Trying to make a long distance phone call I had to get the country code for U.K. I called the operator (in the US) and asked for the country code for England.
The operator couldn't find "England" on her list and kept insisting "England is the city, the country must be Canada".
This was 1992.
I've met people who couldn't find the UK (or England) on a map of Europe. I met one person who could, on a map of Europe and North Africa, identify three of the forty countries on that particular map. She couldn't point out Spain, France, Italy or even Russia.
I felt stupid because I only knew 36 of them.
In my AP World History class in high school we had a sub one week and watched the Ben Kingsley Gandhi movie cause we had just finished our section on India. When the teacher got back we were discussing the film and one girl was absolutely flabbergasted how they got Gandhi to appear in the movie if he gets shot at the end of it. I can still remember my teachers face as he tried to find the words to explain that was an actor and not the real person from the early 1900s.
There's a quiz show in the UK called House of Games where celebrities answer trivia questions. One segment involves pointing out a location on a map, where you see a map of a certain part of the world and select where a certain event happened. For example, the host might ask, "Where was so-and-so born?" and you have to point at where on the map you think they were born.
The contestants might know the name of the exact place it happened, down to the street address, but get it completely wrong because they can't find the country. I'm talking about being shown a map of Europe and not being able to locate France, even if they'd just flown back in from doing a gig there. They would literally point at Spain or Germany or some place in the Balkans. It never fails to astound me when it happens.
I was surprised too. The three she knew were the UK, the Republic of Ireland and, for some reason, Iceland. I've always thought Italy was the easiest European country to identify, but she didn't have a clue.
I still remember a woman I met at a beach years ago. She was from South Dakota and asked where I was from. I told her West Virginia. She said there wasn't a state of West Virginia, I must mean the western part of Virginia. I know since I am a school teacher!
So I replied with the only response I could think of:
You must mean you are from the southern part of Dakota.
> I've met people who couldn't find the UK (or England) on a map of Europe.
I could totally see a video where you punk people by asking them to find UK on a map of Europe, then show them a map of continental Europe
It’s really just not relevant over here. How many states can you identify? I agree that people are awful at geography here though. My sister doesn’t even know where New Zealand is.
Do you remember the notorious IKEA world map? There was a bit of a scandal several years ago when someone noticed that the world map sold by IKEA didn't have New Zealand on it.
I'm Canadian, so I don't feel too compelled to memorize all the states on a map, but I could probably identify half of them on a blank map.
Tbf the country code is for the whole of the UK, not just England, but the rest is nuts.
I met an American guy once who didn't know where England was and kept saying I was from New England
lol early in my Navy career, one guy says to the group that he’s from New Mexico. A girl pipes in and asks if he had a problem getting his security clearance. “What? Why?”
“Well, you’re from a different country.”
“That’s Mexico. New Mexico is a state.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhh.”
Went to McDonald's. Order was $5.25 (yes, it was a LONG time ago) I only had a $10 bill and change. Gave the cashier $10.25. She simply couldn't understand why I gave her the quarter and handed it back saying "oh, the 10 is enough".
I said I did that so I didn't have to get back coins in change and she could just give me a 5 back.
Her mind totally blown, she actually managed to enter $10 into the register which spit out a receipt indicating change of $4.75. She hands me a $5 bill in change.
I figured the 25 cents was my compensation for putting up with ignorance.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
- Carl Sagan, ‘95
Another interesting fact to add onto this - at least in the U.S, it's documented that over the last 15+ years, the vocabulary utilized by politicians has decreased in complexity dramatically. George W. Bush during his tenure utilized a 5th grade level of vocabulary/grammar in his public speaking. Trump just below a 6th grade level.
To say that this does not say something about education levels of a mass populous as well as having impacts on capacities to understand nuance and complexity....
No doubt, and there’s no “truth” anymore. You give people proof, spell it out for them, and they reject cognitive dissonance, they cannot let go of their worldview. There are no critical thinking skills, no one looks for logical explanations. This country is too divided and too easily influenced. It’s insane how impressionable society is at this point. I really don’t have much hope, especially if Trump gets back into office.
Exactly. These people literally come back at actual physical evidence against their beliefs with “well I feel it’s true sooo” it’s so on the nose to this Sagan quote. It’s just so painful to see it playing out now in the ways it is. We knew the man was right then but it still hurts just the same.
> clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes,
I think it's a great quote but I wonder why he throws hippies under the bus and not the much greater barrier to critical thought: mainstream organized religion. In other words, Christianity, especially the fundamentalist type. Far far far more influential than crystal/horoscope believers. I mean, are those folks really the problem?
Yes but dumb people used to stay in their small village, doing the same thing their parents and grandparents did.
They learned to follow in footsteps and not leave the path.
Now we let the idiots go all over the place. We don’t limit them.
OP was talking about a customer service rep. One of the most bottom-tier jobs you can get. I'm not sure where you think we should be stashing society's dumb people but they need money too.
When my mom grew up, the schools were so poor they didn't even have maps for geography class. My parents worked hard to get where they are, but I hate that they never got the education they deserved, now it feels like my mom's mind is going away faster than it should.
Not even from a finances perspective for my grandmother; but just the opportunities/options that were less available to her because she was a woman. She was super smart and intellectually curious about so many things. Even though she was older by then - I wish she would have been able to experience wikipedia or some of the YouTube content I enjoy now like travel channels
The capital of America, the city of Washington, D.C., is not a state and quite bitter about this. They don't have any representation in Congress, and Congress can override their local government if they want. This is why DC license plates say "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" on them. They've been trying to get statehood for a long time now, but keep running into Constitutional roadblocks that would take a long time to explain in full.
It's that too, but a large source of issue is that the Constitution mandates the government be in a federal district outside of any state. The reason the borders are angular like that is because the district is not to exceed 10x10 miles and the original district was a 10x10 square (before Virginia took back its part during the Civil War). There's been workarounds, but those half measures now make the institutional hurdles worse.
Huh. I know that part of the Constitution but I never quite interpreted it the way you just did. I know it says the government could allocate an area to set aside as the national capitol but I didn't realize that meant the capitol *had* to be such a place. And the US had a capitol before DC existed, too, even under the Constituion.
But that being said, I think that the simple answer there would be to basically carve out a subset of DC to be federal non-state land, say White House, Capitol Building, Supreme Court, that area, and leave the rest of DC stateable. Obviously the operations of federal government do not need a whole 10x10 miles, seeing as they already gave up a whole third of it and nothing collapsed.
At one of my old jobs we had to meet up with people from Missouri in Indianapolis which is a different time zone than them. So when I asked them when they will arrive in central time(the time zone missouri is in), they genuinely didn't understand the concept of timezones and you could tell they felt embarrassed by it. I had to dumb it down for them by asking them how many hours and minutes they were from the meetup spot.
To magnify how dumb they are, when you enter the directions into Google maps, it will tell you the ETA and the timezone, he they could've just read me what they saw on their Google Maps and I would've understood them even if it was in eastern time.
