How Did Some Americans Become So Stupid?

Post Reply New Topic

People are saying all sorts about chatGPT, about how much of a revolution it may bring etc.

To me, it seems not much more than a glorified tape recorder, regurgitating human input/language.

I have. Tyson is an astrophysicist. He is not a social psychologist. I would not seek this type of information from him. Would I get advice on cosmetic surgery from an architect?

More precise/accurate information from experts on why Americans are choosing ignorance (or have chosen the path of ignorance) is easy to locate
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programm ... ely-stupid
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion ... stupidity/

Much of the blame can be squarely placed on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Social media is allowing people to intimidate others and make them afraid of public consequences for anything they say. And that makes institutions structurally stupid, because people have stopped dissenting, questioning and challenging.

Originally a useful tool, social media is now inimical to democracy, he says, because it allows no place for considered debate. A lack of informed debate is making America’s institutions stupid. People rely on the media for their news. If the media is stupid then logically the common folk become ill-informed and grasp onto viral movements on social media such as MAGA or QAnon to inform their thinking.

In the past American institutions cancelled individuals who dared to speak out (anti-racists) to be labelled as communists. Civil rights advocates, anti-war protesters, gay rights supporters wound up in jail

With the erosion of political civility and the rise of distrust of facts, Americans vote with their emotions, not their intelligence. Perfectly explains the rise of Trump in 2016

I'm not thrilled with this specific video of Tyson's, but this is a bad reason to not engage with his content:

What matters is the strength of his claims and the evidence he provides, not whether he is a "social psychologist" or not. People can still have something insightful to say even if a given topic is outside of their area of expertise. (Conversely, "experts" sometimes form erroneous conclusions from insufficient evidence.) He does primarily address math and science in the video, so it's not too much of a stretch. In any case, it doesn't matter. Even I could make a sound argument (or an even better one) that would be worth discussing if I exerted time and energy into compiling research. Dismissing a person's argument simply because it's outside of their field is an example of Courtier's reply.
That's still not all or even most "ill-informed" Americans. It's just a subset of them. Most do not believe in conspiracy theories. Many are intelligent enough to approach headlines, including UFO sightings, with a healthy dose of skepticism. Not everyone uses Facebook or Twitter. I certainly don't.
That's not all Americans. Many do not merely vote with their emotions. I don't.

America and American-bashing gets tiresome. Yes, America has its problems, but there are much worse places to live. There are better places to live, too. The links you provided seem to be more emotion-based, opinion pieces and short on actual research.

I've seen a fair amount of stupidity come out of Australia which isn't surprising since humans live there. I still wouldn't make generalizations about Australians. Perhaps I would say "some Australians" or something like that rather than make a blanket statement about Australians as a homogenous group.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 26 Aug 2023, 7:29 pm, edited 6 times in total.

It is sad to see that it has come to be..that such a thread has been started...but the reality , it would seem there has been , what by my outside observation ,seems to be a dumbing down of the US population. By influence of our political persons running the media in this Country . With what has appeared to be a top down .. influence on most all agencies that are responsible for the health and wellfare of the population of the USA . As now the media influence us complete to infect even the youngest users cellphones at things like that . IMHO . The bulk of all easily affordable "recreation ", games and movies engender violent actions / interactions . Even college admissions are way down. A Ignorant population is normally the easiest to control . And it would appear this is the underlayment of of society being instituted by our own government here.(But these are merely my own observations)

I did not say this unique to Americans. In the English speaking world this seems to follow a familiar pattern, although America has the honour of actually voting in a populist leader with zero crudentials like Trump.

I would not make distinctions based on language since many places are experiencing similar patterns. Distinctions based on species make more sense in my opinion. This thread primarily concerns Homo sapiens.

Populist leaders are not unique to the US. Notorious leaders are not unique to the US.

[opinion=mine]

I may not be the first to say it in this thread, but the main reason why some Americans are as stupid as they are is because of their religious beliefs.  While many might claim Christianity, I am certain that if Jesus would return today, many of those same stupid Americans would hunt Him down and murder Him for being a Liberal.

Read the "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5:1 through Matthew 7:29), and you will see what I mean.  The Jesus of the Gospels is not the Jesus that is (claimed by some to be) worshiped today.

[/opinion]

I share a similar opinion. Most, but not all, of the stupid I've encountered was tied up to religion in some way, especially when it comes to blindly following and worshiping political leaders and anti-intellectualism in general.

It doesn’t give the breakdown of what percentage of Americans are in each group, but conservative evangelical groups appear to have lower levels of education in general although I’m not familiar with all these religions/denominations. This is from 2016.



https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads ... us-groups/

Looks like it is time for another one of my lists.

The Problems With Religious People

• Their social identity is based on deep, insurmountable divisions between "Them" and "Us".

• They are dismissive of any form of artistic expression that does not glorify their beliefs.

• They are dismissive of any science that contradicts their holy writings.

• They are known more for what they hate than for what they love.

• They are more interested in punishment of criminals than in rehabilitation.

• They are quick to defend themselves by pointing out the sins you have committed.

• They believe every action is either 'righteous' or 'sinful', with no possibility of any in-between mix.

• They believe in a male-dominated society.

• They believe in the need to direct your children's curiosity solely toward the study of their holy writings.

• They believe in things outside their holy writings that have no basis in reality.

• They believe that a 0.5% success rate with prayers for healing is significant, while a 98% rate of success with vaccines proves nothing significant at all.

• They believe that anyone who does not believe as they believe will suffer for all eternity.

• They believe that if they 'feel' that it is righteous to harm someone, they will do it.

• They believe that the more rules you follow, the more free you are.

• They believe their religiosity gives them perfect license to control what your children learn in secular schools.

• They can always rationalize their sins in terms of their holy writings.

• They do not welcome newcomers to their worship services if those newcomers are not wealthy, musically talented, good-looking, or already related to current members

• They follow the teachings of their religious leaders, and not their holy writings.

• They hate both the sin and the sinner.

• They justify their own acts of violence as the will of their god.

• They know where to look in their holy writings for justification of slavery.

• They may forgive you; but they will never, ever forget what you did (and they will remind you at every opportunity).

• They think they are the only ones who know the truth about any given situation.

These are the people whose existence supports the assertion that SOME Americans are stupid because of their religiosity.

Last edited by Fnord on 26 Aug 2023, 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

oh..my... it sounds like heresy to me....... cynicism implied

I am not a heretic; I just hate religion.

Cynicism noted . . . and appreciated!

What he had zero of was "credentials".

The word is derived from "credit". Not from "crude".

But (from the interview on that bus) its obvious that he has lots of "crudentials".

You accidentally created an interesting pun there.

This is an Autism forum. People who tend to take things literally tend not get the implied "Some" be it the above or the original title of this thread.

I read a cross section of English language news so I think its symptomatic of the neo-liberal English speaking world. I have Danish and Swedish cousins who think Americans are very ignorant and have no idea of geography (which is likely right since they think they are the centre of the world). This is not surprising as most non-English Europeans are bilingual and many are multilingual so make it their business to be worldly/global.

It does not help that tabloids like the  Express  cater to the fears and fantasies of stupid people.