People were Just as Dumb Then as Now

I sometimes hear or read that people these days are getting dumber. While I would say that overall today, yes, we are quite stupid, the statement that were are getting dumber is untrue. Why? Because people have been pretty dumb all along. I'll use two examples (and hey- none of them are ancient today!).

1) The Maginot Line: Prior to WWII, the French had this brilliant idea that they would build this massive fortified wall to keep out the Germans, should they decide to attack again (spoiler: they did). As great of an idea as this is (oh hey, Great Wall of China!), it didn't work out very well for them. The German, master strategists that they are, foiled the French plans. How, you ask? Oh yeah.... they went around it. Yeah, good call guys.

2) People today get bent out of shape about controversial books and such, but I think the example of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (1898) aptly demonstrates historical stupid. On Halloween (Halloween, people! It might as well have been April Fools...) of 1938, a radio adaptation of War of the Worlds was performed by Orson Welles. Just in case you don't know, War of the Worlds is about aliens invading and taking over Earth. The story was performed as a series of news bulletins, "covering" the story of aliens invading America. People were thrown into a panic. They actually thought that the story was real, and that they were about to be conquered by aliens. This proves something to me: a) people are extraordinarily unobservant (do you see any aliens? No? Right, that's because there are no aliens invading!) and b) people in 1938 are as dumb as we are now, maybe dumber (for the most part, we know when we're watching a fake news program).