RANT: Why does each generation get dumber?

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Wutang

Wutang

Hummingbird
Gold Member
I do agree that people looking down upon on youth as restless, unproductive and the like is nothing new.

At the same time, I do feel like our modern society contains elements that have made it way worse then it has been in the past. In the past there was no mass entertainment like television or video games or Twitter/Instagram/etc to keep young people perpetually distracted. There wasn't so much wealth that we could afford to have large amounts of people living in their parents basements smoking pot all day without society collapsing. There was no pornography on demand to easily sap the virility of youth. Even if the IQ of the average person has been getting higher, it doesn't matter much. Intelligence is nothing without a strong will to put it to use.

To sum it up: yes young people have always have a tendency to be boorish but the modern era and all that comes with it just makes that tendency even worse.
 
V

Veloce

Crow
Gold Member
Wutang said:
I do agree that people looking down upon on youth as restless, unproductive and the like is nothing new.

At the same time, I do feel like our modern society contains elements that have made it way worse then it has been in the past. In the past there was no mass entertainment like television or video games or Twitter/Instagram/etc to keep young people perpetually distracted. There wasn't so much wealth that we could afford to have large amounts of people living in their parents basements smoking pot all day without society collapsing. There was no pornography on demand to easily sap the virility of youth. Even if the IQ of the average person has been getting higher, it doesn't matter much. Intelligence is nothing without a strong will to put it to use.

To sum it up: yes young people have always have a tendency to be boorish but the modern era and all that comes with it just makes that tendency even worse.
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There is a telescopic nature in our relationship with technology. The industrial revolution started around 1760. Steam power by 1800s. 100 years later we're flying. 60 years later we're shooting a man into space. 20 years later, we've got the Personal Computer.

We can't and never will keep up with technology. We don't evolve that quickly, not even remotely as fast. It's like putting a chimpanzee behind the wheel of a Bentley; the world just isn't ready for that shit.
 
M

Mentavious

Hummingbird
Gold Member
I don't think we are getting dumber because of health and technological advances. It's just that our life is now easier and we have begun to get lazier. Instead of being really good at a few things we now only have to be good at one thing to make it in life.
 
R

RXB

Woodpecker
You're right, we are getting dumber. After all living in caves and worshiping natural disasters was the pinnacle of human intelligence.
 
Anaguma

Anaguma

 
Banned
I use to think this way, but now I don't. Rather, I think that each subsequent generation blows the previous generation out of the water because they get the benefit of hindsight knowledge as well as the newest technologies (health/nutrition, tools, etc.), and I now think that viewing the younger generation as dumber is just a defense mechanism by the present generation as they get overwhelmed.

The barriers to entry for pretty much everything have risen and everything has gotten a lot more competitive than in the past, which is a testament to how each generation improves over the previous one. It's much harder now to get into good schools. I know that I can't get into my alma mater today with the credentials that I had then, and I think it's just going to get harder. I think the same is for entry level jobs now; I certainly would not get hired for a first job with the credentials I had then today.

Most people acknowledge that the newer generation would beat out the older generation in most sports. Bob Cousy at his prime would not make it to the modern NBA, and Maradonna would be too slow to be an elite soccer player in today's soccer leagues. I don't see why the analogy does not extend to intelligence and capability.
 
Sombro

Sombro

Ostrich
Agnostic
Boomers were shit parents.
Now their kids are parents.

Or even more broadly:

Kids without parents who pass on manners, teach skills or foster an interest in learning
+ Lousy school systems dumbed down with Frankfurt School groupthink
+ Submerged into a social/media culture where low culture entertainment, shoddy journalism and advertising are indistinguishable to them
+ electronic geegaws that cut them off from reality, further making them social retards
_________________________________

= Idiots.
 
TheBlackNarwhal

TheBlackNarwhal

Woodpecker
My generation is a tub of shit-bags wearing snapbacks and reciting "Yolo" like Drake tells them. It's funny, because in high school girls are attracted to these guys because they see them as having some kind of status because they mold to popular culture. Once they get out, they start to see there is far better quality out there.
 
Don Corleone

Don Corleone

 
Banned
Because their time is wasted on idle nonsense. A significant portion of the current generation (in America) prides itself on living in the moment and changing directions as the wind dictates. Familiar voices incessantly buzz in your ear, "Mentos: The Freshmaker." Radio stations and entertainment culture reprioritize the values of the youth, whom now focus their energy into worthless pursuits. The new religion in the west is hedonism. Of course, the ones affected are usually the uneducated. But I've known plenty of people with ambition who've succumbed due to societal pressure and small-picture thoughts. It's even starting to bleed into other world cultures, surprisingly enough.
 
L

lurker

 
Banned
The younger generation isn't any dumber. You're just forgetting what raging imbeciles we all were at their ages.
 
