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43 Times People Said Something So Ridiculous Others Instantly Doubted Their Intelligence
There are moments in life when someone says something so bafflingly wrong that your brain briefly stops working. Sometimes it’s actually a grown adult confidently asking if the moon is turned off during the day, or someone trying to microwave metal like it’s perfectly reasonable.
Whatever the situation, these encounters tend to stick with you forever, not because they were malicious, but because they were so spectacularly clueless that you almost have to admire the confidence behind them. And when people online were asked to share the exact moment they realized someone was genuinely unintelligent, the responses did not disappoint.
More info: Reddit
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#1
I was having a conversation with a former colleague and I had mentioned that I had gone to a WWI museum that’s in Germany and how I was planning on going to Belgium to see the WWI trenches. With the most straightest face possible, they said, “Belgium isn’t a real country. It’s a make believe country to scare people into thinking the a global war is real. WWII was also fake because there’s no such thing as Egypt” I’m not kidding.
Teutonic Disaster 2 days ago (edited)
TIL that Egypt existing (?) was relevant to WW2 happening. /s
RELATED:
#2
When my father-in-law d**d suddenly, my wife and another family member were scrambling to assemble important records to tend to his affairs. With my mother-in-law medically indisposed, she was unable to help.
One thing we needed was the deed to their home. We didn't know where it was. We thought the county clerk office could help.
A panicky looking guy at the clerk's office explained that my father-in-law, being the sole homeowner, is the only one who can make the request. We told him that my FIL was d**d. He looked increasingly panicked. He said, "I don't think other family members can make the inquiry."
We asked what the procedure was in case someone d**d. He said he was not aware of that happening. We asked if my father-in-law was the first person in a town of over 100,000 people, a town first settled in 1651, to ever d*e.
He seemed to come to his senses. We re-iterated our question, and he looked panicked once again. "Is there any chance your father-in-law himself could make the request?"
It was truly a unique experience.
#3
Food was banned on the call floor, but the person in the cubicle across from me was surreptitiously eating peanuts. I couldn't figure out why I was suddenly itchy and developing hives, until I stood up to go to the bathroom and she saw me and freaked out, apologizing and asking if I'm allergic.
So I went to my manager and said I'm having an allergic reaction to peanuts, so and so was eating some and she's really sorry, she didn't know, so I'm going to go home and take Benadryl now.
He asked me if I'd eaten any peanuts. I said no, so and so was eating peanuts. He said I couldn't be having an allergic reaction then, so I didn't need to go home.
I held out my arms and showed him my hives. I told him my eyes were itchy and my face was burning and I needed to go home and take inadvisable amounts of Benadryl now.
He repeated that it was not possible that my symptoms were an allergic reaction because I had not eaten any of the peanuts.
I said okay, I need to go home and treat my mystery symptoms. He said no, of my symptoms were a mystery I shouldn't know how to treat them, so I might as well stay.
I thought about it for a second, then asked him how he thought cat allergies worked. Did he think people ate cats. Or did people with cat allergies develop symptoms from being in the same room as cats.
He asked if I was claiming there was a cat on the call floor.
I said no, I was having an allergic reaction to peanuts in the same way people have allergic reactions to cats.
He reiterated that you cannot have an allergic reaction to peanuts without eating them, and that there are no cats on the call floor.
Which was when I gave up and said I was going home now and I'd see him tomorrow. When he wrote me up for unexcused absence.
Jeremy James 2 days ago
If the Trump administration didn't already have an HHS Secretary, this guy's boss would have fit right in.
One reason moments like these tend to stick in people’s minds is that confidence often has more impact than accuracy. As explained by Verywell Mind, people frequently overestimate their own intelligence or knowledge due to cognitive biases that distort self-perception.
One of the key explanations is the Dunning-Kruger effect, where individuals with limited ability in a certain area may lack the awareness needed to recognize their own mistakes, leading to inflated self-assessments. On top of that, illusory superiority can push people to believe they are above average in many everyday skills by favoring information that supports what they already think.
