Dumbing down reality

Nice thread.

On the topic of "humans being dumber now days" I have a theory. I believe it is down to computerised memory that we know less. After all who needs to retain such knowledge as the 'big bang theory' or what monarch regined in 1237 when you can simply and quickly relearn it at the touch of a button.

I don't think it's so much that we are dumber, I think it's that were more economical with what and how we learn and retain information.

ALS

reply to post by UnlimitedSky


This is a great answer. You have actually pointed out some of the reasons why the conditions in this dual topic occur.

I am 52 and when in Public school in the USA entering 3rd grade from Canada; I walked into the classroom and the teacher was shining a flashlight on the globe showing how the sun worked.

I walked up to her and she asked if I was the student from French Canada (English Schooled), to which I replied to the affirmative. I then leaned over so the other kids’ would not hear me and said that "I think I am in the wrong class and could you point me towards the right Class.) She assured me I was in the right class.

She asked me why I thought this and I told her it was something we had to learn from our parents as well as time and general things like ABC's and so on.

I still remember the look on her face. It was one of embarrassment and horror all at once. I did not pay attention in class for the next 3 years as there was no new material covered or developed that held my interest, instead I developed a photo-memory so I could amuse myself through class and have total recall when test came in.

I do not see people this creative now and I think it is very sad. There is a 16 year old kid across the street from me who has surpassed my education by eons. Though he is completely unaware of his surroundings, as suggested by the original post, I now know it is a defense mechanism.

Thank you,
This is a most wonderful topic to wake up too Serioulsly, (I am not trying to be cute or glib)

You all heard of the nine types of intelligence?

1. Naturalist (nature smart)
2. Musical (musical smart)
3. Logical-mathematical. (number/reasoning)
4. Existential
5. Interpersonal (people smart)
6.Bodily-kinesthetic (body smart)
7. Linguistic. (word smart)
8. Intrapersonal (self smart)
9.Spacial (picture smart)

Nine types of intelligence

When talking about intelligence, I don't think it's fair to characterize people getting dumber in the aggregate. Probably better to look at each specific type of intelligence. I think we're trending toward lower intelligence in nature, existential, and interpersonal. Trending toward higher intelligence in linguistic, intrapersonal, and spatial.

My opinion on that is open to debate.

Also, the list of nine intelligence isn't complete for me. It leaves out emotional and creative aspects. I think emotional intelligence is trending down and creative is going up.

They say most creative people are sort of broken emotionally, right?

There are pro's and con's to the current ways of society. If you think it's a good idea to sacrifice community ethic for a few individual creative gems then maybe we're successful

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL
Nice thread.

On the topic of "humans being dumber now days" I have a theory. I believe it is down to computerised memory that we know less. After all who needs to retain such knowledge as the 'big bang theory' or what monarch regined in 1237 when you can simply and quickly relearn it at the touch of a button.

I don't think it's so much that we are dumber, I think it's that were more economical with what and how we learn and retain information.

ALS

As much as it blows the OP's premise out of the water, I believe you have hit upon the truth of the matter, bravo. As certainly as people 2,000 years ago had different needs and methods, we here in 'their' future have only tuned our intelligence to meet modern needs. There is no practical need to know every bit of useless information there is out there, that is the realm of the narcissist and of little actual use.

reply to post by LUXUS


You are absolutely right! You need to see this movie www.imdb.com... I'm afraid that is where we are headed!

Originally posted by Consequence

It's not a conspiracy. Life is easier now than it was before. There is also a point of not making education harder than it needs to be. That way we have more time to do progress, not reinvent everything. However, this requires more discipline from the individuals, which is clearly lacking in many, and only a smaller part can handle it. Oh, and conspiracy theories are usually good examples of people being too lazy to first learn what they are going to talk about. It's easier to make things up and believe that "science is a lie", or things of that nature.

A very good point.

The mod-cons are making it very easy to accomplish anything nowadays. Math students don't need a brain anymore now we have calculators, and most students don't have to rummage through libraries for info and references, all that have to do is quote Wikipedia (which is considered a reliable source somehow).

I agree with the point made about conspiracy theorists too.These days most posts online are just recycled from someone else's hard work, not to mention to complete absence of scientific knowledge.

It grinds my gears when people deny the science behind certain discoveries, Many people are quick to dismiss something they don't understand.

What really worries me is that most of us these days have the attention span of fruit flies. No wonder there's so many kids (and adults) with ADD these days; they get used to this information overload and multi-tasking, and when they don't get that -- e.g., when they're supposed to sit still in class and pay attention to one person speaking -- they're unable to do it. I recently saw a study that said multi-tasking is very bad for people because their ability to really focus and concentrate on one thing flies out the window.

