Are Human Beings Getting More Stupid As Time Goes By?

originally posted by: MysterX
Whilst standing in a queue waiting to be served at this McDonalds, my Wife and I happened to overhear the exchange between a middle aged Man, who was being served by a young Woman.

The Man asked the Woman; "How much are the 99c cones"....(!) The Woman appeared confused momentarily, then replied quite casually that "the 99c cones were in fact, unsurprisingly...99 cents!" The Man replied; "Oh really? Well in that case, i'll take one"...true story.

I still remember that all this time later...the Man was well dressed, appeared to be relatively affluent and one would have thought, from his appearence alone, he would have been intelligent enough to know that 99 cents actually meant 99 cents.

Guy fancies an ice cream. Has a buck in his pocket. Ice cream arrives, 99c plus tax. Can't pay. Who feels foolish? The assumption was made by the OP that he was affluent, or that it was convenient to pull out a debit card for, say, $1.12, or even had his wallet in his pocket.

Do you know that Subway was sued because its 'foot-long' and '6-inch' subs were typically smaller than that? So if you were to walk into a Subway and ask how long a 'foot-long' sandwich is...that would be legit.

It's not always a stupid question, equivalent to "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" It's all about perspective, and you know what they say about the word 'assume', right?

originally posted by: paraphi
No.

People may act in an unintelligent way, but no evidence that people are less intelligent than (say) a decade, fifty or 100 years ago? In fact, the production of scientific papers and the continued invention of marvels demonstrates to me that there are some very, very smart people around.

Intelligence has no bearing on whether people act intelligent or unintelligent in anything but the most specific scenario's if you ask me. A person can show a tremendous intelligence when it comes to complicated math, instantly raising the judgement within people that such a person is capable of processing any sort of thought or reasoning thereof in a sane, correct or rational way but if you ask me that is patently false.

A person can be very intellectual when it comes to math but a utter failure when it comes to learning another language.
In my experience most people's intelligence is quite specific and focused in a certain way. Either way has its pro's and con's in that department. What really makes the difference is what we do with that intelligence and this is where in my in my opinion 'Wisdom' comes into play. Which is our experience and knowledge which is interpreted by our individual intellects and that in turn is submissive and limited by what we are exposed to experiencing (or the lack off). And i think therein lies the key and we come full circle about the statement that is depends on what we do with our (often limited) intellect.

Now what is left it to examine what we are exposed to. This is not really possible to be discussed in general on a individual level but if we limit ourselves to just the population in the U.S then imo it becomes frighteningly clear. At least it does for me.

It would take a entire thread of its own to cover my thoughts on that but lets touch upon it and use current day music for instance. I will just keep this as short as i can here and right of the bat say that it has dropped below the level of 3e graders understanding.

Here is what i think is a very good look at it.
seatsmart.com...

I will quote just the first paragraph and leave the rest to anyone's choosing to view the rest or not:

Popular music lyrics are dumb. No really, I’m not just saying that. As easy as it is to mock the quality of lyrics today, there’s some real science behind looking at how dumb they truly are.

Now just have a look around at other things like Movies, TV and (dare i call them) News channels etc. Although i myself find that with movies there are still a lot of distinct options between the obviously straight up dumb content and deep content but with that i would say all we need to do is to look at the side of that spectrum is consumed the most, in my opinion it is the dumb content mostly but that just my opinion. Also lets not forget modern education and all the indoctrinating mind numbing content that is being pushed through in that (im looking at common core here) But i digress.

This is also a very good rant about the subject, i actually pasted a time stamp from within that video to immediately demonstrate the level of most of the music we today are exposed to and growing up around, even those that try to stay away from it.

youtu.be...

imo as a consequence of it all people are less wise, less informed and on top of that more ill informed and less motivated to critically think and asses certain things rendering their intelligence rather useless in most other departments outside of their comfort zone and what their specific IQ is really good at.


But that is just my thoughts on it and i am just rambling and this post turned out way longer then i intended so i will just leave it at this

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

"It's not always a stupid question, equivalent to "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" It's all about perspective, and you know what they say about the word 'assume', right?"

A reply to your above quote......


Great post and the exact same view I portrayed. Perspective is the Key word here.

I feel like you are trying to sound smarter when you type out the paragraphs than you really are. It's coming across as a regular Joe, attempting to story tell with some sort of British undertone. I can't help but hear Stevie Griffin's voice when I read your post. Except, it's not very eloquent or articulated very well. It's choppy. Why are you speaking as if your speaking in third person telling a novel? Are you trying to impress someone? I'm just really confused to the intention of your post.

a reply to: MysterX

I keep such simple people amused with my running gag about my hostages.
I think the Cellphone is to blame.

This poor bastard got a ticket today for warming up his car in the driveway.

Story: www.foxnews.com...

To answer the O.P: YES.. stupidity is on da rise.

Look at all the mainstream, IQ-deadening GARBAGE people keep forcing their brains to consume, and you tell me...

What is sometimes lacking in people is a proper training of the mind by the correct usage of it. Imagine a gymnastic athlete performing at the peak of her ability (better yet, I'll include a video), she first needs a proper trainer that correctly teaches her to do specific tasks with her body, then she starts training her muscles as well as doing the same routines over and over in order to better adjust her mind and body to the tasks she wants to accomplish. It works the same way with the brain (and the mind, your thinking abilities). Repetition and lots of proper usage is the key (something bad happens when you use it improperly, ask any sports athletes with bad habits in their style or technique learned early on that are difficult to unlearn because they're used to it now).

Hebrews 5:14

14 But solid food belongs to mature people, to those who through use have their powers of discernment* trained to distinguish both right and wrong.

*: Or “their perceptive powers.”

“The Shrewd One Considers His Steps” (Proverbs 14:15)