Do you feel like we're getting collectively dumber as a population, or smarter?
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  Do you feel like we're getting collectively dumber as a population, or smarter?
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Author Topic: Do you feel like we're getting collectively dumber as a population, or smarter?  (Read 6450 times)
Antonio the Sixth
Antonio V
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« Reply #25 on: June 19, 2010, 03:34:23 PM »

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.
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Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]
tsionebreicruoc
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« Reply #26 on: June 19, 2010, 03:45:14 PM »

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.
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Antonio the Sixth
Antonio V
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« Reply #27 on: June 20, 2010, 04:48:36 AM »

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.

21 avril, my friend, 21 avril...
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Franzl
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« Reply #28 on: June 20, 2010, 05:47:57 AM »

Not really sure we should Be analyzing this from a purely political perspective. I'm sure a lot of people felt that way about the New Deal era.
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k-onmmunist
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« Reply #29 on: June 20, 2010, 08:53:13 AM »

More people voted for the Tory Party in 2010 than in 2005, so yes, I think we're getting collectively dumber.
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KuntaKinte
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« Reply #30 on: June 20, 2010, 11:38:54 AM »

Both. We are getting smarter and dumber in differemt ways.
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Countess Anya of the North Parish
cutie_15
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« Reply #31 on: June 20, 2010, 01:43:34 PM »

i think it is smarter, but it doesn't help with college being a fortune.
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Derek
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« Reply #32 on: June 20, 2010, 03:36:41 PM »


That's true and it depends on what the matter is.
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Teddy (IDS Legislator)
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« Reply #33 on: June 21, 2010, 01:38:14 AM »

80% of us are getting dumber, by 1 intelligence unit each, while 20% of us are getting smarter by 5 units each.

The "brains" divide will be larger and more stark than the monetary divide in a few decades.
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opebo
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« Reply #34 on: June 21, 2010, 06:26:33 AM »

80% of us are getting dumber, by 1 intelligence unit each, while 20% of us are getting smarter by 5 units each.

The "brains" divide will be larger and more stark than the monetary divide in a few decades.

Actually those two divides are precisely the same thing, and the money comes before the 'intelligence', never the other way round.
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Torie
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« Reply #35 on: June 21, 2010, 02:05:58 PM »

80% of us are getting dumber, by 1 intelligence unit each, while 20% of us are getting smarter by 5 units each.

The "brains" divide will be larger and more stark than the monetary divide in a few decades.

Actually those two divides are precisely the same thing, and the money comes before the 'intelligence', never the other way round.


There are no intelligent poors?
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opebo
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« Reply #36 on: June 21, 2010, 04:22:27 PM »

80% of us are getting dumber, by 1 intelligence unit each, while 20% of us are getting smarter by 5 units each.

The "brains" divide will be larger and more stark than the monetary divide in a few decades.

Actually those two divides are precisely the same thing, and the money comes before the 'intelligence', never the other way round.


There are no intelligent poors?

Hah, you caught me being terribly unclear.  What I had in mind was to say that intelligence does not 'lead to' having money, and that having money does generally lead to being called or considered 'intelligent' (among many other good things).  Keeping in mind of course that the idea of intelligence is rather debatable and subject to status.
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Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]
tsionebreicruoc
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« Reply #37 on: June 21, 2010, 05:23:26 PM »

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.

21 avril, my friend, 21 avril...

lol, this is a really poor example, actually.
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Antonio the Sixth
Antonio V
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« Reply #38 on: June 22, 2010, 03:45:23 PM »

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.

21 avril, my friend, 21 avril...

lol, this is a really poor example, actually.

So picking a corrupt and a racist as front runners, above a honest and successful statesman is a wise choice ?
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Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]
tsionebreicruoc
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« Reply #39 on: June 22, 2010, 04:19:36 PM »

First Reagan, then Dubya, now Paul and Palin... Clearly dumber.

However, it's certainly not only an American trend. The same happens in France, not to mention Italy.

There is the same kind of trend, but to a far lesser extent.

21 avril, my friend, 21 avril...

lol, this is a really poor example, actually.

So picking a corrupt and a racist as front runners, above a honest and successful statesman is a wise choice ?

Haha, I had forgotten your Jospin fondness, might play a role in the way you see it here. Tongue

Actually, taking this example and the way you analyze it to make the point that France is big on the trend of becoming dumb and narrow minded is not fair.

21 Avril is mainly about our bloody electoral system in which everything has to happen to during the presidential elections, it's the only way for people to express their preferences, it's our only 'proportional elections' (which is such a shame). There was a lot of leftist parties in 1st round, people expressed their small preferences, and the total of left was big enough, but well, that bloody electoral system made that it was impossible for PS to make the 2nd round. This combined to a time during which media emphasized insecurity during the campaign because of a few impressive facts, plus certainly some people annoyed by Chirac not being on the right enough, and here we go, all these factors made that results.

And about Chirac being a corrupt, well, it's quite unfair, it belongs to an epoch during all big parties in France were 'corrupt' because of the former political system, it's not like if he was a Berlusconi or something.

Then it's not as if France had been taken in a wave of corruption and fascism, don't make your Marianner (Grin), thats just the succession of a few stuffs that led to a weird result on a given time, and if I actually think there is a trend like the one we could speak about in the US, taking this example to show it quite pointless to me.

If you wanna show such a trend then you can speak of the fact that France chose Sarkozy, an empty populist who emphasizes moral values but has yet to wonder about it himself, all that empty craziness ego in politics, the media craziness as well, the fact that something like 'Bloc Identitaire' (a growing far-right thing far more frank than what the FN became) even if they factually remain small they make more and more noise, the 'ethnical' problems that become bigger and bigger between 'French' and 'French with non European origins', and so on and so forth. Just for some starters.
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Eraserhead
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« Reply #40 on: June 23, 2010, 04:46:33 AM »

Dumber.
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Vepres
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« Reply #41 on: June 23, 2010, 09:05:25 AM »

Smarter.
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Antonio the Sixth
Antonio V
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« Reply #42 on: June 23, 2010, 12:57:52 PM »

Well, of course the formula was a bit short, but come on... Chirac should have been far more punished for his "affaires" but also because all that he had attempted was stupid and failed. and Le Pen's score... wasn't it a sign of people getting dumber ?
The electoral system and the stupidity of little leftist candidates is obviously in great part responsible of this situation, but shouldn't Jospin (and the whole "plural left") have got a far higher score ?
 
And you talk about the role of the medias about insecurity : indeed medias seem to contribute a lot to brainwashing people...
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anvi
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« Reply #43 on: June 24, 2010, 09:58:48 PM »

As I've said on a previous thread, I don't think Americans are on average any smarter or dumber in the abstract than they were before.  I do think, however, that we are far more selfish and stubborn than most other generations of Americans.  In the 1930's and '40's, Americans went through a depression where unemployment reached as high as 25% and stayed high over a prolonged period of time, as well as fought an unwanted world war against two major world powers, and people to a large extent were strong and got through it.  Now we are going through a very tough time, with prolonged 10% unemployment, two wars against minor powers and the challenges to the gulf coast.  But, in response, we cry like babies, point fingers at everyone else besides ourselves, and tolerate proposed solutions only to the extent that they give us everything we want and demand nothing of us in return.  In my view, the biggest problem Americans have these days is not an intelligence deficit, but a character deficit.
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