Today in “Science”: American Psychological Association Study Asserts ‘Hiring Most Qualified Candidate’ may be ‘Unfair’
The new science is certainly different from the old science.
There used to be a time when scientists strove to gather hard data, rationally assess evidence, and develop theories that helped us better understand our world.
That was when I learned who Richard Feynman was. He became one of my personal heroes of science. Feynman was the guy who famously dropped the o-rings into a glass of ice water showing how brittle these o-rings (identical to the ones in Challenger) became when cold. pic.twitter.com/cvzjEVGJQA
— Diane (@dianeclectica) January 29, 2024
Good times, my friends, good times.
We now live in the era of the ideological capture of science. The only science that is permitted is the science that supports political narratives and agendas.
As “Diversity-Equity-Inclusion” permeates our institutions of higher learning, those who promote this rebranded racism seek “scientific” support for ignoring job candidates that may have more talent and fewer instances of plagiarizing work.
To aid in the effort, the ultra-woke American Psychological Association now claims that “hiring the most qualified candidate might be unfair” based on one of its recent studies.
The study, titled “Can Selecting the Most Qualified Candidate Be Unfair?,” examined people’s perceptions of merit-based hiring after learning more about the socioeconomic status of potential workers.
While previewing the results, it argued that hiring the most qualified candidate could contribute to more inequality.
“Fairness heuristic theory suggests that, as long as people consider selection processes such as hiring and promotion to be meritocratic and fair, they may continue to accept ever-increasing levels of income inequality. Yet, in reality, inequality and merit-based decisions are deeply intertwined,” the study noted.
It explained, “Socioeconomic advantages and disadvantages early in life can have profound influences on educational achievement, test scores, work experiences, and other qualifications that form the basis of ‘meritocratic’ selection processes. Yet the near-universal support for meritocracy suggests that most people may not give much weight to unequal advantages and disadvantages.”
The study is essentially backlash to the challenges DEI is experiencing from legislators across the country.
Governor Spencer Cox (R-UT) signed a bill into law this week that prohibits diversity training, hiring and inclusion programs, making it the latest state to join the anti-diversity movement.
Other states that have either canceled or proposed canceling EDI programs include Florida, Missouri, Iowa, and South Carolina.
‘We’ve been concerned about some DEI programs and policies, particularly with hiring practices, and this bill offers a balanced solution,’ Cox said.
However, the study said that despite Republican’s latest stance on DEI programs, conservative participants said they believe merit-based hiring and promotion is generally fair, but still adjusted their fairness perceptions after they learned about a candidates socioeconomic disparities.
I will note that the study focused on socio-economic considerations, not racial ones. I will point out that this piece was published in “Science Magazine,” which is how I came across it in the first place.
The researchers conducted five online experiments with a total of more than 3,300 participants. In two experiments, participants read about a merit-based hiring or promotion process where the most qualified candidate would be selected. Half of the participants weren’t given any additional information, while the other half were informed about the past socioeconomic disadvantages for one candidate and the advantages for another candidate. Both liberal and conservative participants who received the background information perceived the merit-based hiring or promotion process as less fair with less equal opportunity.
In two additional experiments, participants also found merit-based hiring or promotions to be less fair after learning how low income can hinder educational opportunities and career advancement.
A final experiment found that knowledge about socioeconomic disparities increased support for hiring programs that seek to foster social class diversity, such as removing the names of prestigious universities or companies from resumes and making prior internships a lesser requirement for being hired.
The experiments didn’t include race as a factor so the findings may have been different if race had been the focus instead of socioeconomic disadvantages, Goya-Tocchetto said.
I think many fair-minded Americans agree giving a poor or middle-class student who is hard-working and talented a break, in terms of scholarship or educational opportunities, is a fine practice. Yet many white and Asian students who are qualified for admittance and scholarship are denied in preference to others who check the right victim-status boxes regardless of their economic status.
DEI is used to promote racialist agendas, gender ideology, and other policies that are destructive to our children, our families, our society . . . and to science itself. No amount of pseudoscience can mitigate the level of its toxicity.
The new science is certainly different from the old science.
