How dumb are we?

[Skybird]

And do dumb people really deserve the right to vote in a democracy? Aren't the the established outcomes of such elections -alwaqys the same habits, the same names and faces, the same parties - time after time just an expression, a correlate of our dumbness?

I say "we" although the article is about America. If you take such a quiz in Germany, you do not get much less discouraging results - especially amongst the young ones. The phenomenon is not limited to just one or two Western nations.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/20/how-dumb-are-we.print.html

[gimpy117]

well people in my state were dumb enough to elect Rick Snyder. Hopefully were smart when the recall election happens.

[GoldenRivet]

I dont think it is a matter of how stupid people are or are not.

i think it is more a matter of information being distorted to favor one candidate over another.

and no matter how intelligent a person might be, people are wired to make decisions either based on the information they have or based upon their emotions... thus, if you control the information they have, or if you can create an emotional reaction - you just swayed their vote.

There is an interesting documentary about this very subject... i dont recall the name, but it is compelling.

man has not become unbiased and unselfish enough for Democracy to function flawlessly... nor has he become responsible enough for any other form of government to function flawlessly.

[tater]

well people in my state were dumb enough to elect Rick Snyder. Hopefully were smart when the recall election happens.

I guarantee you'll get remarkably dumb survey answers if you go to certain demographics that vote democrat as well. Places where over 90% of the people on the street you interview are guaranteed democrats... say north of 125 st in NYC (note that you'd get the same % democrats south of 125th street in NYC, but the education level would be higher—though many university grads these days have no history background at all*).

People in general are idiots. I'd be perfectly fine with a "civics" test required every few years to be allowed to register to vote.


*there was an interesting article by our former Representative, Heather Wilson. She's been on the Rhodes selection committee for years, and she said that the candidates are getting more and more narrow. They specialize as undergrads from the start, and might be brilliant in their major field, but are utterly clueless outside it. She'll ask why they say they are for something, what's the history, etc, and they get a deer in headlights look. Sad, really.

Found the link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/21/AR2011012104554.html

[UnderseaLcpl]

And do dumb people really deserve the right to vote in a democracy?
People, even dumb people, have the inalienable right to self-determination. Saying anything contrary to that is to demean their status as human beings, and in turn to demean your own.

Yes, dumb people get to vote, as well as make a lot of other decisions that can affect others. Whole political platforms across multiple nationalities are based on people being dumb to one thing or another. I don't like it any more than you do. But you're not really thinking about that, are you?

Like me, you are dissatisfied with what you perceive as "dumbness" amongst the electorate. Few are not. What separates us is that you think that certain groups are beneath you, whereas I think that we should not allow any group to gain primacy through your rationale. I much prefer free, honest, and more or less mutually beneficial trade when it comes to measuring "dumbness".


Aren't the the established outcomes of such elections -alwaqys the same habits, the same names and faces, the same parties - time after time just an expression, a correlate of our dumbness?


Of course they are. Everyone already knows that, more or less. Everybody who has the time and freedom to do so complains about the representative government structure, no matter where they are from, and often with good reason. What's really dumb is that you don't look at the mechanics behind it, instead preferring to proffer your view as a fiat solution whilst ignoring everything that created the situation in the first place, including the ideal of self-determination.


I say "we" although the article is about America. If you take such a quiz in Germany, you do not get much less discouraging results - especially amongst the young ones. The phenomenon is not limited to just one or two Western nations.


Of that I have no doubt. Where we differ in opinion is that you think some kind of superior, enforced system might be employed to correct the inefficacy of the democratic system, and I would argue that a constitutional system with strict limits upon the power you hope to create is the better solution.

Ultimately, what it boils down to is the argument between power and limitation of power. You think that power granted to the "proper" individuals through some yet-undetermined means will fix the problem. I argue that to do so is to simply invite abuse of power, which is precisely what created this issue in the first place.

[Tribesman]

And do dumb people really deserve the right to vote in a democracy?
People are dumb, its part of being human.
So which idiots get to decide which other idiots are too idioic to vote?
I suppose the best test would be to only exclude the biggest idiots, the biggest idiots of course being the people who think they are not idiots.

