Dumbing down reality

It really depends upon the topic for "what is being dumbed down."

Definitely Civics and Physical Education.

It's not that kids don't have plenty being shoved into their heads -- it's that they have TOO much shallow information and not enough understanding of thought processes.

The degradation is in the area of the Liberal Arts, but if you go to a business or science class -- yeah, you have a lot to STUFF in your head. It would be better to actually have fewer things to learn but spending more time really understanding them. We have all the information we could want at our fingertips -- so we would do better with classes on research.

In general, I think there was a clear push to move students away from understanding Civics and History. Religion is pushed more than critical thinking. We also have a lot of crappy education books, who are co-conspirators in this censoring of the past. In exchange for having a huge market for worthless educational books -- they keep REAL history and thought out of the process. Now you get a book and pay for a "study guide key" so you can get learning "tools" online, and the teacher gets automatic testing and less work in exchange.

Why can't Universities make an algebra book and open source it and save Billions in education fees? Because someone has to make a buck on our students and whomever made the decision to PAY for books year in and year out as if Algebra changed, is getting PAID.

>> So, a touch of conspiracy and a WHOLE LOT OF GREED. Our civilization is collapsing because we all have jobs now either marketing crap to each other, or spying on each other.

Several reasons in my opinion and probably more than I am aware of.

1. The destruction of the American family
2. The teachers union
3. This is also a conspiracy site and I believe the general dumbing down of citizens equals a population base easier to control

The movie idiocracy was not fiction but more so a documentary from the future.

reply to post by VitriolAndAngst


Don't be so harsh with the truth. A little at a time so we don't get upset please

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL
Nice thread.

On the topic of "humans being dumber now days" I have a theory. I believe it is down to computerised memory that we know less. After all who needs to retain such knowledge as the 'big bang theory' or what monarch regined in 1237 when you can simply and quickly relearn it at the touch of a button.

I don't think it's so much that we are dumber, I think it's that were more economical with what and how we learn and retain information.

ALS

Simply proof of the fact. Who needs to know any math, I have a calculator in my Iphone. Who needs to know, well, ANYTHING, I can just look it up on Google on my Iphone right here. Duh.

You want to see some dumbing down on purpose, check out Mexico. Schools here are even worse. Most young people can barely read and write. NO ONE knows how to write in cursive anymore, and no one can add two plus two.

Yesterday I took my laundry to the laundromat because it's ten pesos per kilo on Tuesday and Thursday. The mental giant who just weighs laundry on a scale and then writes a receipt for it all day, had to bust out the calculator to figure out how much twelve kilos should cost. After much fumbling about with buttons, he figured out to write 120 pesos on the receipt. I handed him a 200 peso note. He had to whip out the old calculator again to figure out how much change to give me. I would have laughed except it becomes annoying after you see this in action the first ten thousand times.

As a rescue boat captain, I saw this kind of thing in action when they invented GPS. Suddenly any moron thinks they can head out into the deep blue and just GPS their way around. No need to know ANYTHING about navigation, or usually anything else.

Until the GPS stops working. Right when your engine breaks down. Your Iphone won't work out there. There's no one to call. You can't see anything. There are no road signs. There is no road. There are no phone booths, no gas stations, no police, no hotels. Good luck with that. Hopefully, I am within radio range and can come rescue you. That is, if you even have a radio. Who needs that old fashioned thing when you have your Iphone, right? With a GPS in it! Even if you can't explain where you are, as usual. ("I'm right here...to the left of the island") I can zero in on your radio signal with my RDF.

And actually, since I am there to rescue you, who needs crazy stuff like a compass, or an anchor, or, say, knowledge how to stop bad leaks? Of course, radio range is only about forty miles, any further than that and you are actually ON YOUR OWN. But you've got your GPS, right? No need to know anything else.

But wait, you are so smart and well educated. You are so specialized, that you know a huge amount about a VERY narrow field. Con men know that these are the easiest marks. You think you are so smart, that it's extra super easy to fool you, because you are too smart to get fooled. Ha. Airline pilots and lawyers are the EASIEST to con. Believe me, I know.

If you don't know basic math, because no one needs to waste space in their brain on stuff that a two dollar calculator can do, well, it's really easy to tell you that "Jobs are UP!" "The economy is BOOMING!" Just look at these numbers! Now vote for me! And it's almost impossible for you to even figure out HOW you are being screwed, let alone how badly. You will actually bend over and say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

Nah, no way the govt would want everyone to be so dumb that they can't see how they are getting screwed. Why would they want that? They have only your best interests at heart.

"We are from the government. We are here to help."

