Over the Hedge by T Lewis and Michael Fry for July 27, 2023

Verne, if you consider yourself smarter than almost everybody that’s a bit of a tell you’re not as smart as you think you are.

It’s important to know your limitations.

Anyone who thinks he’s smart enough to run the world isn’t smart enough to run the world.

Do they teach Math at the “Over The Hedge” School ?

… and all the turtles are above average.

I don’t think they understand the math, Verne.

Being smart enough to run the world has never been a qualification. Running the world has never been a motivation. Being smart enough to fool the masses is the qualification and gaining personal wealth off the backs of the working masses the motivation.

Verne must have a major complex.

The problem is… those who feel they should run the Earth believe they are part of that top 0.1% in intelligence (“smartness” as they might say).

Or doesn’t wish to…

If I have to live under a dictator, I’d take Verne any day. Hammy’d be my second choice.

to the world’s most pressing problems I say, “If it were easy we would have solved this generations ago”. And yet, here we are still struggling with the same problems, all be it, in some slightly shifted forms.

I guess I’m not smart enough to run the world. I’m not smart enough to do the math. (Where’s a calculator when you need one?)

Anybody that wants to rule the universe should not. That what “the Man in the Shack” is for. THHGTTG (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

At least it’s good to know that Verne admits his limitations and flaws.

Even if he’s wrong, he’s not too far off. I think he could do a pretty good job of it.

You want to save the species for some reason ? Why bother, the species is flawed. Only hope is removal of 90% of the current population and hope the remainder would do a better job. Highly doubtful. No worry, we have at the most 1,000 years, probably more like 500.

The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President (or, per the thread, ruler of the world) should on no account be allowed to do the job.

To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

— Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

The underlying premise of ‘Idiocracy’.