Are we really this dumb?

I think the argument between Hack28 and mopusvindictus is a prime example of how dumb we really are. Arguing over forum avatars? What's next, claiming a user's opinion is of less value due to their registration date? Oh wait, that already happened in another thread a few days ago...

Here's another post that caught my eye:

Originally posted by double_frick
i guess its just hard to continue reading or taking seriously anything people say who cannot spell small words, or at least use spell check.
sometimes i really feel like i'm talking to 12-year-olds here on ATS anymore, its pathetic. :/

So let me get this straight: Misspelling words is indicative of 12-year-old behavior, but it's perfectly mature to not capitalize the beginning of your sentences? Taking the middle-ground is fine since I have a friend who does the same and admits she does it out of laziness, but your statement "its pathetic :/" is hard to take seriously.

There's a difference between being ignorant and being stupid. I don't think most Americans are stupid, but most are, myself included, ignorant about basic information that our ancestors could answer on a whim.

[edit on 1/7/2010 by SonicInfinity]

Originally posted by spookfish

Originally posted by PD2634

Originally posted by spookfish
reply to post by SpacePunk

 

As a American, I will not call you a pedant. Being a "dumb" American I will attempt to correct you.


Some might call me a pedant. But none of them will be American.
Some might call me a pedant, however, none of them will be Americans.



[edit on 7-1-2010 by spookfish]

Haha. Very good nice attempt but-

Thank you for your attempt to correct me and to mangle the quote tagging system. However (or indeed BUT), I am British born and bred and starting a sentence with a conjunction has been perfectly acceptable for many years in the country where the language was born. The English Language is an evolving affair (thank god) and according to my copy of Fowlers Modern English Usage, as well as my English and Creative Writing Professors at Bath Spa Uni, starting with such a conjunction is fine in even formal writing and is called an anapodoton. It is even more acceptable in informal writing such as on internet forums. But but but...please continue to attempt to admonish me over my usage of 'but' even though you are wrong.

In the words of many on this board 'I could care less'.

[edit on 7-1-2010 by spookfish]

Which University did you say you went to? It doesn't sound like it is a very good one to me, and I have lived in the UK all of my life.
In short; your grammar, and punctuation is terrible. Here's how your wording should have been laid out:


"Ha ha. Very good nice attempt but:

Thank you for your attempt to correct me, and to mangle the quote tagging system. However, (or indeed BUT) I am British born and bred, and starting a sentence with a conjunction has been perfectly acceptable amongst dolts and idiots for many years in the country where the language originally developed. The English language is an evolving affair (thank god) and according to my copy of Fowlers Modern English Usage, as well as my English and Creative Writing Professors at Bath Spa Uni, starting with such a conjunction is fine, even when writing formally. This would be called called an anapodoton. It is more widely used in informal writing, and most evident in the content of internet forums. But, but, but; please continue to attempt to admonish me over my usage of 'but' even though you are wrong. In the words of many on this board, 'I could care less'."

Perhaps next time, you should request a full refund on your English language courses. If you genuinely read at University anywhere, I am appalled at your complete lack of understanding of basic grammar, and punctuation. Perhaps, you posted after bed time, and you were tired. I on the other hand didn't bother wasting my time at university, and instead took myself on a course of reading books, and teaching myself how to read and write properly. I cannot be profess to be an expert, but it seems to me that I'm a good deal better than you.

Damn. Now I've broken my own rule of never attacking someone on here in such a way, but you rather irritated me with your hypocritical and snide remarks.

[edit on 7-1-2010 by dampnickers]

Originally posted by dampnickers
In short; your grammar, and punctuation is terrible.

I tried to think up something witty in response to this, but all I could do is laugh. That should be a comma, not a semi-colon, the comma after "grammar" is not necessary, and "is" should be changed to "are" at the end. We all make mistakes, but acting all high-and-mighty trying to correct somebody else while duplicating the mistakes you are correcting is amusing.

[edit on 1/7/2010 by SonicInfinity]

I have only read 2 pages of this thread and all of the "rofl stuped peeple" material thus far is a total bunk, a compilation of chain mail hoaxes. Except maybe those old tricks like "look a dead bird!" for joking with kids... I mean come on.

If you want to see more of this staged stuff made for you to feel smarter just go to lamebook.com or yahooanswerfail.com, failblog.org or many many others.

I'm all for pointing out ignorance but ATS community (us!) failed at doing so yet again and we got slapped back by even more hypocrisy and astonishing egoism.

As for the topic itself, I think "the NWO" is giving you all the proper tools to dumb yourself into oblivion but the more obvious it gets more people will deny those tools.

I'm sorry for ranting as few probably already did.