What separates us is that you think that certain groups are beneath you, whereas I think that we should not allow any group to gain primacy through your rationale.
Hey at least this time he is only on about removing voting rights of those who don't measure up, its not like he is off on his eugenics line for lower humans again

[tater]

Most (all) modern democracies have some form of public education. In the US, this system is the primary budget element in every single state by a wide margin. It's ~80% of the NM State budget, for example—and cities spend in addition to State funding.

The rationale is presumably to create an educated (minimally) electorate. If it fails this most basic requirement, it shows how useless it is as a public expense.

[MH]

Whos saing was it ?
"In democracy people get the government that they deserve":woot:

[tater]

Everyone gets the government they deserve ;)

http://www.thepaincomics.com/I'm%20the%20King.jpg

[UnderseaLcpl]

People are dumb, its part of being human.
So which idiots get to decide which other idiots are too idioic to vote?
I suppose the best test would be to only exclude the biggest idiots, the biggest idiots of course being the people who think they are not idiots.
Tribesman, you are a terrible writer and not in the least capable of conveying a point effectively. I see your point but are you so far above the rest of us that you can't be bothered to just take the time to spell things out? Vagueness is the mark of a weak debater.


Hey at least this time he is only on about removing voting rights of those who don't measure up, its not like he is off on his eugenics line for lower humans again


No, he isn't. He's toting the same line but in a different form, as I'm sure you've perceived.

[Oberon]

"In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take." - Adlai Stevenson

[August]

I've come to believe that the only thing that should be done (or in this case not done) is to just not encourage people to vote.

The way I see it if a person is too dumb or self absorbed to see the importance of voting then I really don't want them participating. Pushing ignorant people into voting only produces ignorant votes.

Leave voting to those who care enough to make the effort without being pushed into it.

[tater]

I've come to believe that the only thing that should be done (or in this case not done) is to just not encourage people to vote.

The way I see it if a person is too dumb or self absorbed to see the importance of voting then I really don't want them participating. Pushing ignorant people into voting only produces ignorant votes.

Leave voting to those who care enough to make the effort without being pushed into it.

I agree. Yet we consistently see one party pushing incessantly for weakening the controls on who votes (pro-voter fraud stances, like being against ID requirements to vote, or being in favor of driver's licenses for illegals*), and also making it automatic to be registered (motor-voter, etc).

*In the last week here in NM, the new administration (Governor Martinez) compared the DL roles for illegals with voter registration (and voting)... what a surprise, there is overlap. :roll:

[Betonov]

I've come to believe that the only thing that should be done (or in this case not done) is to just not encourage people to vote.

The way I see it if a person is too dumb or self absorbed to see the importance of voting then I really don't want them participating. Pushing ignorant people into voting only produces ignorant votes.

Leave voting to those who care enough to make the effort without being pushed into it.

yep, I also agree.

There was a referendum in our country, about a very serius issue (really, not being sarcastic) and my grandmother had no idea was she for or against, while a certain catholic radio station, which was right wing biased told her to vote against. And so she voted against, just because the radio told her. Now that was a vote that shouldnt be there.

[tater]

yep, I also agree.

There was a referendum in our country, about a very serius issue (really, not being sarcastic) and my grandmother had no idea was she for or against, while a certain catholic radio station, which was right wing biased told her to vote against. And so she voted against, just because the radio told her. Now that was a vote that shouldnt be there.

And most likely most who voted "for" were also told by someone in one way or another.

There was a student vote at the university a long time ago regarding changing the styrofoam cups at the Student Union cafe to ceramic. They claimed to be acting in the name of the environment, and handily won the vote. I knew people in student government, and asked a few (over coffee in styrofoam cups, lol) to "show their work" and demonstrate to me that the total environmental cost-benefit (the cost to "the earth" not money) demonstrated that the ceramic cups (that would need washing) were better. They looked at me like I had asked them what the airspeed velocity of a sparrow was. They had no "work" to show, and no reference to anyone else who HAD done the work (because no one had). Unthinking votes cross political lines.

[Tchocky]

I don't very much relish the idea of being bound by laws that I have neither given consent to nor have the power to change.

[Betonov]

And most likely most who voted "for" were also told by someone in one way or another.