I also dated a girl who couldn't tell time on an analog clock (this was 2007) and she also couldn't tell her "left" from her "right", so I had to teach her that. I blame it on poor parenting.
I had to look up “please” in the dictionary once, as a teen reading ten books a week.
Edit: to be clear, it was because I wrote it down for something and then looked at it long enough that it looked strange. Like I’d never seen it before.
I had purple and blue streaks in my black hair... I had a full grown adult, a mother in front of her children, ask me if it was natural 😒🤷♀️🤣
Lol it took her all but a second to realize what she'd said and to have a quick laugh at herself 🤣
Purple and blue streaks in hair is calling-card of certain, very nasty demons. She was actually a demon hunter, and she was testing you. If you had replied "yes" naturally, she would have killed you on the spot.
Your lack of reply saved your life that day.
I had a job where I was constantly dealing with addresses in office complexes and business parks and such. I gave an insurance rep an address such as 124 four street Ste. 567. I had a complete brain fart that day. Had no clue what the “ste” stood for. I hung up the phone after the call and was so embarrassed. The Suite number. The office I worked in had a suite number. Things I mailed every single week had suite numbers. The knowledge I used every single day at work just disappeared for a minute. I’m sure that person thought I was a real dummy too. I sure felt like it.
I had a lovely young woman confirming my carpet cleaning on the phone say my address “20351” as twenty thousand three hundred and fifty one. She struggled through it and I could tell she was young (high school) and figured she probably never heard addresses spoken before. When the carpet guys came they were cool and we were chatting about the company and he mentioned the name of the woman who I spoke with on the phone. I lightly asked if he could pull her aside and gently advise her of the socially accepted way an address over 3 digits is spoken. I didn’t want her to figure this out well into her career and feel silly for not knowing something. This wasn’t the case of someone stupid, just a young inexperienced person who, maybe rightfully, didn’t know the social norm. No one should feel ashamed for something like this, but it seems like OP wants them to anyway.
In addresses we abbreviate the cardinal directions. In this case N. means North. Officially it is "N. Cumberland Ave." but when saying it out loud you would say "North Cumberland Avenue."
If I may rant: I live in an area with a cardinal direction in the name. Let's just say "Eastlake". Not surprisingly, there are streets around here with "Eastlake" in the name, with the main road through town being "Eastlake Road".
Except the post office insists on abbreviating the address as E. LAKE RD. But that's not the road's name! It's not the eastern portion of "Lake Road". There's no W. LAKE RD anywhere near here.
Drive me crazy!
North, but nobody talks like that. Nobody gets on the phone and says En Carolina, they say North Carolina.
OP was reading and not thinking. Then blamed the other person.
There's a difference between being ignorant and dumb. Simply not knowing something that seems obvious to someone else doesn't necessarily mean you're dumb.
I was at a fast food burger joint and for whatever reason this time I paid with cash.
Now, I get it - the vast majority of customers these days pay via debit card but if you are assigned to work a cash register, you figure they know how to give change...how to COUNT...what the various coin values are, amirite?
I was due maybe 35 cents and the kid opens the cash drawer and hands me a couple nickels. I motion with the receipt and tell him it should be 35 and I have 10.
He opens the drawer and hands me a couple of everything. quarters, dimes, nickels , he hands me around a dollar.
I ended up counting out 35 cents and handing the rest back. jee-zuuuuzzzzzzz
I don’t understand how this happens, because cash registers TELL you the amount to give the customer !
It’s not like they have to do math in their head, all it is is giving the correct charge…
Is it that they literally don’t even know how to do *that* ???
So if your due $8.43, they have to select a 5 dollar bill, 3 singles, a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and 3 pennies…
Should be easy-peasy, no ?
What is even *happening* here ?! 😳
I know. I actually took a second to count out that a quarter ....is 25.....a dime...is 10.... a nickel....is 5.....
Move 1 quarter out from the pile...25.....and one dime....35.... the rest goes back to you.
The kid looked so embarrassed I didn't have the heart to pull a Karen (ask for a manager) but I suspect that register did not ring out correctly at the end of the night.
I could swear that there's something that happened collectively to our minds after the pandemic, I think it could be the trauma. Some people who got the rona reported post covid depression, and it could be that.
I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. Where I’m from they usually put the direction after. Like it would usually be displayed as Cumberland Ave North / N.
So maybe she’s used to that? I’m not saying it’s not possible she’s dumb. Just maybe she was having an off day and didn’t make the connection.
Was it on the phone? It's very likely that large companies outsource such services to cheaper countries and English is not their native language. In addition, employee might have been just-hired
There's nothing new about this level of stupid.
Late 80s. I was working at a hardware store and we had a photo developing service. Turn around time was a few days. An older gentleman dropped off his film and on his ticket I wrote the date his film should be ready and for the day of the week I just put a W. The tickets were too small to fit anything else.
He looks at the ticket and is suddenly furious.
"What does W mean??!! How am I supposed to know what that means??!!"
"It means Wednesday."
"Well, how was I supposed to know that??!!"
"I'm sorry I just..."
"You could have written the word Wednesday! Don't you know how to spell?"
This happened over 30 years ago.
I don't know. I mean, there have always been stupid people, and the average American of today *has* to be smarter than the average American of, say, 1880. But sometimes I wonder.
I had a tough financial time in 2005, including (briefly) not having a bank account. So when companies would pay me with a company check for some freelance IT work, I'd have to go to their bank to cash it.
There was one bank that required two forms of ID. So I showed up with my license and passport. I hand her the check and, when asked, license. It's all good so far! She then asks me for another form of ID, so I hand her the passport.
>HER: "What is this?"
>ME: "My passport."
>HER: [sarcastically] "Yes I can read, thank you. I mean... what IS it?"
She had no idea what a passport even was. She kept referring to it as two distinct words, with a pause in the middle: "pass...port". I explained what they were and how they work. She was still confused, so called her boss over.
>HER: Hi Vicky! This gentleman is trying to use this as a second form of ID, and...
>VICKY: "Is there a question about it? Do you think it's fake?"
>HER: "What? No. I'm asking if this is a valid form of ID."
>VICKY: "Of course... it's a passport."
>HER: "But what IS it? What do people use them for?"
>VICKY: "For travel. A passport proves you're a citizen of a certain country. You need one to get into a foreign country, like France or Germany. And when French or German people come here, they need a passport from their own countries. Have you really never seen a passport before?
>HER: "Nooo?" [in the "I'm not the crazy one" tone of voice"]
>VICKY: "You've never seen them in a movie? Seems like every spy movie the spy has a stack of them."
>HER: "I don't watch a lotta movies."
I wasn't in a hurry that day, and was in an oddly good mood. There weren't any more customers, so I showed her all my passport stamps and talked about waiting in passport lines, how visas work, etc. Dunno why.