“As long as man is free to ask what they will, free to say what they think, think what they must. Science will never regress and freedom itself will never be wholly lost”—J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1955 pic.twitter.com/JsA62pqwS3
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) November 1, 2023
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Gentle reminder:
Life is not fair
Never has been
Never will be
Now, can we please all get on with living our best lives
Thanks
Mark Cuban’s defense….
Cuban is an idiot.
Enough already. It’s time for hard facts. Blacks are far less intelligent on average due to genetics. Hiring on merit assures that the minority of smart blacks can attain high positions and serve as role models. Pushing affirmative action makes everyone suspects of every black professional and unfairly hurts the few who deserve their positions through merit. There is nothing else. All palaver to the contrary is nonsense.
The stigma of AA hurts every demographic who receives a + for their immutable characteristics. If the folks who got the + don’t like it that some will wonder if the person across from them got into X Univ, Y program, or Z Job solely, mostly or in part b/c of anything but pure merit they should work to end AA based on immutable characteristics. Instead they will say anyone who notices is an ‘ist full of isms and phobes’.
“ Blacks are far less intelligent on average due to genetics.”
I suspect we are in this position due to Democrat plantation policies aimed specifically at destroying the black family. The benefit of these policies is to keep blacks dumb and easily manipulated and controlled.
When blacks have the same upbringing as whites, ie in a stable two parent family there is little to no difference in opportunity and attainment. But these kinds of blacks are no use to Democrats.
An interesting hypothesis, but the distribution of IQ in Africa is pretty much conclusive — regardless of whether the disparity is genetic, social, or caused by political policy, you cannot blame it on white man’s politics.
That doesn’t disprove his point. The SES and access to resources is far lower on average in Africa from the US.
Amen
I would prefer the word “breeding” to “genetics”. LBJ’s Great Society incentives to reproduce for pay, might have taken 10 IQ points off the average in the last three generations. Also, those sold into slavery by black tribal leaders hundreds of years ago may not have been the cream of the intelligence crop.
I think you may hold the answer.
There are so many conflicting factors. For generations, North American blacks benefited from educational, nutritional, and even socio-religious (“civilizational”) advantages not available to their betrayers back in the “old country.” It’s only relatively recently (post-LBJ) that the politics of “keeping them down by paying them off” have been reversing that.
Facts are stubborn things – John Adams
There are plenty of jobs that don’t require great intelligence. They do, however, require dedication and a work ethic. It’s not hard to find too many of applicants who offer none of those things. In many situations, a job lives or dies on dependability — intelligence is a welcome extra. Some of the most pathologically deficient people I have known have been the most conscientious and dependable (even if inflexible) employees in the workplace.
If we said, “american blacks, who have mixed with white people, are far less intelligent on average than pure blooded nigerian blacks, due to genetics”, could you see the holes in the logic put forth?
Finding average group differences does not mean that those differences are due to genetics. Culture is just as heritable as eye color.
The hard facts are these – even eliminating all racial animus, you will still have disparate outcomes between any two arbitrary groups. Period. You cannot judge an individual by the arbitrary group they belong to – you can only judge individuals as individuals.
Our mistake is accepting the frame that there is a useful category called “blacks” and a useful category called “whites”. Those simply aren’t useful categories.
Well said.
“Blacks are far less intelligent on average due to genetics.” This is the dumbest thing I’ve read all day, not only is this demonstrably false there is no such thing as the black race from a genetic point of view. All you’ve done is demonstrate you are scientifically illiterate and prone to racist tropes.
Whatever. It’s self evident that hiring a lesser qualified candidate is unfair to the employer, as well as its shareholders and customers.
It is unfair to all of us who end up having to deal with duds.
Bingo.
“hiring the most qualified candidate could contribute to more inequality.”
What moron could fail to realize that inequality is absolutely necessary to power the engine of civilizational success (capitalism) — just like every physical engine known to man? You have to produce better products than the competition, sell them better, service them better, have representatives that the public prefers to deal with over the “other guy’s.”
Amazon has a greater selection of products than Sears Roebuck ever dreamed of, a seamless ordering experience all from the comfort of your own La-Z-Boy, a delivery system more innovative than the Pony Express, a no-hassle returns policy unparalleled in the retail industry… and because of it has become not only a global game-changer, but a historical entity.