It was an Arbitration Agreement between Slovenia and Croatia about a sea border in a small bay, empty of fish and poluted, that has been a hotspot between the countries since Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991. I was for since I was tired of politicians using this disagreement to avert the public form the failing economy and incompetence of politicians, to the point I am more ready to trust some hotshots from Belgium to finally sort this out than national(istic) interests.
The problem I have and you proabibly guessed it is that if my grandmother would have said: I'm against because I dont trust foreigners to do this right. it would be alright, her decision. No, she was against because a radio told her.

[Platapus]

Read

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies choose bad policies

by Bryan Caplan

I don't agree with everything he writes, but he brings up some interesting viewpoints

[Skybird]

Isn't it that if you make a choice between several options/alternatives, you need to understand these options' characteristics and implications for yourself and for others? And isn't it that for this both intellectual functionality and transparent information are necessary, inevitable preconditions?

Isn't it that elections are not the goal and holy grail of democracy, but just a tool trying to acchieve democracy's real internal utopia? I think many people are extremely vulnerable to especially confusing these two.

Do fishes in a big swarm, swimming in perfect synchronicity, practice a "choice" in the widest meaning when deciding whether to swim left, straight or right in this very moment? And I see many similiarities in the behavior of voting masses, and swarm "intelligence". Predators have learned to manipulate the behavior of the whole swarm (for example to keep it together or to surface). So it is with "public opinion", "new press" and "new media", politicians, and the anonymous tyranny of political correctness and opinion conformity.

Making a choice is not a right imo, but a capability, and it has several inevitable preconditions that miust be fulfilled in order to be of value, and making a difference. For democracy, such preconditions are an understanding for background processes, and education; an awareness fore longterm dimensions and how the single person'S interest collides or collides not with the overall interest of the higher community. And as I argued earlier in other threads, community size to me seems to be one of the most important factors influencing the effectiveness of democratic principles working - the bigger the community, the smaller the chance for full understanding by the individual, for transparency and fact-based decision making instead of decisioons formed by simple habits.

Votring by habit is not what democratic elections are about. For that, influencing the pltical going of a whole community simply is too important as if any community can afford to leave it to that.

Four weeks ago, I got letter again, there is something that is called "Sozialwahlen", certain gremiums are getting voted for that have a supervising function over parts of the social security system. Not a single peson or name on the lists is known by most, incluzding me. I could throw a dice or a coin - but is that what democratic elections are about?

What I think on elections over political parties on federal and national level, I have said in earlier threads.

What is said in the textbooks about how it is meant and what it should be like, is one thing. But reality - is totally different. The theory of de,mocracy in our modern time with our modern social communities to me seems to be as dysfunctional as is the theory of ideal capitalism or the theory of ideal classic economy theory or as the theory of ideal communism.

In the end, all this is just a variation of a theme that has surfaced repeatedly in the past mon ths in thios forum: the controvery I had with some others over total, unlimited freedom and necessarily limited freedom, and total tolerance versus tolerance that is intolerant of the intolerant.

Freedom to choose is not so much just a right - riding this prinmciples hill up, hill down, leads you nowhere but into distortions. Freedom to choose is a skill, an ability. It depends of actual choices being avaiulable (with the choices being diferent to each other indeed), and your ability to see the difference between them, and the longterm consequences. People not being able to deliver in this regard, shall notr be given the right to influence and maybe mess up the fate of all. For that reason we do not allow little children to vote. For that reason I think we shall, not allow very old people with already present intellectual handicaps to vote (like we also do not let them drive cars, etc.). Education and information is what it is about, and intellectual capacity to process these. And here, not all people are the same. Not at all.

If people cannot step beyond themselves, and think beyong themselves and take into account the factors I mentioned, they should indeed not be allowed to vote. Not in violation of democracy, but actually to give back some meaning to "democracy". Acting by habit, or by throwing a coin, or by instinct or trained behavior, everybody can. You then can even let doves in laboratories vote for parliament. But then it would not make a difference between democratically elected regimes, and regimes that are simply put on top off you.

Is this really what democracy is about?

I am convinced that somehow we need to learn to think beyond democracy. I have no solutiun, but I still can state that like I can state that a claimed false solution for a complex mathematical formula is wrong - by showin g it to be wrong. You can falsify a wrong result even if you do not know the correct result.- ;)

See all this also a bit in the light of that essay 14 months ago, where I summarised Jared Diamond (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159065) about how we can make suicidal decisions about our fate and future - on the basis of maximum reasonability and well intention and good argument.