Originally posted by Mountainmeg
Here's the American version. And, yes, I do believe the average person has been dumbed down this much.


NEW YORK - resident Kathy Evans brought humiliation to her friends and family
When she set a new standard for stupidity with her appearance
On the popular TV show, 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.'

Evans, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, got stuck on the first question
And proceeded to make what fans of the show are dubbing 'the absolute worst use
Of lifelines ever.' After being introduced to the show's host
Meredith Vieira, Evans was posed with a typically easy initial $100 question.

The question was: 'Which of the following is the largest?'

A) A Peanut
B) An Elephant
C) The Moon
D) Hey, who you calling large?

Immediately Mrs. Evans was struck with an all consuming panic as she did not
Readily know the answer. 'Hmm, oh boy, that's a toughie,' said Evans,
As Vieira did her level best to hide her disbelief.
'I mean, I'm sure I've heard of some of these things before,
But I have no idea how large they would be.'

Evans made the decision to use the first of her three lifelines, the 50/50.
Answers A and D were removed, leaving her to decide which was
Bigger, an elephant or the moon. However, faced with an incredibly
Easy question, Evans still remained unsure.

'Oh! It removed the two I was leaning towards!' exclaimed Evans...
'Darn. I think I better phone a friend.'
Mrs. Evans asked to be connected with her friend
Betsy, who is an office assistant.

'Hi Betsy! How are you? This is Kathy! I'm on TV!' said Evans,
Wasting the first seven seconds of her call.
'Ok, I got an important question. Which of the following is the largest?
B, an elephant, or C, the moon. 15 seconds Hun.'
Betsy quickly replied that the answer was C, the moon.
Evans proceeded to argue with her friend for the remaining ten seconds.
'Betsy, are you sure?' said Evans. 'How sure are you? Duh, that can't be it.'

To everyone's astonishment, the moronic Evans declined to take her friend's
Advice. 'I just don't know if I can trust Betsy. She's not all that bright.
So I think I'd like to ask the audience,' said Evans.

Asked to vote on the correct answer, the audience returned 98% in favor of
Answer C, 'The Moon.' Having used up all her lifelines,
Evans then made the dumbest choice of her life.
'Wow, seems like everybody is against what I'm thinking,' said the
Too-stupid-to-live Evans. 'But you know, sometimes you just got to go with
Your gut. So, let's see... I'm going to have to go with B, an elephant. Final answer.'

Evans sat before the dumbfounded audience, the only one waiting with bated breath -
And was told that she was wrong, and that the answer was in fact, C, 'The Moon.'

Please check the accuracy of your stories before posting...

www.snopes.com...

reply to post by dampnickers


Jeez there's another.

Firstly, I'm going to leave the emoticons out of this post because their presence earlier seems to have confused you.

I've been having a little fun using an informal style of writng in an informal setting as is obvious when you read my posts in this thread. However, this has caused another pedant to rear its ugly head. It's such a shame one cannot go around calling oneself a pedant without some [snip] barging in an taking everything the wrong way. Yep it was me. I referred to myself as a pedant, but from your tone it would appear you're a much bigger one than me.

I've read the first line of your post and then skipped to the last lines. As feared your rude and snide remarks appear to be serious and not a joke. I really feel sorry for you. It must be awful not having a sense of humour. BUT,:!? then again you wouldn't know any difference. "We speak the same language but you have no clue what I'm saying." Sorry, I just had to write that last statement because I'm parachuting or parafrazing, or para-phrasing a movie I'm watching right now. Should I have put the quotation marks after or before the full stop or is it a terminal?

What a nob. There's no question mark there is there? "Or is there?" Sorry thats a Stephen Fry reference. I thought I'd better point that out because what with having no sense of humour you're unluckily to have got it otherwise.

Is it lonely where you are?


[edit on 7-1-2010 by spookfish]

Originally posted by SonicInfinity

Originally posted by dampnickers
In short; your grammar, and punctuation is terrible.

I tried to think up something witty in response to this, but all I could do is laugh. That should be a comma, not a semi-colon, the comma after "grammar" is not necessary, and "is" should be changed to "are" at the end. We all make mistakes, but acting all high-and-mighty trying to correct somebody else while duplicating the mistakes you are correcting is amusing.

[edit on 1/7/2010 by SonicInfinity]

Perfect! Someone that spotted the mistakes.

My faith in humanity is restored. Thank you.

Originally posted by spookfish
What a nob

Maybe if you stopped adding unnecessary, inciting remarks at the end, people wouldn't keep responding to you in a rude manner.

