Hope this is in the right place - I don't want to irritate any mods while I'm still so new...

Trawling the boards here at ATS, along with other research elsewhere, has lead me to an inescapable conclusion: as a species, we're regressing.

For the first time in centuries, the educated are no longer the elite. Indeed, how often have seen the intelligent people discriminated against? The geek doesn't get the girl, the troglodyte does. The popular press isn't interested in Hawking or Dawkins, but in Beckham or Britney. Even the scientific method itself is under assault from the credible fools - it seems as if you can't turn around without someone denying the existence of evolution, or making ludicrous and indefensible claims about everything from MMR vaccines to the Atkins diet.

So my question is this: is this change occuring spontaneously, a natural social and cultural development which will cripple our development for a short time and then be lost to the pages of history like Victorian Spiritualism? Or - and this is where the conspiracy bit comes in, NWO-fans - are we being deliberately kept gullible and docile by manipulated media, mindless religion and puppetry on a grand scale?

[soapbox mode on]
Let our battle cry be Deny Ignorance, and let it ring forth from every home in the land! Put down your tabloid papers, your TV remotes and your hippy dreamcatchers! Look upon the world with fresh eyes, an open mind, and a dedicated intellect!
[soapbox mode off]

But you get my point, I trust.

I think science has become so advanced and so theoretical, that to unintellectual (aka DUMBASSES afraid of change and new ideas) or religious people, most of it sounds just plain stupid - something out of a sci-fi book.

[Edited on 5/5/04 by xenophanes85]

This... regression... has me worried, too. Society seems to reward stupidity and innocence far more than it does common sense and responsibility.

And you don't have to be a geek to be smart; I am beginning to think that there are a lot of valid intellectuals out there who suppress their own thoughts out of fear of mockery. This just shouldn't be that way because evolution depends on those kinds of intellectual advancements.

All you have to do is look at a history book... let's pick a neutrally Western time... the 1700's. You can plainly see that the people then would speak and think in a far more advanced manner than the general population of today. Something I used to laugh at in the classroom were when people would read such statements from historical notables such as Andrew Jackson and General Cornwalis and ask the teacher, "duh... what did he say? what does it mean? I don't get it."

And then there's the premise that seems to be getting popular that is if you are attractive, you don't have to be smart. This is quite evident with people who are so self-absorbed that they don't take the time to notice that they are ruining their own progress.

I think it will come back on people like that. They age
and lose that oh so precious charisma, and where does
it leave them. Usually at a dead end job and unable to
control or manage their own lives. I see that also happening too. Then consider the state of the economy
in the last few years. It seems like you cannot get a 'real' job with just a H.S. diploma anymore. It's to the point where you need a trade, a vocation, or at least
an Associates just to get by comfortably at minimum.

Originally posted by StrangeLands
Hope this is in the right place - I don't want to irritate any mods while I'm still so new...

Trawling the boards here at ATS, along with other research elsewhere, has lead me to an inescapable conclusion: as a species, we're regressing.

For the first time in centuries, the educated are no longer the elite. Indeed, how often have seen the intelligent people discriminated against? The geek doesn't get the girl, the troglodyte does. The popular press isn't interested in Hawking or Dawkins, but in Beckham or Britney. Even the scientific method itself is under assault from the credible fools - it seems as if you can't turn around without someone denying the existence of evolution, or making ludicrous and indefensible claims about everything from MMR vaccines to the Atkins diet.

So my question is this: is this change occuring spontaneously, a natural social and cultural development which will cripple our development for a short time and then be lost to the pages of history like Victorian Spiritualism? Or - and this is where the conspiracy bit comes in, NWO-fans - are we being deliberately kept gullible and docile by manipulated media, mindless religion and puppetry on a grand scale?

[soapbox mode on]
Let our battle cry be Deny Ignorance, and let it ring forth from every home in the land! Put down your tabloid papers, your TV remotes and your hippy dreamcatchers! Look upon the world with fresh eyes, an open mind, and a dedicated intellect!
[soapbox mode off]

But you get my point, I trust.

Woah there buddy , where do u live? Because everyone seems to believe in evolution. I don't. but the majority does. The Geek doesn't get the girl? Niether do big swole dumbass's. women like a well rounded man, not someone who is so bent on "intellect" that he lables people who question a flawed theory "evolution" foollish. Not everyone is like you describe, who cares what the media carries, the media does not equal the average person.

[Edited on 5-5-2004 by infovacume]

I don't think it's about who gets the girl, it's about structure and priorities in society. History has a way of editing itself, emphasizing the key issues while relegating the petty to footnotes or oblivion (this is not necessarily a good thing). the strength or weaknesses of our culture, our world will carry us forward; either with great strides or with feeble steps, but forward we will go. We have to, my avatar is a freaking' monkey.

Originally posted by infovacume
Woah there buddy , where do u live? Because everyone seems to believe in evolution. I don't. but the majority does. The Geek doesn't get the girl? Niether do big swole dumbass's. women like a well rounded man, not someone who is so bent on "intellect" that he lables people who question a flawed theory "evolution" foollish. Not everyone is like you describe, who cares what the media carries, the media does not equal the average person.
[Edited on 5-5-2004 by infovacume]

First, a concession: of course women (generally) aren't going to be seduced by simple physicality - in my experience, women demand a great deal more intelligence and personality from their partners than men do

Unfortunately, the media *does* equal the average person, almost by definition. The people who control the TV stations and newspapers are not idiots - they study their demographic data and produce a product which hits the dead centre. I would note, however, that I don't consider the members of ATS to be part of this herd - in my book, you pretty much earn "outsider" status just by being here!

