What Makes People Do Stupid Things

Dumb decisions and why people make them. Modern society has created a cushion of intellect that protects stupid people. People do stupid things that should result in an inability to pass on stupid genetic material. But as Sally Adee quotes in What Makes People Do Dumb Things, “In the distant past, people whose mutations had slowed their intellect would not have survived to pass on their genes; but Crabtree suggests that as human societies became more collaborative, slower thinkers were able to piggyback on the success of those with higher intellect.”(Adee) It is acknowledging that people do stupid things because society allows them to. People do stupid things because society has built safety nets to protect the lowest common denominators of the population. My Goal in this paper is to demonstrate how stupidity is a direct result of “social safety nets,” genes, and environment. (Adee) To achieve this goal I have organized my paper in to three separate sections and a fourth conclusion section. The first section will be my definition of

But for the sake of this paper a stupid decision is considered to be in one of three categories as defined by Aczel, Bence, Zoltan, “(1) violations of maintaining a balance between confidence and abilities; (2) failures of attention; and (3) lack of control.” (Aczel) An example of the first category that I have experienced happened during basic training. There was a soldier who dropped a live grenade inside of the bunker he and the safety officer occupied. This soldier was so overly sure in his ability to throw a grenade into a tire that was some distance away that in his preparations to throw the grenade it ended up rolling out of his hand. If not for “social safety nets” that provide a safety officer in the bunker to forcibly remove the solder in case of live munitions being dropped in the bunker , the soldier would have