Intelligent idiots

[Atheist-Lite]

I've met quite a few intelligent idiots in my time. Some of them are dead now. So what special ingredient makes the full picture if intelligence isn't enough? Why do some less intelligent people occupy the right choices and some really smart people join The Tea Party?

[Warren Dew]

Why do some less intelligent people occupy the right choices and some really smart people join The Tea Party?

Because both the right and the Tea Party have pretty reasonable positions. The real question is why any intelligent people believe leftist propaganda.

[Atheist-Lite]

Why do some less intelligent people occupy the right choices and some really smart people join The Tea Party?

Because both the right and the Tea Party have pretty reasonable positions. The real question is why any intelligent people believe leftist propaganda.

This is not precisely what I mean. There many be no reasonable positions, the US is bankrupt and the dollar collapse is coming, and it is a question then of deciding which side holds the more dangerous rhetoric? or is more deceitful in it's verbage?

[Audley Strange]

Being able to parrot lofty concepts found in books and to elaborate on them might be useful in academia, not so useful in a forest with cannibals chasing you. So, I'd say intelligence, especially specification, is entirely subject to context.

[Atheist-Lite]

Being able to parrot lofty concepts found in books and to elaborate on them might be useful in academia, not so useful in a forest with cannibals chasing you. So, I'd say intelligence, especially specification, is entirely subject to context.

That's a good starting position, similar to my own.

[Exi5tentialist]

Being able to parrot lofty concepts found in books and to elaborate on them might be useful in academia, not so useful in a forest with cannibals chasing you. So, I'd say intelligence, especially specification, is entirely subject to context.

You're unlikely to get cannibals in a forest. Forests are places of abundance, usually there is no reason for a species to start eating its own kind. Cannibals are usually found in places with scarce and even decreasing resources, like small islands from which forests have been cleared over time, when they start turning to new and inventive ways to source the protein they need.

Use your head.

[Audley Strange]

You use yours, I never said they live in the forest. If you must be a smart arse, try and be smart.

[Atheist-Lite]

Being able to parrot lofty concepts found in books and to elaborate on them might be useful in academia, not so useful in a forest with cannibals chasing you. So, I'd say intelligence, especially specification, is entirely subject to context.

You're unlikely to get cannibals in a forest. Forests are places of abundance, usually there is no reason for a species to start eating its own kind. Cannibals are usually found in places with scarce and even decreasing resources, like small islands from which forests have been cleared over time, when they start turning to new and inventive ways to source the protein they need.

Use your head.

No, cannabalism is far more complicated. Not found in other species half as much as human beings. More to do with cognition than scarcity. Will be found where there is inter-tribal conflict and a need to prevent disease or much more avoiding a burial/resting place for the dead, a focus for feelings of revenge by adjacent tribes....argue with me...there are bones indicating cannabalism all over Europe....maybe they became attatched to the taste as well, love a bacon butty with some mushrooms/onions myself.

[Svartalf]

Being able to parrot lofty concepts found in books and to elaborate on them might be useful in academia, not so useful in a forest with cannibals chasing you. So, I'd say intelligence, especially specification, is entirely subject to context.

You're unlikely to get cannibals in a forest. Forests are places of abundance, usually there is no reason for a species to start eating its own kind. Cannibals are usually found in places with scarce and even decreasing resources, like small islands from which forests have been cleared over time, when they start turning to new and inventive ways to source the protein they need.

Use your head.

Beside what crumple said, can you then explain why the cultures with cannibalistic practices that have been documented were mostly found in jungle environments (say, Tupinamba and other Amazonian man eaters) or at least places where food was abundant and easy to grow (Aztec and generally mesoAmerican ritual anthropophagy)

[JimC]

Being able to parrot lofty concepts found in books and to elaborate on them might be useful in academia, not so useful in a forest with cannibals chasing you. So, I'd say intelligence, especially specification, is entirely subject to context.

You're unlikely to get cannibals in a forest. Forests are places of abundance, usually there is no reason for a species to start eating its own kind. Cannibals are usually found in places with scarce and even decreasing resources, like small islands from which forests have been cleared over time, when they start turning to new and inventive ways to source the protein they need.

Use your head.

Incorrect.

Cannibalism in PNG (a very forested island), for example, was a ritualised way of celebrating a win in a local tribal struggle, or even eating your local tribal heroes when they died, to partake of their essence...

Pity about the nasty neurological diseases that ensue after slurping up the brains...

As for using your head, why not use someone else's, particularly if you can shrink it...

[MrJonno]

The body is considered the property of relatives in some societies (partly true in ours) so someone else eating it would be considered theft

[Exi5tentialist]

You use yours, I never said they live in the forest. If you must be a smart arse, try and be smart.

Sorry, I didn't realise they were visiting cannibals. Air fares are much lower than they used to be. Sorry for not factoring that in. My bad.

[Audley Strange]

You use yours, I never said they live in the forest. If you must be a smart arse, try and be smart.

Sorry, I didn't realise they were visiting cannibals. Air fares are much lower than they used to be. Sorry for not factoring that in. My bad.

No problem. That's the good thing about tossed off hypotheticals, they are fluid. I could have been speaking of ritiualistic cannibals who eat their enemies to gain their power, a bunch of psycho flesh eaters hired by a rich deviant to chase and eat people for their own amusement, hell I could have even been speaking about catholics who truly believe in the miracle of transubstantiation.

[Svartalf]

We are not gods, theophagy is not cannibalism.

[Audley Strange]

Apparently we are made in the Space Chimp's image. So I'll stick with it being cannibalism.