8 Ways To Maintain Your Composure In The Face Of Overwhelming Stupidity.

There are a lot of people saying a lot of stupid things right now, and it feels as if every moment there are more of them. And it’s not like they’re short of things to talk about. There’s the question of whether COVID-19 is a mind control conspiracy orchestrated by Bill Gates, whether vaccines are harmful despite having literally eradicated deadly diseases from the face of the Earth, whether the earth is flat…

What’s worse, everybody feels this way. Nobody thinks they’re the idiot.

Sadly I’m too stupid to figure out how to fix this problem, but I do have some suggestions about how to keep your cool when faced with stupidity, how to improve your chances of changing the other person’s mind, and with a bit of luck, how to learn something in the process.

1. Make sure you know what they’re saying — The first step when you feel yourself getting annoyed at what somebody is saying, is to ask yourself why you’re getting annoyed. Chances are high that it’s because you’re disappointed in the person that you’re talking to. Maybe the discovery that they think in a way you didn’t expect is making you question what other surprises their minds might have in store.

If this is the issue, and you otherwise have faith in this person and their capacity for rational…