Don’t be upset about Usyk being second in the political ratings.
First, such surveys get published because someone ordered them for a lot of money.
And second, did you really think that, overwhelmed by the results of the commander of Thailand’s Territorial Defense, wedding photographers, and the guys who appear in the Rada ten times a year during the war, the deep people would be inspired and rush to choose technocrat-messiahs? Lol.
Those very people who eat cutlets in cemeteries from tubs with aspic? Those who brought their last savings to B2B Jewelry at 400% annual returns? Those who rejoiced in pedestrian bridges, tiles, parks, and park shelters, then were surprised they were unprepared for winter? Those who take microloans “at just 1.2% per day” (a mere 430% annually) because they can’t curb their inner greed and arrange normal installment payments? They were supposed to realize something?
The stupidity of the majority is not a bug; it’s an evolutionary feature. The brain consumes 20% of the body’s energy. Thinking, analyzing facts, doubting, and making complex forecasts is a colossal calorie expenditure. An ordinary person optimizes energy. Their prefrontal cortex sleeps 90% of the time. They use cognitive biases, stereotypes, and belief in simple solutions because it saves ATP molecules. It’s not pure stupidity; it’s cognitive laziness.
Although a third are indeed functionally illiterate. They can read letters but can’t grasp the meaning of a paragraph longer than three lines. Anyone writing for a large audience sees them daily in comments. And the rest mostly operate on factory settings. Five generations ago in our region, it worked like this: the Tsar-Father prays for us, she brought back a red thread from Jerusalem and lamp oil, so life was good.
Now the algorithm is the same: dances hopak in baggy trousers and beat a Russian in the ring, so he will make a good president. There was already a KVN comedian. A person who first fought nationalism as the main ideologist of the Party Central Committee and then signed orders to publish the first book on the Holodomor was also there. Football or boxing? That’s the question.
Look at Iran. A huge country with 80 million people produces old men who invented bundling girls into green minivans for a shifted scarf and flogging punishments (80 lashes is intensive care) for a quarter liter of vodka. They personally gain nothing except missiles, isolation, problems, and being shot in cars. They’re afraid to go to their homes in London—Mossad might get them there too. But they continued spewing nonsense about Satan and the drowning of Israel for decades until they were physically crushed in an industrial grinder themselves.
In my experience, insurmountable stupidity is evenly spread between the rich and the poor. Because the ability to make money is a separate skill, developed like swimming. You can believe the earth is flat, and vaccines contain chips, yet be rich. Conversely, one of the smartest people I know repairs shoes. He understands everything about this world and is content with what he has—a house to rent out, a well, a solar station. His dopamine from work and life is probably just as good as Maduro’s playing chess with millions of people. But there’s less risk—he won’t be taken away in handcuffs at night.
And there will be no conclusion. Internal emigration, growing your capital like a garden, moving to a lighthouse—you’ll come up with something. An open-ended finale, whatever. You’re not like those dumb ones.
It’s never us, after all.