But, oh no — I’d rather live in a world where every single company was staffed by incompetent patronage drones — like the DMV, or medicare.gov.
Because equality!
” The only science that is permitted is the science that supports political narratives and agendas.”
****
and it has a name….Lysenkoism
So what? Life’s tough. But only meritocracy advances civilization, as a whole.
The fact is that most of the Earth’s population would not even be able to exist, right now, were it not for the exact people and systems that the Western left is now trying to destroy. A good 4 billion people alive on Earth, today, owe their very existence to Western science, and beyond that, Western and American benevolence and charity (and the American – and British – drive to enhance commerce everywhere we go). THEIR. VERY. EXISTENCE!!
We provided these people with the means to support large populations. We (and the British) made them literate. We taught them modern statecraft and civilization and agriculture. They only exist because we gave them the means by which to support their populations.
And Western Leftists have nothing good to say about the people who so much good for the world and did so much for most of the world … except that they think that the losers of the world need to be given control over stuff that they had no hand, basically, in creating. Yeah … that is what nihilists do. They know where that leads. Everyone knows where that leads.
Well put. Would it be better for society if a 1,000 people advanced through AA and one Einstein never got out of a Swiss patent office or one Elon Musk never got out of South Africa? IMO it is the latter that society should be “geared” to advance, as they are the most likely to make advances that benefit all of us. DEI will not get us inexpensive energy from nuclear fusion one minute sooner, and possibly much later, because resources get wasted.
Jews, especially Ashkenazi Jews, contribute to these advancements much more tahn one would expect for their numbers.
How to destroy a civilized society in fifty years.
Yes, it is the white mans burden that created the situation due to ignorance of history. You can’t trust a man that has repeatedly lied.
Just more woke junk science from the APA and apparently published in an APA owned journal. So you can be assured it was properly peer reviewed, right? Right?!??
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-xge0001525.pdfit’s not a matter of fairness/unfairness; or, for that matter, “woke junk science”, the truth of the matter is that the strongest, smartest (male) animal with the sharpest teeth/claws will always improve the breed: just what the h*ll are we doing?
To anyone who doesn’t understand this principle, I recommend the first chapter of Frank (“Dune”) Herbert’s “The Dosadi Experiment.”
Anything can pass peer review if one is allowed to move the goalposts.
Too much of a “riskless” society has bred “fairness” since there is no perceived downside nor consequences for mistakes. Kindergarten games for adults. Responsibility and accountability are tossed.
More on that Feynman story:
His take was an independent assessment, included with the “official” report only after he threatened: “Include my dissenting take, or I’m off your committee, and I’ll report it independently.” Conveniently he was (in)famous enough that he’d get heard if he quit, and the committee of non entities would lose all their credibility.
The Challenger story figures large in one of Tufte’s books on presenting data visually, Visual Explanations, AIR. Here: https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
(Gorramit, stuff there I don’t have. There goes this week’s discretionary spending.)
I assume then that the APA believes that the most qualified psychologist should not be hired? Especially if they are being hired to diagnose or counsel say, a possibly violent individual.
Subotai Bahadur
Oh, good. They should go first, and hire the less effective for their needs, from their pool of mediocrities, one assumes.
APA — We’re never the best; that wouldn’t be fair.
Always look for what they left out in what they say.
“Unfair” to whom? Who did something unfair? Who says it’s “unfair.”
Find the people, especially the ones not named. Find the events, especially the ones not described. Find the specifics, not categories.
Some guy, just trying to get stuff done, who didn’t give anyone a bad break, has to burden himself with less impact than could get, because some other guy got a bad break, from somebody else, some other place and time, says people not otherwise part of the bad break, or the correction.
This isn’t spreading around good luck, it’s spreading around bad, by people not otherwise involved, who demonstrably have no interest in getting stuff done. Yeah, that’ll work.
In the really, real world, you don’t fix what happened, you give em another shot.