[Betonov]

Maybe if we eliminate the pre-election campaign more voters would vote based on the achievements of the voted and not on their sweet talk.
C'mon, one has a whole mandate to make up his mind

[Skybird]

Maybe if we eliminate the pre-election campaign more voters would vote based on the achievements of the voted and not on their sweet talk.
C'mon, one has a whole mandate to make up his mind
lieschen Müller is 78 years of age and hardly understands a word anymore. She does not know much about anything anymore, but she still goes voting. You can evenm buy her vote by promising her that her pension will rise. In a society that is rapidly overaging, and the financial burdens for the young threaten to sink them even before they can found and secure their own existence and future and family, this is almost cataclysmic a trend.

What have pre-election campaigns to do with this...? While pre-election campoaigns aim at making people act studid, there absence does not make people more educated and insightful, but leave them as they are.

And before somebody comes with the claim again that nobody pays attention to campaigns and stupid slogans anyway - parties would not invest those big ammounts of money into campaigns if they could not influence the voting outcome by that. Like the industry would not invest millions and billions into advertising, if that would not make a real difference in consumer behavior.

There is another inherent problem. Even if there would be no campaigns, elected parties and poltiicans tend to make policies that secure their next re-election. They still do so even if dpoing so comes at the cost of the overall interst and longterm perspective of the community, and comes at tzhe price of compromising state reason.

This is one of the showstopping bugs that so far no poltiical system - including democracy - has solved. And it cannot be overestimated. It is one of the reasons why our intended desiogn for Wetsern nations all have been corrupted and distorted into oligarchies run by lobby groups and political parties who rate their own powerinterest as higher as state reason and communal interest.

And you cannot vote it off.

[Tribesman]

Tribesman, you are a terrible writer and not in the least capable of conveying a point effectively.
Yet you understood perfectly what was conveyed.:up:

No, he isn't. He's toting the same line but in a different form, as I'm sure you've perceived.
You understood that too even though it was deliberately misleading.
:yeah:

[Skybird]

Another question, in the more diatant context of this thgread: of what value is freedom, if the people/community in question does not value freedom, either by will, or lacking interest, or inability to value it?

And if somebody does not value freedom - does he deserve freedom then? Has he even a reight for freedom?

Must a slave be given freedom, if he does not desire to be free? Is it making any difference at all (except for yourself whose self-assessment may rise when you come along in shing armour and oin a white horse and offer hiom to free him)? Aren't you about freedom then for any other reason than your own narcissim, and to feel great by behaving as what you perceive as your gallantry? Kalil Gibran wrote that if you find a sleeping slave, you should wake him and explain to him freedom. But he wrote of a slave who already dreamed of freedom. - But what if he does not desire freedom, or cannot appreciate it? Maybe as a free man his life wpould not change at all, and he still woudl face a daily fight for survival. What vcalue has freedom then? Biologically, organisms tend to behave by the imperative of "the important things first". That is, securing the organism's survival. Is freedom an imperative priority here? What does it mean for a man not to live in freedom - is it enough to just exist?

How can and does love interfere with freedom?

[Betonov]

I'm not going to disagree on you there. But no sweet talk and no bull**** might produce some good results. Like I said, if there's no campaign to try to convnce people that it would be better, they would have to convince the people by making it better. Re-electing would be a mattter od actions in the last 4 years and not the words of the last 4 weeks.
To put in an example. Last year we had elections for mayors of municipalities. We had behind us a mandate of a very competent mayor- Leopold Pogacar. Under his mandate the entire infastructure was being overhauled. 50% of all roads have been replaced anew, sewer system to every house (previosly only the newer parts had sewers, we had a septic tank), fiber optics to almost all houses plus a new advertisement campaign that tripled tourist visitations. His re-election campaign was almost non existent. A coule of posters, one picnic. He was re-elected by 78%. It was his 4 years that convinced us, not the 4 weeks before an election. Oh, not to leave a loophole, he was elected in the frst place for having an honest and hardworking reputation, also had a modest election campaign.

Thank you and good night

[tater]

Maybe if we eliminate the pre-election campaign more voters would vote based on the achievements of the voted and not on their sweet talk.
C'mon, one has a whole mandate to make up his mind

A campaign would ideally be to educate the voters on your positions. Anyone who has watched a modern, so-called "debate" (least here in the US) is already LOLing (assuming they are not one of the clueless idiots we're berating ;) ). It's flash over substance, and in many cases the electorate is willfully ignorant. "Obama is a (Kenyan) muslim" on the one hand, and "Obama is gonna pay my mortgage!" on the other. Idiots all.

