Americans ARE getting Dumber

HereticBD said:
Yeah, sometime in the 00's they invented this device you can use to not think for yourself.

Now we have AI to make us even dumber and less self reliant.

"Gemini, can you write me an essay on World War 2?"

"Gemini, can you grade these papers?"

We're fucked.
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Wall-e predicted all this years ago. We are catching up faster that the movie even though we would.
 
With the exception of some Asian countries this is a worldwide issue .. so don't get too excited to pile on non Americans
 
HereticBD said:
Yeah, sometime in the 00's they invented this device you can use to not think for yourself.

Now we have AI to make us even dumber and less self reliant.

"Gemini, can you write me an essay on World War 2?"

"Gemini, can you grade these papers?"

We're fucked.
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Which is even more sad because Gemini is wildly inaccurate and people will be too dumb to know the difference
 
Ezekiel 25:17 said:
People with the most common sense and logic I have met have been mainly in European countries. North America is full of ego driven schlubs.
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There's plenty of dumbasses in Europe.

They are nowhere near the average intelligence level of Japan or South Korea
 
dumb people make good soldiers and consumers ?

Conspiracy

I mean what are you doing all the way in Afghanistan ? We are helping Woman rights. Go America Go USA Go Heroes.
 
Natural Order said:
80% of humans are, and always have been, borderline idiots. Absolute imbeciles. 8 out of 10 people you speak to are literal retards.

Once you understand this golden ratio you can start to rest easier.

Also, you’re likely part of that 80 percent unfortunately.;)
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What if you find out that you’re part of the 80? <lol>
 
pugilistico said:
I've joked around that Americans have gotten dumber and chalked it up as confirmation bias when I encountered stupidity. I was astounded by those videos where people ask college kids basic general knowledge questions and they don't know basic stuff like what countries make up North America, or how many planets there are. I chalked these up to the content creators picking and choosing particularly stupid kids or editing the videos in a skewed manner.

But it seems the data is evident of an alarming trend: people are actually are getting dumber.

American literacy and numeracy rates have fallen in recent years. 54% of Americans read below a 6th grade reading level. 21% are illiterate.


This video mentions changes in the education system and phone usage as well as a lack of tech/media literacy.

One of the most annoying trends for me is the lack of literacy on social media. You could post say, the sale of your used bicycle clearly outlining the model and price, and you'll still have people asking you what model it is and how much it is. I see a trend of people not knowing how to take a second to read the description. I would say this isn't just an American problem, but a global phenomenon since everybody in the entire planet is hooked on social media now.

I've talked about before how it seems like the younger generation doesn't know how to use the technology in their hands either. With each subsequent generation, the new generation loses skills of previous generations but the trade off is that become more tech savvy. But this new generation seems like they don't even know how to be tech savvy either. Other than tik tok and asking chat GTP things, they don't seem know that their phones can access a vast wealth of information. I've had younger people ask me stuff that could be easily found on google. I expected that I would have to teach my grandmother how to use her phone, but not 20 year olds.

People also seem to rely on AI for answers more and more instead of researching stuff on google. When I went to college, reading wikipedia was considered the lazy route, but now kids can't even do that and want chat gtp to give them easy to digest answers. The problem is that AI still gets a lot of stuff wrong and with the lack of critical thinking these days, people may just going to believe whatever AI tells them.

I'll note that another factor is that now google likes to give you answers generated by AI and/or sponsored content, which might take more effort to filter through than in the past. A lot stuff is also blocked by a paywall which doesn't help.

I know it's cliché of older generations to rag on the new generation for becoming stupider, lazier, weaker, etc. but I am starting to think the new generations are fucked. I used to think newer generations would be at least intellectually smarter, have more critical thinking skills, and be more tech savvy, but I am not sure that is the case now. Kids play outside less now, people are less connected to nature, more socially awkward, they read much less, get stuck in intellectual echo chambers online, become addicted to social media and less capable of researching information on their own. The new generation does seem to be getting lazier and weaker but without the tradeoff of tech savviness and critical thinking skills.

What do you guys think?

TLDR version because reading is hard:
1. Literacy and numeracy rates in the US have gone down due to issues in the education system.
2. People are addicted to their phones and social media.
3. People have shorter attention spans to read or pick up details even if they're clearly stated.
4. People have less critical thinking skills - online echo chambers.
5. Reliance on AI - less tech literacy.
6. People have overall less practical/real world skills on top of having less soft skills like critical thinking and social awareness.
7. We're just getting stupider/less capable in every dimension.
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Agreed on most of this.

Personally i firmly believe smartphones are to blame specifically and the Internet generally.

People constantly glued to them they can hardly WRITE, they cannot think for themselves, they don't read newspapers or books these days, and VERY POOR attention spans.

Id like to take away everyones smartphones for 1 month and watch a fuckton of young people have absolute meltdowns.
 
Doughie99 said:
Agreed on most of this.

Personally i firmly believe smartphones are to blame specifically and the Internet generally.

People constantly glued to them they can hardly WRITE, they cannot think for themselves, they don't read newspapers or books these days, and VERY POOR attention spans.

Id like to take away everyones smartphones for 1 month and watch a fuckton of young people have absolute meltdowns.
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Everyday I see people from the age of 6 - +65 walking the streets with their heads down staring at their phones. People on bikes almost crashing because they are looking at their phones.
People walking the dog, or at the play grounds with their kids, paying no attention just staring at the phones.
Its like a drug epidemic

People are like zombies.
 
@pugilistico @ts pugilistico I wrote this before and think about it a lot. I think something to consider is how much does being smart REALLy get you in America or any country nowadays? In America if you are say 115 iq act score around 26 what you get is you go to a decent college on a decent sccolarship and get let’s say $50000 in loans.

This is honesty probably around average and not in ANY way an outlier. Then graduate to a job that pays say $50-80k maybe 90k in a hi income area. Some outliers again but those are going away quickly from ai and broader automation. No more 200k tech jobs except for the 0.1% who again aren’t normal and will always succeed.

You now have a very precarious financial situation with a large debt load. You can hunker down and work your butt off save til you’re 35 and hope everything works outt and buy a house in your 30s or 40s. Go out on the weekend whatever. But you gotta work a lot a lot to make it.

This is VERY BERU precarious and you are dependent on TONS of variables. Inflation, housing market, broad economy you have zero control over. If interest goes from say 2% to 8% (hint it did) you are now in 100k more debt throughb literally no fault or control of your own and face a lifetime of being LITERALLY tied to your job under real economic pressure. Just to have a lower middle or middle class life. This is the reward? There are outliers but this would be the average smart person life for the first 35 years.

If you’re unlucky you get a low decent job and are in debt the rest of your life.

Versus being dumb and big you get a construction job make $60k no debt and have basically THE EXACT SAME lifestyle. Or living off disability etc and having less money but way way waaaay less economic stress.

I think the economy does not reward above average smarts as much as we are told.
 
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