Originally posted by LUXUS

I have noticed that the media are increasingly trying to pervert the minds of viewers by promoting a trivial lifestyle where people are encouraged to be shallow individuals and the dumb are held on a pedestal as role models and fun people.

One word..... "Kardashians"

The stupidest of the shallow and dumbest of the dumb who are role models to a generation of brain dead females !

reply to post by CaptChaos


I'd give you a hundred stars if I could because what you said is beyond the truth if there's such a thing ! 👏

A great number of today's youth are simply incapable of using logic and God given common sense (or whomever put us here) to figure out / do the most basic things.

Sadly a large number of them will fall victims to "survival of the fittest".

reply to post by LUXUS


The observations you posted is correct however there is just one thing that seems to be missing
and that is that the governments have been putting fluoride into the water that we drink and so we
get dumbed down. Why do we need fluoride in the water and also in toothpaste. Talk about double
dosing.

There are three important aspects to the dumbing Down you are experiencing. The first has to do with the political agenda of a gradual trend toward an uneducated and easily controlled populous closer in approximation to serfs than to some idealized educated post enlightenment middle class. Indications of the Deliberate Dumbing down can be found in various conspiracy videos and books.
The second aspect is foreign invasion, part of a planned global economy that coincides with the desires of up and coming third world industrializing nations attempting to take a foothold in the late 20th to early 21st centuries. This is the educational equivalent of economic warfare and outsourcing, by communicating in foreign dialects, rearranging the grading curve, systems of tutoring and private advice, essentially you have ten thousand different mechanisms at work all engineered to provide favoritism to foreign powers through immigration and exchange programs intended to compromise the academic infrastructure and produce a brain drain among imperial powers.
The third aspect is more benign, but prevalent and related to international competition standards. Children are being taught not to think, but to memorize answers to tests in order to keep 'competitive' with other countries even though these other countries are cheating in similar and alternative ways. It isn't that the foreign students are better students, rather that they are better cheaters. These cheating techniques are generally ignored in western cultures, particularly by foreign professors aware of the cultural encouragement for cheating. In attempting to keep up with these cheaters, some schools in western civilization are mirroring their techniques, as evinced by scandals including the recent Harvard Cheating and Brooklyn elementary schools.

Out of the billions of jobs available in the world, only a small percentage require extensive education to perform. Compare the population of experimental physicists or active genetic engineers to the global population. We all know military occupations and industrial occupations such as assembly lines do not require a large number of engineering experts to perform their functions. The number of educated elite with a liberal arts or classics education needed to fill administration and diplomatic positions is far inferior to the number of universities already built. With a surplus of educated individuals, the controlling elite have begun to cull the academic population, and only those who are extremely self driven or selected to be groomed for these positions are receiving a real education. Imagine 16 year old kids studying Linear Algebra and The theory of First and Second Order Ordinary Differential Equations. Now compare that with the education you thought you knew.

The true intent or should I say one of many objectives that the so called 'Education' system had and still has is focused on self-proclaimed professors whom I refer to as "repeaters" doing the thinking for the students instead of the other way around and to force students into following a specific way or achieving a certain individual or collective mind state. The system has been built in a such way, that students that fail their exams are often regarded as complete idiots with no chance of having a good and prosperous future for them and their kids. And also the fact that you are forced (do your homework, study hard, I think we all heard that before) for around 7-8 months just to write some statements into a 1-2 or 3 paper exam. If you fail, you have to repeat all again, and the longer you go up the 'Education' levels, the more indoctrinated you become and less self aware you are.

Society also plays a part in this, because of the way it was built and the role it plays to further isolate the students who fail at their indoctrination in schools.

Not many people realize this but thank goodness some manage to disconnect their minds from this long process of indoctrination and re-unable themselves to do the critical thinking on their own.

Originally posted by hellbjorn012
How can the thread go on without someone mentioning reality TV shows such as Jersey Shore and Here comes Honey Boo Boo. The trash on tv that will lower your Iq by 100 points if you watch it. Gone are the good shows that taught morals and values and lessons like (Andy Griffith Show). Now any non talent trashy smuck can be put on tv and fools watch the crap.

Society is definitely being dumbed down and people are oblivious to there surroundings half the time.

Watch the film Idiocracy to get a glimpse of our future.

edit on 6-9-2012 by hellbjorn012 because: (no reason given)

Well said
Television should have been the tool that raised human awareness to new heights, instead they used it to do the exact opposite. I've written in many threads that television...or to be more exact, the garbage that is fed to us through it is the big evil of this world. It never goes down well though because most people have spent a small fortune filling an entire wall of their home with the biggest screen they can afford..

