How Did Some Americans Become So Stupid?

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Everyone learns to gameify the education system. Standardised tests are for performative gymnastics and largely test how much we conform to what we are told to do (the endgame).

Sagan was the host of the original "Cosmos" TV series in the Seventies. A scientist who was also a science popularizer. Tyson hosted the revived "Cosmos" in the 2000s, and then became the equivalent public figure of today.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 26 Aug 2023, 5:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

Can we focus on answering the question instead of whether or not the title of the thread is against guidelines?

Some people have been discussing the video in the OP for the past couple pages.

Can you? Have you watched it?

If not, it kind of demonstrates why the title should’ve been changed.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 26 Aug 2023, 5:49 am, edited 3 times in total.

*Never heard of Cosmos*

I'm starting to feel like a freak of nature.

As Isabella said the vid is slanted towards math and science. You can find ignorance about history/humanities etc as well. But does any of that prove anything about how we are trending as a nation?

I recently saw a Utube vid about the ancestry of the American Indians that claimed the latest evidence shows that the Native Americans came from "the north coast of China".

China has an east coast (with the Pacific), but has no south, west, OR "north coast". China borders Mongolia and the Russian Republic on its north. Its does not border any sea on its north side nor any large body of water.

I would like to meet the makers of that video...so I could sell them some beachfront property...in Kansas, and in the Czech Republic. Lol!

There was a particular older gentleman on a particular social website I would frequent who was (a)an engineer, and (b) near genius IQ, and (c) very opiniated, and (d) closer to my parents generation in age than to my Boomer generation.

But in one conversation he "corrected" me from being right to being wrong. Lol. I said that on the eve of the civil war that there were free states and slave states, and that created problems comparable to what WOULD be created today if same sex marriage were left to the states. He informed me that "slavery was legal throughout the whole nation until Lincoln outlawed it throughout the nation in 1865". Every middle school kid in America knows that northern states gradually outlawed slavery prior to civil war, and that southern states still had slavery...which was the whole REASON the south broke away and started the war. BASIC!! !! ! Imagine if you met a British person...who thought that the Queen Elizabeth who knighted the Beatles ...was the SAME Queen Elizabeth who knighted Sir Francis Drake for defeating the Spanish Armada. Thats the British equivalent of the magnitude of how dumb this gentleman had made himself look. He forgot what every tenth grader in his country knows!

But as I said he was almost my parents' age. So what "trend" does that show? Probably no trend at all. Dumbness is just always out there...and can pounce on us all at any time- and can embarrass any of us. Lol!

You have to wonder about some of those people in the Bill Maher video. I wonder how many were caught off-guard with a camera stuck in their face, and they didn't process the questions properly because of anxiety? If someone approached me on the street with a camera crew to ask me some random question, presumably to show I'm stupid, I'd likely be so flustered I wouldn't hear the question properly. Being ASD I worry more about my eye contact and stuff than what the other person is saying. ADHD only makes it worse.

I know those people might not have been autistic (chances are they weren't), but still I think many people just didn't listen to the questions properly. Maybe in the case of that video the title should be "Why do some Americans have poor listening skills?" or "Here's how ADHD affects people who are caught off guard".

The person who said people have landed on the sun likely felt like a total doofus afterward, but that wasn't filmed.


*Me overanalysing again, I know*

Last edited by IsabellaLinton on 26 Aug 2023, 6:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

^ I think a lot of people get anxious when they’re put on the spot, especially if a camera is filming them. It’s certainly something that I’ve experienced myself, and it wasn’t pretty. I had trouble forming coherent sentences. Damn anxiety!

I’m going to try to repress that memory…

In the Sixties TV comic Steve Allen used to do that sorta thing. Go on the street and ask folks if they would vote for a candidate who admitted to being a "Homo Sapien".

An old lady barked "NO WAY". A progressive looking beatnicky looking guy went into a painful moment of thought and introspection, and then concluded that yes he might "consider voting for him".

Even Progressives back then were of two minds then I suppose. But today even conservatives are okay with voting for someone who...admits to being a member of the human species!

Being a member of the human race just ...doesnt have the stigma it used to have!

NATO allies of have often been accused of "free riding": spending less on defense than they otherwise would because of the massive US military budget and the US commitment to defend Europe against attack. In this view, US taxpayers are gullible suckers, providing security to Europeans who, in turn, spend lavishly on social welfare and infrastructure instead of ensuring their own defense. Meanwhile, American social welfare programs and infrastructure are pitiful.

Putin still has a lot of nuclear weapons that he could deploy.



43 countries, of which most are itty bitty.

It's true that European countries have disproportionately paid a low amount during peace time towards NATO expenditures.

But in the event of an existential threat to the geographical boundaries of individual European countries, particularly anything beyond Ukraine, I imagine there would be a world war declared, similar to when Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland at the beginning of world war two and other allies inevitably joined the cause against Germany.

In a world war, national defense spending increases rapidly, so I don't think there would be an issue of a lack of funding for NATO, from European countries, in such a scenario.

The problem at the moment with Ukraine is that previously, Ukraine hadn't been properly integrated into Europe's economy, and has not been fit to be a member of NATO, and Ukraine even shelved plans for joining NATO in 2010, instead opting to bind closer ties to Russia, which surely they must now regret!

Since Ukraine aren't a member of NATO, and are not a part of NATO territory, Russia have taken the opportunity to seize its lands, without necessarily triggering a major NATO/Russia war.

NATO are currently not obligated to defend Ukraine, since Ukraine are again, not a member of NATO, but they do so because they do not want Russia to have a foothold, further into European territory, beyond the land they already own.

Last edited by blitzkrieg on 26 Aug 2023, 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

^ I'll add to that - Russia will likely not use nuclear weapons, for obvious reasons. France and the UK together could destroy Russia with their nukes, even without the help of the US.

Both countries have about 600 nuclear weapons between them, and are obligated to protect Poland via NATO in the event of war.

So if Russia dared to use nukes on Poland, then we'll all be toast anyway/mutually assured destruction will be at hand.

Here is a table of IQ by country

https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php

East Asia seems to dominate. The USA isn't so bad, in 29th place.

You can have high IQ but choose a path of ignorance

Have you watched the video in the OP?

Number Nine!
Number Nine!