University of Washington researchers have been on the verge of a breakthrough in the study of “dumb people” since the initiation of the study in January, 1999. Researchers believe they can raise the intelligence of subjects by 10-12 points if they could just get them to stop talking, which as yet, they cannot.
“It’s pretty frustrating,” says Dave Carvell, lead researcher. “This isn’t a blind study here, we tell them straight up that if they can just stop talking for a minute and keep it shut and listen, they will be more intelligent, permanently.” Shaking his head, Carvell added, “But they just can’t – or won’t – do it.”
Anyone who’s ever dated a ditz in hopes of effortless acquisition of ass knows how difficult it can be to shut a dumb person up. Unlike public radio which expounds intelligent facts without so much as a commercial break in which to fix a sandwich, dumb people’s unending orations often center around cats, roommate peeves, and poorly developed stories. The tales themselves aren’t so much unbearable as is the frequency with which they repeat.
Walker then dedicated himself to finding a cure, to helping society by quieting people like her. “It’s for her own benefit, but really, when she doesn’t talk, everybody wins,” says Sam.
The study is now several years past it’s scheduled completion date, apparently because “these dumb bastards just won’t friggin’ participate. We tell them to be quiet and they just can’t keep their mouths shut. We’re like ‘okay, no talking now’, and they’re like, ‘okay… you mean now?… how about now?… Omigosh, this is so funny!’ It’s really infuriating.”
However, perhaps more dangerous than the standard dumb person is the dumb person who thinks that they’re brilliant yet doesn’t realize that all they can talk about is high society nonsense. This Glossy News reporter is, sadly, speaking from experience. He once dated a beautiful, surficially intelligent classical musician, only to discover months later that music really was the sole topic that she could discuss. It is people like these who pose the biggest threat to America. Why?
Because they make it into office.
They make it into office riding a wave of seemingly intelligent rhetoric, rhetoric that has absolutely no substance and no facts to back it up. It’s not that they don’t try, it’s that they’re physically incapable of processing information. Walker calls these people the “über dumb.” Says Walker, “The über dumb are dangerous because they seem – initially, at least, to be so normal. It’s only after weeks, sometimes months, that intelligent people realize that there’s something wrong with these people. Often they cannot discuss more than one or two topics, but they know those one or two topics annoyingly well. Frankly, I’d rather be locked in a room with ten normally dumb people than to encounter a single über dumb in the open.”
Though they can occur anywhere (as described by this reporter), the über dumb primarily make it in the world of politics, where you only need to know one or two topics to get elected, and simply harp on those topics over and over. However, once they actually get into office, the collective über dumbness of them and their peers functions to freeze up the gears of government, which rapidly grinds to a halt, as outside viewers realize that there’s simply no substance there.
A cure is, hopefully, not too far off. “I think we’ll see a cure in our lifetime,” said Carvell. “The next phase is to stop asking them to shut up and make them shut up with Abu Ghraib-like tactics. It’s a little extreme, but we think it’s the only chance – and hey, they signed a waiver when they joined this experiment. It’s not my fault if they didn’t read it.”