#4
When someone told me I couldn't go swimming when I was pregnant because I would drown the baby. There's dumb and then there's whatever that is.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
Also, don't turn out the light or the baby won't be able to read in there.
#5
Saw a guy on live TV claim that magnets stop working when they get wet. Yet people still voted for this moron.
#6
Guy I already thought was a moron in response to me complaining about having a headache: "I don't get headaches. My dad was a physician and he told me I don't have a frontal lobe so I can't get them.".
There is also an important distinction between intelligence and common sense, which Psychology Today highlights as two very different abilities. Intelligence is generally associated with abstract reasoning, learning complex concepts, and solving unfamiliar problems, while common sense refers to practical judgment shaped by everyday experience.
What feels obvious or logical is not universal, since background, education, and culture all influence how people interpret situations. Because of this, what seems like basic logic to one person can feel completely unfamiliar to another, especially when cognitive shortcuts, overconfidence, or information overload interfere with clear, intuitive judgment.
#7
Helping a friend fill out paperwork online, he tells me that he doesn't know his dad's name, he hasn't seen him since he was little and he only knew him as "dad", he has no clue what his name could be. Then he signed his name with junior at the end. I said "junior?" And he said "yeah, I'm a junior, I'm named after my dad.".
LakotaWolf (she/her) 2 days ago
I was taught my parents' full names as a child in case I ever got lost or separated from them XD It's baffling to think that this person never learned his parents' names, nor (apparently) ever heard another adult greet his father by name, like, "Hi, John, how are you doing?" XD
#8
In a world before cell phones updated time automatically during daylight savings time, I had a conversation with a guy complaining about getting up at 2 to set their clock back. I laughed, thinking he was joking and mentioned that I simply set my clock before I go to sleep. He actually began to argue with me that DST started at 2am not 10 pm the night before. I gave him my best "By Jove, I do believe you're right" face and just noped out of that conversation real quick.
True story. Just think, somewhere out there, people like this are voting, driving on our freeways and having children.
#9
When my incel cousin tried to explain to me (a pregnant woman)
That women are evil and a lot of them have late term abortions around (7 to 8 months) to spite the man that got them pregnant.
Then when I said name ONE.
HE SAID, A LOT OF WOMEN, TOO MANY TO NAME.
🥴
Obviously we don't speak anymore but like 👁👄👁.
Another layer comes from the difference between being uninformed and being unintelligent, as noted by educator Dan Harkey. Lack of knowledge often comes down to missing information or limited exposure, which can change with learning and experience.
Cognitive ability, however, is described more as a deeper capacity for reasoning, adaptation, and problem-solving. At the same time, what people assume is "common knowledge" is heavily shaped by upbringing and education, meaning that different environments produce very different expectations about what should be obvious.
#10
Saw them ask a lady how she knew Spanish. The lady said “because that is what I grew up speaking.”
They said “you don’t look Mexican tho.”
I just shook my head.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 2 days ago
I'm white af but was adopted at birth into a Mexican-American family. I grew up speaking Spanish. It does occasionally startle a few Hispanic people who don't expect it from someone who is the color of white wall paint with blue eyes and blond hair, but I've never had anyone actually tell me to my face "you don't look Mexican, though" XD
#11
My ex after a few months dating.
Randomly tells me that North Pole doesn’t exist, it’s just advertising from Coca Cola. I laughed of course, thinking she was joking. She was not. I spent hours explaining that there are in fact two poles. One in the north and another in the south and somehow she insisting that she didn’t understand how could there be one in the north if south already had one pole. I never understood her point. But I made drawings to explain.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
Take her to north Poland, then south Poland. She'll find Poles in both places.
#12
I told someone I was a sign language interpreter and they asked if I knew how to read the braille that was nearby. When I explained what sign language was and that it’s primarily used for Deaf people, he said I should learn “just in case”.
Finally, people do not always respond to being wrong in a straightforward way. Research from Tava Health explains that when beliefs are challenged, it can create cognitive dissonance, a psychological discomfort that comes from holding conflicting ideas.