Strategies for making things “fair” look very different if you allow for sometimes imperfect action, impure motives, and incomplete information — if we are as good gods, we wouldn’t have “unfairness” to begin with.(*)
When we don’t know everything, can’t control all, and are sometimes just jerks, the solution to bad breaks is make any one break have less impact. Maybe, one score on one test, one time maybe shouldn’t possibility=band the whole rest of life’s entire trajectory.
(*) Evil gods, “unfairness” isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. For the Chaotics, just stirring stuff up is reward in itself.
It seems that they weren’t even trying to measure fairness (because how could they do that?); the object was to measure people’s feelings about fairness. What do various people feel is fair? So your question doesn’t apply. All they measured was whether people considered a particular hiring process to be fair or unfair.
More to the point, the crux of their argument was to conflate equality with fairness: if results are unequal, they are unfair. This is the philosophy of communism.
If Johnny beats Jimmy in a footrace, Johnny gets a ribbon. This is unequal. Is it unfair? No, unfair is giving them both the same ribbon. These clods simply can no longer see that.
Exactly so.
So that stuff they weren’t even trying for … maybe they shoulda been. Might work out better.
We once believed in equal opportunity but it seems to have changed to equal outcome. One is possible and one is impossible. Ask any pro sports coach about merit or when you need open heart surgery look at the diploma of your doctor. Ask the captain of your next flight what his/her background is. United is now bragging about the diversity of their flight crews. I think it’s going to hurt them in the long run. I have noticed that many corporations have dropped college degrees in hiring which makes sense when you see what kids are learning in colleges today. Fair or not merit is the only gauge we can depend on.
Even if we could get to “equal outcome” the country would suffer because outcome would most certainly be measured by averages stratified by race.
If you equalize averages across races of vastly different population percentages then more individuals of the majority are below the average than of other races and this will hinder a nation’s prosperity. There’s really no way around it since there is no mythical way to bring up one without reducing the other. Education has shown us this over the years as the benchmarks were constantly reduced to promote equality of outcome. Generations are just not as well-equipped to think, act, or adapt and the reverse Flynn effect has been manifesting, even in the insular environment of standardized IQ tests.
“Fairness heuristic theory”
Translation: Some BS that means what we want it to.
In education, yes, because the point isn’t to choose the candidates most qualified now, but those who could best benefit from the education to become qualified at the end of it.
But this article isn’t about education, it’s about hiring, where the object is to hire the best and most productive person, i.e. the most qualified (not in terms of credentials but of actual ability to do the job). So if someone isn’t good at what he wants to be hired for, the fact that it’s not his fault is irrelevant. Maybe this person would have made a brilliant doctor if only he’d had the opportunity to go to medical school, but he didn’t, so I don’t want him doctoring me. It may not be fair that he isn’t a good doctor, but it’s completely fair not to hire him as one.
Yes, or put another way, it is unfair to that person’s patients if they are disparately trusted with their care beyond their competency and current capability.
using “they” for the doctor of unspecified gender not the patients…sorry that it’s confusing
Note that psychological studies, by their very nature, can’t measure fairness, so they don’t even try. This study is not of fairness, which can’t be studied, but of perceptions of fairness, which can.
The result, if genuine, shows that people’s perceptions of fairness can be manipulated, to the point where they call a fair hiring process unfair. OK, perhaps that’s true. I haven’t examined the study for flaws, but that’s what it purports to have found.
A psychologist wishing to defend the study would say, “What is ‘fair’, if not a perception that people have? If people feel that something is unfair, then it is unfair.” I understand why they would say that, but I disagree. I think fairness exists objectively, and people’s perceptions of it are all flawed; it’s an ideal we reach for but approach asymptotically.
Ironically, this is the same specialty that claims to have proven that humans (along with many animals) have an innate (congenital) sense of what is and is not “fair,” and demonstrated pre-verbal infants exhibiting it. And the behavior exhibited is not consonant with the definition of fairness in this paper.
Is this the same AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION that has done so much in recent years to:
— eradicate school shootings
— reduce gang formation
— reduce gang violence
— eliminate child molestation
— improve addiction outcomes
— reduce homelessness
I thought so.
