Wow is my generation really this dumb?

[Airbusman330 300]

Part of the reason for that is that school curriculum can be cut and dry so students don't become engaged, I remember learning about the pilgrims and the revolutionary war year after year in grade school until we finally moved on to WWI and beyond starting in the 7th grade. Don't get me started in high school, one of the most boring 4 years of my life.

[Spartan0536 49]

There was a poll taken a few years ago of high school students in the US, and almost 50% stated that during World War II, the Americans fought with the Germans against the Japanese and the Russians!

 

Well of course, it was the United States being led by Dwight D Eisenhower, the Germans were led by Winston Churchill(to which many UK teens believe is fictional, probably half of US teens believe that), The evil N@Z! Russians were led by H!tler, and Emperor Stalin led the sneaky Japanese. However if the Russians being led by H!tler had not bombed Pearl Harbor, we would not have gotten into the war which was started by France and England who ended up losing.

 

Sadly this satiric play on WWII history would most likely be believed as truth by many under-educated public school morons who think that the MTV show Jersey Shore is the best show ever made, "and all hail SNOOKI". *FACEPALM*

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

Been living in New Zealand for 3 years now and the kids here are pretty bright. Education here was just ranked 7th in the world and the schools here everyone has to wear a uniform that consist of school blazers, their is no violence, very dedicated teachers.  This is where we will stay to raise our kids. Put a poll like that in New Zealand and you will have a very different result.

 

What I have noticed from being abroad is most of these other countries are just setting up trade relations with each other and are more and more leaving the USA out. USA is becoming too difficult to do business with so it is becoming more insular. Rest of these countries just move on.

 

Most recently our banks have begun to lock out US Citizens and have told them to take their money and close their accounts due to the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. More of this stuff keeps happening. It is near impossible for a US Citizen to open a bank account living overseas anymore. Reason is our banks refuse to disclose information to the IRS or any foreign governments.

 

Times they are a changing.

[simmerhead 885]

Are things getting better or worse? Who knows, and I am not going to belittle young people. I was young once myself. The generation gap is as old as humanity and dumbness goes both ways. We are all cognitively biased, coloured by our political and religious views, not to mention lack of scientific knowledge to back up our arguments.

 

People might still be interested in history, not just the kind of history "we" might find significant and important. It is hard for anyone to make sense of anything these days with the torrent of information avilable through all kinds of media.

[Glynn 405]

The most worrying thing is, Kids these days have an access to knowledge via the internet that previous generations could only have dreamt of and they still do not seem to absorb any of it.

 

Pretty much anything you could want to know about any subject and Google will find it for you before you have finished typing. and that is on a smartphone you can carry in your pocket.

 

It could be that it is too easy for them, why bother learning anything if that knowledge can be Googled instantly ?

[simmerhead 885]

The most worrying thing is, Kids these days have an access to knowledge via the internet that previous generations could only have dreamt of and they still do not seem to absorb any of it.

 

Pretty much anything you could want to know about any subject and Google will find it for you before you have finished typing. and that is on a smartphone you can carry in your pocket.

 

It could be that it is too easy for them, why bother learning anything if that knowledge can be Googled instantly ?

 

They have easy access to information yes, but how do they know if that information is credible? How do they separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak? Once upon the time people were spoon fed "the truth" (or sombodies version of it). That isn't the case anymore. The church, gouvernments and schools do no longer have information monopoly. That is a development in the right direction, but leads to a lot of confusion. The paradox is that you need a lot of knowledge to aquire more knowledge, and as Sokrates said, the more you know, the less you know!

[CoolP 283]

Simmerhead and others, I'm glad you guys are around. :smile:

 

Differentiations to be made on the topic. Media rarely reports about people getting smarter or schools 'just' achieving their goals. They actually pick the opposite for reasons given in this very thread. Lets call it the 'to get upset about' value.

 

Second, intelligence can't be measured by asking people about who Churchill was. Education can. Education doesn't equal intelligence. Intelligence is potential waiting to be unlocked or given a chance.

 

Education takes place all the time, even now. But it's largely influenced by a) who teaches you, b ) who/what distracts you from it and c) how interested you are in getting to know new things, especially the ones being outside of the confirmation bias scope. So there's quite a task to reach out to young individuals which are, intentionally, set up to be good consumers in the first place.