Instead of adjusting their view, individuals may reject new information or reinforce their original belief to avoid that discomfort. Since admitting a mistake can feel like a hit to self-esteem or identity, especially when others are present, defensive reactions like denial or justification often take over, making some positions harder to change even in the face of clear evidence.
#13
I was dating a doctor. And in hindsight, it was clear that my making more money than him really upset him. But we were having a conversation, and I told him some good news about a promotion I had gotten at work. And he immediately switched the topic to telling me that my pots and pans were giving me cancer. And I was like, "What!? Wait, where are you getting that information?" And he was like, "A scientist!" And I was like, "Who?" 10 mins later, he finally showed me a TikTok video from some random guy (not a scientist). And it wasn't even about my pans, but a completely different brand. And I was like, "Uhhh, don't you like diagnose cancer for a living?"
It was like the veil lifted from my eyes, and I saw him as a complete doofus from there on out. I broke up with him a month later.
Mind you. This man didn't believe in wearing sunscreen.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
He didn't need sunscreen because his head was always where the sun didn't shine.
#14
I was having a conversation with someone and said that pro choice doesn’t necessarily mean my own personal belief is for abortion, it means I believe others get to make that decision for themselves.
He said it was impossible.
#15
My mil.. I don’t know to call it stupidity or superstitious. She genuinely believe that women washing their undies in the same washer as men causes men bad luck and is the reason why their men can’t get rich. She has never washed her undies in the washer and her husband still isn’t rich.
Moments like these are unforgettable because they remind us just how unpredictable people can be. As painful as these interactions can be in the moment, they also tend to become the stories people laugh about for years afterward. Of course, intelligence comes in many forms, and everyone also has their occasional "no thoughts, head empty" moment.
Still, the stories in this thread stand out because the people involved were often completely convinced they were right, which somehow made everything even funnier. Do you want to see the kinds of comments that made strangers instantly lose faith in humanity? Keep scrolling for some of the most ridiculous, baffling, and unintentionally hilarious responses the internet had to offer!
#16
While speak to a woman I know I mentioned that Jesus was supposedly a carpenter. "That can't be true", she said, "they didn't even have carpets back then".
...which is incorrect on multiple counts.
#17
When at dinner, my friends husband said "All I need is a few hours alone with the pyramids and I could figure out how they were built" straight faced.
He worked as a restaurant assistant manager ...
Michael Largey 2 days ago
"A few hours alone with the pyramids"? Apparently, he intended to beat the information out of them.
#18
This is not THE moment for this guy, just one of many, but it's a personal favorite.
When "Walking D**d" was at it's peak, I had a friend get into it a few seasons late, I wanna say when 4 came out. So I offered to wait to watch the new ones that were airing, and let him catch up to where the show was at at the time, so we could watch together every week going forward.
He binges S1 and 2 ASAP. Constantly texting me how he loves Daryl and Rick and this plot and that, etc etc. I'm replying "I know, right? Just wait for blah blah"
Anyway, his texts start getting weird. He's mentioning characters that aren't on the show, plots that never happened. Says he doesn't understand why the show dropped Rick and Andrea and he doesn't like this new cast. At some point I come out and ask what the hell he's talking about.
Come to find out this man, who watched 1 and 2, knew it inside and out, at some point started watching "Z Nation" instead, getting ***3 f*****g seasons in*** and never once realizing it wasn't Walking D**d.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
Was he dumb, or is television today so unoriginal that you can't tell one show from another?
#19
When instead of genuinely finding out why their cat is peeing places that is not the litter, they say it’s because the cat is Virgo.
Still face palming. Do you want to keep complaining that the cat is peeing on your bed or not.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 2 days ago
Well, apparently that's the problem with my cats Rook and Lucanis. Of course. This explains everything. They actually ARE Virgos (they're littermates and were born on September 3rd.) I guess when I take them to the vet for checkups this week on why they're eliminating outside of the litterbox, I'd better mention to my vet that they're Virgos and that's obviously why they're doing it! /s
#20
Unintelligent or lacking critical thinking skills?
