Thursday, May 31, 2007

1 vs 100 rant

Not to reinforce a negative stereotype of American stupidity, but what I saw last night defies one to refute it. I watched ! vs 100 on Wednesday the 30th day of May 2007. One question that was put to the contestant was.

How many 6 packs of beer would it take to fill the wall in the old song 99 Bottles of Beer on theWall?
The multiple guess, I mean choice, options were.
  1. More than 15
  2. Exactly 15
  3. Less than 15
Now simple do in your head math reveals the answer to be 1, More than 15, since 15 times 6 = 90 which is less than 99, right? Apparently not, since the contestant had to ask the mob to help her out. Her reasoning for asking for help? She doesn't know anything about beer.

So they show her one mob member who chose more than 15, and he uses weird math to figure out his answer.

11 x 6 = 66, 5 x 6 =30 so 16 six packs = 93 bottles which is less than 99. [Yes, he added that to be 93 bottles]


The contestant chose that answer and was correct. Then they show how many members of the mob got it wrong. I can't recall the number, but it was more than 0. One member, a Maxim model, who got it wrong said, "I don't drink beer, it makes you bloated, i drink wine."

Talk about the dumbing down of America.