I take great pleasure in learning about how things are and how they came to be that way. In particular, the fields of quantum physics and cosmology get a lot of my attention. the efforts and dedication of countless thinkers and scientists and engineers over as many years, coupled with good communicators across multiple media, have made it possible for a person such as myself, having come from modest means and education at best, to have a tractable understanding of such profound concepts and empirically proven madness, such as it is.
I like the certainty of that which can be known.
My particular interest in space and physics most certainly comes from my early childhood in Florida in close proximity to Cape Canaveral, where I was born incidentally. For those who don't know that's where the Kennedy space center is located and the primary launching point for probably every significant space event you've ever heard of. So, I like space. I like learning everything there is to know about it and fortunately for us all, we live in a time of great understanding and discovery with telescopes like the eponymous Hubble and the recently launched James Webb space telescope.Our level of understanding of the underlying forces that shape our reality is a true testament to our species' capacity and drive to be knowledgeable.
And yet...it seems a great many Americans do not feel the need to learn anything beyond the scope of what is obviously relevant to their day-to-day lives, or too often what to be upset about that is not at all relevant to their lives in general.
Stupid Sucks is very much against false dichotomies and the blunt, deleterious impact of US versus THEM thinking so many otherwise decent people fall into. Stupidity is not ignorance but is indiscriminate to race, gender (or lack thereof), social/economic class, whatever. Its also pernicious.
The Rapa Nui, for example. Those inhabitants of the Bimini islands, colloquially known as “easter” islands, got into some seriously stupid one-upmanship. The tribes made those huge stone heads for show, and not to be outdone, made them progressively bigger and in greater number. To move them from where they were mined and carved to the coast required trees to roll them. So they cut them down until there were no more, destroying the Pacific islands ecology. The heads remain. To add insult to injury people commonly reference them as evidence of ufos or other nonsense with no basis in fact.
Just a bunch of insecure tribal chiefs, and a bunch of stupid tribesmen just kind of rolling with it. No pun intended. No spaceships required.