Modern life making humans dumber?

[brin]

Need to watch the movie IDIOCRACY, it's a comedy. As all comedies go there is so much truth it's scary. The basis of the story is that the lazy and irresponsible people (read the takers) breed early and often. The responsible people wait till they are older in their 30s+ before having children. By then many woman have a hard time getting pregnant. Fast forward 500 years and we have produced a population of idiots. I think we are on that path.

Plus add to that the abortions...we have all the immigrants, legal and illegal because we murdered 20 million babies...imagine if the had lived since 1972 how many offspring they would have produced...? instead we have 3rd. world immigrants with their diseases and hands out....not wanting to assimilate but rather keep their language and culture ....so our government accommodates them and gives them welfare for their votes...How long will the country last....? answer...Not so long....

[tcreeley]

So I read this thread about people being dumber- I wonder about this- in a study, women giving birth to children in NYC- were producing children with an IQ 4 points lower on average than were women outside of NYC. This was correlated to pollution/smog. Are we manifesting our current "dumbness" when we refuse to reduce pollution/smog across the country? I think we are! We are becoming what we worry we will become! Dumber than our ancestors!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...s-first-breath
Urban Air Pollutants Can Damage IQs before Baby's First Breath/Scientific American

A study in Krakow, Poland, corroborates New York City findings that link children's lower IQ scores with mothers' exposure to compounds created by burning fossil fuels

[SPIKER]

I'm 100% sure that the younger kids are getting dumber from over just my generation, (fast approaching 50.) Half or more can't make change at the store if you pay them cash and toss in some pennies or dimes & nickles you can see their expression go blank. (part of my fun entertainment for sure ) Have a go at it go to one of the places where some 20 something clerk is behind a counter, buy something. the bill then will come to say 22.18 give the clerk a some small bills and a quarter or a dime & two nickles so you have given them say 25.20. set back & grin at about 60~80% will have a meltdown for a little while as they try and first count what you gave them and then how to give you change back...

All of this is ASSUMING you can get them to set down the cell phone long enough to look up & acknowledge your existence standing there.

BTW I thought that MOVIE (if it was one I'm thinking about) was nervously a future possibility. One I'm thinking about the army guy and a hooker from our time get frozen by the army in an experiment. they wake up after a TRASH avalanche dislodges them from storage. they wake up to a future of Monster Truck death matches and people starving. everything is breaking down as no one was smart enough to fix anything anymore...

Mark

[ch47dpilot]

Mark, that's the correct movie got to love Hollywood, they don't even realize they are mocking their own ideas. With the change thing give them a 20, 5 1 dime 1 nickle and 3 pennies. You'll get this look of why is this crazy man giving me all this change when the $25 covers the bill. Then you get this second look of excitement when they see the change is only even dollars. Even funnier when your bill is $28 and you give them $33 and they see they only have to give you a $5 bill for change.

[Larry Caldwell]

Have you ever heard of the Flynn Effect? Each generation is actually getting smarter.

Flynn effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[TCJatko]

Have you ever heard of the Flynn Effect? Each generation is actually getting smarter.

Flynn effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Easy to do, just lower the standards gradually as scores tend to decrease. Just look at our modern indoctrination (education) systems.

[wedge40]

I'm 100% sure that the younger kids are getting dumber from over just my generation, (fast approaching 50.) Half or more can't make change at the store if you pay them cash and toss in some pennies or dimes & nickles you can see their expression go blank. (part of my fun entertainment for sure ) Have a go at it go to one of the places where some 20 something clerk is behind a counter, buy something. the bill then will come to say 22.18 give the clerk a some small bills and a quarter or a dime & two nickles so you have given them say 25.20. set back & grin at about 60~80% will have a meltdown for a little while as they try and first count what you gave them and then how to give you change back...

All of this is ASSUMING you can get them to set down the cell phone long enough to look up & acknowledge your existence standing there.

BTW I thought that MOVIE (if it was one I'm thinking about) was nervously a future possibility. One I'm thinking about the army guy and a hooker from our time get frozen by the army in an experiment. they wake up after a TRASH avalanche dislodges them from storage. they wake up to a future of Monster Truck death matches and people starving. everything is breaking down as no one was smart enough to fix anything anymore...

Mark

Try this one..
Your bill is $16.23 cent. I give them $21.23. You would not believe the number of times I'm handed MY $1 back with 4 more ones. I give them the even $5 difference so they can hand me 5 dollar bill and keep the ones for them selfs.

Wedge

[tungularafishcamp]

So is it the kids getting dumber or are they just not being taught these things? Most folks use credit cards these days so counting out change isnt done much and if the schools, employers, or a patient employee doesnt show them it might take years to figure out for yourself if you hardly ever had to worry about it.

[scott_vt]

: Plus add to that the abortions...

.imagine if the had lived since 1972 how many offspring they would have produced...? ....so our government accommodates them and gives them welfare for their votes...How long will the country last....? answer...Not so long....

Good Evenin Bob,
Oh Bob, you forgot the FREE birth control for third year law students.....

How dare you !

Youll never be able to compete with free !

[RobertN]

Not sure that people are getting dumber. There is just a shift away from earlier things/tasks/technology, so they might not know those older things, but they know other, more modern things/tasks/technologies.

Dumb seems to amplify though. If a town of 10,000 used to have 100 dumb people, and the town is now 100,000 then you have 1,000 dumb people. Since they tend to stick out or get more notice, you notice the greater numbers moreso than the smart people. Although the growing number of dumb people is linear, the dumbness is noticed much more in a non linear, fast ramping scale.