On topic, I really would prefer a system that required at least a basic understanding of the US system for people to be registered to vote in the US. Freshman year in High School, we were required to take "Government" at my school. My teacher gave us snippets of the Constitution to study every day or two (it's been over 20 years, not sure—regardless, he divided the entire thing (and Amendments) into manageable sections), then the quiz was to write out the assigned section from memory verbatim.

Do I still remember the entire Constitution verbatim? Nope. Is the gist there? Absolutely.

Being able to answer a series of intelligent questions regarding the Constitution to me should be the minimum standard to be allowed to vote. And the passing grade standard should be high. I've taken a few of the "citizenship" tests available online, and the only question I ever missed was one regarding the specific form required of naturalized citizens (the answer was some form number). All the real questions, I have always been able to answer. Make a 90% required to pass. That says nothing about the voter's understanding of current events, but it at least it means they can place those events within the context of our form of government.

In the last Presidential election, I watched a "handler" of a group of adult, retarded people talking each into the cubby, and I could hear her telling them who to vote for. Needless to say, she made it easy and had them scribble in the circle for a Democrat party ballot.

[Platapus]

As an election official, I have to admit that sometimes I think that Universal Suffrage, while a noble concept, is a lousy reality

[Feuer Frei!]

Problem is, the dumb always seem to be the majority in elections!
The way i see it is that here in Australia, there are way too many people that i speak to that firstly wouldn't have a clue about Politics, what the different parties stand for, what their stand points are etc.
The other thing that i find is that people don't give a rat's about politics either.
Needless to say, ie they are uneducated, misinformed, easily swayed, voting for a party because of peer group pressure, because their g/f or b/f or grandmother voted for them then 'i may as well'.
Can't remember who said in this thread that we need to educate people more about their countrie's politics.
Politics is a farce anyway.
All the b***s*** that politicians speak well before, pre elction campaign and during election campaigning is tiring and just so ridiculous.
The 'sales pitch' that they deliver is laughable, and it is the same usual crap every time elections are looming or taking place.
A bunch of gutless and spineless liars who only seem to care during times of elections about the country or the state if it's a state election, then, once elected, it's business as usual!
The attitude seems to then be 'well, we are in, now we can just relax and do nothing about the election promises'.
Unfortunately dumb people will always be sucked in by the lying, 2-faced politicians.
I have long believed that that is how the wrong governments get into power.
The dumb people vote for them.
Thank you Captain Obvious you say, well, makes sense doesn't it?

Solution?
Educate, educate, educate!!!!!
Then you may just find that the majority of voters will be better informed to make the right decision, not a dumb one!

[sidslotm]

Hi,

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Edward Bernayes.

[Penguin]

In this thread: people mixing the meanings of education, knowledge, intelligence and wisdom; stupidness, unintelligence and ignorance...


People, even dumb people, have the inalienable right to self-determination. Saying anything contrary to that is to demean their status as human beings, and in turn to demean your own.


:agree: nuff said!

[Slyguy3129]

I had a long drawn out post bashing this and that and the what not when suddenly I realized I sounded just like the political party I can't stand. So I erased it and typed this instead.

I believe dumb just depends on the side of the political spectrum you vote for. There is no doubt that we are in general not as intelligent as we once were. But that is because more people are around and well, the lesser of us all can live off the government and what not. Of course as much as I love technology I can't help but see it being a problem as well. Spelling and grammar (which I do not claim I am good at, I just type how I talk) is at an all time low I imagine, and will no doubt continue to go down.

Mostly I think the education system is to blame. Here is Texas every school focuses on the TAAS Test (Now named the TAKS test: A test you have to pass before you graduate High School.) I will be the first to admit that I absolutely hated school from day one. All one had to do was remember the answers long enough to take the test and throw it out the window. Then these schools go to the media and say, "Look how well our school did on the test. We need more money". Money has nothing to do with it, it is the quality of information we are given. Now here is Texas some politicians won't to teach us about Santa Anna's side of the story in the War for Texas Independence because, well not doing so will offend his descendants. So now that want to teach about a brutal tyrannical Dictator who slaughtered men, women and children, of his country and mine, to appease a group of minorities.

