I have no words other than thank you once again. I look forward to every post from you. Just knowing you are in the universe, writing, sharing yourself and mentally putting the ladder down for me to grasp is everything. Everything. Thank you.
Not to be contrary for contrariness’s sake… but is it your contention that the general run of humanity in the distant past were able to “could navigate vast distances, hunt megafauna, build cities with hand tools including vast cathedrals, and cross oceans without a single smartphone?”
It seems more likely the case that the barely-literate, functionally-innumerate masses have better access to media now, where in the past we were less aware of people who didn’t know shit and didn’t care. Like… I am fairly sure that the guys who BUILT Notre Dame couldn’t give you the Fibonacci sequence from memory or tell you how to design a catenary arch of arbitrary length, even if they could make one with precision.
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
Plot twist: we were always dumb as fuck. No matter what decade/century/millenium you choose, if you take a random sampling of people and hold them up to the scale of education, self-awareness and general understanding, they will form a bell curve and the median value will point directly at the words "dumb as fuck". Take this wisdom and do good with it. It can at least lower expectations enough we aren't driven mad with anger as our fellow flesh bag ape creatures act as dumb as they do.
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
I get your point. But it is not American culture, or Western Culture, or Capitalism that's making people stupid. A majority of humanity has always been ignorant and stupid. Hell, even smart people stand on the shoulders of Geniuses, for they may know how a mobile works, but they couldn't reproduce one in a hundred years.
The problem is that the stupid have come to realize they're ignorant and stupid. Which is what has fed their shame and inferiority complex, and has subsequently brought them out of the woodwork to vote for an individual equally ignorant and stupid.
There's one encounter that's imprinted in my mind. When Biden won the 2020 election, some MAGAot exclaimed to me: "Prove he didn't steal it!"
Then the following discussion ensued:
Me: "Okay. So I have to prove Biden didn't steal the election. But then you have to prove you're not a pedophile."
"Are you saying I'm a pedophile?"
"Yes," I said. "That's exactly what I'm saying. You're a pedophile."
"No, I'm not."
"Prove it."
"I never-"
"Never? Can you prove you never abused a child? Can you account for every second of every day of every year since you were born, what, fifty years ago? No. So, you're a pedophile."
"Ehh, yes. No. But... wait a minute. If you say I'm a pedophile, you have to prove I am. I don't have to prove I'm not."
"Really? But Biden has to prove he didn't steal the election? That what you're saying?"
"Yes! Because he stole the election!"
"Like I said - you're a pedophile. You're a child abuser, a disgusting piece of excrement."
"You cannot go around accusing people like that. That's-"
"Oh, but you can go around accusing Biden of stealing the Presidency?"
"Yes! Because he stole the election!"
It was at that point in time I gave up on the MAGAots, not so much because they can't even follow simple logic, but because of their total lack of introspection...
Those conversations are both the fun and the frustration of arguing with MAGAs on social media (*coughs* Facebook). A week ago, a MAGA proclaimed that Biden violated more rights and abused the power of the presidency than Trump has, starting with the election "steal", with no specifics as usual. I replied with a smart-ass comment about how Biden was too senile to cause any harm as President. Her brilliant response was I am sad, clueless, lost, fooled by the MSM, in need of Jesus (uh, hello? I've been a Christ-follower for 30 years), and just plain dumb. She never addressed the issues at hand, for it's easier to make personal attacks on somebody you don't know in order to rack up emojis.
Different. Ecuador works differently. It'd take another essay of twice the length to explain, but in short, the culture is much more inclined to mutual help and community involvement. This is a different sort of cognition, based on different axioms.
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
Just an old hippy here, but I know truth when I read it. I was not a great student but based on helping my grandkids with their home work, I was better educated. My only exception to your take on current education, I hope this is still true, are the Jesuits. Any Jesuit educated instructors I had demanded not only the correct answer but what your reasoning was behind that answer. Teaching the reasoning process is more important than memorizing answers. That it seems to me is the major problem with education today.
IMHO this piece, whilst rhetorically enjoyable, overlooked the absolute key to a deeper understanding of what we are witnessing. You are, I believe, focusing on symptoms not the underlying cause.
The overwhelming majority of people are no different from the way they have always been. What they know is either folk wisdom, which does have some empirical support, or the unquestioned beliefs of the community in which they were raised. Such beliefs are imbibed as is a mother's milk. Not only are such beliefs not subjected to meaningful scrutiny but such scrutiny of core social beliefs can be extremely dangerous
The episodes in human history where there has been some freedom to seriously question core social group beliefs have been few and far between. Overwhelmingly the most consequential was The Enlightenment. Following the emergency of science The Enlightenment declared all beliefs to be fair game to investigation and such investigation frequently concluded change was in order. Some such change was good, some resulted in a high price eg the Terror. Reason is powerful for good and ill.
