Are the vast majority of people just stupid?

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I understand it makes myself look bad when I call other people stupid.

I just want to find out whether my perception of reality is correct. Either I am stupid or the vast majority of people are.

When I know the answer the question posed, I can adapt and make my life easier.

Well, statistically, half of everyone you meet is below average. And yeah, even neurotypicals with normal to high IQs are discouraged from critical thinking and intellectual discourse by social factors (schooling, mass media, peer pressure.) So the "smart" people like yourself are in the small minority. It's a theory-of-mind mistake to presume that other human beings you meet are going to approach the world in the same rational way you do. Act accordingly.

How do you act accordingly?

Well, you can start with treating all the imbeciles around you as people who can't help being what they are, and refrain from abusing them with words like "stupid" (which they resent.) Don't try to have reasoned arguments with people who are acting emotional. Keep your vocabulary level aimed at the person you are talking to in order to ensure clear communication. Stuff like that. Expect to have to be patient a lot, and try to learn not to sigh and roll your eyes.

I always thought this to be true. Neurotypicals are so emotional. A direct contrast to people with AS.

Often autistics feel and present emotions differently. That does not equal not having them or having them less intensely.

Wrong Planet thread - List Autism myths you have learned

People in general are of average intelligence by definition. What that says about average intelligence I will leave at the mercy of your own conclusions. That being said, I think the problem with people is not their lacking the faculties, but their failure to apply them. This is why I think it is somewhat justified to chide "normal" people when they display blatant irrationality, because it's not like they don't have the tools to do better. As previous posters have said, I think there's an emotional component to it. It's not that aspies lack emotions or feel them less, but I think we have a tendency to recognize that objective and rational arguments weigh heavier, and in my experience that comes less naturally to NTs in general.

If they don't apply certain faculties, it's probably because they're busy doing something else---probably something important, but invisible to us. If their behavior were maladaptive, it'd have been weeded out long ago.

I think most people are like computers, maybe smart computers, but they only function with whatever somebody else has programmed them with, its as if they cannot actually think for themselves so have to rely on what the telly tells them.
Yes, I find most people stupid, and I work with people who run this country, people who just voted to take, military action against ISIS in Syria, with not one MP in ten hours of debating intelligent enough to ask what happens when ISIS is gone and you have the West who want Assad replaced by a Western puppet who will sell oil in Petro-dollars, and the Russians who want to keep Assad in power to have access to Syrian oil and prevent further encirclement of Russia by the West, who will back down?, Putin?, no, America?, with their economy reliant on the Petro-dollar and in debt that is spiraling by a further 3/4 of a trillion dollars in November alone, hardly.
World war 3 anyone? How stupid is that to not consider the consequences and just act on a knee jerk emotional reaction to a terrorist event!

It's not your imagination. Most people seem to lack the ability to think clearly.

I'm pretty stupid.

Stupid is as stupid does.
Stupid people do stupid things.
Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.
Stupidity is the act of taking pride in one's ignorance.
Stupidity is knowing what's true, yet still believing the lies.

I really am a "people person"; I'm just not a "stupid-people" person.

A sign of real genius is the ability to present new ideas in ways that can not only be understood but average people, but with time, perhaps even accepted as better than the old ideas.

The vast majority of people are just survivors, who have no interest in politics, or grammar, or hierarchies or power
The vast majority of people have only ONE emphasise!
A Lover and progeny

and if that is stupid
this stupid game should never have started

I think hierarchies and the constant struggle for power are pretty well-integrated into their inborn approach to the world. It's us who lack these mechanisms.

It would depend on the definition of stupid. In my definition - no. Most are just naive, which I guess is just a nice way of saying stupid.