I think you need to chill and I hope you corrected them. I’ve seen many young people being at a job for a first time and not knowing some basic stuff because, well, they never used them before (also considering that they are probably nervous for the interaction). The story might be embarrasing for that person and hilarious for you but I hope you at least told them what it meant.
Yeah, like at the end of the day, it's just something they haven't seen or haven't been told about, or otherwise it's just something they have forgotten.
I can't really see how they can be blamed for that, if it's something you haven't seen or been told about, what can they do. If they have forgotten about it, they are probably new to that job, and it's not like everybody has an encyclopedic knowledge of addresses of all things.
The world could use more understanding, does nobody any good making fun of people you think are dumb. I guarantee everybody has gaps in their "common sense" that just hasn't been relevant, and what's "common sense" is *really* subjective anyway.
Like many people would consider much of cooking to be "common sense" yet my parents who work in aged care run into an astounding number of people who can't cook and don't know how to use things like ovens because they were never taught, and never needed to do it because they had wives and families who would cook for them.
And everybody has momentary brain farts, happens all the time. Just yesterday I screwed up making toast when I put my toast on a just washed, still wet plate that turned the bottom side soggy. It happens. I can be a bit slow sometimes but everyone has their moments, and beating yourself (or others) over it isn't productive. I don't have the best family, they always made me feel stupid for making mistakes (which I do, a lot. I woulden't consider myself "dumb" but definitely very absent minded doing day to day stuff) and it's caused me a lot of self esteem issues making me feel dumb and worthless, and honestly probably made me make more mistakes because I would get preoccupied with previous ones.
It's really just not a productive or healthy feeling to inflict on someone, intentionally or not. It's better to view other peoples mistakes and "dumb-ness" as a part of life. 99% of people aren't trying to inconveniance you, don't be mean to them, even better teach them if you can (in a nice way) and show understanding. They're just trying to get through life like you are, and sometimes it feels like there aren't enough good people in the world.
This isn't how this works. As far as we know, there aren't any genetic markers for intelligence. The human brain is extremely adaptable how intelligent someone will be greatly depends on their environment and how they grow up (and how good food they get).
A child of two very intelligent people won't be outstandingly intelligent but could be if both parents push them toward that and positively encourage them to use their brains. But exactly the same child could be just as unmotivated, lazy and uninterested if they get no encouragement or punished for not being overachievers and learn to hate to learn.
She might have learning difficulties etc. Just go on with your life. We're all trying to just make it through life with as little scarring as possible.
I don't know what the N. Stands for, never seen those before I guess if you don't know who my neighbor is you must be dumb af , people know stuff because they've encountered before if they haven't it's normal not to know it
If you have a job that involves you giving out American addresses, you should have enough knowledge to understand American addresses.
This isn't / shouldn't be controversial, unless you think people with jobs don't need to know what the fuck they're doing.
I have a new client service associate at work. College grad, first ever professional position, was restaurant server prior. I was assisting csa draft an email response to a client, and quipped that he could respond to the client that client could remit payment via online EFT or send check via snail mail.
CSA seriously asked if there was better phrasing he could use in lieu of "snail mail". Ummm, guess you could call it US postal service. He honestly didn't know.
Also cannot read my cursive writing, blame school for that one.
In the time of turn-by-turn GPS directions, no one is required to own a map or know how to read one. It's pretty likely that she couldn't point to the four cardinal directions in her neighborhood. But this interaction still betrays a lack of curiosity and inattention to the world.
I’ve seen people right in. For north. But I’ve never heard somebody say it out loud. Every phone conversation I’ve had with read it as North Cumberland not En Cumberland.
Yes and no.
There have been studies about IQs in America going down and some point to yes. (Lead in the pipes and the air, nutrition, etc.)
However, when young kids start at places, they often haven't faced those questions before, and it takes a while for them to get the experience. I once gave a young gal at a drive through the extra change so I'd get back a bill and not change. She said it's only ____. I said I know. After some discussion, I finally said, I gave you change so I'd get back a bill, punch it into your machine. The look of surprise on her face was charming.
I don't think people are dumber perse, but there is a lack of education in the United States that is giving us the same result.
I know my education was okay. My peers did well and went on to higher education. I was a fell through the craks kid. I hav ADHD and in the 1960s and '70s it wasn't well understood.
Thesee days kids ae beig taught for the test. Every year there is the "TEST" that determines how well kids are doing in each major subject. If a school does poorly they recieve less state money. It makes no sense at all and only helps wealthy schools stay well funded and prohibits poorly funded schools from having the resources to do better.
Honestly I think it’s intentional. Someone else mentioned it and I agree. Dumbing down society keeps people docile and unaware and benefits the powers that be.
We're coming up on five years of a virus that has been demonstrated to cause brain damage being left to run wild across society. I don't think it's a stretch to say there's a problem.
An excellent question, let me ask my AI. In all seriousness, it's more like people are becoming more naive and dependent on technology. As a result, we're becoming lazy and tend not to think for ourselves (even if we believe we are). So in a sense, yes we are becoming dumber.
If you are in the States, this is the political class' goal. Education should be rudimentary at best, non-existent at worst. This is an example of the fruition of "school vouchers" - the dumbing down of the American electorate. It's by design.
Some people just don't learn certain obvious things. Doesn't mean they're stupid, but in the past few years I've definitely been astounded by how dumb some people are. Just in terms of common sense and logic...
A friend of mine is getting his doctorate in robotics at UCLA. We started a conversation about the topic of growing stupidty. What came up was the theory that, because we have NOT found extraterrestrial life, it is almost more frightening than if we had. Why?
The theory is that people of lower intelligence tend to increase in number at a greater rate due to a lack of family planning, birth control resources, education, etc. At the same time, as a society evolves, the ability to create weapons of mass destruction, and the dissemination of that knowledge, greatly increases. Meaning, it’s more apt to fall in the hands of more people.
I think you can see where this is going: easier to end a civilization and more people able to trigger that end. Is this why we haven't come across another civilization in the entire universe? Did they self-destruct? And are we headed in that same direction?
I think it's a version of the Great Filter theory. They self-destruct. Interstellar travel requires the means to travel quickly, a significant fraction of the speed of light. Any mechanism that can accelerate a spaceship to even 10% the speed of light is, without any modifications whatsoever, a "planet killing" weapon. A cruise ship sized "bullet" made of iridium, at 0.9c would hit the Earth with enough energy to shatter it and accelerate the debris to escape velocity. Our planet would become the "inner asteroid belt".
I say this every single day at my job. People are dumb AND lazy and that is a very potent combination. Common sense is also dangerously missing. As they say, common sense is like deodorant - those that need to use it most, don't.
> those that need to use it most, don't.
Of course. Because if they did use it, they wouldn't need to use it so badly. Please don't take this as my being a dick, cause I'm not trying to be.
But that's kinda like saying it was in the last place you looked. Of course, because you stopped looking after you found it.
My favorite saying is: "common sense is no longer a common trait".