I remain unsure of what “most qualified” means. The term seems subjective to me. Some of us may start life a few rungs higher on the success ladder but all who are diligent and apply their skills will succeed. Eventually the cream always rises to the top and ultimately results in objective fairness.
You kind of answered your question yourself. The people who rose to the top are the most qualified. The people who are still a few rings down the ladder are less qualified. They may be qualified for the job later, but not now. They can fill a different position until they’re ready for the one they want.
DeSantis is an example of this. He may eventually be presidential material, but is not now.
Trump used all his influence, which is considerable and widespread, to squash him. OK that’s how it goes, now we have to go with Trump for better or worse this time round. I don’t blame DeSantis for that and think he would be a great president and more reliable than Trump, whose first term was a very mixed bag.
This nonsense will not stop until a prominent Democratic Legislator dies on an operating table after getting surgery from an affirmative action hire not the best surgeon for the job.
Nothing happens until those that make the laws finally suffer the consequences of them.
Is this the same AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION that has contributed so much high-quality research and therefore so much new knowledge :
– is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity really a psychological disorder?
– What treatments help?
– For what aspects of the condition?
– Do meds help more than psychological interventions?
– Do psychological interventions help more than meds?
– And what are the long term psychological effects of receiving a diagnosis in childhood of ADHD?
Thanks so much AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.
Curious: Is this the same AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION that is trying to understand why there’s been so much silence from Women’s Rights Organizations after October 7?
Is this the same AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION that is trying to understand the psychology of those who express more concern about the dirt of Gaza than for the religiously-approved raping of captured Israeli Jews and Christians?
Is this the same AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY ASSOCIATION that is doing so much to help us to understand the psychology of those who shut down bridges, close off access to Emergency Room facilities… because they and their brethren attacked and massacred unarmed peaceniks? and nearby villagers?
Just wondering — is this AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY ASSOCIATION interested in the psychology of those in America who proclaimed for all to hear their joy/exhilaration re: October 7?
Is the AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION interested in how fair it was to be massacred on October 7 or on any other date?
One teenaged girl was recorded via GoPro telling her murderer, “Look, I have SCHOOL tomorrow,” but he shot her dead anyway.
Unfair? Fair?
Thanks AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.
Thanks so much for all you do.
Just wondering: Is this the same AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION that has so carefully evaluated what if any the psychological effects are on the normal psychological development of a child’s psychology?
The AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION is an association— yes? — dedicated to Americans’ psychology — yes?
I mean, it’s in their name, right?
So, they must be carefully evaluating vaccinations and their impact, if any, on the psychological health of American children, right?
Seems a pretty important question, no?
Ohhhh, they’re not……… Ohhhh, so the AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION is not interested in possible psychological impact of childhood vaccinations
Oh.
OK
Well, I suppose that that’s fair.
I mean, they’re busy. They must have a lot of more important things to study. Fair enough.
We as Americans really ought to express our sincere gratitude for the good people at AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.
For all that they do.
For all that they do for all of us.
It would only be fair.
If you could ask the flies, they’d likely claim it feels so unfair to be subject to the constant possibility of being snared and eaten by spiders.
If you could ask the spiders, they’d likely claim it feels so unfair to be subject to the need to spend time and effort spinning webs to catch only so many flies.
The writer of the article is confused about what inequality means.
More to the point, whether inequality is of necessity evil.
Inequality is like violence — a morally neutral term. The morally-laden terms are aggression and self-defense: both violence, both often committed with exactly the same tools, but of opposite moralities. Without inequality, energy would not flow and engines would not run. Inequality makes superior establishments profitable and inferior ones failures.
I gotcher inequality right here: “May the best man win.”
I have been saying the same thing for the last 2 years. I plan to call the APA as a witness in my lawsuit against the New York Yankees for not giving me a $15 MM contract and making me a starting pitcher.
I’ve been saying the same thing for much longer.
There must be others as well. Whom those Steinbrenners have treated unfairly
Let’s make it a class action suit, make them pay up real money, and re-inject fairness into the identification of truly most qualified MLB players.
We really should have thought of this sooner.
A large percentage of my effort is directed as giving my children a competitive advantage over others in their group. I guess it’s unfair people have parents that don’t love and sacrifice for them.