S&F for the OP, a well written post.

reply to post by LUXUS

"he could literally fight you with his eyes closed which he demonstrated on a few occasions. "

sorry, but you lost me after that. he "demonstrated"? sure! hey, you close your eyes too and I'll imagine punching you in the face. what were your actual symptoms from his mental beating?

This is just a prime example of Incentives for immoral behavior. If the teacher financially benefits from the grades of their students then they justify their means for the end result. Making the tests easier to pass makes it easier on the teacher. Makes perfectly logical sense, we all want to benefit ourselves; the problem is most do not think long term. Short term egoism does not take into account the affect this trend will cause to future generations whether it be your kids, grandkids or even a friends kids. There is a long term injustice being done for peoples short term benefits.

reply to post by LUXUS


I literally almost made a thread about this today....

It's been on my mind and something I've noticed a lot in the past 4-5 weeks.

I've always had really good awareness of everything around me. I was more aware as a 5 year old than most adults are today.

* Awareness , balance, and being considerate of others & Always Ask Questions.


If everybody did this there would be no problems. People wouldn't be tricked. Being dumb wouldn't be cool it would be looked down upon. Nobody would make fun or harass others.

It would be so simple to understand everything.


The things I've listed to me, are the things that are really the most important, but have been shoved aside because they aren't "hot " ....

We as a group used to search for knowledge... Now we just want to be entertained. Learning is hard work.

reply to post by whyamIhere


What a simple statement, but so very true my friend. I see it in the classroom on a daily basis.

reply to post by OMsk3ptic


But don't you question if you would find that kind of critical thinking on your own if you didn't go to college?

I mean, to me, college = debt. Some of my friends are in debt and only one of them is in shambles because of it. Plus, why isn't schools pumping out entrepreneurs? Why are they just pumping out "Cogs"?

Right now, found some really nice stuff that can't be found in college, and sure, if you really want to go into college just for a degree to big money, take it, but it's not going to last long. But if your going there and your there just to learn/get trained, and only for that, then I applaud those who do that, but that is only closest thing for those that want to make a difference.

I do my best to make a difference and get the things I have learned out there, and what I have learned is very esoteric but at the same time fighting against that which makes money, for example college.

So far that I know, college is no longer a school, it's a business. Teachers don't go there to teach, they go there to make money. The only thing that I blame is this system, it's design to make sheep, it's design to take power, it's design to instill fear.

So sir, if I may, what profession do you have in your aims?

reply to post by LUXUS


I agree with much of what you said, curious the Blue Fellow in you Avatar...Who is that? Who is he struggling with...DO you think he could be of help?

Metaphorically speaking

reply to post by LUXUS

is it possible that there were ancient civilisations that were intellectually equal or more advanced then us?

Oh yeah, no doubt about that.

It is not uncommon now for a person to be walking down a road and be completely oblivious that you are walking right behind them, you could almost breath on the back of their neck and they wouldn’t even know you were there. It is not uncommon now to be in a bar and have someone trip over you or spill their drink on you. You could simply say that the modern population are becoming oblivious!

True that is just the normal peeps that think the world will stop for them. Thankfully I have excellent side vision and am always aware of what's around me...I also have very good hearing thank you god or whatever gave me that.lol

But in all its all about brainwashing man...Television is main cause of this. People watch it and get a sense of to what reality should be when they don't realize reality is exactly what you make it to be. As long as weak ignorant people follow the flock it is too powerful to stop.

reply to post by litterbaux


Yes, totally distorting reality and man's true purpose. IMHO we have totally lost the plot on this planet, as a specie.

Originally posted by Consequence

No, I agree with pretty much all of your points regarding how people of today live/behave/learn.
However, I see rather non-controversial reasons as to why things are the way they are today.
The world is more complex today than it was before, and we don't have time to go into great depths in every single subject - we simply know too much as a collective.

I disagree with this premise, because we are not branching children out into specialized areas of learning until they reach college level education. In early grade school, most modern kids review and re-review material they were first introduced to three years prior. This leaves the more intelligent children quickly becoming bored. Even a lot of the high school curriculum seems "dumbed down."

I also can't help but wonder if some of those who disagree with this idea went to a (solely) publicly-funded school for most of their academic career.

reply to post by BewilderedandAmused


hi! Your avatar suggests that you are aware of the surrealistic in life. Love it! My paintings tend to be surreal.

Yes, it sad when there is knowledge without awareness. It is like a beautiful painting painted on a paper napkin. It has very little lasting value. So sad.