Just try to watch one of the old black-and-white movies from the '40s or '50s, where they still took their time to tell a story -- the camera stays on two people having a conversation for a long time; there are no crazy-fast scene switches between the faces of the speakers or sound-bite-style dialogues. Even I find myself getting bored really easily by that kind of film-making now because even though I try to stay away from electronic gadgets, I'm as much a consumer (and victim) of the Internet as anyone.

One of my last holdouts is that I refuse to get a cell phone, and that goes for my husband and son as well. Although society makes it harder and harder for you if you don't have one: Just last weekend I stupidly left my car keys in the ignition (turned) while going to a mall with my son. When we came back, the battery was dead. Lacking a cell phone, I walked into a store in the mall where the retail clerks were nice enough to let me use their phone to call the Allstate Motorclub.

I got an operator who asked for a call-back number, and when I said I didn't have one, he flat-out told me he didn't think they could provide service if I didn't have a phone!!! (I couldn't give him the store number, because it was a big store, and the clerks said they had an automated answering system, and he'd never get through to this particular desk.) I was absolutely baffled and said, "You got to be @#$%^ kidding me! Are you telling me you NEVER have any people who are stranded somewhere without a phone?" He kept insisting he needed a call-back number, so I hung up and had one of the nice clerks find a towing and repair service around the corner for me and just called them. The next day I canceled my Motorclub membership and signed up with AAA, because the tow guy who saved me in the end said they never had problems like that with AAA.

I mean, unbelievable!!! I know a lot of older people who don't have cell phones and who -- I'd imagine -- are probably prone to forget to fill up gas or lock their keys in their car. Totally ticked me off. And have you noticed that there are almost no pay phones ANYWHERE anymore? It kinda reminds me of that "mark of the beast" stuff, where you'll be unable to buy or sell without the mark. These days, it seems you're unable to leave the house without a cell phone because you WILL need it at some point, and they make it increasingly impossible for you to get by without one.

One more reason why I don't go to college, I don't go there to learn, I go there to get trained,

Training is only for martial arts and the such, not for molding my mind.

My wife talked to a school counselor the other day and was told in a few years that kids could drop out of school for a couple of years then go online and just take five credits to get their high school diploma. This information sounds like teachers and schools will be obsolete. I know people home school but to just allow them to drop out and do nothing then to take only five meager credits, this cant be good.

reply to post by LUXUS


I believe you are really on to something that goes much deeper into conspiracy then anyone could imagine!
I also believe that this is just not about awareness but distractions as well! I will not go into any detail but will
let anyone interested research themselves! I believe if we were truely aware we would be disturbed by the degree of dumbing down we see! Which I am and anyone else who is at all aware should be as well! I am aware
of the degree of distractions as well! Things like Sporting events, materialism, hand held gadgets, all sorts of entertainment and much more! This is not happening by accident, It is the influence of TPTB on our society and they have their fingers on every facet of our lives! We are pushed to conform and frowned upon when we display individuality or originality! Anyone who denies this is living in an illusion and is ignorant to the degree of conformity that is thrust upon the populus! When our society finally crumbles along with the shroud of illusion, most will be too shocked to pick up the pieces! God help us when this day of reckoning finally is allowed to happen!

reply to post by LUXUS


Yep.

The most disgusting thing these days is the textbooks. Not too long ago I had a university class called "Business and it's Environment" which dealt with the inter-relationships of business and the US Federal government. The textbook being used was "Public Policy and Society", 2e: Thomson, 2006 by Lawrence Lesser. Lesser's big claim to fame was that he spent 30 years as a lobbyist.

This textbook made the following assertions which went completely unnoticed FOR THREE YEARS by a pair of tenured professors of business administration and approximately 2,000 undergrad students and 700 MBA students:

1. On three separate and unique instances, Lawrence Lesser stated that George Washington signed various pieces of trade and tariff legislation in 1879...meaning that Washington lived to be a minimum of 172 years old.

2. That from the years of 1859 to 1887 the Federal government "stayed out of private businesses" and because of that the Free Market (yes...personified) was able to build the railroads. Never mind that one pesky instance in which roughly 1,000,000 American soldiers died and an estimated 2,800,000 civilians died when the Federal Government had to step in and tell Private Business that the buying, selling, and owning of other human beings as chattel property was immoral and the fact that the US Cavalry waged a program of systematic genocide to "clear the land" of the Indians prior to those railroads being able to be built. Ditto for the bounty the Federal Government paid for buffalo skins in order to both starve out the Indians and "clear the land". Turns out that nothing is less convenient for trains than having a couple of thousand bison standing on the tracks.

