Didn't they make a documentary about that...? Luke Wilson I think...

"Are People Getting Dumber?" = "Is my generation, me including is better and more special?"

I only have anecdotal evidence. My sources say "yer darn tootin'."

I'm just going to leave this here.

LewDux: "Are People Getting Dumber?" = "Is my generation, me including is better and more special?"

Baby Boomers = Best generation thus far

/hides underneath desk

Idiocracy.jpg

Just watch Leno when he does the street walking bit.

LewDux: "Are People Getting Dumber?" = "Is my generation, me including is better and more special?"

I'm guessing you are a generation below me.

hubiestubert: The dumb ones are certainly getting louder...

Naw, it is just that we can hear them better :-p They have more outlets to whine than they did many years ago.

I aboslutely think we've become smarter as a whole. There are many more avenues for learning and the world is changing much more quickly, necessitating more adaptive skills. In addition, as a whole we are less close minded to new ideas as the world becomes more open to us.

hubiestubert: The dumb ones are certainly getting louder...



And Leon's getting LARGER!

For those of you too busy keeping up with the Kardashians to notice, we live in a culture that in many ways grows more stupid and graceless by the moment.

Explains all the blind hatred directed towards liberal arts education we hear so much about these days.

It totally makes sense that people would be more stupid when all they pursue is money while ignoring the real substance of life. It's almost funny.

I predict a reasoned discussion in which people bolster their arguments with empirical evidence showing actual diminution in peoples' intellectual capabilities over time. Certainly no one will whine about how some overweight person did something annoying in the grocery line one time, and extrapolate from that incident to a conclusion that the human race is doomed to devolve into the kind of brainless oozing sludge who makes exactly that sort of argument.

They elected this guy for president, so yes:

Moreso, its getting easier and more acceptable to be dumb.

We've gotten rid of a lot of parts of society that reward hard work, education, and intelligence. If people are told its ok to be stupid and can get by easily being so... why would they strive for anything more?

If everyone stops geting a participation trophy and a welfare check, maybe things will start improving again.

Dumber? No, I don't think so. Horrifically undereducated? Absolutely. We've always had an abundance of stupid people in the US. In the past, we were somewhat buffered from them and the ones we came in contact with could generally be ignored. But in the information age, we come in near daily (hourly?) contact with them. Today they have an audience: the internet

SnakeLee: The real phenomenon is that stupid people are getting more access via Twitter and Youtube message boards so you see them more. We're smarter overall than we were 50 years ago, stupid people just have more of an outlet now

Yep.

Set the WayBack Machine to the BBS days and recall how shocked you were when you started reading the incoherent rantings of some religious or political blowhard. Usually you only had to deal with these folks when they were pumping gas into your car or flipping your burger. You'd nod politely and place your ears into "ignore" mode.

It's a little harder to ignore them these days - but one thing I've learned about social media: block all people who only post about religion or politics. Sanity (of a sort) returns.

beta_plus: They elected this guy for president, so yes:

[barackobamabiography.org image 350x414]

That guy's an idiot. He believes in evolution for one thing. LOL. Yeah, like we came from monkeys. I mean he probably did, but I didn't. Hell his dad was probably a monkey in Kenya. That's not a racist comment by the way because people called Bush a chimp. Also Obama went to college which is for stupid people. Anyway vote Santorum.

This thread needs more Idiocracy references.

And yet, the first paragraph answers the question "no." Subby didn't read TFA. Where's the ironic tag?

The irony of that link appearing on fark and this thread commenting on it is almost too much. But I guess the irony is lost on some of you......

This is FARK after all.

And some of us are able to take advantage of that fact.

No, but mean, hateful, and spiteful people do seem to be getting more air time to claim every one but them sucks.

I would counter the arguement by pointing out that:

1) dumb things recieve more attention via mass media and with greater capacity to be documented than they did 100 years ago, and thus becoming higher profile. Also the media seems to hold popular personalities in less regard than previously, so their dumb antics are less likely to be 'swept under the rug'.

2) we hold ourselves to a higher standard now than we used to. Functional illiteracy wasn't a barrier to being a functional adult in the industrial age and before when we were more agrarian. The kind of common sense that existed in that time would be of little use now. The modern world with its modern economy require more from a person, and we have a different species of common sense.

3) We use comparative intelligence as a social weapon. We feel better about ourselves when we portray people we don't like (or who are culturally at odds with ourselves) as stupid, thus we seek out instances that reinforce the portrayal we prefer and emphasize them creating confirmation bias.

Devolution you say, well there might be some photographic support for that theory.

MDGeist: No, but mean, hateful, and spiteful people do seem to be getting more air time to claim every one but them sucks.

I think you're onto something. Civility is considered unnecessary these days. I have known older people who we all knew could not stand one another. Yet they were always polite and cordial to one another in public. That sensibility is almost dead in America.

beta_plus: They elected this guy for president, so yes:

[barackobamabiography.org image 350x414]

They elected this guy twice:

SnakeLee: The real phenomenon is that stupid people are getting more access via Twitter and Youtube message boards so you see them more.

HA! HA! Are getting?

The idiots got here in the fall of 1993 (new window). Everything else is just those same people trend-hopping between different formats.

cgraves67: I would counter the arguement by pointing out that:

1) dumb things recieve more attention via mass media and with greater capacity to be documented than they did 100 years ago, and thus becoming higher profile. Also the media seems to hold popular personalities in less regard than previously, so their dumb antics are less likely to be 'swept under the rug'.

2) we hold ourselves to a higher standard now than we used to. Functional illiteracy wasn't a barrier to being a functional adult in the industrial age and before when we were more agrarian. The kind of common sense that existed in that time would be of little use now. The modern world with its modern economy require more from a person, and we have a different species of common sense.

3) We use comparative intelligence as a social weapon. We feel better about ourselves when we portray people we don't like (or who are culturally at odds with ourselves) as stupid, thus we seek out instances that reinforce the portrayal we prefer and emphasize them creating confirmation bias.

You sound fat...er...stoopid. GO PATS!!!!

In 1900, schoolchildren were asked, "What are the capitals of the 46 states?" Today they are asked, "If rural representatives dominated a state legislature, where would they put the capital?"

I call BS...heck I say I'd be impress if a school kid today knows the capital of 46 states!!!!

LewDux: "Are People Getting Dumber?" = "Is my generation, me including is better and more special?"

Didn't Aristotle or someone around that point, making clear that his generation was the smartest one, and all the kids were idiots, which means it has been downhill for around 2500 years which presumably implies we are now about as intelligent as amoebas, we are just too stupid to know it.

I believe that the people who said, "Man, this swamp looks like a GREAT place to live" where the real retards. Now we're just living out their legacy.

Yaxe: [wwp.greenwichmeantime.com image 418x328]

I believe that the people who said, "Man, this swamp looks like a GREAT place to live" where the real retards. Now we're just living out their legacy.

And sadly, I am their descendant.

I would argue that it's actually a little bit yes and no. On a whole, people have more access to information, higher institutions of learning, and technology that can aid them in developing both thought and productivity. So yes, in that sense, people have the ability to get smarter and many are.

The converse is that people also have the ability to cut themselves off more. People used to rely on newspapers and international press releases for information, or a central broadcasting agency. This guaranteed that at least some impartial information trickled through. Now you have people that watch Fox then hang out on Free Republic all day and have the same misinformation repeated to them (MSNBC and Daily Kos for the lefties).