That's another problem as well. The system which controls what we are able to teach is to busy trying to when votes from someone rather than teach us something that will give us a step up in life.

But even after all that, I believe everyone no matter how dumb I think they may be have the God given right to determine their own future, even if it means that my future will be hurt. The ol'e I disagree with what you say, but I will fight, even to death, to protect your right to say it.

And for the TL;DR of us all, in short we are all screwed.

[Armistead]

We are a dumb nation and getting dumber. The fact we get the same dumb political ads show how dumb we are, cause obviously most far for them.

People should use an open mind, then make informed decisions, instead of voting party lines. Still, most smart people just pick who they think will do the least amount of damage.

[August]

There is no doubt that we are in general not as intelligent as we once were.

I've heard this said often enough but i've never seen any study that proves this is actually the case.

[Slyguy3129]

I've heard this said often enough but i've never seen any study that proves this is actually the case.

Of course you not going to see any study on it. It would go against a particular political parties main reason for existing.

I ask this, have you seen any studies that dispute the fact? No. Its is just common sense that the more people abound the lower the general IQ.

I am not for population control.

[August]

I ask this, have you seen any studies that dispute the fact? No.Well actually yes I have:

http://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp

I guess common sense has failed you in this case...

[Slyguy3129]

Fair enough, but I would love to see a study after the DoE was established.

Of course one study doesn't make it fact, or wrong. Its just one study.

Of course the Flynn effect tends to agree with your idea.

[August]

Fair enough, but I would love to see a study after the DoE was established.

Of course one study doesn't make it fact, or wrong. Its just one study.

It's one more study than you have provided to the contrary so I guess we'll have to go with it.

[Slyguy3129]

Well one less study or not, people have forgotten some things and learned others.

I don't think I am some super genius but I was able to ace the ASVAB. I think "IQ" test are just as subjective to bias as any other opinion on this floating green globe.

[Betonov]

It's not that we are getting less inteligent, our minds are simply dulled. Machines do the thinking for us, we live in organized urban environments with everything we need a block away, solution to a problem is a phonecall/click away. Children learn facts, but now how to solve problems and think.

[Slyguy3129]

It's not that we are getting less inteligent, our minds are simply dulled. Machines do the thinking for us, we live in organized urban environments with everything we need a block away, solution to a problem is a phonecall/click away. Children learn facts, but now how to solve problems and think.

Perhaps that is a better way of saying it than what I said.

Obviously what I said was "wrong" in some eyes.

[August]

Perhaps that is a better way of saying it than what I said.

Obviously what I said was "wrong" in some eyes.

Obviously... :roll:

[Slyguy3129]

And obviously we can agree to disagree.

:stare:

[Penguin]

Its is just common sense that the more people abound the lower the general IQ.


Common sense doesn't mean anything in mathematics. If there more people are in a group, there still will be an average IQ of 100. Still, 'IQ' is no scientific unit of measurement, it is only an effort to show the distribution of intelligence relative to others.


It's not that we are getting less inteligent, our minds are simply dulled. Machines do the thinking for us, we live in organized urban environments with everything we need a block away, solution to a problem is a phonecall/click away. Children learn facts, but now how to solve problems and think.

Good point!
I also think that the ability to solve problems, to have an analytical mind is a part of intelligence. However I think that learning facts is still important, especially because of this behaviour which you have decribed: "Why should I learn something if I have wiki one click away?"

[Slyguy3129]

Yea IQ was not the best way to describe what I said.

Betonov hit the nail on the head with what I was trying to get at.

[Betonov]

It's been a theory of mine for a long time, glad you find it agreable.

[Slyguy3129]

The term my local Junior College uses is, Critical Thinking Skills.

But yes I think what you say is true Betonov, one of the downsides to modern society.

[Betonov]

The solution would be simple, a gradual reform of our teaching system so the next generation would be, shall we say, smarter than us ??
Implementing, that would be dificult, from all the resistance from ''dumb people vote for us'' and ''dumb people buy our products'' groups (which run the whole show)

[Skybird]

I've heard this said often enough but i've never seen any study that proves this is actually the case.

Maybe no study, but arguments worth to be thought about:

from already 1985:

Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death.