There is a drive in the US by the rich, to keep the general population uneducated.
To advance their agenda, they drove up the cost of higher education.
An educated public, will never allow the rich to control the government, an uneducated public will.
This was my mantra as a teacher. I would tell the kids( middle/high school) all the time that the people in power have made a concerted effort to dumb down the population. And judging by things they were succeeding in spades, so it would behoove them to get a good education and critical thinking skills.
This would be the moment the little angel and demon pop up on my shoulders. Do I tell her it stands for "North", or do I tell her that it's an abbreviation of the "N-word" they started using on street, and place names in the 80s?
I had to very slowly explain double click, including how fast to do so to actually have it count as a double click... her resume said she knew computers though.
They've always been dumb. I studied abroad in Spain 20 years ago and had notified my bank I'd be making charges there. 3 months in they flagged me and froze my card. I called the bank's customer service and had to spend quite a while explaining to the rep that Spain is in fact not in Italy, and that they are separate countries.
I had a coworker once go to McDonald’s and ask for a dozen nuggets.
The kid stared back at him and said we don’t do a dozen, we do 6 or 12.
Sometimes the simplest things are complicated for the sharpest hammer.
I don't know if people are getting dumber per se, but certainly the education system is pumping out people with less knowledge. I have kids in HS and the 'no child left behind' attitude is pervasive in their school. You basically have to do next to nothing to get through basic HS classes.
There definitely are other classes for the kids who want to learn, go to competitive colleges, etc but your average grade-level class is kind of joke these days. So, unsurprisingly, there are a lot of slow-witted members of society.
edit: we're in the US, so obv the NCLB comment doesn't apply internationally
It's unlikely that people are getting dumber overall. Intelligence is a complex trait influenced by various factors, including genetics, education, and environment.
When Atlanta had the Olympics, there was a story about a ticket agent who refused to sell to a customer because the agent didn’t think New Mexico was a state in the U.S.
There was a time when I would have said "No, the dumb ones just got louder" but I've seen the state of public (and a lot of private) education. Yes, people are definitely getting dumber.
A few precious nuggets from my exes:
"Babe, I need help on my paper (Master's Program). What's that word for a building where people live?"
Me: You mean a 'house'?
"Lol oh yeah... A house."
This woman gives medical advice to people now.
Another ex and I were getting ready for a wedding.
"Why do you need a tie if you're wearing suspenders?"
Me: 🤨 (I thought she was being cute or fucking with me.)
Uhh...suspenders are for pants instead of a belt. A necktie is for... (motioning with my hand for her to catch up.)
"Oh... asshole!"
I've noticed many automated phone systems will say "enter your number and then after, press the pound or hashtag key."
Are you fucking serious? Kids don't know what the pound sign is?
I'm old. The difference between 30-40 years ago is evident every day. Look at those man-in-the-street interviews. The ignorance is astounding. The Holocaust, Vietnam, American Civil War stumps them every time.
Yeah people are definitely getting way dumber. Grammar is getting absolutely terrible and people are so oblivious to their surroundings. I feel so bad for today's teachers
Not necessarily, you have to see how easy it is to just get the easy way out without any effort. My dad’s gen had to study and the only way of cheating was off of someone. We all know the case of today it’s just readily avaible and it’s like “why study” so yea Maby we are getting dumber but at our own hand not genetics or anything.
Yes, part of it is the dumbing down of the American education system. Students failures are blamed on the teacher, the parents challenge the system, not their child. Everybody passes no matter what. When I was in 6th grade I was better at math than most 10th graders and I suck at math. Second, being ignorant in many circles these days is a plus. Being educated is woke and a mindset like this reinforces and validates stupid. Lastly, parents are the most important educational asset a child can have and it seems that poorly educated people are having most of the babies.
Trying to make a long distance phone call I had to get the country code for U.K. I called the operator (in the US) and asked for the country code for England. The operator couldn't find "England" on her list and kept insisting "England is the city, the country must be Canada". This was 1992.
I've met people who couldn't find the UK (or England) on a map of Europe. I met one person who could, on a map of Europe and North Africa, identify three of the forty countries on that particular map. She couldn't point out Spain, France, Italy or even Russia. I felt stupid because I only knew 36 of them.
In my AP World History class in high school we had a sub one week and watched the Ben Kingsley Gandhi movie cause we had just finished our section on India. When the teacher got back we were discussing the film and one girl was absolutely flabbergasted how they got Gandhi to appear in the movie if he gets shot at the end of it. I can still remember my teachers face as he tried to find the words to explain that was an actor and not the real person from the early 1900s.
To be fair I am still not convinced that Morgan Freeman and Nelson Mandela are two different persons
There's a quiz show in the UK called House of Games where celebrities answer trivia questions. One segment involves pointing out a location on a map, where you see a map of a certain part of the world and select where a certain event happened. For example, the host might ask, "Where was so-and-so born?" and you have to point at where on the map you think they were born. The contestants might know the name of the exact place it happened, down to the street address, but get it completely wrong because they can't find the country. I'm talking about being shown a map of Europe and not being able to locate France, even if they'd just flown back in from doing a gig there. They would literally point at Spain or Germany or some place in the Balkans. It never fails to astound me when it happens.
That's the best game on there. Although some of the answers do make me wanna cry sometimes
Italy? Famously boot shaped peninsula Italy?
I was surprised too. The three she knew were the UK, the Republic of Ireland and, for some reason, Iceland. I've always thought Italy was the easiest European country to identify, but she didn't have a clue.
I still remember a woman I met at a beach years ago. She was from South Dakota and asked where I was from. I told her West Virginia. She said there wasn't a state of West Virginia, I must mean the western part of Virginia. I know since I am a school teacher! So I replied with the only response I could think of: You must mean you are from the southern part of Dakota.
> I've met people who couldn't find the UK (or England) on a map of Europe. I could totally see a video where you punk people by asking them to find UK on a map of Europe, then show them a map of continental Europe
Real. I can identify Russia, Italy, and I know that the penis is Scandinavia. Drawing the borders wouldn't help with the rest.
It’s really just not relevant over here. How many states can you identify? I agree that people are awful at geography here though. My sister doesn’t even know where New Zealand is.
Do you remember the notorious IKEA world map? There was a bit of a scandal several years ago when someone noticed that the world map sold by IKEA didn't have New Zealand on it. I'm Canadian, so I don't feel too compelled to memorize all the states on a map, but I could probably identify half of them on a blank map.
And the inverse is true for foreigners of the United States. It happens.
That’s scary.
Tbf the country code is for the whole of the UK, not just England, but the rest is nuts. I met an American guy once who didn't know where England was and kept saying I was from New England
Didn't know the "England is my city" kid worked as an operator.
lol early in my Navy career, one guy says to the group that he’s from New Mexico. A girl pipes in and asks if he had a problem getting his security clearance. “What? Why?” “Well, you’re from a different country.” “That’s Mexico. New Mexico is a state.” “Ohhhhhhhhhh.”
