(no subject)

[learnedax]

LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.

Were we always this stupid, or did someone slip something in the water supply?

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

If by "water supply" you mean "bottled water that costs $3 per liter", then, yes. Does anyone but me even *drink* municipal water any more?

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

I do. I don't even filter it.

[tpau]

we do, we jsut brita it first

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

This reminded me of a funny story I read on the Motley Fool humor board. I tried to post it in a comment here but it was too long. I posted it over here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/jokes/577421.html?#cutid1) instead.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

No, it's just that the lower three-quartiles of Americans are such [redacted] monkey[redacted] that they've never heard of a $2.00 bill. This is what we get for not getting rid of the $1.00 bill when we had a chance.

I have a friend who used to get nothing but Susan B's and $2.00 bills and use them everywhere. Wonder what they would have done with a stack of Kennedy halves.

[jducoeur]

"We" is too broad a word. But I wouldn't blame the water supply.

(I've never had anyone refuse to accept my $1 coins, but they do get the hairy eyeball sometimes...)

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

(I've never had anyone refuse to accept my $1 coins, but they do get the hairy eyeball sometimes...)

I have the vague impression that they are more common in Massachusetts than in other states, but I'm not sure...

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

A friend's brother always talked about going to Best Buy with his friends dressed as pirates and carrying a trunk full of gold $1 coins next time he needed to buy an expensive piece of computer equipment. So far, he's chickened out.

Reading this article, perhaps that's for the best.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

had anyone refuse to accept $1 coins

I have. galaneia has too, IIRC. We had to have the manager come over in one case. I also had some bright bulb at Dunkin' Donuts adamantly refuse a 'new' $20 bill the day after they came out; while I was glad for her initiative, and agreed that the money did look and feel 'fake', it was her insistance that she was right and her boss and co-workers were wrong (and the implication this was all a horrible plot to make her take counterfeit money or something) that made it stick in my mind. The manager eventually rang me out himself...

My most recent anecdote was the cashier refusing my sole Canadian penny in a $8 transaction. Um. Okay, I'm sorry I tried to upset your register balance by 0.18 cents. I'm sure it was worth holding up the line while I dug out another one! (And this cashier is usually rather sensible, too...)

[sjo.livejournal.com]

yes.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Think about your average person, and about how bright he/she is.

Now, remember that about half the population is dumber than that.

I often wonder how our species has managed to make it this far...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Sex doesn't take brains. Heck, growing up barely takes brains.

Figuring out currency conversions, now, *that* takes brains. ;-)

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

I've actually heard it posited that, below a certain age (said age was not defined, but was understood to be below the age of anyone in the conversation (As I was distinctly the youngest person there, it may have been meant to mean older than me, but younger than everyone else..)) intelligence is not a pro-survival trait.

This was in the context of a friend's child evidently having found a thermite recipe on the web, and deciding to give it a try. All of us said things like "Well, I didn't have net access as a kid, or, yeah, I could see my insane child-self doing that."

All of which is to say that I think you might be under-selling "growing up barely takes brains."

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

But...but...properly preparing the thermite recipe surely took *some* brains... :P

And who didn't try to make thermite after that McGuyver episode? I mean, really.

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

well, yeah, that's the point. If the kid had been dumb as a post he would probably have never felt the need to make it. Failing that, he either wouldn't have made it correctly, or would have been unable to ignite it.

But no, this kid knew how to manage all of that (and to hide it from his parents), and enough to set it off on a boulder. However, he didn't anticipate that the boulder would stay hot after the thermite is done. He was crawling onto the boulder to investigate when his parents found him and the smoking hole in the boulder...

Thus, IQ is arguably counter survival, and thus you can strengthen "growing up barely takes brains." to "Managing to grow up might be a weak indicator of lack of brains."

Sorry for any confusion.

[rickthefightguy.livejournal.com]

They say if the southern half of Iowa seceeded and joined Missouri, the average IQ of both states would go up.