The key point is that the whole of the modern world engaged from this period and the rise of Reason. The freedom to question opened up worlds. All science. All technology. And all their impacts in our lives. We live in a sea of post Enlightenment products.
But the fact that so much of the modern world is one dominated by post Enlightenment reason does not mean that most people begin to understand this mode of cognition. In fact the overwhelming majority of people on earth are still cognitively pre Enlightenment. And it is this pre rational mentality that you are witnessing and of which you do pithily speak.
IMHO this is a deep problem admitting no easy solution. We are two tribes across the planet with incredibly different cognitive styles. One clings to tribal beliefs, whatever the evidence for they have no commitment to facts and argument. The other is committed to facts and arguments.
This is no easy divide to bridge. IMHO it is the first problem of our age. And yet it is not properly understood.
"The overwhelming majority of people are no different from the way they have always been."
On what evidence do you make this assertion? The evidence is against it. One example:
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
The same in that the overwhelming majority of people have not integrated Enlightenment values. They are not deeply integrated with the ways of days and argument.
This has nothing to do with intelligence. (much more deeply correlated with curiosity.)
Why do Americans have to make generalisations about their own society and then think it is representative of the rest of humanity. You are unique. Those of us looking from afar are incredulous. +/- 30% American society voted twice for a narcisstic felon as President. +/-36% of American society decided not to vote and +/- 30% are living with the consquences. Please don't taint the rest of humanity with what is happening in America.
Why do people from other countries feel compelled to make generalizations about Americans?
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
I have no words other than thank you once again. I look forward to every post from you. Just knowing you are in the universe, writing, sharing yourself and mentally putting the ladder down for me to grasp is everything. Everything. Thank you.
Odi profanum vulgus
Horace had more talent and wisdom on his worst day than any of our modern pundits have in their entire lives.
Well put!!
thank you... I've been wondering about this ever since the Covid Pandemic. :(
Because it has gotten much worse, from my POV. :(
Not to be contrary for contrariness’s sake… but is it your contention that the general run of humanity in the distant past were able to “could navigate vast distances, hunt megafauna, build cities with hand tools including vast cathedrals, and cross oceans without a single smartphone?”
It seems more likely the case that the barely-literate, functionally-innumerate masses have better access to media now, where in the past we were less aware of people who didn’t know shit and didn’t care. Like… I am fairly sure that the guys who BUILT Notre Dame couldn’t give you the Fibonacci sequence from memory or tell you how to design a catenary arch of arbitrary length, even if they could make one with precision.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-heart/202303/are-americans-really-becoming-less-intelligent
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/research-confirms-it-really-are-getting-dumber.htm
Plot twist: we were always dumb as fuck. No matter what decade/century/millenium you choose, if you take a random sampling of people and hold them up to the scale of education, self-awareness and general understanding, they will form a bell curve and the median value will point directly at the words "dumb as fuck". Take this wisdom and do good with it. It can at least lower expectations enough we aren't driven mad with anger as our fellow flesh bag ape creatures act as dumb as they do.
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/research-confirms-it-really-are-getting-dumber.htm
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-heart/202303/are-americans-really-becoming-less-intelligent
I get your point. But it is not American culture, or Western Culture, or Capitalism that's making people stupid. A majority of humanity has always been ignorant and stupid. Hell, even smart people stand on the shoulders of Geniuses, for they may know how a mobile works, but they couldn't reproduce one in a hundred years.
The problem is that the stupid have come to realize they're ignorant and stupid. Which is what has fed their shame and inferiority complex, and has subsequently brought them out of the woodwork to vote for an individual equally ignorant and stupid.
There's one encounter that's imprinted in my mind. When Biden won the 2020 election, some MAGAot exclaimed to me: "Prove he didn't steal it!"
Then the following discussion ensued:
Me: "Okay. So I have to prove Biden didn't steal the election. But then you have to prove you're not a pedophile."
"Are you saying I'm a pedophile?"
"Yes," I said. "That's exactly what I'm saying. You're a pedophile."
"No, I'm not."
"Prove it."
"I never-"
"Never? Can you prove you never abused a child? Can you account for every second of every day of every year since you were born, what, fifty years ago? No. So, you're a pedophile."
"Ehh, yes. No. But... wait a minute. If you say I'm a pedophile, you have to prove I am. I don't have to prove I'm not."
"Really? But Biden has to prove he didn't steal the election? That what you're saying?"
"Yes! Because he stole the election!"
"Like I said - you're a pedophile. You're a child abuser, a disgusting piece of excrement."
"You cannot go around accusing people like that. That's-"
"Oh, but you can go around accusing Biden of stealing the Presidency?"
"Yes! Because he stole the election!"