And yes, I am convinced that in general we are less educated than we once were.

But we are more overinformed, and misinformed.

[yubba]

Yet, we know what's on the dollar menu at Mickey D's:woot:

[August]

I am convinced that in general we are less educated than we once were.

Well you might be right you can't prove it by our educational attainment:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Educational_attainment.jpg

[Skybird]

You measure general education by totals of grades...?

You can have many academics in a room, and still the same room crowded with idiots.

In Germany we have the phenomenon of schoold notes becoming better, while more and more kids are less educated, can't read or write correctly after school. That is because the better notes are politically demanded - by lowering the standards: same note for more errors, better notes for same ammount of errors in school papers.

I thought we were talking education here on a more than just formal basis.

I only knew many, vceryx many people who stumbled through their university study courses, and while being able to parrot book knowledge lbindly like telephonme recorders, they had been perfectly trained to not creatively, independently think on their own. Such people are not able to form critical, questioning opinions of their own.

Information is not just information. The way you give and present it, already filters the options you have in using it, inevitably. The tools you work with, tailor and design the way you raise further information - so that these tools can calculate and compute them. By sticking to these tools, you mislearn to raise data and information of standards that these tools cannot handle.

Nowhere is this more true than in our interaction with computers and Windows! Windows is perfectly training us to work and think in certain ways that Windows lkes and can compute, while others it cannot, and we do not get encouraged to try these alternatives.

Behavioural shaping, and cognitive and intellectual shaping as well.

A growing number of children and juveniles in Germany cannot explain the origins and purpose of Christmas, and do not know who - like them or not - famous names of contemporary politics or history have been. They do not know what SPD means and who Goethe was, but they know the top three of the jingle charts for sure. Extreme weakness in correct grammar and spelling as well as extreme deficits in basic mathematics are so widespread that companies and employers need to train young people in growing numbers before they can start to train them in the job they have entered. Retraining them in logarithmics and basic statistics, is one thing, for nthat bstuff already is quite specific, I had to retrain that at the very beginning of my studying, too, since I was weak at that at school. But if people cannot handwrite a single sentence in their mother tongue without three errors in it, do not know who Helmut Kohl was, and are unable to make a simple division or multiplication or substraction with pencil and paper and without calculator, then I would say this is reason for deepest worries and concerns.

We have a growing number of academ,ics, buit the general standard of academic capability nevertheless seems to decline. Also, we have more and more "Fachidioten" - specialists that are unable to look beyond the very specific tunnelview of theirs.

Add to this a very different thing - the disease of widespreading opinion confomrity, as well as the pressure of poltiical correctness limitjuing even further what is not only allowed to do, but even what is allowed to be talked about, even what is allowed to be thought about. Add the media mainstream, the selfcensorship and widespread uniformity of the press. Add internet "news", and the increase of sites spreading news but the quality becoming more and more shallow, and the sources copying each other unchecked more and more.

We seem to have access to more information than ever, yes. But we are just the most misinformed and manipulated public ever, me thinks. The hope was that internet would brung us ten instead of just three sources for news, and this would make us better educated. Instead we are tried to become manipulated three times as intense than before, it seems to me. Or we get turned stupid three times as intense than before.

Most symbolical is the decline of TV and newspaper news. More and more it has turned away from trying to present objective information that they have researched as best as they could, and especially the TV news turned into an entertainment format bristling with quick cuts, colours, fast changing scenes, jingles and exciting - so they think - short spots. It is tailored to prevent people hitting thre button, the quota dominates the wuality of the information and seriousness, and the same stuff gets hammered home again and again and again and again. People ability to digest complex, indepoth infromation that way gets reduced, and their awareness span declines. And that now is a real and really threatening deficit.

All these things together are one of the main reasons why I am pessimistic about the omnipotence of democracy. We indeed get entertained to death - intellectual death. Switching on the TV is like pushing the button for the electric chair, with your brain stripped onto it.

[Slyguy3129]

Sky I must admit you have a point with the lowering of standards in order to achieve the "political" demand.

There is a police academy in Daton being sued by the NAACP because of a lack of black police officer graduates. The academy responded by saying they were not meeting the standard, the NAACP response? Lower the standard. D grades were already considered passing now they want F grades to pass.

[mookiemookie]

I got 15/20 on the test.