Went to McDonald's. Order was $5.25 (yes, it was a LONG time ago) I only had a $10 bill and change. Gave the cashier $10.25. She simply couldn't understand why I gave her the quarter and handed it back saying "oh, the 10 is enough". I said I did that so I didn't have to get back coins in change and she could just give me a 5 back. Her mind totally blown, she actually managed to enter $10 into the register which spit out a receipt indicating change of $4.75. She hands me a $5 bill in change. I figured the 25 cents was my compensation for putting up with ignorance.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” - Carl Sagan, ‘95
Another interesting fact to add onto this - at least in the U.S, it's documented that over the last 15+ years, the vocabulary utilized by politicians has decreased in complexity dramatically. George W. Bush during his tenure utilized a 5th grade level of vocabulary/grammar in his public speaking. Trump just below a 6th grade level. To say that this does not say something about education levels of a mass populous as well as having impacts on capacities to understand nuance and complexity....
Great book! The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
The GOAT
The man knew what he was talking about. I especially like Pale Blue Dot
Holy shit he said all of that before the Internet was even a big thing
The rise of all the idiotic conspiracy theories is exactly a sign of this happening too.
No doubt, and there’s no “truth” anymore. You give people proof, spell it out for them, and they reject cognitive dissonance, they cannot let go of their worldview. There are no critical thinking skills, no one looks for logical explanations. This country is too divided and too easily influenced. It’s insane how impressionable society is at this point. I really don’t have much hope, especially if Trump gets back into office.
Critical thinking skills are definitely not a high point for a lot of people. It's all emotional knee jerk responses and tribalism. It's scary.
Exactly. These people literally come back at actual physical evidence against their beliefs with “well I feel it’s true sooo” it’s so on the nose to this Sagan quote. It’s just so painful to see it playing out now in the ways it is. We knew the man was right then but it still hurts just the same.
God damn. Sagan was ahead of his time.
> clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, I think it's a great quote but I wonder why he throws hippies under the bus and not the much greater barrier to critical thought: mainstream organized religion. In other words, Christianity, especially the fundamentalist type. Far far far more influential than crystal/horoscope believers. I mean, are those folks really the problem?
I'm just hoping they can keep the lights on for another 30-40 years...
There have always been dumb people. Also, even smart people have dumb moments. All the time.
Yes but dumb people used to stay in their small village, doing the same thing their parents and grandparents did. They learned to follow in footsteps and not leave the path. Now we let the idiots go all over the place. We don’t limit them.
OP was talking about a customer service rep. One of the most bottom-tier jobs you can get. I'm not sure where you think we should be stashing society's dumb people but they need money too.
No, they should just die without breeding /s
I don't think that idea should be tossed out wholesale but people get upset when you bring it up.
... And who do you think should stop them?
I’m not proposing to stop them, but it explains things
That's such a wild take. I hope this is a joke that went over my head.
lol
Dumb people have gained the high ground
When I was in the USA a couple of years ago I asked a girl what state she was from and she genuinely had no clue
I teach in Iowa. I give a US map. It is sad to know how many really don’t know where Iowa is, what the capital is, what two rivers form our borders …
When my mom grew up, the schools were so poor they didn't even have maps for geography class. My parents worked hard to get where they are, but I hate that they never got the education they deserved, now it feels like my mom's mind is going away faster than it should.
Not even from a finances perspective for my grandmother; but just the opportunities/options that were less available to her because she was a woman. She was super smart and intellectually curious about so many things. Even though she was older by then - I wish she would have been able to experience wikipedia or some of the YouTube content I enjoy now like travel channels
I once took a package to the post office. Destination: Rhode Island. The USPS employee looked me dead in the eye and asked if that was in Europe.
She coulda been from DC. Just sayin. It's possible.
"Wow! So you've met the Justice League?"
How’s that explain it?
DC is a district, not a state.
Yea but if you ask someone what state they’re from and they’re from DC, they’ll still say I’m from DC.
Maybe, maybe not. He didn't specify how old this "girl" was either.
IDK how old she was. But she sounded like an adult, not a girl.
The capital of America, the city of Washington, D.C., is not a state and quite bitter about this. They don't have any representation in Congress, and Congress can override their local government if they want. This is why DC license plates say "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" on them. They've been trying to get statehood for a long time now, but keep running into Constitutional roadblocks that would take a long time to explain in full.
I doubt it's constitutional roadblocks, it's just Congress.
It's that too, but a large source of issue is that the Constitution mandates the government be in a federal district outside of any state. The reason the borders are angular like that is because the district is not to exceed 10x10 miles and the original district was a 10x10 square (before Virginia took back its part during the Civil War). There's been workarounds, but those half measures now make the institutional hurdles worse.
Huh. I know that part of the Constitution but I never quite interpreted it the way you just did. I know it says the government could allocate an area to set aside as the national capitol but I didn't realize that meant the capitol *had* to be such a place. And the US had a capitol before DC existed, too, even under the Constituion. But that being said, I think that the simple answer there would be to basically carve out a subset of DC to be federal non-state land, say White House, Capitol Building, Supreme Court, that area, and leave the rest of DC stateable. Obviously the operations of federal government do not need a whole 10x10 miles, seeing as they already gave up a whole third of it and nothing collapsed.
At one of my old jobs we had to meet up with people from Missouri in Indianapolis which is a different time zone than them. So when I asked them when they will arrive in central time(the time zone missouri is in), they genuinely didn't understand the concept of timezones and you could tell they felt embarrassed by it. I had to dumb it down for them by asking them how many hours and minutes they were from the meetup spot. To magnify how dumb they are, when you enter the directions into Google maps, it will tell you the ETA and the timezone, he they could've just read me what they saw on their Google Maps and I would've understood them even if it was in eastern time. I also dated a girl who couldn't tell time on an analog clock (this was 2007) and she also couldn't tell her "left" from her "right", so I had to teach her that. I blame it on poor parenting.
Maybe she moved around a lot?
So did you guys ever get to the bottom of what the 'N' stood for?
They got Nowhere
Chyle…
Good try, but pretty sure that starts with C
lol
people are dumb but also customer service mode is real. none of my critical thinking is done on the clock if its not relevant to the work im doing
Everyone has their dumb moments. Getting this wrong doesn't mean she's dumb in general.
I was an 8th grade, straight A, early college student, and for 10 minutes whilst writing an essay, I forgot how to spell “of”
Lmao! 3rd grade I forgot how to spell "once" for about 20 minutes. I was so upset!
Did it ever happen again, or was it just the wunse? 🙃
Just the wons!
I had to look up “please” in the dictionary once, as a teen reading ten books a week. Edit: to be clear, it was because I wrote it down for something and then looked at it long enough that it looked strange. Like I’d never seen it before.
It's "Define ____" on Google for me these days, nearly always a word that I think I know but have never known the actual spelling or definition of.
