Talk Elections

I think we are getting smarter relative to the 1980's.

Yes our teacher's unions and college professors have used their left wing ideology to dumb down our youth in the so called institutions of higher learning. This is intentional in order to keep the democratic party strong. If people are educated, then they will have jobs, serve in the military, think outside the democratic party, and know the world for what it really is. By holding our students captive, the youth have really been dumbed down into voting democrat.  I hope you're happy with your government education. After all the public schools were set up IN THE NAME OF fairness. If you thought education was expensive before public schools, are you happy with the amount of your tax dollars going towards it now? What were you paying before compared to now? Are we getting our money's worth?

The question goes beyond education.

Very much so. The media for example. Look at how they reported Waco and Oklahoma City compared to what really happened. They couldn't admit that Bush won the election either time. They only tell you the Democrat news unless you watch Fox. It's in the government too. What's one honest sector of our government besides the military and defense department?

how often to people take the media word for word? The media isn't something that is all powerful.

Dumber.

I think we've gotten collectively stupider in a lot of ways since the '70s for multiple reasons (diet, media, education system, etc.) but it's starting to improve. Right now is sort of the nadir though.

I feel like we have been getting collectively smarter since the end of the 1970's.

Scarier.

Though to be fair seems both an interesting living liberalism and stupid conservatism/religious 'craziness' grew during the past decades. Look you switched from G.W. Bush to Obama, only for a big symbol, and now you have tea partiers growing, you're really both, but when I come to think to the short term outcome I'd be pessimist, then 'Scarier', on the longer term you might become more reasonable...

Well, for what this exterior point of view is worth.

Both. We are getting smarter and dumber in differemt ways.

dude right wingers back in the day had their birch society, and thought segegration was a good idea. Even the biggest conservative intellectuals supported segegration, but this isn't mentioned that often because conservatives don't want people to know that their movement has always had tons of dumbsh*t ideas.

But the point being that the bloody conservative ideas step by step lost some ground in your country all along of its history. And for a while, while an interesting liberalism seems to grow too, they are gaining some back more and more, and since I'm pessimist for the short term I'd say you currently are in a negative trend. Which might also apply to Europe to some extents but on a lesser scale I'd say.

Oh and, that is if we're assuming intelligence and morals go along. In term of 'pure smartness', well maybe the lesser importance given to reflexion/knowledge, but more to pure reaction/feeling, didn't help to develop 'smartness' within the population (the huge place that all kinds of marketing techniques took in the society could be for something), but once again it would be more or less the same for Europe, at least. About it I don't know too, I'm mixed because knowledge has been more accessible than before and because the place that psychology took in the society gave interesting things I think, I like to think that it seems more dumb in appearance, which could lead people to stupid political ways in the short term, but that there is something less dumb behind it which could be interesting and that would show itself more after people would have chosen a screwed way.

Something like that.

Most Obama voters did. Otherwise there's no way a guy with that type of ideology could've been elected president. Remember the media is run by some of the wealthiest people this world has to offer. What they want goes on TV.

How about NOTA.

Neither.  We're just able to see both extremes more easily now, due to how interconnected we are.

I think all the information and ideology is great. I curse the Obama czar who said that there is too much information available to the people and I say we deport him. Even if I make a career out of bashing the other side, it's still healthy for debate.

I was thinking more in terms of intelligence than ideology.  Now that everyone is online and thinks his opinions are important, the answer to The Hoff's question will be tainted by the sites one visits and the people he interacts with therein.  I do agree, though, with your first and third sentences.

FWIW, czars generally don't affect policy in any appreciable way.

I think the internet may create a strong inclination for individuals with vested interests to confirm their own bias.

A little smarter, on average. But stupidity is becoming more prevalent in the media.

Keeping people in ignorance is an important part of the system, HJ.  Has the system changed?

The system has changed somewhat. For example before cell phone cameras,you tube, and all of those gadgets it was a lot harder to expose a right-winger for their racism or outrageous comments. I know this because back in the day a politician of corporate executive could easily get away with saying something in public without having to worry about someone recording their conversation.

If you want to go by IQ tests, the answer is undeniably smarter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Our skill sets are obviously changing though, and not always for the best. Our grandparents knew a lot more about about basic skills like cooking or construction. We're all so damned specialized today.

We are getting dumber and the direction of the democrat party proves my claim.

If this forum is any indication of the general population (which it's not), it's gotten dumber.

what makes you so sure that IQ is a good indicator?

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...

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.

More people voted for the Tory Party in 2010 than in 2005, so yes, I think we're getting collectively dumber.

i think it is smarter, but it doesn't help with college being a fortune.

That's true and it depends on what the matter is.

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.

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. :P

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 (;D), 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.

Dumber.

Smarter.

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...

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.