A trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak.
Barracks and military training are known for being incredibly effective environments for the flu to spread. Having a big chunk of your military get sick at once is a very real problem.
Intelligence certainly enters into the equation here, it just isn’t that simple. For example, a lot of people have trouble differentiating between the effects of intelligence and the effects of education. Even people of moderate (or low) intelligence, when well informed through proper education, can make highly rational and logical decision decisions. But it requires that the calculus of other influences be balanced correctly so they can make those well informed decisions. A person’s level of intelligence is simply another weight on that scale.
But, yes, peer pressure, social influence, and, of course, the dastardly Internet, all have highly powerful and complex influences as well.
That’s why anyone looking for any one, single solution will always fail. The fix for this sort of problem (as with any systemic problem) is not just one fix – it’s lots of different fixes that have to work together in aggregate over a period of time. Just like how it all got fucked up in the first place. No one thing did that, and no one thing is going to undo that.