a president, or a judge. It doesn’t matter how long they went to school or how many diplomas are on their wall. If the primitive brain is in charge, they are stupid. And it’s especially important to understand that when it comes to the general public, the stupid aren’t the few; they are the many. So, learn to recognize the characteristics of stupid people when you encounter them.
They lack humility: stupid people often think they have all the answers to the complexities of life. They don’t need to study anything because they have common sense. So, obviously, there are only two genders. Obviously, transgender people are pretending or are mentally ill. Or obviously this or obviously that. They fail to understand that common sense only applies to things that are common in their life. In the case of science and other complexities that aren’t common in their lives, common sense doesn’t apply and can often lead to the wrong conclusion. This kind of stupidity is a result of a cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which causes people to think they know a lot more than they actually know. In other words, stupid people are too stupid to know how stupid they really are. Those of us who actually study science and other complex subjects realize how stupid we are.
They are delusional: When the stupid among religious people assert that God is real and the Bible is the word of God, they aren’t stating facts; they are making a claim. A claim is not a fact. Nevertheless, they think they are stating facts, so they want to impose their brand of religious dogma on all of us. Stupid people don’t understand that passing religious laws doesn’t create a righteous, pure, and godly nation—all they will wind up with is a brutal fascist state where no one has any freedom at all.
They are gullible: stupid people believe social media memes that say LGBTQ people get a full Pride month in June, but American veterans only get one day in May. In reality, American veterans get two full months devoted to them and their families in May and November, along with numerous other days. They believe doctored photos that show former President Joe Biden touching the breasts of Jen Psaki and his granddaughter because they’re too stupid and too lazy to fact-check it.
They want to control others: Since stupid people are ruled by their primal urges, they are in a constant state of fear and feel threatened by the presence of anyone different from them. This makes them angry and triggers their need for social dominance. And since the billionaires who currently run things don’t want to share their wealth, which results in a lower standard of living for the rest of us, they manipulate the stupid among us into thinking that various minority groups are responsible for their problems. This creates an underclass of scapegoats to bully, persecute and inflict unimaginable acts of cruelty on. Who that underclass is changes over time. For now, it’s immigrants, transgender people, and drag queens.
They lack empathy. Acts of cruelty are the hallmark of stupidity. If someone is sadistic and delights in seeing others hurt and supports torture and the abuse of human rights, you are dealing with stupid at its most evil. Two examples: before and at the beginning of his first presidential term, Donald Trump said that he was in favor of torturing terrorists and that such tactics work in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. In his second presidential term, he is refusing to get Kilmar Abrego Garcia out of prison in El Salvador even though his administration admits he was sent there by mistake and the lower courts and the US Supreme Court have ordered him to do so. Trump has also said he would love to send American detainees to El Salvador’s CECOT prison, which is totally illegal. Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being that stupid people often lack. We have to overcome these primitive urges if we are to survive as a species.
Stupid exists in all of us.
Because we humans are animals, we all have the potential to be stupid. In many cases, perhaps most, people are only stupid in some areas. They might buy into one big lie but be totally rational in other areas. The hard part is distinguishing between the truly stupid, who just believe whatever they have allegiance to tells them, and those who’s baser instincts get triggered in only one area. And don’t misunderstand me: going into stupid mode even in one area can be equally dangerous.
Ask yourself this: how important is it that something you feel deeply about is true? Does it have to be true? What if it isn’t true? Would it matter? If it has to be true, then the monkey brain is in control. Your feelings don’t make something true. The actual facts and data make it true or false regardless of how you feel about it.
Look at it this way: we have a little brain, and we have a big brain. The little brain is our baser instincts and cognitive biases, or monkey brain. Stupid people let the little brain rule the big brain. In other words, if it feels true, stupid people think it’s true.
On the final day of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States, Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790) made the following prediction in a speech he wrote:
“I agree to this Constitution…and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”
Allowing the primitive instincts of our monkey brain to rule our culture is the corruption Franklin was talking about. Stupid, corrupt people elect stupid, corrupt government officials. It is for this reason that autocrats like the Adolf Hitlers, the Donald Trumps, the Vladimir Putins, and the Benjamin Netanyahus keep appearing in human history over and over again. It’s for this reason that we also keep getting legislators and judges like the Nancy Maces, Mitch McConnells, Lauren Boeberts, Chuck Schumers, Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Mike Johnsons, Clarence Thomases, and Samuel Alitos.
Because of stupid people, all reforms are temporary. With every step forward, we wind up taking two steps backward. With nuclear weapons, which can eradicate all life on this planet, we might ultimately step backward into the abyss of extinction.
Is there any hope for us?
Understanding how stupid you are is the path to wisdom. But to do this on a mass scale requires radical educational intervention.
Some recent social media posts called for an American flag in every classroom, while others called for a cross and the Ten Commandments to be displayed. What we really need to have in every classroom are courses on self-awareness, personal growth, critical thinking, and logic. The emphasis must be on how to think instead of what to think. Kids in school should have debates on sex, politics, religion, and laws. They should listen to experts debate these topics on video and even invite them to schools for live debates where they can ask them questions. This is the only way I can see us having a chance to avoid falling prey to fascists and demagogues.
Most parents won’t like it if their kids start questioning their flawed beliefs and lack of logic—especially the stupid ones who think they’re right. But it’s the only way forward to a healthier and more peaceful world.
As Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) declared long ago:
“An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”
President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) echoed Jefferson’s sentiment in a 1963 speech when he said that “the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.”
Unfortunately, we have legions of uneducated voters. It’s time to step up as a nation and properly educate our children because the purpose of education isn’t merely about teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Education also means learning about different lifestyles and cultures that exist today and that existed in the past. It’s about opening one’s mind and heart to the great thinkers of the past and present. It’s about broadening one’s worldview. It’s about taking us to new realms of consciousness and experience. It’s about teaching us that we have options and choices when it comes to how we want to live. Education can teach us how to take better care of ourselves and others and not to fear ideas, images, and words.
Stupid people are ignorant of history. They live in the moment. They think in terms of immediate gratification. They want it now and tomorrow be damned. But competent political representatives who are honest and truly want to serve all of the people must live in the past, the present, and in the future. They must know history or what came before to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, They must live in the present to know how best to avoid the mistakes of the past. And they must look to the future to understand the consequences that will result from what they do now. Stupid people are incapable of doing this. Don’t be one of them.