I missed what Susan B. Anthony did, number of amendments to the constitution, years a senator served for (got mixed up with term for a Rep), and who's next in line after Pres and VP (total brain fart...call me Alexander Haig) and I answered "levy taxes" as a power that's granted to the federal government. I dispute Newsweek's omission of that in their official "correct answer." The 16th Amendment specifically grants the government that power.

[August]

You measure general education by totals of grades...?

Not just grades. Literacy rates will work too.

200 years ago the illiteracy rate in this country was 20%, 100 years ago 10%, presently it's less than 5%. Now those are facts.

Like I said originally: "I've heard this said often enough but i've never seen any study that proves this is actually the case." What you and others have posted so far in response appears to consist mainly of feelings and personal beliefs which, while interesting are not really compelling arguments.

[Skybird]

Not just grades. Literacy rates will work too.

200 years ago the illiteracy rate in this country was 20%, 100 years ago 10%, presently it's less than 5%. Now those are facts.

Like I said originally: "I've heard this said often enough but i've never seen any study that proves this is actually the case." What you and others have posted so far in response appears to consist mainly of feelings and personal beliefs which, while interesting are not really compelling arguments.
Last time I read about it, illiteracy rate in many Western nations, including Germany (not sure but I think US as well), were increasing.

My info on school notes and school skills, comes not only from the news about employers complaining about falling standards of school graduates, and statistics, but from several teachers I happen to know in my circle of friends.

[Skybird]

Sky I must admit you have a point with the lowering of standards in order to achieve the "political" demand.

There is a police academy in Daton being sued by the NAACP because of a lack of black police officer graduates. The academy responded by saying they were not meeting the standard, the NAACP response? Lower the standard. D grades were already considered passing now they want F grades to pass.

Sure it is Daton you talk about? It sounds so very much German. :88)

[Skybird]

I'm just happy that at my school times there were no school notes gioven for keyboard typoing... :D

[Tribesman]

There is a police academy in Daton being sued by the NAACP because of a lack of black police officer graduates. The academy responded by saying they were not meeting the standard, the NAACP response? Lower the standard. D grades were already considered passing now they want F grades to pass.
How does an entrance exam to an academy effect the actual graduation process?
Doesn't Dayton currently have a problem recruiting sufficient candidates for training into eventual jobs for both the police and fire department?
Would candidates fail either of the two written entrance exams if they couldn't spell Dayton?

[Slyguy3129]

My IPhone does stupid stuff when I type in a hurry.

Regardless it is not an entrance exam it was their final exam. And if they do have problems getting people then that makes the NAACP that much more, well I'm not going to say it. The NAACP has been that way for years.

[Tribesman]

Regardless it is not an entrance exam it was their final exam.
It was the entrance exam from last novembers applications session, specificly it was two parts of the entrance exam one part of which they wanted to lower the score by 8% and another part by 9%
If those applicants had passed the exam which is basicly a civil service entrance exam they would have gone to police college as police cadets, if they had completed their training at the academy they would have become proper police upon graduation.
Simple eh:yeah:

What is funny about the alterations to the entrance exam :yeah:is that it isn't going to make any difference at all apart from creating a larger pool as succesful candidates must be chosen for admittance to the police academy in a top down process.

[Slyguy3129]

So yea the exam would be change to allow people who fail the exit exam into the police force, another problem with our society.

On a more important note after looking around for 5 minutes I found how to add people to the ignore list.

[Tribesman]

So yea the exam would be change to allow people who fail the exit exam into the police force, another problem with our society.


No young man, if you fail the exit exam you don't leave the acadamy as a graduate to become a policeman
However if you pass the entrance exam you get to go to the next stage of the application process to gain entrance to the police acadamy.

Education standards nowadays eh?

[Matador.es]

For a democracy to function effectively it demands that the basic is working properly. In this case the basic are the voters. But as they do not know what is in the market, they will make unfounded choices based on what they do not know. Also known as wrong choices.

I think the lack of awareness is the biggest thread of democracy.


Skybird, my compliments on your remakrs.
Edit: In Germany we have the phenomenon of schoold notes becoming better, while more and more kids are less educated, can't read or write correctly after school. That is because the better notes are politically demanded - by lowering the standards: same note for more errors, better notes for same ammount of errors in school papers.
Just like in the militairy: grade / rank inflation