One of the all time greats of the German internet is a page that advocates for stupid people to wear a sign, so they can be identified easily.
There are no stupid people of course — just normal people acting stupidly. I therefore suggest a more short-term and timely way to mark someone who recently behaved in a stupid way: the stupidity badge. You earn it by doing something stupid, you can remove it if you do something smart.
Here are some actions for which you earn a stupidity badge:
- Talking before thinking (e.g. asking about the obvious)
- Lying
- Not listening
- Believing anything will go according to plan
- Spending (public) money mindlessly
- Thinking you know all about some topic
- Behaving in an anti-intellectual or anti-scientific way
- Not changing your mind when it would be necessary
- Failing to ascend/descend a public train in an ordered manner (commuters can sympathize)
- Driving aggressively
- Smoking
Today, I earned my stupidity badge for attributing malice to a politician where I could have adequately explained his behaviour with stupidity.