3. That Alexis De Tocqueville warned about the dangers of "Big Government" in his work "Democracy in America...despite the fact that in a scant 7 contigious pages of the footnoted quote the real-life de Tocqueville ACTUALLY stated that he believed that public elections were a scam and a bit of political theatre, attributed America's freedom to a nearly uniform distribution of wealth, called for a 90/10 distribution of wealth which was later referred to as "Kuznets Curve" which is the backbone of modern socialism and was an inspiration to Karl Marx, and chastised Americans for not having larger bureaucracies with more rules, codes, and regulations. No surprise really...since the very word "bureaucracy" is of French origin and means "To rule/govern by the desk" which was the system of governance the French put in place in the aftermath of the French Revolution when De Tocqueville lived and wrote the book in question. Bureaucracy was considered to be a huge step forward from having a single absolute monarch and an inherited aristocracy.

4. More mathematical and statistical errors than I can count. Seriously...there was one or more on almost every single page.


...and we wonder why people are stupid and are under so many erroneous assumptions about politics, economics, and US history.

I think the purpose of our school system is to get students to abandon logic and reason.

The dumbing down is being done on purpose.

Originally posted by FreedomCommander
One more reason why I don't go to college, I don't go there to learn, I go there to get trained,

Training is only for martial arts and the such, not for molding my mind.

I don't know, college is where I was really able to hone my critical thinking, as well as increase my knowledge of what was really happening in the world, and the research and study skills have aided me greatly. Without attending college I probably would be one of the mindless sheep swallowing every story and lie Washington makes up. I figure this is why college is getting so expensive, an un-educated society is much easier to dupe and control.

I completely agree with your thread - S & F

It seems we've been trained to ignore, trained to accept, trained to feel entitled & chemically lobotomized to make it easier for us to go along with.

Years ago I was researching this very same topic and came across an 8th grade test from Salina, Kansas dated 1895 with some very difficult questions on it. Here are some of the questions:

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

8th grade! Yep, we are definitely getting dumbed down.

reply to post by UnlimitedSky


Society is trying to train us to be dependent on other parts of society for everything other than our chosen profession. This allows for other specialties to be created. Making everything super complicated and requiring special tools is a part of that also. It is someones stupid idea to create a world economy based on everyone needing everyone else. Those who choose to desire to learn a little about everything are suppressed because special tools are needed and they are shunned as backyard mechanics with no proven skills because they lack current certification. You don't need a certificate to be good at something. You need a desire to learn and you will learn. You can't teach someone about something if they have no interest in it, they will not put it into their permanent memory.

If a person doesn't know how to broadly utilize what they know it only narrows our view of reality. The old saying, "there are many ways to skin a cat applies". But if you widen the field you start to question: "Why am I skinning a cat in the first place?" or "Should I be waiting to skin it till I actually need it" We aren't asking these other questions in society anymore, Education is narrowing our perception because it does not stress an array pattern of thinking. It sets our path and society tries to keep us on that path. I personally like to Explore the woods but keep a compass so I know where the path is when I need it.

reply to post by morningeagle


HeHe, look at schooling costs back those days. "4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?"

Education was a community service in the past. Teachers were low paid and praised for their help in training the young to do basic Math and English skills so they could operate on the farms or understand if their boss was ripping them off. It was necessary to know a little so you got the correct change and were charged correctly from the crooked businesses out there. Some history was also taught but most emphasis was given on teaching kids to be able to think on their own. It is different now, we are being trained like ants to work like a colony.

reply to post by LUXUS


In the 40's most people didn't finish elementary school. They kept doing 2nd grade (or whatever grade) until they passed the exam.
In the 50's most people didn't finish high school. Stupid students or unrully students were encouraged to quit.
Dummer people stay in school longer than they used to. Teachers teach to the low middle of their students.

Even college is not as hard.

reply to post by LUXUS


Remember the harvard entrance test posted online? From the 1800s....same example, much harder than today, but again I think it's about why, and how you learn these things. Life is easier, it's made us lazy.
Except the calculus, most of the other classes I have never had a need to take, Greek and Latin questions? Please, only if I want to write poetry....how about Spanish as per an entrance exam now?

English literature, yes, it's had quite the set back in my opinion, vocabulary has shrunk, however I'd argue it's of necessity. In fact, post college, I specifically decided to focus on using less words. The problem is, as more people get a different level of English ability, due to globalization, just as much as "dumbing" down, it becomes harder to communicate. Here's an example, the phrase: "in lieu of" used for "instead"/"in place of". When used, because it is less common, there's many opportunities for a misunderstanding. You can use it incorrectly, or understand it incorrectly. Therefore, we dumb it down, and use "in place of" or "instead".

How would one carry out a huge agenda like that on a global scale to dumb down people and GET professors to change their tests to make them easier? What's the cause/effect here? I'd say it's just related to, well...."WHY do i need to ask this question and make it harder over the years". This teacher you mention, why doesn't HE make his tests harder every year? There's no conspiracy stopping him......I doubt he'd get fired.

Also, You notice it's only Western cultures that this is a problem with, by the way, I'd argue in developing countries education level is increasing and still rising.