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Why are some people perceived as ‘thick’?

I know a few very highly qualified and brainy friends who are thick.


It’s an opinion thing.
 
Not so much thick as incompetent, it seems a lot of other countries have people in positions where they have actual experience of the role not just so-and-so's mate. We could do with a lot more of that, but it is rare nowadays in politics to get people with "shop floor" experience, they're career politicians mostly.

I'd prioritise experience over the right schooling any day of the week. In fact even schooling in the given subject I'd take over some random given the job.
We seem to assume competency of politicians from other countries but I am not convinced they are any better.
 
You can undertake every opportunity presented to you in education but that does not equate to common sense, a lack of common sense usually in in poorly educated people often means a difficulty in evaluation which provides many a thicko, innit!
 
Of course the word thick is derogatory. We need such words to offend people. Wouldn't it be awful if you wanted to offend someone but the words didn't exist.

My nickname was intended to be derogatory but I showed it to be ironic.
 
I hear a lot of people saying that Nadine Dorries is thick but I reckon she’s right up there with Sarah Palin.
She, Priti Patel and Grant Shapps are there to make Liz Truss look good. They need to get Mrs I’m a Naughty Tory into the cabinet- she could makes Nadine Dorries look like Bamber Gascoigne
 
I received an expensive, though not particularly good, education, and I think I'm reasonably intelligent, but I can't half be a bit thick sometimes.

Simple things sometimes elude me. I'll approach things in a certain way that, on reflection or being shown how, seems absurd. Anything to do with numbers or geometry completely eludes me. I can't cut a roof, and I've been hopeless with money. But I present quite well, and know a enough about a few things to be quite effective at them. But I can definitely be a bit thick.

I live in a strange part of the world, one where you need to be wary of prejudging people. I get people in my shop who look and sound like half-wits, who can hardly string two words together. I often watch them leave, and they will almost inevitably climb into a new £120,000 Range Rover or Porsche. Some of them appear variously in both, and a sports Bentley to boot. I know people who have had a terrible education who are so articulate and funny that they run circles around me. I'm certainly thicker than they are.

Liz Truss? She seems socially awkward, and presents terribly. I heard her interviewed on woman's hour recently. She didn't seem particularly inspirational, but seemed bright enough. Bright enough to be FS? Well, she should be in charge of her brief, and she clearly wasn't the other day. Starmer was mentioned. He has a pipsqueak voice, and I think presents poorly (as a politician). But he is a successful barrister, fleet of mind by definition. It's unlikely that you can become one of those if you're thick.
 
I was condemned as thick at a young age.

Now in recovery!

I still find it very difficult when I see people, politicians especially, talking the most utter tripe on telly and getting away with it because they speak it with the confidence of breeding and an expensive education.

I don’t expect life to be fair, but I bridle at institutionalised unfairness.

If we want everyone to have a fair chance in life, we need an education system based on small class sizes. It’s not like we can’t afford it!
 
I have a friend who’s a consultant, very intelligent. He once told me how he’d changed the tyre on the front wheel of his bicycle only to realise the directional tread pattern was the wrong way round. He then relayed the tail of woe about having to take the tyre off again.

I pointed out that he could just have turned the wheel round; he looked at me quizzically, for a split second thought I was obviously wrong before the penny dropped.

I can talk effectively to groups of people but have no practical skills whatsoever. Always a little in awe of trades people.
 
I do think that there is a spectrum of intelligence, just as there are spectra for other attributes and talents. The problem arises mostly when people are tasked to do something for which they lack the necessary attribute. I’m sure people lacking in intelligence possess compensatory talents elsewhere. Sometimes those talents might get them recognition and they may be offered opportunities requiring attributes they don’t possess. So a skilled athlete may be a useless media pundit, say.

The problems arise when Dunning Kruger bites and people believe they have what it takes, when they really don’t.
 
If you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule then I give you the (quite different basis) 50/50 rule. In many many instances, people who are framed as “thick” are seen to have made a more obviously bad choice of 2 things. In other words they’ve chosen the wrong fork in the road. 50/50. Home maintenance is a good example. Spend £200 on a otherwise good roof or £10k replacing it? Equally spending £200 repeatedly on a rotten dire roof instead of a proper refurb. I think people regard the “thickness” when people then stick their heels in and justify that bad 50/50 decision with even more flawed logic. When it’s more fuzzy then we can all have ongoing nattering and debates and in fact as humans we spend an immense amount of time chatting and asking and comparing. “Do you know a good architect?…” “I’m thinking of getting a new shed” “what cables do you use?” “What time do you make your kids go to bed?” “What’s a good brand of watch?” It goes on. When generally sound advice is forthcoming to meet the needs of the situation, it’s a flawed 50/50 choice that raises the eyebrows and the adjective ‘thick’ pops out. Conversely of course the less thick recognise and credit those you make great decisions and achieve great and/or sensible things. I s’pose it’s a bit like ask the audience. If 90% of people say that a choice or decision or statement is blatantly that of a “thick” person they mean that there was a better option which could ‘easily’ have been taken. And finally, we get frustrated and vocal and debate these things because we want to evolve and improve and be happy.
 
I have a friend who’s a consultant, very intelligent. He once told me how he’d changed the tyre on the front wheel of his bicycle only to realise the directional tread pattern was the wrong way round. He then relayed the tail of woe about having to take the tyre off again.

I pointed out that he could just have turned the wheel round; he looked at me quizzically, for a split second thought I was obviously wrong before the penny dropped.

I can talk effectively to groups of people but have no practical skills whatsoever. Always a little in awe of trades people.

I would say that your pal needs a proper bike. One with disc brakes! ;)
 


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