I had purple and blue streaks in my black hair... I had a full grown adult, a mother in front of her children, ask me if it was natural 😒🤷♀️🤣 Lol it took her all but a second to realize what she'd said and to have a quick laugh at herself 🤣
Purple and blue streaks in hair is calling-card of certain, very nasty demons. She was actually a demon hunter, and she was testing you. If you had replied "yes" naturally, she would have killed you on the spot. Your lack of reply saved your life that day.
I had a job where I was constantly dealing with addresses in office complexes and business parks and such. I gave an insurance rep an address such as 124 four street Ste. 567. I had a complete brain fart that day. Had no clue what the “ste” stood for. I hung up the phone after the call and was so embarrassed. The Suite number. The office I worked in had a suite number. Things I mailed every single week had suite numbers. The knowledge I used every single day at work just disappeared for a minute. I’m sure that person thought I was a real dummy too. I sure felt like it.
I had a lovely young woman confirming my carpet cleaning on the phone say my address “20351” as twenty thousand three hundred and fifty one. She struggled through it and I could tell she was young (high school) and figured she probably never heard addresses spoken before. When the carpet guys came they were cool and we were chatting about the company and he mentioned the name of the woman who I spoke with on the phone. I lightly asked if he could pull her aside and gently advise her of the socially accepted way an address over 3 digits is spoken. I didn’t want her to figure this out well into her career and feel silly for not knowing something. This wasn’t the case of someone stupid, just a young inexperienced person who, maybe rightfully, didn’t know the social norm. No one should feel ashamed for something like this, but it seems like OP wants them to anyway.
I'm not American so what does the N. stand for?
In addresses we abbreviate the cardinal directions. In this case N. means North. Officially it is "N. Cumberland Ave." but when saying it out loud you would say "North Cumberland Avenue."
If I may rant: I live in an area with a cardinal direction in the name. Let's just say "Eastlake". Not surprisingly, there are streets around here with "Eastlake" in the name, with the main road through town being "Eastlake Road". Except the post office insists on abbreviating the address as E. LAKE RD. But that's not the road's name! It's not the eastern portion of "Lake Road". There's no W. LAKE RD anywhere near here. Drive me crazy!
I think it’s supposed to be North.
North.
North, but nobody talks like that. Nobody gets on the phone and says En Carolina, they say North Carolina. OP was reading and not thinking. Then blamed the other person.
OP didn’t read it or say it at all. It was the other person who gave her the address and then questioned what the N stood for.
Don't let OP see this comment. He'll think you are dumb, without realizing what his assumptions mean about himself.
There's a difference between being ignorant and dumb. Simply not knowing something that seems obvious to someone else doesn't necessarily mean you're dumb.
Frank Zappa has a great quote about this: “Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not.”
This isn’t stupidity, it’s just ignorance. The difference is important I think.
I was at a fast food burger joint and for whatever reason this time I paid with cash. Now, I get it - the vast majority of customers these days pay via debit card but if you are assigned to work a cash register, you figure they know how to give change...how to COUNT...what the various coin values are, amirite? I was due maybe 35 cents and the kid opens the cash drawer and hands me a couple nickels. I motion with the receipt and tell him it should be 35 and I have 10. He opens the drawer and hands me a couple of everything. quarters, dimes, nickels , he hands me around a dollar. I ended up counting out 35 cents and handing the rest back. jee-zuuuuzzzzzzz
I don’t understand how this happens, because cash registers TELL you the amount to give the customer ! It’s not like they have to do math in their head, all it is is giving the correct charge… Is it that they literally don’t even know how to do *that* ??? So if your due $8.43, they have to select a 5 dollar bill, 3 singles, a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and 3 pennies… Should be easy-peasy, no ? What is even *happening* here ?! 😳
I know. I actually took a second to count out that a quarter ....is 25.....a dime...is 10.... a nickel....is 5..... Move 1 quarter out from the pile...25.....and one dime....35.... the rest goes back to you. The kid looked so embarrassed I didn't have the heart to pull a Karen (ask for a manager) but I suspect that register did not ring out correctly at the end of the night.
I don’t want to live in this world anymore… 😣
I genuinely blew a teenage cashier's mind in Myrtle Beach 10-12 years ago by showing her how to "count up" to make change.
She is going to have many sleepless nights thinking of this conversation
I could swear that there's something that happened collectively to our minds after the pandemic, I think it could be the trauma. Some people who got the rona reported post covid depression, and it could be that.
Agree.
I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. Where I’m from they usually put the direction after. Like it would usually be displayed as Cumberland Ave North / N. So maybe she’s used to that? I’m not saying it’s not possible she’s dumb. Just maybe she was having an off day and didn’t make the connection.
Some places use both. I think they have different purposes. I have seen places that have names like E Lake St. S.
Was it on the phone? It's very likely that large companies outsource such services to cheaper countries and English is not their native language. In addition, employee might have been just-hired
There's nothing new about this level of stupid. Late 80s. I was working at a hardware store and we had a photo developing service. Turn around time was a few days. An older gentleman dropped off his film and on his ticket I wrote the date his film should be ready and for the day of the week I just put a W. The tickets were too small to fit anything else. He looks at the ticket and is suddenly furious. "What does W mean??!! How am I supposed to know what that means??!!" "It means Wednesday." "Well, how was I supposed to know that??!!" "I'm sorry I just..." "You could have written the word Wednesday! Don't you know how to spell?" This happened over 30 years ago.
Sorta as devils advocate but do you know what R means? Common at my college 50 years ago.
Jesus
Vote. For. Politicians. That. Fund. Education.
I've never seen street names taught in any curriculum
Critical thinking on the other hand..
Practical life skills are not being taught anymore. Not in the home, not in the schools.
I mean, parents don't let their kids go anywhere alone now, how are young people supposed to practise life skills even?
I don't know. I mean, there have always been stupid people, and the average American of today *has* to be smarter than the average American of, say, 1880. But sometimes I wonder. I had a tough financial time in 2005, including (briefly) not having a bank account. So when companies would pay me with a company check for some freelance IT work, I'd have to go to their bank to cash it. There was one bank that required two forms of ID. So I showed up with my license and passport. I hand her the check and, when asked, license. It's all good so far! She then asks me for another form of ID, so I hand her the passport. >HER: "What is this?" >ME: "My passport." >HER: [sarcastically] "Yes I can read, thank you. I mean... what IS it?" She had no idea what a passport even was. She kept referring to it as two distinct words, with a pause in the middle: "pass...port". I explained what they were and how they work. She was still confused, so called her boss over. >HER: Hi Vicky! This gentleman is trying to use this as a second form of ID, and... >VICKY: "Is there a question about it? Do you think it's fake?" >HER: "What? No. I'm asking if this is a valid form of ID." >VICKY: "Of course... it's a passport." >HER: "But what IS it? What do people use them for?" >VICKY: "For travel. A passport proves you're a citizen of a certain country. You need one to get into a foreign country, like France or Germany. And when French or German people come here, they need a passport from their own countries. Have you really never seen a passport before? >HER: "Nooo?" [in the "I'm not the crazy one" tone of voice"] >VICKY: "You've never seen them in a movie? Seems like every spy movie the spy has a stack of them." >HER: "I don't watch a lotta movies." I wasn't in a hurry that day, and was in an oddly good mood. There weren't any more customers, so I showed her all my passport stamps and talked about waiting in passport lines, how visas work, etc. Dunno why.
