by Ryszard Krasowski

Created on: September 20, 2008

HOW DUMB ARE WE?

There are many ways to determine how dumb we are and one of them is a TV commercial. It seems that people who make these thirty seconds or so "movies" think that they are smarter than the rest of us. And it appears that the TV networks have the same idea about our intelligence. Each of the TV networks bombards us with countless Oscar candidates banking on our stupidity. Each of the TV networks tries to convince us that it has to run these ads to make their programs more interesting and more watchable. There is no doubt that all the networks make money on running these money-making clips and make the stars of their programs richer. At the same time the scientific minds of commercial producers probe the intelligence of those who watch their products.

There is a commercial about a store where prizes of all the merchandise in it are lowered a few cents every day. Whoever made that commercial wants us to go to that store to buy something. Some of us run to this store and fill up shopping cart with cheaper stuff, but wouldn't be smarter to wait a few days more until these goods will be free. It is obvious that if a prize of something is getting lowered every day, there has to be a day in the future that this something will cost nothing.

Car factories show us new models of vehicles that, according to the ad, are stronger, faster, better equipped and safer than the ones we already have. These cars are going on empty roads almost with a speed of the light. They stop dead an inch from a cliff. They have gadgets which talk to the driver. And they cost a lot of money. As dumb people we ask ourselves whether we need faster cars, if a state speed limit does not allow us to drive faster than the limit on the road signs indicate. And where the hell are all these empty roads they are driving on? Why are there, on an average, more than 6 million car accidents on the roads annually if their cars are able to stop dead an inch from a cliff? Where is a parachute if the car does not stop an inch from the cliff? Why do we need all the gadgets in our cars which distract safe driving? And why do we need to spend tons of money on something that we can not use the way that the ad advertises?

There are a lot of commercials introducing all sorts of medicines. Almost all of them end with a suggestion "Ask you doctor if this medicine is good for you". Don't we all go to a doctor if we do not feel well? Doesn't a doctor, who we go to see, is the one who prescribes us a medicine

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