This post is observational and circumstantial and based purely upon my own experiences and thoughts.
This does not shield you from criticism my friend 😅
In fact, people are more skilled than they have ever been. That however does not mean that people are broadly skilled. That is, that they can tough it out without the network of resources we have built up in the last couple of hundred years.
Nor would we want it that way really. It's very satisfying to be able to rough it, but it is not efficient. It is good for the soul to learn that stuff, but a bad use of energy to do what you don't have to do, especially regarding the basics.
People are also much smarter than they were in the past, and that's set to modestly increase. My own casual research in the past while has indicated that that can mostly be attributed to improved nutrition globally. This is one of my bugbears. "Sheeple" and related concepts are so unhelpful. We can be mislead but you'll find (if you look) that more an more people are thinking, actually thinking. Do not shrink away into fatalistic notions.
I see the continual focus on staying the same a way to continue people being controlled, keep them consuming, even if it isn't in their best interest. Everyone makes their own decisions in this life but, we are all nudged by our environment and the environment that contains us is leaning more and more toward weakness, not strength.
Very similar point to the @hansikhouse post I just commented on.
Could it not be that the mechanism by which the consumerist drive you speak of operates is a lack of, or a controlling of imagination? Isn't that what keeps the sick person sick?
The extreme fat question is complicated, but I agree with you in that it a product of unfettered consumption (if you agree with my paraphrasing). Literally consumption of course, but also that of bad quality food, paired with our sedentary lifestyles. However some people are just fat. Where were always going to be fat, except in the case of malnutrition. We need to keep that in mind.
But here's where I really do agree with you: we are exploited by others. You can call this "farming" if you want to be dramatic, but the point stands. However we can still be exploited if we are smart, that's the thing you're not appreciating. Being smart and having the wrong information is arguably worse, because smart people are that little bit more arrogant (ahem).
That's one of the reasons why Steem is so important as a flagship anti-censorship platform. Sure we have flags and so on, but it is essentially censorship-free. It's only by real information that the smart can become useful to themselves and others. That is the real light which needs to shine, if I am to be dramatic, that is the light.
I am not too sure about that. I am witnessing kids getting degrees (as it is now easy to get a degree and everyone thinks one needs a degree) but barely understanding what they are doing. On the other hand, jobs that are needed are open. No one to take them. This is my gut feeling of the situation in France. I have no clue how general this is, but I won't be surprized this goes well beyond just a single country.
While your observations are interesting, it wouldn't be wise to base an opinion on anecdotal evidence, no matter how compelling, or gut feelings. I think they are useful, perhaps more useful than many rationalists think, but not directly, only as a kind of radar of where to look. So let's look.
Enlightenment Now is a book recently authored by Stephen Pinker. In it he makes the case that things are better than people think, including among other things how smart we are.
This chart is from an article on the book. Now I don't think this proves much, but it's an indication. There are lots of other indications we can find.
I'm sure @tarazkp might start disputing the measurements and so on but really the evidence is there, by any standard we are not getting stupider. As I said, smartness may not actually be serving us though, and that's perhaps the better area too look at.
I disagree with the fact that what I say is "just an anecdote". This is something I have seen in my own university and that colleagues have seen in their own universities too. Moreover, there is about 10% of unemployment in France (I however actually don't know how many of these unemployed people have a university degree).
Let me just finally also insist that I was not thinking about "literate people" but "people with a university degree (or similar)". Mmmh actually I didn't mention it but this is what I was thinking about :)
I didn't say it was "just an anecdote", I said it was "anecdotal evidence", which Wikipedia defines as
In formal studies researches are required to go to some lengths to remove any personal bias from the process, at least if they are researching scientifically. I'm sure your observations are relevant but the knowledge is not transferrable to me because I cannot trust it's validity. If there is 10% unemployment in France then that is a fact, unrelated entirely to your observations.
In my opinion if you cannot recognize your observations may be biased then you are not practicing a level of skepticism and humility necessary for genuine inquiry.
I agree there is no evidence backing up my claim. Just some gut feeling coming from discussions with many people and my own observations.
But please note that I had never the intention to sell this as a scientific claim or evidence of what so ever. I made it clear from the start.
Understood. I'm also just making clear that I can't accept it.