Parent Privilege
Sad to say I think I’ve actually seen the term used.
I’d look it up on the www, but I’m reluctant to have my worst fears confirmed.
It’s a thing. We hear about it a lot in education.
In biology class, I hope.
Because it’s a 100% natural process that applies to all life.
When it gets to the point of “educators” trying to reduce parental privilege by screwing up the children who are fortunate in their parents, it’s time to slap down those educators hard. How dare they misuse tax money that way? A few criminal charges based on it would be salutary for the whole system, because they’re going to keep doing it until they’re scared to do it.
“REMEMBER NORMAL”
— Chris Plante
Okay, so say you’re completely staffed with woke, ‘minority’ employees who got their jobs through AA……how do you know who gets the promotion?
The same way royal families did it.
And soon your company too can be governed by disease-ridden, inbred simpletons.
Note to FBI: I wrote this in reference to European royalty. Other implications did not occur to me until after I posted it. And alas, there is no edit button, so I must be held blameless.
Life is unfair. Deal with it, get back to work.
Leading questions being narrowly tailored to illicit generalized responses that can be manipulated to imply whatever the funding sources deem their clients want to hear.
This may not be science but it’s sure a skill that requires people who know what they’re doing and therefore surely not written by any socio-economic diversity hire.
DEI/CRT is such a fraud. Massive legal liability for employers.
What qualification do psychologists have to push for more fairness? Is a psychologist’s opinion about fairness any more informed than a ditch digger or a physicist’s or a murderer’s opinion? Why is this spouting of pure personal opinion accorded article status in a psychology journal?
What value is there in current psychology research? Is it all this random and worthless?
Good point.
The AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION never has to defend its policies it’s spending priorities it’s research priorities nor its very existence
To anyone
Ever
Same goes for virtually every other professional organization
Same goes for virtually every school — from pre-K through grad school.
The APA could be filled with highly disturbed pedophiles — how would we know?
Harvard could be filled with Qatar-funded extremists — how would we know?
Wouldn’t it be nice if these people had to defend themselves in public once in a while
¿So fairness is now to be judged by what people think after hearing one side of the story? How about seeing what they think after pointing out the harms of affirmative action versus the much better outcomes that would result from simple amelioratives like letting all parent’s choose what school to send their children to.
Given choice, no black parents would send their kids to schools where they get beat up every day for “acting white” if they actually try to do their schoolwork. Get rid of that and you could actually do some good.
Affirmative action on the other hand attaches negative information to race that would not otherwise exist. In a pure meritocracy where everyone was admitted, hired, promoted, strictly on their ability to do the job, expectations of people’s ability to do their job would be based entirely on their position. Race would communicate no additional information because everybody who attains a particular level has to clear the same bar to get to that level.
Lower the bar for one race and immediately everyone has a rational expectation that members of that race will be less qualified for their jobs than other people in their same positions, and the magnitude of this negative information will correspond directly to the amount that the bar is lowered for that one race.
Instead of moving towards Martin Luther King’s dream of a day when people are judged by their individual character/merit, we make judgment by skin color permanent.
Maybe also making sure the fairness raters have a little historical information: that we already fought a Civil War over this issue, with Democrats on the side of judging people by race, and they lost, with the result that the principle of judging people as individuals was added to our constitution in the form of the equal protection clause, which until recently that was almost universally considered a good thing.
So what is “fair,” dear psychological test respondents: should we try to reverse the Democrats loss in the Civil War by making judgment according to skin color permanent, or is it better to end the public monopoly on education so that all parents of all races can choose decent educations for their children?
Cool. Then the APA officials will all step down from their positions and hand them over to someone who is not qualified.
Good to know, but based on what they’ve been saying for years (decades?) I’d assumed that had happened long ago.
I’m no genius, but the whole thing is sketchy from the get-go. What they deem as “experiments” are observational studies. Most real scientists would probably assign a MOE of +/- 50%. There are no controls over the participants, no double-blind/control groups. You might as well go to Mall of America and ask the first 500 people what they think and the academic rigor is about the same. I’m not sure if these people are that simple, or possibly brain damaged.