 

While I'd agree to saying that nowadays youngsters are differently motivated than former ones, I have no doubt that the human factors are just the same, while the distractions now reach from the XBOX One over to the right clothes or just the latest movie getting heavily promoted.

 

You are fighting wars out there, the ones for attention. And it takes a good and motivated teacher to get the message across. Guys like (for example) Sagan or, now, Neil deGrasse Tyson really mean what they say when they state that you have to ignite a spark in an individual. That's a thing not taking place because somebody says 'listen up, this is important' but when someone shows you that it really is. Learning because you want to vs. learning because you are told to learn.

 

Complains about the youth not being interested/as smart/as noble as their predecessors are very old. To be honest, the grown up folks stating that women can shut something down in the event of rape or that evolution 'is just a theory' are far more worrisome than a 13 year old not knowing about the capital of Japan. You can look up the latter.

 

In short, 'your' generation most likely is as smart, dumb or gifted as the one before it and the next one to come. There's no scientific evidence showing something different.

[BillW 210]

You can tell Americans are a bunch of dumba****. Look at the lousy standard of living that we must endure. Look at all the diseases of epidemic proportion we must live with. Oh and look at the lack of freedom we have. Look at how the rest of these brilliant countries count on us for protection against their enemies. You want to bash the U.S., go for it. Have a field day. I have better things to do. Have a good day. I'm going to one of my four wretched golf courses and play golf.

[Howellerman 104]

 

 

Complains about the youth not being interested/as smart/as noble as their predecessors are very old. To be honest, the grown up folks stating that women can shut something down in the event of rape or that evolution 'is just a theory' are far more worrisome than a 13 year old not knowing about the capital of Japan. You can look up the latter.

 

+1. Dogma is being dispensed more and more as vested interests move to protect "their" way of life.

[IUBrian 151]

I cannot speak too much about other countries, but as to the US...I am 45, and have a son who is a junior in a well regarded suburban public high school, as well as 9th grade and 8th grade daughters. My son has had nothing less than an a- since 5th grade, and has had nothing less than an A all thorough high school. (Had to brag a little, but there is a point). I suspect his math and science education is comparable to anywhere in the world - he's taken classes early on that I took in college. Where education is lacking, imo, is in history, particularly our own. It's this moral relativistic, politically correct BS. And there's little emphasis on history's importance. Couple that with a media that cares more about the size of a movie star's bum than it does world events, and I believe we are creating a generation of culturally illiterate and politically naive youth. They believe they are living "at the end" of history, as opposed to part of it, and the things that happened more than 20 years ago have no bearing on what is, or will, happen.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

[january 19]

It is my understanding that many school districts no longer teach handwriting- why should they when everyone has a Blackberry or IPad? 

Which raises the question as to how a high school "grad" would sign his own name to a job application or a paycheque.

january

[xplanery 250]

Our education system here in Finland is rated one of the very best in the world, yet I can still definitely see this trend around here too, especially with people who don't go for higher education but rather go to vocational schools after the primary school... 

 

While the situation definitely isn't as bad as what I've heard from the United States still there's definitely significant amount of young people who really don't care much about what can be regarded as common knowledge if it doesn't directly affect their daily lives. 

[Bjoern 1,157]

The arms of the scissors are just spreading farther apart, that's all. Some are using all the knowledge available while others wouldn't even be alive if it wasn't for technology and society.

 

 

In any case, the safest bet is to nuke everything from orbit. Or tie breeding to knowledge and behavioural testing beforehand. Or both.

[Q_flyer 766]

With feral crime on the increase and the obsession with reality shows/z-list celebrities what would anyone expect?

 

Yes agree, certainly in the UK, cheap reality TV that sensationalizes bad behaviour, and the narcisstic 'z list' celebs, such poor role models most of them, are destroying any sense of good morals and ethics.....   Just watch BBC3 on an evening...... (or rather don't if you value your time on this planet).

.......... Or tie breeding to knowledge and behavioural testing beforehand. Or both.

 

Seriously?

 

Didn't the rather evil genocidal leader of Germany in the early 40s take a similar view to that? ....... The answer is not uber-right wing human selection surely, it's more education and specifically the education of the benefits of holding inner values and 'doing the right thing'..... not because an old book tells you that a god will send you to hell if you don't ......... but because being good to people is good for them, and you.

[CoolP 283]

In any case, the safest bet is to nuke everything from orbit.

Bjoern, your KSP playing seems to affect you.. somehow. ^_^

 

PS. Please attach your craft file.