Architekt

Architekt

Ostrich
These western kids are being born into a world where every last thing is done for them, or at least made so easy, that they can do it without having to think, in any way. They have, literally, no idea how to survive outside of the comfort of their own homes. Take away the "creature comforts" our generation loves so much, and they'd die within a week or 2. At the rate we're chewing through energy, and with dissent spread towards nuclear energy (even when it's a far safer, cleaner, and better in every possible way, method of harnessing energy), we're going to run out of resources to consistently power our civilisation pretty soon - and most likely before we get to the point of stealing resources from other planets.

What do you think happens at this point?

All of these people with their vast knowledge of internet cats, and the latest TV series are going to start to panic. Absolute pandemonium will ensue. Half of the male population will die out within months (men will, inevitably, protect most of the attractive females, I suspect). The remaining population will most likely be the military super powers, the industrial super powers, their kin and security squads, and, lastly, the true survivors. Of course, for the rich and powerful, life won't change much at all, except they'll be bored all day. Without a world to destroy, the signs of serious mental illness will probably come to light very quickly. They won't last very long, I don't think, as money will quickly become absolutely useless; at which point, they'll become the easiest of pickings.

The real survivors, that can defend themselves, that know how to communicate, know how to fuck, know how to look after themselves with natural resources, that can work a crowd in their favour, and that still retain the animalistic instincts they were born with, these are the men who will continue to survive. The whole race will be effectively reset, and we'll begin again. Hopefully this time around we won't fuck it up, and hopefully the militaries won't turn the entire world into a war zone and destroy everything; not just each other.

Of course, this is all speculation, but relevant to the OP. Each generation seems dumber, because they know less about the things we learned, and more about completely different things, that probably weren't even things when we were their ages. We need to make the decision ourselves to decide what knowledge is most important to us. When someone up top makes these decisions for us, you really have to wonder what the motivation is, behind the particulars of what kids are taught these days. Something like 46% (I forget the exact stat) of Americans didn't even care when they found out their phone calls are being monitored. Maybe I should throw on a tin foil hat, but fuck, that seems a tad off to me.
 
B

Beyond Borders

Peacock
Gold Member
Kingsley Davis said:
Beyond Borders said:
Captain Ahab said:
This kid is from my HOOD. West Palm Beach REPRESENT!!!!
Click to expand...

Stop by and slap that shit out of that kid's parents.
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There's so much grandma can do.
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I suppose what you meant to say is that there's only so much grandma can do? Am I reading that wrong?

Sorry if I am, but just in case, I'm not buying that, Man. We're talking about a seven-year-old kid here that's worried about "doing hood rat things with his friends." It sounds like he lives with his parents still, as he stole the rig because his mom yelled at him.

Any way you swing it, someone is dropping the ball. Again, this kid is seven - not 15. If your kid is this fucked up at that age, society did not do it to him. A complete lack of parenting and/or a conscious effort by a deadbeat father who thinks it's funny to get his kid to act like a gangster, consequences be damned, did.

Speculating a bit here, of course, but I've seen kids act this fucked up that young, and it's usually because big bro or dad think he's a toy him and his friends can sit around and laugh at when they're high.
 
soup

soup

Owl
Gold Member
Sombro said:
Boomers were shit parents.
Now their kids are parents.

Or even more broadly:

Kids without parents who pass on manners, teach skills or foster an interest in learning
+ Lousy school systems dumbed down with Frankfurt School groupthink
+ Submerged into a social/media culture where low culture entertainment, shoddy journalism and advertising are indistinguishable to them
+ electronic geegaws that cut them off from reality, further making them social retards
_________________________________

= Idiots.
Click to expand...

Maybe you answer your own question.
 
D

Derpface200

 
Banned
My personal opinion is that people have stayed the same.

One thing that we have to remember is that communications and media are much more open these days. I remember reading in the history books how the media worked with both the Republican party and Democratic party to present a strong front for the public. For instance, when FDR was president the media hid the fact that he could not walk due to polio for the entirety of his presidency. Also, President Eisenhower was banging his 25 year old driver lady or something and the media refused to air it due to the fact that "the personal lives of our politicians have no bearing on their competency to lead" or something. Then came Vietnam and the Pentagon papers where the media essentially did a 180 after finding out that both the Republicans and Democrats had lied to the public about the conduct and progress of the war. This lead to a culture of "investigative journalism" which basically left everything up for grabs.

In addition, before the internet anything that aired on TV, radio, or the newspaper could be easily controlled and stifled by the elite and government. Also, news of stupid shit often wouldn't spread beyond your hometown or city back in the day. Now with facebook, online news sources, etc, those things cannot be stifled or hidden.

So, what has really happened isn't that the generations have gotten dumber, its that news of stupid shit spreads more easily and cannot be controlled by the powers that be due to technology and a new, aggressive media culture.
 
Parlay44

Parlay44

Peacock
Gold Member
Well all the jobs that require intelligence are being outsourced oversees. That's why Asian kids are so good at math and programming. We need a dumber population to fill all the menial service jobs in this country. That's all that will be left eventually.
 
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