Sure, no problem.
I wouldn't dispute the measurement, I would dispute the relevance. Learning a skill and using it well are two different things. Give two individuals the same resources and they will use them differently. I could be wrong but I would suggest that if someone like Da vinci had a pool of resource as deep as the internet, he wouldn't be playing Farmville. Smart doesn't translate to intelligence.
Yes, food/hygiene (maybe too) are large factors in our capacity growth but it is also possible that we have reached a point that if we aren't careful, the environmental changes and substances we have created could push us backwards. If we look at the increase in opioid abuse and death in middle class america, it is a pretty good indicator that we aren't 'healthy' even though healthier than before in other areas. Depression is on the rise for a reason and it isn't because we are smarter.
The dumbing down I talk about isn't about brain capabilities, it is about cultural restriction (as you mentioned).
It's a pity you didn't say that then.
But points well taken. There are a lot of opportunities today, they should be used and we should support those things which relieve and cure illness, that promote health in all it's factors and, yes I'm going to say it ... freedom.
If I have to spell everything out, how are you ever expected to learn? :D
I hope you screamed it with half your face pointed blue :)
It is similar in Finland too where the education is supposedly 'brilliant' yet, for the most part, they are unable to apply it to create something new (on average). We see a lot of innovation in the world and believe it to be the norm but, we live in a world of cherry-picked information with mass exposure.
I would suggest that take out the publicity and we would soon discover we are much more average than we believe. Much like if we took away the news cherry picking the most violent crimes from around the globe, the world will seem a lot more safe than we are led to believe.
This is true. The point is however that we're smarter on average than we were 100 years ago. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
As we by essence know more, this sounds very logical.
damn.
It is like only having a hammer, only useful in some circumstances. We are narrow and the skills we have are likely easily programmable (future) for a narrow AI to do.
How fast are we going to evolve? I would suggest, not fast enough.
Indeed. People are highly unimaginiative and becoming less imaginiative as the global view and popular products, shows, fashions, culture etc gets spread equally to all. Equality might be reached eventually, as we will all think identically.
Where were they 12,000 years ago before farming? How many of the Australian aboriginals (no farming - not malnourished) were fat? it has become a genetic disorder through poor nutrition (too much carb) that is now transferrable to the next generation and exacerbated by the fact that body types tend to cluster for relationships.
I can agree with this yet, (to defend my position) real information is also the information that comes from alternative possibilities through imagination. For every correct thought, how many incorrect did it take to reach that point? The problem I see is that people work under the assumption that it'll all work out and become complacent and leave the details up to others. Introduce alternate theories and possibilities (even incorrect ones [unlike mine]) and there is more food for thought to build a better, more informed path forward.
Read them fairytales.
It's never easy taking you to task, I should have known better 😇
Regarding skill, the fact remains that your statement is incorrect (people are less skilled) and requires qualification if you mean "less broadly skilled" or "less usefully skilled". The implication as it stands is that people are stupider, which is also not true.
We are and have always been "programmed". There's a less biased word for it too, it's called culture. It's the reason why someone will commit suicide for shame. Not only that, but as long as there are guardians of culture (which there mostly has been everywhere for thousands of years) these are systems of control. This control can be a good thing (stopping people from killing each other too much over disputes for example) and a bad thing (causing people to kill each other even more over disputes, lol). It is the kind of control which is internalized and makes up the very stuff of your mental world. We cannot do without it, even as we try to escape it.
I would argue it's not the programming itself that is the problem, that is, we can't remove culture. I would say however that improving the culture is worth doing. The bad news is that culture has huge inertia, but the good news is that things do change. Again, information is key, and I agree with you that imagination and all of that can be information too.
Regarding the fat question, I really don't know enough about it. I know that people several hundreds of years ago who were farmers have been discovered to be what we might call "fat" today. It is also my recollection (we'd need to get some citations here) that hunter gatherers did not have an abundance of food and were often hungry in a way that we would find very difficult today. But I bow out to the information, whatever it is.
By the way I think this is one of your incorrect thoughts that may hopefully lead to a correct one 😉I can't remember what this kind of speculation is called, but in any case it is not supported by your previous statements.
I lost track of the chain. I am an idiot :D
😂