My cousin is a flat earther. He's really good at math, so I offered to walk him through the equations used to prove the world is round thousands of years ago.
We did the calculations, by hand, for a 100 level logic class in college.
He refused.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
Being a flat earther has nothing to do with math or any other set of facts.
#21
They told me they didn't believe the Artemis 2 mission happened.
Known this person my entire life. Only recently has she been anti-science, conspiracy theory, anti-vaccine, flat earth nonsense.
Coincidentally it started when she started dating the most roided out criminal cop I've ever met. I don't know him too well but it doesn't seem like a coincidence that her distrust in anything logical started the same time she started dating this dude.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
I actually had too look up what "roided out" meant because I could not figure out what Preparation H might have to do with criminality.
#22
I was playing a*******s creed: Origins, and mind you I went to college for history, my older brother comes up to me, sees some of the ancient Greeks in togas on the screen and asks me who they were, I say “Greeks” or “Ancient Greeks” something like that… and he is in disbelief, jaw dropped and everything, he replies “wait, Greeks actually existed”? Mf thought Greeks were only mythological characters because his extent knowledge of Greece is “Greek Mythology” he thought the actual society of people were myths.
#23
Edit: I’m aware of the redhead thing. My husband is aware as well. It’s that she was concerned that no one would KNOW he has red hair.
My mother in law told me I needed to let the surgeon know my husband has red hair because they need to tell the anesthesiologist he would need more anesthesia. My husband has a full head of hair, a beard, and lots of body hair.
She also told us we couldn’t do a destination wedding because no one could take off all week to drive to Florida to go to the Virgin Islands. Her friend took a cruise out of MIA and went there, so she assumed that to leave the US to get to the VI you had to drive to Florida first. Because that’s what her friend did.
She told everyone my husband works at a call center. He is a senior director of analytics and AI at a fintech.
She said my brother in law and I have basically the same job. He is a mechanic at a pork processing plant. I am a manager of pilot training at an airline.
#24
Had a psychology class once at a technical school and the teacher gave us an activity. Basically you've crash landed in the desert and have fifteen items that we had to rank in order of importance. After we ranked them individually we had to group up and agree on a ranking. One woman in my group was convinced the compass item was of the most importance because you could "point it at the ground and it would find where water was." Even after the teacher explained she was thinking of a dividing rod she wasn't swayed.
#25
Caught up with an old school friend, who was always very ditzy, and got chatting about other past classmates. They asked if this one kid was still “quite tanned”. I replied that yes, they are still black.
#26
Called my doctors office after an encounter with a bat, wanting advice about whether I need a rabies vaccine. The call screener asks me what symptoms I have. I explain that I have no symptoms and that rabies is always f***l after symptoms occur. She tells me that she cannot schedule an appointment if I cannot name my symptoms.
Stephanie Did It 2 days ago
"I'm foaming at the mouth. I panic when I see water, and GRRRR WOOF!"
#27
When someone thought the moon was just a light in the sky, like a lamp, that was a solid moment of realization for me.
Spittnimage 1 day ago
Kinda reminds me of when Pumbaa and Timon were talking about the stars where Pumbaa suggests they're "balls of gas burning billions of miles away". Timon dismisses this scientific take, insisting they're "fireflies that got stuck up on that big bluish-black thing". 😉 Credit to Google.
#28
When my former step dad told me you could see China from the Pacific Coast with a strong enough telescope while trying to convince me the horizon isn't real. Discovered he's a dumb a*s flat earther that day.
#29
A coworker did not know that WW1 happened. They knew about WW2 though. And yes, I am still at loss as to how they made it so far without connecting those two dots.
Michael Largey 2 days ago (edited)
Apparently WW1.0 was just the beta version of the soon to be released WW2.0.
#30
I took up an extra task at work, asked my predeccesor to explain something. She ordered an insane amount of product. "Hey, you're ordering 5 times as much as i think we need. Do you happen to know our budget?" "There is no budget." "There must be. Whats our limit this month?" "THERE IS NO BUDGET" I asked the same question 3 times and she just got louder every time. That woman was insanely dumb .
