do you ever feel bad calling others "stupid" or "idiots" ?

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Not knowing what causes Autism is ignorance.

Claiming that Autism is caused by vaccines, anoxia, mercury, 'refrigerator' mothers, vitamin deficiencies, gluten, Neanderthal DNA, space-alien DNA, genetically-modified foods, et al, without any empirical evidence to back up the claim is stupidity.

Many people I come across (particularly at work) are idiots. Usually, I don't call those people idiots directly. I simply think it. Why? There usually is no benefit telling someone that they are stupid.

It's hard for me to feel bad when the majority of people in the world act stupid and idiotic when they should be intelligent enough not to. I mean, I don't feel bad as in "sorry I shouldn't have said that", but bad as in "people like that need to be obliterated".

I sometimes think there is an "idiot disease" pandemic that's been going on since the 90's, and whenever I do something I'm not proud of I think "Oh no, I must have caught it." Or when I get headaches for no obvious reason.

I sometimes feel bad using words like "idiot" or "moron" because I know they were once common medical terms for people who are mentally challenged. In fact that's why they stopped using them, because of all the stigma. I mean that I feel bad for people who can't help being mentally like a small child and had to be labeled such things, if you know what I mean.

I used to call people stupid an awful lot, in my head, and I didn't like myself much for it. I did it because I kept getting a strong feeling of surprise when they didn't seem to grasp the "obvious." Once I've got used to an idea or discovered a fact, for some reason it's not long before I see it as dead easy, as something that only an idiot wouldn't know.

My job as a lab technician was probably quite complicated, but I always saw it as being little more than a skivvy's job with a bit of scientific window-dressing, and the only hard thing I felt there was about it was working out how to work quickly enough to finish by the end of the working day. That always was hard for me, and I'd used a lot of ingenuity to gradually make it quicker, so I felt it was no disgrace if others couldn't match my speed for a while. So I would have been surprised if another person had any trouble with my job apart from the pace. I had a job drying herbs once, and I felt my results were pretty mediocre (the colour tended to be a little faded and the aroma was weaker after the drying process), until I saw examples of herbs that other firms had dried. I just couldn't understand how they'd managed to get such a lousy result.

I think I was so used to (and unaware of) being extremely thorough and perfectionist that I tended to think anybody who delivered "90% of the result for 10% of the effort" as being too thick and lazy to go that final mile for a first class result.

I think mind-blindness comes into it. Just like with interests - if I'm fascinated by a thing, it feels as if nobody in their right mind could fail to see the attraction, that most other people are silly to be so interested in boring things when they should be interested in interesting things.

I've mellowed a lot, and I can now see there's a bigger picture than just the one task, and that what seems to me a blindingly obvious fact that should have been learned in kindergarten can be completely new to a person with a different history, and that it's no reflection on their capabilities if nobody's told them about it yet. I also appreciate that I may be uncommonly able in some ways, so the argument "I can do it, I'm not particularly smart, so if you can't, you must be rather stupid" no longer makes much sense. It's ironic that low self-esteem led me to look down on others via that argument, and that seeing myself as "smarter-than-the-average-bear" (which might be thought arrogant) improved my respect for the abilities of others.

I also used to play God a lot, seeing the futility of war and all. Couldn't see why the masses were so tunnel-visioned. I was on Captain Nemo's side. The reason, I guess, was that I wasn't under attack myself. When you're attacked, you realise that you're not God, you climb out of your ivory tower, you stop envisaging perfect societies and you fight back.

Would it make someone stupid if they didn't want to learn how to fix cars or know any facts about them and details? To me it just means they are not interested in it and it has nothing to do with intelligence.

I believe the word is willful ignorance when someone isn't willing to learn. I believe ignorance is a choice because we can all learn something but we choose not to so therefore we are making that choice to be ignorant. Like I choose to be ignorant about cars and how to fix them. I will say the only time it's not a choice is if someone is really incapable of learning like if I have tried to figure out how to fix a car and learn but couldn't grasp it, then it's not a choice.

I've met a few highly educated idiots

Just because someone's slow to figure things out doesn't mean they should be looked down on. Better that than malicious or just plain anti-intellectual.

mind viruses. memetics

do you ever feel bad calling others "stupid" or "idiots" ?

NO

Why?
because I have enough discernment, life experience, and intelligence to know stupidity when I see it, which is on a daily basis, in the Idiocracy within which I must live.

as have I

we ought not to confuse the quantity of one's knowledge with their ability to properly apply it.

I don't use those words. I talk nicely because I have kids. I use phrases like "not very smart", "inexperienced", "cognitively impaired", "OK". I wish I can just say what I think of people sometimes, but most of the time it's not their fault that they're not bright.

I don't usually call people "stupid" to their face. But, I will comment on another person doing something stupid, to myself if I am alone, and outloud to others if I am not.

I don't feel bad about calling stupid stupid. I think it's important to identify things as they are. I do try not to assess "stupid" as a character trait. I try to associate it with specific decisions/actions.

When someone knows the facts and disregards them in favor of doing something dangerous, I believe that is stupid and will say so. Not knowing the facts makes one ignorant, not stupid.

Walking into oncoming traffic is stupid. I assume that most people I have to dodge driving in the city are able-minded adults who have learned that it is best to look both ways before crossing the street. I'm not going to try to understand why they might think it appropriate to randomly cross the street.

There are a lot more examples like this, based on common sense that most teens and adults should know.

I also chide myself many times saying, "that was stupid", when I have done something stupid. Many times, it was because I was mindless and in a stupor when doing it, not paying attention. That leads to many stupid actions, by definition.

Call me judgmental.

The most arrogant, unpleasant people I have known took great pride in calling people "stupid" or "idiots" or "morons" or "imbeciles" and since I try not to follow their example, I don't use that terminology.

These are also highly emotive and subjective judgments. I find it dubious that they reflect anyone or anything "as they truly are." There are certainly much better ways to approach this sort of thing than insulting another's intelligence.

As a wise but often called stupid man once told me, everyone is an idiot or a god damn genius depending on how you measure it. Me for instance, I might as well be an idiot when it comes to math or posting threads that will obvious offend everyone. But I am pretty smart when it comes to playing music and pwning noobs in Runescape.

Ima genius dont let any1 tel u otherwis

"Being a genius is not about being smarter than anyone else; it's about making fewer mistakes than everyone else." -- Me

I try not to call people names, like "stupid" or "idiot" if I can, especially if I am teaching them. (There are instances when I may think it though.) Teachers need to be refined in their behaviors towards students at all times. But, there are times when this is appropriate at a colleague level. However, I usually use the word "dumb" instead of the above words. No, I do not feel bad saying those things if the person was genuinely less than intelligent in their behavior.