As for being "bent on intellect"? What exactly do you use to decide your beliefs if not your intellect? Should we all unplug our higher faculties and rely on faith?

And finally, you can't "not believe" in evolution. Evolution is not composed of articles of faith, it's a well-formed and well-tested scientific theory. Disagree, by all means, contradict and argue over it if you really must, but you can't just "not believe".

After all, that just reduces science to the level of religion, and that doesn't get us anywhere.

If the government has an agenda to dumb down the population, they sure are doing a good job with the public schools! I've learned more on my own than I ever was taught in school. The problem is that not everyone bothers to try expanding their mind outside of a classroom.

I think one of the major contributing factors to the downslide of intellect is the fact that most people watch mindless television shows for entertainment instead of picking up a book once in a while. And when they do read, it's usually an entertainment magazine or something equally pointless. Most people I know have never read anything more challenging or thought provoking than a romance novel.

And what is ATS but the biggest and most varied book of all? Granted of course, the internet is bigger, but here we all aim to deny ignorance, whereas "the internet is one big village and most of them are idiots" - [The World's Greatest Conspiracy Theories; Just a couple of hours ago lol, Channel 5]

I think there is a retreat from intellectualism that has been picking up speed since the 1950's. Sometimes I wonder if the fear of Nazism got translated in the popular mind into a fear of elitism.

Viewers enjoy seeing famous people who are even more flawed than the viewship. Offerings like The Osbournes . . . Jessica Simpson and her husband . . . That blond porn star who married the dying TX millionaire. (I don't watch TV much at all.)

People are reading on the internet, but the length of their readings drops continually. Instead of reading a book on the topic, they are reading a page or so.

"The Federalist Papers" were published to be read by the average farmer in New England after his daily Bible reading and before going to bed. Most law schools don't even cover the material; I heard a law prof years ago say that the bulk of his students couldn't follow Hamilton's logic, which was too complex for them. So, instead of reading the basics of constitutional law fro one of the framers, they read 'articles' that 'tell you what it all means.'

Another example: look at the archetypal villian in movies since world war 2. The bad guy is a chess-playing, symphony-listening, millionaire genius. The good guy is a good-looking, violent, homer simpson, ~ Bruce Willis in Die Hard . . .

"Christians" get mocked pretty hard on this site and the internet in general. And rightly so. Most of them consider themselves 'saved' because they went to see The Passion. Not one in 100 has read the whole of the Bible. Most of them are 'into' the scene socially, but don't even understand what their faith is supposed to be. It's like saying your 'into' native american spirituality because you bought a coffee table book at Barnes and Noble. . .

I enjoy the reading Cicero, Josephus, Augustine, Plato, Heroditus, Aquinas, etc. You can find 'excerpts' and 'intros' to their works languishing in bookstore chains. But to read them, I must have the texts special ordered, like I'm collecting rare coins or something.

I tend to agree with a lot of the above, and particularly what Dr. Strangecraft posted. And I particularly agree with the ones posting about the worship of beauty and aggression over intelligence and scholarship.

However, it doesn't *have* to be that way. Many here fight to educate others and to "deny ignorance" (which sometimes does seem like a failing cause.)

The perception of a more intelligent and enlightened earlier time (about 50-70 years ago) is partly truth and partly fiction, for some were educated to that degree while many others (the poor, the minorities) were often uneducated and undereducated. Scholarship was for the elite -- but it was more treasured then because it was the only easily accessible way of moving from a lower class (and socioeconomic status) to a higher one.

Nowadays we're fed the myth that the quickest and best way from moving from Dirt Poor to On Top of The World is to be a jerk/steal/go into sports. There's a lot of people who like that "no work" myth.

They're buying into a poor future for themselves and their offspring -- because if you look around the world, the best and most attainable way of getting ahead is good old scholarship.

A thorough (and depressingly accurate) assessment, Dr.

I hadn't considered the slide in ignorance as being a side-effect of the Nazi pusuit of perfection, but it's a compelling idea - thank you! It seems to me that American culture in particular is wary of conspicuous intelligence, but perhaps that is only because we Brits are more accustomed to the idea of living in a society dominated by a heirarchy of elites.

As Byrd says, not everyone falls for the "Path of Least Resistance" myth which seems to have replaced the American Dream. There are those of us who see the value of study, of the exercise of our cerebral faculties, of the repudiation of the gaudy screensaver mentality of pop culture.

Wow, is that a flutter of optimism I can feel?

Originally posted by StrangeLands
ignorance as being a side-effect of the Nazi pusuit of perfection,
I have found that Racism and Ignorance go hand-in-hand.

Wow, is that a flutter of optimism I can feel? NO, just the last gasp of a wiser way of life. (Hopefully YOU are right!!!)

What ever happened to honor, integrity, compassion.

Who is the stronger man, the one who destroys or the one who builds?

Neither intelligence nor physical prowess are a measure of the worth of a person.

And by-the-way, ALL have EQUAL worth and value.

Originally posted by ab2tw

Neither intelligence nor physical prowess are a measure of the worth of a person.

And by-the-way, ALL have EQUAL worth and value.

Really? So Bin Laden is as worthy as Mother Teresa?

Sorry, ab2tw, but as a humanist, I have to disagree. Beyond some hippie ideal regarding the "essential brotherhood of man", certain individuals clearly have more or less "worth" than the next person. And I agree that honour, integrity and compassion are becoming ever rarer - but they are found most often in the educated, in the minds and hearts liberated from the dull domesticity of everyday life.

I would agree that every human being has the same *potential*, but that is a different issue entirely. When one's potential is wasted, when one's intellect and creativity wither and die, then that person is guilty of the ultimate betrayel of their humanity.

It is the duty of every person to be the best person they can be.