Michael Largey 2 days ago (edited)
Actually, I once worked for an organization that had no real budget. There was one on paper, but as one of the managers said "It's really just one big pile of money."
#31
A conspiracy loving coworker once said, "You know, the average person is carrying around 20 to 30 pounds of p**p in their body."
To be fair, he certainly is that full of s**t, but the majority of people are not.
#32
When a member of Congress asked if a, "small camera" swallowed for a colonoscopy could be used for a remote gynecological exam to assess pregnancy. 🤦🏼♀️.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
That congressman didn't need a camera for his colonoscopy as he already had a direct line of sight.
#33
When I showed them that their impression of an event that happened was completely incorrect, and they responded that it doesn't matter and the fact that they found it believable that they were right and I was wrong was somehow just proof that they could have been right, so in a way they're still right.
Buddy I showed you the video of exactly what happened.
#34
When they constantly contradicted themselves and jumped through logical hoops in an argument just so they could win. They didn't understand that I still remained unconvinced and now I no longer respected their critical thinking skills, but hey, at least they got to call me an idiot 64 times.
Petra Peitsch 2 days ago
After the 2nd contradiction, I would have walk away. As I'm getting older, I have less and less patience for idiots.
#35
We all know that correlation does not imply causation, but I swear to the almighty god that every person I've worked with in my field the last 20 years are weapons-grade incompetent if they have an MBA. I don't know what it is, but they have zero common sense or critical thinking skills.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
They think having an MBA and knowing what you're talking about is a causation relationship. In truth, they're lucky if it's even a correlation.
#36
Classic case of mansplaining a simple concept.
I was talking with a friend over coffee a few days ago and on the topic of astrophysics some random dude began *unprompted* explaining why the Earth was round?? Completely unrelated to our topic, so of course I look confused due to the lecture (inaccurate by the way, as they insisted the Earth was round due to the shaping of the Earth by ancient civilizations) and attempt to dismiss this stranger, to which he goes "well, I tried to tell you, but I guess you didn't want THAT sort of conversation".
What sort of conversation? Are you implying that our conversation - which had nothing to do with the man and was not initiated for his enjoyment - was too simple for him?
I quickly called him out for his inaccurate and uncalled for "explanation", to which he got defensive and eventually left... cool, I was out of f***s to give anyhow, have a nice day.
#37
Wife's cousin's girlfriend was trying to tell us all about how she is shifting into a tech career and is in classes at her local community college. For 10 minutes she tried to explain to me that I (a senior software engineer) was wrong and that HTML is indeed a programming language.. no matter how many times I explained to her that it was indeed not..
#38
I was told I should meet this "brilliant" and "talented" marketing genius at a company that we had just taken on as a client.
When I did get a meeting with her to discuss our project with the company we sat down in her office. She was in mid conversation with her assistant and they were fervently discussing the work done by a Mexican astrologer on a Spanish language network was far superior to any astrology work done by anyone in the US. "It's like Mexican Coke is better that US Coke."
After introductions, she interrupted our chat several times to "dose" herself with essential oils with drops on her tounge.
She checked her phone several times and got annoyed by one of the messages. She dropped her phone in an empty paint can she had under her desk. I asked why she just did that, and she said it "calms the phone down."
She claimed to be a bestselling author, but it was just a self-published book, about 90 pages, on Amazon. She said she had sold thousands, and then said she had stacks of boxes of the book in her rented storage locker.
Everyone in the company had a copy in their office. I borrowed a copy, read it in one day. It was complete gibberish. No coherent structure, no real practical information. It was just paragraph after paragraph of the same sounding motivational junk about "going for your dreams." The author picture was really good though.
She was really respected and looked up to as a young super successful entrepreneur of the future and a role model within the company.
Our conversation didn't really go anywhere as she was very distracted and had leave for a meeting soon.
