Absolutely. Which is why things like control questions and the framing of the question is so important. There's a big difference, for example, in asking a multiple choice question above, and asking "do you agree with the statement that the Earth is flat?"
The dumbing down of America
- Thread starter billvon
- Start date
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
Oregon?? Do you have a link to that? We lived in Corvallis for six years and it seemed like about the last place on Earth that would eliminate STEM subjects in schools. Ditto Eugene. Ditto the whole Willamette, damnit.
Wizard of Whatever
Registered Senior Member
See post #36.
Ken Fabian
Registered Senior Member
Once upon a time, not all that long, long ago, education for all was deemed a self evident public good, worthwhile even if only so more people could read bibles or become more productive workers. Or just people generally for the sake of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There may even have been wokish illusions that societies were capable of progressive improvement that would reduce or eliminate poverty and unnecessary human suffering and that it was worth setting aside some of the wealth and personal power of the wealthy and powerful in the shorter term - a smaller slice of the pie - in the expectation of making a bigger pie.
Not our responsibility to fix anything, don't want to, don't want governments that will make us. We have increasingly sharp and effective tools for commanding the mob's attention, influencing and dividing public opinion as well as tried and tested ways to induce media and politician and legislator support.
Pie seems plenty big enough now - possibly passing peak pie - time to stop contributing to any 'greater good' and treat it as a zero sum (or negative sum) game?
Not our responsibility to fix anything, don't want to, don't want governments that will make us. We have increasingly sharp and effective tools for commanding the mob's attention, influencing and dividing public opinion as well as tried and tested ways to induce media and politician and legislator support.
Pie seems plenty big enough now - possibly passing peak pie - time to stop contributing to any 'greater good' and treat it as a zero sum (or negative sum) game?
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
I have watched flurfers debate. They are like creationists, the roll out the exact same arguments without any thought to them. At least creationists throw out science because of Jesus, why do flurfers do what they do?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
…though if it happened to Trump or JD Vance it would be hard to suppress a snigger…
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
I laughed at your MRI story.
I would have said its mainly internet that is augmenting the illusion people are getting more stupid, and that there are a lot more stupid people around.
The average IQ of the UK was 100 when I first looked into this in the 1980s, its still just about 100 today.
However, according to this in the US, following a general increase over the 20th C there is now a small decline
https://thehill.com/policy/technolo...-in-the-last-century-now-they-may-be-falling/
I appreciate the nitpicking, and had I linked the actual Yougov poll result, the exact wording would allay your concerns as to which group you would be in...
The exact wording of the options were:
- I have always believed the world is round
- I always thought the world is round, but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts
- I always thought the world is flat, but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts
- I have always believed the world is flat
- Other/Not sure
It was also a survey of adults. Sooo, unless you currently have doubts, you would put "always believed..." - i.e. it's ignoring such childhood beliefs. I agree that it's not the bestly worded poll out there, and of course, failure to understand the poll due to such wording might also speak to the "dumbing down of America"!
Poll: https://today.yougov.com/topics/soc...ily/2018/02/06/7e107/3?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Another weakness, I guess, is that it was only 8,215 adults surveyed. But, still, that's c.1,300 of them that are not able to say that they haven't recently been in doubt that the world is round. And c.160 of them that say they have "always" thought it flat.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
Technology has always magnified stupidity and created more Darwin moments. Think of the horse v the automobile - the horse had its own brain and sense of self-preservation, so even if you tried a stupid move with a carriage, the motive force would balk. Much easier to drive a car off a cliff than a horse. Or the factory loom v the spinning wheel. The loom can yank your arm off if you put it in the wrong place, the spinning wheel would just give you a rap on the knuckles. Tech has always been this double-edged sword that lulls us into thinking we're safe while at the same time eroding our survival skills. A man in a tent knows a bear could eat him and takes precautions; a man in a house feels safe and ignores the furnace leaking CO. So then technology finds a way to warn of CO buildup, and the man is distanced even more from his support infrastructure and pays even less attention. Alertness and common sense grow less and less important in the cognitive toolkit. Critical thinking skills get harder to teach.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
... and now I see your linked article made a similar point to my previous post.
From the article...
Researchers across the globe have been tracking an apparent decline in human IQs, starting around the turn of the millennium. Theories abound as to why scores are dropping, but the smart money says our cognitive skills may have plateaued, teetering into an era of intellectual lethargy.
If you want to ascribe blame, look no further than this screen.
Cognitive researchers hypothesize that smartphones and smart speakers, autocomplete and artificial intelligence, Wi-Fi and runaway social media have conspired to supplant the higher functions of the human brain. In its quest for labor-saving tech, the world may be dumbing itself down.
(Me again: This could create some interesting inversions of Euro/US notions of where the smartest people are. It may soon be that they live in a lower tech village in Uganda or Papua.)
Ok, putting down my tablet....
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Just read an interview with András Schiff, the pianist. He makes a point of avoiding IT. He says the words he hates the most are "on-line", "download" and "password".
Hard to disagree, really. Especially "password".
My own attention span for reading is not what it was, thanks I think to years of answering emails at work. But at least I have managed to avoid the trap of social media, apart from this forum and the .net site.
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Who is Ted Nugent? The only Nugent I know is Adm. Burnell-Nugent (retd.) who came to dinner once, invited by my wife when she was working on piracy in the Indian Ocean.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Ted Nugent is a rock singer and released a track called "Cat scratch fever."
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Your wife must have been a cool lady.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
She was. At that time she was working for Shell’s shipping division - the tankers - and did a fair bit of work with the Royal Navy and the French navy on the piracy problem out of Somalia. The navies were keen to cooperate, as it gave them something useful to do in peacetime (as it was back then). Burnell-Nugent was a nice chap, ex submariner. He it was who arranged for us to be invited to dine on HMS Victory with the 2nd Sea Lord, in Nelson’s dining room, an experience I shall always treasure. You could have quite an interesting career in Shell.
Same reason any conspiracy theorist believes what they do. They feel a sense of superiority and belonging that comes from knowing the "inside scoop," unlike all the mindless sheep they consider themselves superior to.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Sure, but surely the criteria of a good conspiracy is that is can't be factually falsified.
I mean, we'll never be able to prove there's no Illuminati, so it's a great lightning rod for conspiracy talk. But a Flat Earth is demonstrably false. Even if they're pretending they're not convinced now, they have to know the truth will out.
Ah, but there's the rub.
If you live in your Mom's basement and spend all your time on Facebook, there's no demonstration that works. Scientists post pictures of Earth from space; flerfers post "proof" showing such pictures are false. They post pictures of the Moon landing; flerfers say it was all a hoax.
I'm a pilot, and I've literally flown around the world. (I wasn't flying for that trip.) And two friends of mine are astronauts. So it's pretty clear to me. But most people don't have experiences/friends like that. And if all their information really comes from a screen - they're going to believe whatever is on it.
The 'chemtrail' hoax is another one. Lots of people claim that a small contrail that spreads into a larger one, then becomes a big cloud, cannot possibly happen in nature. They have never seen a clear sky with one small cloud in it become cloudy and overcast, and so believe that such a thing is unnatural. And everything they see on Youtube (at least, the Youtubes that the algorithms steer them to) confirms that.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Yeah. My son's one-time buddy developed into a conspiracist. Almost 40 now. Not a country bumpkin, not isolated or uneducated. Lives in the city like us. Goes to the same schools.
Yet he thinks we've never been farther than LEO. Thinks all those pics of earth are stitched together.
My feeling is that he is less convicted about his conspiracies than he is just bored. There are no consequences to believing wild ideas.