I too find your ignorance amusing.

I find history uninteresting and unnecessary to know for my fields of interest, especially other countries' history. and your inability to accept that someone just doesn't know something he doesn't think he needs to know is retarded.

Why does he need to know this random piece of education? I'll bet you don't even know when exactly the first version of Windows came out, or how many seeds there are on average on a bun. Calling someone uneducated just because he doesn't know something that you do is just stupid. I advise you to look up the xkcd comic titled "Ten Thousand".

just so you know I haven't heard of her or her death until I read this FML and googled her, and she didn't exactly make headlines worldwide. Honestly, for much of the world - who gives a ****? so yeah, go ahead and call it ignorance. I'd much rather be ignorant than waste my time (and apparently safety!) learning things that don't affect the way I live my life.

so did higgs boson back when it was found, yet still nearly no one knew about it. I don't care about politics, so I don't read about politics. Is that so bad? Also, I'm part of a military system, and I have heard NO-ONE mention this. Clearly nobody cares.

"I don't care about politics, so I don't read about politics. Is that so bad?" That all depends on how smart you want to be, sweetheart. If you have absolutely no desire to understand why the world functions as she does today, you'll be fine. Otherwise, there are some events, dates and names you should learn by heart. Watching the news regurlarly seems to help too.

Even arguing with staff...? Dude, we get your argument, and no, of course not knowing random facts means your ignorant. No-one is arguing that so stop trying to push it. What we ARE disagreeing on is that we don't believe that Margaret Thatcher is just a 'random fact' seeing as she completely changed the UK, had influence in other areas of the world with similar politics and even is a sore point in Africa due to her views on apartheid and Mandela. She's pretty far reaching, man.

#56 My thoughts exactly.

I really wish you could thumb up staff comments...

I kind of agree with neatnit... I mean I'm American. Do you know every thing about the political history of America, if you are not living in America? It's highly unlikely the average citizen in another country knows a detailed account of the political history of another country. Some people do study such things, but the average person does not know those types of things about other countries. Some people also avoid news shows for different reasons. Maybe they don't have time to watch the news. Maybe they find news to be mostly biased bullshit instead of pure facts. Anyways just because something is on the news repeatedly does not mean that everyone knows it.

You don't seem to understand what ignorance is. Ignorance often means to simply not know our understand something. For example, if I didn't know that atoms are made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons I'd be ignorant on the subject of atomic structure, even of I knew everything there was to know about everything else in the world. Having said that, yes, it is extremely disappointing 17 and others (read my comment below) don't know who Margaret Thatcher is. She was the first (and so far the last) female prime minister of England, which is an impressive accomplishment in itself. She's also a historical icon who influenced not just her own nation, but the whole world. I don't expect everyone to know everything about her. I admit even I don't know many details about her legacy. But to have no idea what people are talking about when she is mentioned is like not knowing who Susan B. Anthony or Queen Elizabeth I of England is.

*or. Damn you, Swype.

There is nothing wrong with not knowing. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody expects you to know everything. However, if you go around justifying not knowing because there isn't a need to for it doesn't affect you, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your education. Education hasn't made you less myopic though it certainly should - saying that you don't know the things which don't affect you is a very childish and immature thing to say. I'll gladly acknowledge that I don't know much about the history of an African country. But does that mean I'll go around parading the fact that I don't need to because it doesn't affect my life? No - in fact, I'll HUMBLE (and I think that's the keyword here) myself and learn more about it. Because life isn't always about ME and ME only.

Ignorance is part of being a living thing that is not omniscient. It's impossible to know everything as there is too much that people do not realize that they do not know. Plus there is some information that is just irrelevant to most people's lives. Does a engineer need to to have an in depth knowledge of the theories of psychology and how they apply to therapy? Does a sociologist need to have a huge amount of knowledge on medical illnesses? Does the average person need to know how much food a hummingbird eats in a day? The gaps in our knowledge are partly necessary. Mind might be limitless in their capacity to hold information, but it would take more than one lifetime to learn and retain all this information. Ignorance is universal.

"It's highly unlikely the average citizen in another country knows a detailed account of the political history of another country." Sure, but I don't think Thatcher was a political detail. She was in my school books and, although I've forgotten a lot, I still now some basics about her. Not knowing that she even existed sounds so damn ignorant to me. Then again, there are still plenty of people who don't know a thing about Mao or Stalin...

@68, a small but important point here... she was pm of the uk, not just England, and had she acted as such there may not be quite as long a queue to dance on her grave.

1985-ish?

Fascinating

primeminister not president

It's called internalized misogyny.

I completely agree that you shouldn't celebrate a person's death but, to quote a friend, "It is quite frankly ridiculous to believe she isn't relevant. It's her legacy the Tories follow, she's a HUGE part of the reason Britain is the way it is today. She was awful, but to deny that she was extremely influential and affecting shows a complete lack of understanding of modern politics."

So because you get an awful disease, your mistakes in the past doesn't matter anymore? Anyway, I don't know enough about Thatcher to form an opinion about her (political carreer), but I was disgusted by all the dancing and celebrating people I saw on the news.

#26 I see your point, to be honest, I would not go singing "Ding Dong, the witch is dead" either. But you have to understand that she was extremely unpopular due to her politics and support to several mass murderer dictators. She was taking from the poorest to give to the richest. In one word, she was the equivalent of Bush but with brains. There was a huge amount of resentment against her and loads of people suffered from her policies.

I'm assuming you arn't from the UK?