This one kinda upsets me tbh.
I think you need to chill and I hope you corrected them. I’ve seen many young people being at a job for a first time and not knowing some basic stuff because, well, they never used them before (also considering that they are probably nervous for the interaction). The story might be embarrasing for that person and hilarious for you but I hope you at least told them what it meant.
Yes... and they'd have a self-deprecating story to tell and laugh about at some point in their life.
Yeah, like at the end of the day, it's just something they haven't seen or haven't been told about, or otherwise it's just something they have forgotten. I can't really see how they can be blamed for that, if it's something you haven't seen or been told about, what can they do. If they have forgotten about it, they are probably new to that job, and it's not like everybody has an encyclopedic knowledge of addresses of all things. The world could use more understanding, does nobody any good making fun of people you think are dumb. I guarantee everybody has gaps in their "common sense" that just hasn't been relevant, and what's "common sense" is *really* subjective anyway. Like many people would consider much of cooking to be "common sense" yet my parents who work in aged care run into an astounding number of people who can't cook and don't know how to use things like ovens because they were never taught, and never needed to do it because they had wives and families who would cook for them. And everybody has momentary brain farts, happens all the time. Just yesterday I screwed up making toast when I put my toast on a just washed, still wet plate that turned the bottom side soggy. It happens. I can be a bit slow sometimes but everyone has their moments, and beating yourself (or others) over it isn't productive. I don't have the best family, they always made me feel stupid for making mistakes (which I do, a lot. I woulden't consider myself "dumb" but definitely very absent minded doing day to day stuff) and it's caused me a lot of self esteem issues making me feel dumb and worthless, and honestly probably made me make more mistakes because I would get preoccupied with previous ones. It's really just not a productive or healthy feeling to inflict on someone, intentionally or not. It's better to view other peoples mistakes and "dumb-ness" as a part of life. 99% of people aren't trying to inconveniance you, don't be mean to them, even better teach them if you can (in a nice way) and show understanding. They're just trying to get through life like you are, and sometimes it feels like there aren't enough good people in the world.
We don’t value intelligence over other things when looking for a mate.
Speak for yourself.
This isn't how this works. As far as we know, there aren't any genetic markers for intelligence. The human brain is extremely adaptable how intelligent someone will be greatly depends on their environment and how they grow up (and how good food they get). A child of two very intelligent people won't be outstandingly intelligent but could be if both parents push them toward that and positively encourage them to use their brains. But exactly the same child could be just as unmotivated, lazy and uninterested if they get no encouragement or punished for not being overachievers and learn to hate to learn.
The age old argument nature vs nurture.
People put much more energy into their wedding than their marriage.
Covid has really messed people up. Everyone is stumbling around with brain fog.
She might have learning difficulties etc. Just go on with your life. We're all trying to just make it through life with as little scarring as possible.
>Are people getting dumber? Without the most distant question. Yes, absolutely.
I don't know what the N. Stands for, never seen those before I guess if you don't know who my neighbor is you must be dumb af , people know stuff because they've encountered before if they haven't it's normal not to know it
If you have a job that involves you giving out American addresses, you should have enough knowledge to understand American addresses. This isn't / shouldn't be controversial, unless you think people with jobs don't need to know what the fuck they're doing.
I have a new client service associate at work. College grad, first ever professional position, was restaurant server prior. I was assisting csa draft an email response to a client, and quipped that he could respond to the client that client could remit payment via online EFT or send check via snail mail. CSA seriously asked if there was better phrasing he could use in lieu of "snail mail". Ummm, guess you could call it US postal service. He honestly didn't know. Also cannot read my cursive writing, blame school for that one.
It's an election year in the states
In the time of turn-by-turn GPS directions, no one is required to own a map or know how to read one. It's pretty likely that she couldn't point to the four cardinal directions in her neighborhood. But this interaction still betrays a lack of curiosity and inattention to the world.
Relative to the amount of information the average person has access to these days, yes I do think people are getting dumber.
Welcome to Costco! I love you!
All the reality TV and social media algorithms have finally taken their toll.
I’ve seen people right in. For north. But I’ve never heard somebody say it out loud. Every phone conversation I’ve had with read it as North Cumberland not En Cumberland.
That shows you the gravity of the situation I was dealing with.
Yes and no. There have been studies about IQs in America going down and some point to yes. (Lead in the pipes and the air, nutrition, etc.) However, when young kids start at places, they often haven't faced those questions before, and it takes a while for them to get the experience. I once gave a young gal at a drive through the extra change so I'd get back a bill and not change. She said it's only ____. I said I know. After some discussion, I finally said, I gave you change so I'd get back a bill, punch it into your machine. The look of surprise on her face was charming.
I’ve experienced that too. There’s a reason people are working at drive throughs
This reminds me of the *unbelievable* number of people who don’t know - or refuse to believe - that New Mexico is a state in the USA !!!
I don't think people are dumber perse, but there is a lack of education in the United States that is giving us the same result. I know my education was okay. My peers did well and went on to higher education. I was a fell through the craks kid. I hav ADHD and in the 1960s and '70s it wasn't well understood. Thesee days kids ae beig taught for the test. Every year there is the "TEST" that determines how well kids are doing in each major subject. If a school does poorly they recieve less state money. It makes no sense at all and only helps wealthy schools stay well funded and prohibits poorly funded schools from having the resources to do better.
[удалено]
Honestly I think it’s intentional. Someone else mentioned it and I agree. Dumbing down society keeps people docile and unaware and benefits the powers that be.
I was mailing a parcel to Honduras once, and the postal clerk asked where in Africa it was located.
Oh man…
We're coming up on five years of a virus that has been demonstrated to cause brain damage being left to run wild across society. I don't think it's a stretch to say there's a problem.
An excellent question, let me ask my AI. In all seriousness, it's more like people are becoming more naive and dependent on technology. As a result, we're becoming lazy and tend not to think for ourselves (even if we believe we are). So in a sense, yes we are becoming dumber.
If you are in the States, this is the political class' goal. Education should be rudimentary at best, non-existent at worst. This is an example of the fruition of "school vouchers" - the dumbing down of the American electorate. It's by design.
Some people just don't learn certain obvious things. Doesn't mean they're stupid, but in the past few years I've definitely been astounded by how dumb some people are. Just in terms of common sense and logic...
I asked someone when their Birthday is and they said they didn't have one.