In the six months I was assigned to this project I only saw her a few days a week, and was "out of the country" for several months at a time. I asked someone at the company about her constant absences, and he said, "hey, she's one of our company's rising rockstars." As soon as I heard the word rockstar... I knew.
#39
I had a temp job working in a hospital to do filing of medical records. They had another person who came in as part of a program to also do filing. It wasn't really all her fault. Her Mom stopped making her go to school when she was about 6 years old. In order to help her learn to file, I had to teach her the alphabet. It wasn't even that that I considered unintelligent, it was the tantrums. She could recognize the letters, just the concept of putting them in an order was beyond her and she would throw fits. She was a grown adult with 2 children of her own by that point. I figured out a solution. I made sure she always used one of those flip boards that are made to help you organize papers for filing. Probably all a foreign concept in today's digital age. Filing of actual paper medical records was outdated even then.
Petra Peitsch 2 days ago (edited)
That explains, why an orange clown is your president. And as a nation, you deserve it. No, not you, Clark, from Wyoming, and also not you Mary-Lou from Texas, personally. But you as a nation, as US-americans, deserve this clown. Because you let your system be so stupid. No proper education for masses, and practically a pigeon can homeschool your children, legally. Is there even a nation called USA.americans, or just is the USA, a playground for profit-greedy companies in every field, and a bunch of individuals screaming, ME, MEE, MEEE!
#40
A college educated couple, one with a Master’s degree, watched Mermaid:The Body Found and thought it was real.
#41
Coworker, at lunch he d**d seriously told me he had seen an documentary about pigs being smarter then humans. I tried laughing it off but he kept insisting it was true.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
I remember that documentary. It was called "Recent Elections in America".
#42
My MIL got to 100 whilst all the time believing that thunder was the sound of clouds banging together.
#43
The moment he started just repeating Chronically Online Tumblr Drama at me and being *super* bigoted against trans people, despite being trans himself. I realized he was just super gullible, and believed the first thing anyone told him about whatever topic he was learning about. Had absolutely 0 critical thinking skills whatsoever.
#44
When I heard that a customer ordered a decaf tea, and she grabbed a regular tea bag then poured in decaf coffee...
#45
Dated a girl in college, and she was constantly telling me about this impossibly hard biology class she had.
One day, I talked to a friend of mine who was like, "Oh you're seeing her? We're in biology together!"
I was like, "Oh yeah, she's always telling me how hard that class is!"
My friend looked...crestfallen?
I was like, "Oh god, that class isn't hard at all, is it?"
Their stammering said it all.
Wasn't the only clue, but it was the moment I realized.
Michael Largey 2 days ago
As a teacher, I can tell you that two equally intelligent people in the same class can easily experience quite different levels of difficulty.
#46
So, on Goodreads, I’m currently having a discussion with a wacko Christian. It all started when she reviewed a book that had LGBTQ+ and trans characters in it saying “I haven’t read this book, but I’ve heard about it and I feel horror and I believe there is still time for these people to turn to Christ and repent”. Real piece of work.
My friends and commented. I said something about how just as evolution and intersex people are possible, gender identity confusion is possible and that even God can make mistakes. I also said “after all, aren’t we all children of God, so why should being lesbian or trans be any less holy?” She proceeded to argue that evolution does not exist and that no one is a child of God unless they worship Jesus. She also seems to define women by the ability to give birth and menstruate, which of course eliminates a good portion of real women.
Any thoughts on how to deal with this crazy woman?
Loosey Goosey 2 days ago
Ignore her. She's already made up her mind and no amount of arguing will change it. She's also not Christian. She's hiding behind religion to justify her bigotry. A true Christian accepts everyone regardless of gender identity, sexuality etc. Even the Catholic Church accepts evolution and embraces science. Pope Francis supported civil unions and called for countries to decriminalise homosexuality.
What do you think ?
PenguinEmp 1 day ago
Love they took the original reddit title and without irony, make it dumber
PenguinEmp 1 day ago
Love they took the original reddit title and without irony, make it dumber
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