Also, I believe it's "noob/n00b", not "nob", unless "nob" is slang for something that I'm not aware of.

reply to post by spookfish


Well Spookfish, it is dissapointing to see you resort to name-calling. How very intellectual of you.

My post was toungue-in-cheek. I see that another poster spotted this, yet you managed to miss it. Perhaps you were merely suffering from a bruised ego and couldn't handle the pressure.

Don't worry, I don't hold it against you, and I'm still smiling. You should be too, because life is far, far too short to be concerned about your ego.

Peace.

It is a shame, the reason for the original post was simply to show how I thought we were being dumbed down but MSM, and government, and i honestly believe that one of the reasons for the dumbing down, is to increase the amount of arguing and fighting we do among our selves. it takes our minds of the real issues that surround or every day life. I disagree with you, you disagree with me, and we fight, when all the time, right under our noses there is something or other going on that will impact our lives in one way or another. And we miss it, because we were to busy doing exactly what they want us to do. Fight.

I am dyslexic, i personally don't think that has an impact on my intelligence or my common sense, I often get my punctuality and grammar wrong, I try not to use to many slang terms or texting short cuts, but i do my best to get my point and message across, and in general most people are like that and accept it.

I didn't come on here to fight, i came to learn and meat new like minded people, and i wont fight if i can help it. For some however that seems to be one of the reasons they are here, and i don't get it.

It started as a bit of fun with a serious message, its a shame it couldn't keep that momentum, as adults i thought it would.

reply to post by Mountainmeg


Hey Mountainmeg,


I have another pelosi booboo....except I regretfully only recall her comment,

and not who she was conversing with, it was around campaign time and things we ramping up she said in reference to GW, that " we made him a lame duck "............

which was one of the lamest comments I ever heard out of a public official....

thanks for the yuks.......

Originally posted by SonicInfinity

Originally posted by spookfish
What a nob

Maybe if you stopped adding unnecessary, inciting remarks at the end, people wouldn't keep responding to you in a rude manner.

Also, I believe it's "noob/n00b", not "nob", unless "nob" is slang for something that I'm not aware of.

nob is slang for penis. Please point out to me my earlier 'inciting remarks at the end' so that I may be fully rehabilitated. it's funny because you're doing it now as well, even though you had a go at someone else for it.

reply to post by neo5842


It's pretty ironic to see someone with such an atrocious command of the English language make fun of other people's intelligence.

reply to post by spookfish


www.urbandictionary.com...

"British slang term for the penis."

Oh, I see. I'm American, so I wasn't aware that they use "nob" as a slang term for "penis." Even so, there are so many other different slang terms for "penis" that it's hard to keep up with them all, and since "noob/n00b" means "troll", I thought you were calling him a troll when in fact, you were calling him a penis.

...why is this any better, exactly?

reply to post by dampnickers


Oh my mistake. it's just I've never seen the following used for a tongue and cheek statement.

"but you rather irritated me with your hypocritical and snide remarks."

I also saw the word 'refund' somewhere in one of your posts. So I'm assuming you mean uni fees. I don't need a refund because I didn't go I made it up. I was being tongue in cheek

Oh and to sonic it's not better its worse. Thats the whole point don't you get it? Everything I have written has been with tongue-in-cheek intent but you have now also taken the bate. Anyway I'm bored and it's late, we can pick this up tomorrow if you like, but I think it's all gone stale now.

Also Sonic can you let me know about those naughty comments I was making earlier as I am still in need of an education. I was pretty sure that first blood went to the other poster.

reply to post by spookfish


It doesn't matter who started it. This isn't 4chan; you don't come to ATS for a pointless argument. You should have been the better man, ignored it, and moved on, but by participating, you are equally as responsible.

The problem is this. Yes westerners are getting dumbed down by the education systems, media

and technology, however whilst we get dumbed down there are countries such as India and

China who are churning out honours students at a frightening rate. Their education systems are

often alot more intense and there is no room for stupidity. This is frightening because if we

continue down this path then we shall end up as the people in factories making the Chinese and

Indians shoes for 1 dollar an hour.

Wow, too funny! Thanks for that! I have to add, though, that I am shocked that, in the UK, the Kentucky Fired Chickens have tacos! Lucky!

i have been to Kfc's that sold taco's here in the states, but i guess they were combo resteraunts (spelling) they are KFC/Taco bells i know there is one in Kansas City just saying its not just a UK thing

Originally posted by neo5842
and i honestly believe that one of the reasons for the dumbing down, is to increase the amount of arguing and fighting we do among our selves. it takes our minds of the real issues that surround or every day life.

OP has a point.
Unfortunately, I think we have all been dumbed down.
It's the ego that refuses to accept this.
The thread is the proof.