The human race is gradually becoming dumber.

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If you read what I wrote, it clearly says 'stupid and irresponsible', not just stupid. You don't need a PhD to figure that having children you cannot afford isn't the most brilliant idea and I know poor people with little education that figured that one out - apart from not finding it very smart I also find it morally repulsive. Many of the most stupid people I know are actually quite well off. And I don't think more schooling equates with more intelligence - while more years taking tests no doubt make you better at taking tests, that doesn't mean they make you smarter.

You seem to rely heavily on anecdotes. Anyway, many people in the poorer parts of the world might not have contraception available, and if they do, they might distrust them because they are not educated enough.


What's your plan? Hindering 'stupid' people from breeding? Making 'intelligent' people breed more? By what measurement do you judge 'intelligence' anyway?


Er, did I ever claim there are no stupid people who are not well of? No, I think that's the exact opposite of what I said. If anything, it's you that have hinted that poverty and stupidity correlate Nice strawman though.


OK, you missed my point completely. It's just that more highly educated people are less likely to breed.

Last edited by Henriksson on 02 Jul 2009, 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

One of my favorite movies:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

what makes us intelligent in the first place, its just like human nature

no only america is getting stupider

I haven't seen Transformers 2 but I didn't like the first one.

However...

I have seen Citizen Kane and I felt that it was pretty dull - not worth all the fuss and credit it's given.
Now don't take me for someone who doesn't like old films. My favourite of all time is Nosferatu 1922 but I also like Metropolis 1927, The Golem 1920, M 1931 and the General 1926.

Plus of course I like modern stuff - and everything in between.

Citizen Kane just felt like a huge letdown.

Agreed. And in that case, go watch The Man from Earth. You can thank me later.

I hate to say being the American and all but I too hate most american films....they still have a large tendency bluntly stereotype casts by gender, race, and so on. The plots are also annoying since they copy of eachother. This doesn't seem to be so profound in other cultures. Give me Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet anytime where it involves eccentric characters with witty creativity and humor.


As for american's education....yeah it's getting worse in some areas because money is tight depending on the value of property. I also can't help but notice that taxes is being spent on things that seem useless like stadiums, public pools and entertainment that would require more money to be spent. Anyway....America's gone backwards imo. I can't help but wonder if religion has something to do with it and the history our country was founded on such as slavery and genocide. Religion in some states seem to be a big deal...moreso than education.

I'm not talking about places where contraception is not available, to be clear.



I wrote that I found having children you can't afford to be morally repulsive, not that stupid people having children was morally repulsive. I suppose in Sweden, where everybody's essential physical needs are met, and with decent free education, etc social mobility must be fairly good, it's not so bad. But in the Third World, where often this is not the case, having children you can't afford does mean largely condemning them to a pretty awful existence while adding to the burdens of societies that already have too many mouths to feed. To do so when you have the means of preventing it (contraception) I do find morally repulsive.

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Yes, more highly educated people are less likely to breed and, independently, more intelligent people are less likely to breed and, also independently, more responsible people are less likely to breed. The three (responsibility, intelligence and education) are separate, independent variables. It was you, not me, that equated intelligence with education by stating that they would be intelligent if they'd had the chance of an education. The thread was originally about intelligence, too, not about education.

Actually, I'm going to disagree a little here.

Living beings generally have two goals
1. To Survive
2. To Procreate

I don't think it's fair to deny anyone the right to procreate (at least once) purely on economic basis.

I've had friends who have lived (and died) thinking that they can't have children because they "couldn't afford them". These people were renting houses and trying to work to keep themselves in food.

Only a couple of suburbs away, we have druggies who manage to have illegitimate children and pay for the drugs too. Obviously they have high paying jobs? quality robber boyfriends? very rich donating relatives? some secret way of getting lots of government handouts?

My point is simple. Any couple (other than some in the worst of circumstances - warzones, famine etc) should be able to afford at least one child regardless of their situation. You make do. You find a way. You don't give up.


The point against "more intelligent people" not having babies is a good one.
More "Educated" people seem less likely to have children because they're too busy with work and other committments.
I don't think that makes them more intelligent though...

Allowing one's species/family-line to die out because you'd rather go to work doesn't strike me as a terribly intelligent thing to do.
Also, I'm great with computers etc... but I couldn't fix a car though my dad could. My degree didn't cover cars (but neither did his tafe courses).

I saw the movie over the weekend, the one from the original post. Even saw it on IMAX.

It was remotely ok as a popcorn flick. It just had way too much cheese in it. The big robot fights were not even that enjoyable. It was just like robot karate with bad cinematography.
I grew up watching transformers though, so that show holds a spot of nostalgia for me so I just cant stand what they did to the story. I can get by the change of their look, if they had computer animation in the 80s they woulda made them more intricate. I can even get by the corporate sponsorship making them change to GM only cars, but the original show had such a good story with a surprising amount of depth, it just makes no sense that they completely abandoned it for what ever that all-spark crap is. I've come across episodes of GI Joe and TMNT and other cartoons I watched in the 80s and they seem so childish, original transformers is the only cartoon that I still find enjoyable.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... the human race is full of idiots, because idiots are the ones who reproduce the most! "Survival of the Dimwittiest." And lately, our culture has popularized idiots to a new level, so that might have something to do with people "getting dumber."

You want proof that people are getting dumber?

Global warming ! !! !

People believe that Carbon Dioxide is destroying the planet ! !! !!

You want proof that people are getting dumber?

Discrediting scientific theories!

People who believe that Global Warming means believing that Carbon Dioxide is destroying the planet!

Also, misuse of exclamation marks.

Look, I was born and raised in a massively overcrowded Third World city - a relatively economically deprived childhood in Britain or, I'm sure, in Australia or Sweden is simply not comparable to the poverty many children do live in in my country, which is by no means one of the Third World's poorest. Yes, people 'make do' - that's why there are malnourished children, children dying of diseases that are really the result of bad conditions, lack of adequate medical attention, or both, children begging in the streets instead of going to school, children literally living in the sewage system, children sniffing glue because it wards off both hunger and the despair of their lives - and when people can't 'make do', it is far from unheard of for children to be given away, abandoned or sold by their parents (their likely fates in the last instance I leave to your imagination).
To illustrate, some time ago I visited a (government) primary school here in a deprived area - and this is a city supposed to have some of the worst schools in the country - my jaw dropped. Such facilities, in my country, you would only see them in the most expensive private schools. As for government schools in deprived areas, many don't have electricity or running water - there are even schools that have no walls.

Theoritically maybe, but only recently, and only in a few places- so it would be hard to either prove or disprove.

Po white trash may have more kids than college professors do.
But during most of history a smaller proportion of those surplus white trash kids would survive than those of the elite because life was harder.

So it evened out and the average intelligence of the species stayed the same.
But maybe in some rich industrialized countries in the last centurey dumb people survive in the
same proportion as do smart people so the faster reproducing dumb people would live to reproduce more of their own- portenting a trend toward a shallowing the gene pool.

BUt thats such a recent trend that it would be like a one game winning streak- hard to detect as a trend until its played out centuries into the future.

As far as movies being an indicator of public IQ- Shakespeare had to compete with bear baiting, and with public hangings, to get his audience- just as NPR has to compete with the Transformers Movie. So I dont think showbiz has changed that much in even four hundred years- atleast not IQ wise.