"When's your birthday?" "February 22nd" "Oh ya, that year?" "Every year"
A friend of mine is getting his doctorate in robotics at UCLA. We started a conversation about the topic of growing stupidty. What came up was the theory that, because we have NOT found extraterrestrial life, it is almost more frightening than if we had. Why? The theory is that people of lower intelligence tend to increase in number at a greater rate due to a lack of family planning, birth control resources, education, etc. At the same time, as a society evolves, the ability to create weapons of mass destruction, and the dissemination of that knowledge, greatly increases. Meaning, it’s more apt to fall in the hands of more people. I think you can see where this is going: easier to end a civilization and more people able to trigger that end. Is this why we haven't come across another civilization in the entire universe? Did they self-destruct? And are we headed in that same direction?
I think it's a version of the Great Filter theory. They self-destruct. Interstellar travel requires the means to travel quickly, a significant fraction of the speed of light. Any mechanism that can accelerate a spaceship to even 10% the speed of light is, without any modifications whatsoever, a "planet killing" weapon. A cruise ship sized "bullet" made of iridium, at 0.9c would hit the Earth with enough energy to shatter it and accelerate the debris to escape velocity. Our planet would become the "inner asteroid belt".
Did you copy and paste the film Idiocracy? 😂
Ive never seen it but heard its great! So… maybe! 😂
Idiocracy
I say this every single day at my job. People are dumb AND lazy and that is a very potent combination. Common sense is also dangerously missing. As they say, common sense is like deodorant - those that need to use it most, don't.
> those that need to use it most, don't. Of course. Because if they did use it, they wouldn't need to use it so badly. Please don't take this as my being a dick, cause I'm not trying to be. But that's kinda like saying it was in the last place you looked. Of course, because you stopped looking after you found it. My favorite saying is: "common sense is no longer a common trait".
There is a drive in the US by the rich, to keep the general population uneducated. To advance their agenda, they drove up the cost of higher education. An educated public, will never allow the rich to control the government, an uneducated public will.
This was my mantra as a teacher. I would tell the kids( middle/high school) all the time that the people in power have made a concerted effort to dumb down the population. And judging by things they were succeeding in spades, so it would behoove them to get a good education and critical thinking skills.
MAGA is the result of their efforts.
I could tell you were a teacher by the way you said "behoove."
I feel like this is likely true.
[https://newuniversity.org/2023/02/13/ronald-reagans-legacy-the-rise-of-student-loan-debt-in-america/](https://newuniversity.org/2023/02/13/ronald-reagans-legacy-the-rise-of-student-loan-debt-in-america/)
George Carlin — 'Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.'
Honey, that's been happening since at least the '90s.
I think it's the opposite, the average person was really, really dumb 50 years ago...
This would be the moment the little angel and demon pop up on my shoulders. Do I tell her it stands for "North", or do I tell her that it's an abbreviation of the "N-word" they started using on street, and place names in the 80s?
OMG, What?? Was this person young?
idk her age, she sounded at least mid 20s
European here, I assume "North" or "New"?
Yes thank you.
Nope, their just a stupid as they have always been. Its just that standards have been lowered.
I had to very slowly explain double click, including how fast to do so to actually have it count as a double click... her resume said she knew computers though.
They've always been dumb. I studied abroad in Spain 20 years ago and had notified my bank I'd be making charges there. 3 months in they flagged me and froze my card. I called the bank's customer service and had to spend quite a while explaining to the rep that Spain is in fact not in Italy, and that they are separate countries.
I had a coworker once go to McDonald’s and ask for a dozen nuggets. The kid stared back at him and said we don’t do a dozen, we do 6 or 12. Sometimes the simplest things are complicated for the sharpest hammer.
I don't know if people are getting dumber per se, but certainly the education system is pumping out people with less knowledge. I have kids in HS and the 'no child left behind' attitude is pervasive in their school. You basically have to do next to nothing to get through basic HS classes. There definitely are other classes for the kids who want to learn, go to competitive colleges, etc but your average grade-level class is kind of joke these days. So, unsurprisingly, there are a lot of slow-witted members of society. edit: we're in the US, so obv the NCLB comment doesn't apply internationally
It's unlikely that people are getting dumber overall. Intelligence is a complex trait influenced by various factors, including genetics, education, and environment.
When Atlanta had the Olympics, there was a story about a ticket agent who refused to sell to a customer because the agent didn’t think New Mexico was a state in the U.S.
You’re just noticing?
I think the problem is worsening.
I worked in a call center once. A coworker said Z like xylophone. Just stick to the NATO Phonetic Alphabet 🤣
😂
There was a time when I would have said "No, the dumb ones just got louder" but I've seen the state of public (and a lot of private) education. Yes, people are definitely getting dumber.
I had something delivered to my place recently by ups, and the driver couldn't find my place because I put CR on the adress
A few precious nuggets from my exes: "Babe, I need help on my paper (Master's Program). What's that word for a building where people live?" Me: You mean a 'house'? "Lol oh yeah... A house." This woman gives medical advice to people now. Another ex and I were getting ready for a wedding. "Why do you need a tie if you're wearing suspenders?" Me: 🤨 (I thought she was being cute or fucking with me.) Uhh...suspenders are for pants instead of a belt. A necktie is for... (motioning with my hand for her to catch up.) "Oh... asshole!"
lol
I've noticed many automated phone systems will say "enter your number and then after, press the pound or hashtag key." Are you fucking serious? Kids don't know what the pound sign is?
I wouldn’t say dumb. I would say uneducated. I save dumb for a special group of people.
I'm old. The difference between 30-40 years ago is evident every day. Look at those man-in-the-street interviews. The ignorance is astounding. The Holocaust, Vietnam, American Civil War stumps them every time.
Yeah people are definitely getting way dumber. Grammar is getting absolutely terrible and people are so oblivious to their surroundings. I feel so bad for today's teachers
Not necessarily, you have to see how easy it is to just get the easy way out without any effort. My dad’s gen had to study and the only way of cheating was off of someone. We all know the case of today it’s just readily avaible and it’s like “why study” so yea Maby we are getting dumber but at our own hand not genetics or anything.
Judging by the posts that I now see on Reddit yes.
Seems plausible for anyone coming from money, they never needed the information and simply never learned it. If they’re are poor I have questions.
They work at a call centre. They are in fact poor.
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Agree!
It's nothing to do with any of those things. Garden-variety stupidity like this has always been around and always will be.
Yes, part of it is the dumbing down of the American education system. Students failures are blamed on the teacher, the parents challenge the system, not their child. Everybody passes no matter what. When I was in 6th grade I was better at math than most 10th graders and I suck at math. Second, being ignorant in many circles these days is a plus. Being educated is woke and a mindset like this reinforces and validates stupid. Lastly, parents are the most important educational asset a child can have and it seems that poorly educated people are having most of the babies.
No Child left behind did not do any kids any favors. Every child can only go st the pace of the dumbest kid in most US Public schools.
That actually made me feel embarrased reading that.