It was at that point in time I gave up on the MAGAots, not so much because they can't even follow simple logic, but because of their total lack of introspection...
Those conversations are both the fun and the frustration of arguing with MAGAs on social media (*coughs* Facebook). A week ago, a MAGA proclaimed that Biden violated more rights and abused the power of the presidency than Trump has, starting with the election "steal", with no specifics as usual. I replied with a smart-ass comment about how Biden was too senile to cause any harm as President. Her brilliant response was I am sad, clueless, lost, fooled by the MSM, in need of Jesus (uh, hello? I've been a Christ-follower for 30 years), and just plain dumb. She never addressed the issues at hand, for it's easier to make personal attacks on somebody you don't know in order to rack up emojis.
Yeah, at least half the people in America, if not the West generally, appear to be irredeemably stupid. How are the numbers in Ecuador?
Different. Ecuador works differently. It'd take another essay of twice the length to explain, but in short, the culture is much more inclined to mutual help and community involvement. This is a different sort of cognition, based on different axioms.
But I like it here. A lot.
You mean… Americans.
Unfortunately, no.
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/research-confirms-it-really-are-getting-dumber.htm
Just an old hippy here, but I know truth when I read it. I was not a great student but based on helping my grandkids with their home work, I was better educated. My only exception to your take on current education, I hope this is still true, are the Jesuits. Any Jesuit educated instructors I had demanded not only the correct answer but what your reasoning was behind that answer. Teaching the reasoning process is more important than memorizing answers. That it seems to me is the major problem with education today.
Wow. Great writing. And spot on.
IMHO this piece, whilst rhetorically enjoyable, overlooked the absolute key to a deeper understanding of what we are witnessing. You are, I believe, focusing on symptoms not the underlying cause.
The overwhelming majority of people are no different from the way they have always been. What they know is either folk wisdom, which does have some empirical support, or the unquestioned beliefs of the community in which they were raised. Such beliefs are imbibed as is a mother's milk. Not only are such beliefs not subjected to meaningful scrutiny but such scrutiny of core social beliefs can be extremely dangerous
The episodes in human history where there has been some freedom to seriously question core social group beliefs have been few and far between. Overwhelmingly the most consequential was The Enlightenment. Following the emergency of science The Enlightenment declared all beliefs to be fair game to investigation and such investigation frequently concluded change was in order. Some such change was good, some resulted in a high price eg the Terror. Reason is powerful for good and ill.
The key point is that the whole of the modern world engaged from this period and the rise of Reason. The freedom to question opened up worlds. All science. All technology. And all their impacts in our lives. We live in a sea of post Enlightenment products.
But the fact that so much of the modern world is one dominated by post Enlightenment reason does not mean that most people begin to understand this mode of cognition. In fact the overwhelming majority of people on earth are still cognitively pre Enlightenment. And it is this pre rational mentality that you are witnessing and of which you do pithily speak.
IMHO this is a deep problem admitting no easy solution. We are two tribes across the planet with incredibly different cognitive styles. One clings to tribal beliefs, whatever the evidence for they have no commitment to facts and argument. The other is committed to facts and arguments.
This is no easy divide to bridge. IMHO it is the first problem of our age. And yet it is not properly understood.
(If interested see my piece 'Two Tribes')
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-heart/202303/are-americans-really-becoming-less-intelligent
"The overwhelming majority of people are no different from the way they have always been."
On what evidence do you make this assertion? The evidence is against it. One example:
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/research-confirms-it-really-are-getting-dumber.htm
The same in that the overwhelming majority of people have not integrated Enlightenment values. They are not deeply integrated with the ways of days and argument.
This has nothing to do with intelligence. (much more deeply correlated with curiosity.)
Okay it's like this: Some people aren't as smart as others.
Stupid people are going to do stupid things.
There is nothing you can do about it.
It's like saying the chickens are being too chickeny.
Why do Americans have to make generalisations about their own society and then think it is representative of the rest of humanity. You are unique. Those of us looking from afar are incredulous. +/- 30% American society voted twice for a narcisstic felon as President. +/-36% of American society decided not to vote and +/- 30% are living with the consquences. Please don't taint the rest of humanity with what is happening in America.
Why do people from other countries feel compelled to make generalizations about Americans?
IQ levels have been falling since 1975, reversing a century-long trend of rising intelligence quotients identified as the Flynn Effect.
Research indicates this decline in IQ scores is due to environmental factors rather than genetic changes, with trends observed in Norway, Britain, France and the Netherlands.
Potential causes for this decline include changes in education systems, nutrition, media consumption and technology use, with studies suggesting even the presence of a smartphone can impact cognitive capacity.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/research-confirms-it-really-are-getting-dumber.htm
I've read this three times. I can find no fault in it. That's very sad.
'Tis.
Fortune favors the Brave