[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
DeymeL wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
Absolutely true. Young people are getting dumber with each successive generation.
Equally true, however, is that they’re becoming better looking, more muscular and more athletic with each generation.
I know what you mean about how aesthetically pleasing younger generations are becoming, but do you think it is because they actually are prettier, or just because they can pile on inches of make up and make themselves look ten fold better than they really are
There is certainly a great deal of attention paid to looks nowadays and entire industries have arisen to that end in the service sector which didn’t exist before. That’s part of the explanation, I’m sure. Another part is the widespread availability of make-up and elective surgical procedures such as braces/orthodontics, laser vision correction, hair restoration, etc…
But is it also genetic? Are beautiful people having kids together more often? Probably also true. Personally, I think there’s an ever-widening gap between genetic “haves” and “have-nots”.
[/quote]
Yeah maybe your right dumb people (who are good looking) are marrying other dumb (good looking) people creating a new generation of aesthetically superior yet mentally inferior humans.
You know there’s a movie on this topic called Idiocracy, the story goes something like this; 500 years from now everyone’s IQ is significantly lower people and have gotten really stupid.
[quote]DeymeL wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
DeymeL wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
Absolutely true. Young people are getting dumber with each successive generation.
Equally true, however, is that they’re becoming better looking, more muscular and more athletic with each generation.
I know what you mean about how aesthetically pleasing younger generations are becoming, but do you think it is because they actually are prettier, or just because they can pile on inches of make up and make themselves look ten fold better than they really are
There is certainly a great deal of attention paid to looks nowadays and entire industries have arisen to that end in the service sector which didn’t exist before. That’s part of the explanation, I’m sure. Another part is the widespread availability of make-up and elective surgical procedures such as braces/orthodontics, laser vision correction, hair restoration, etc…
But is it also genetic? Are beautiful people having kids together more often? Probably also true. Personally, I think there’s an ever-widening gap between genetic “haves” and “have-nots”.
Yeah maybe your right dumb people (who are good looking) are marrying other dumb (good looking) people creating a new generation of aesthetically superior yet mentally inferior humans.
[/quote]
Because beautiful and smart is an oxymoron. Right?
[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
DeymeL wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
Absolutely true. Young people are getting dumber with each successive generation.
Equally true, however, is that they’re becoming better looking, more muscular and more athletic with each generation.
I know what you mean about how aesthetically pleasing younger generations are becoming, but do you think it is because they actually are prettier, or just because they can pile on inches of make up and make themselves look ten fold better than they really are
There is certainly a great deal of attention paid to looks nowadays and entire industries have arisen to that end in the service sector which didn’t exist before. That’s part of the explanation, I’m sure. Another part is the widespread availability of make-up and elective surgical procedures such as braces/orthodontics, laser vision correction, hair restoration, etc…
But is it also genetic? Are beautiful people having kids together more often? Probably also true. Personally, I think there’s an ever-widening gap between genetic “haves” and “have-nots”.
[/quote]
Nope, the ugly and dumb are having more kids. We’re in for a bumpy ride.
Teachers have no authority. At high school I remember one student punched my maths teacher. My maths teacher pushed him away. And the school fired the teacher for .
Because they have no authority they have no respect. And because the job commands no respect and is paid poorly the quality of teachers has gone way down.
I’ve tutored 4th year teaching students mathematics and most of them are hopeless. If they can’t understand basic maths how will they teach it?
Parents expect teachers to raise their children. Fact is as a parent you need to get involved with your childs education. A teacher has to deal with 25-30 other children. They can’t spend enough quality time with your child to make sure he/she understands what has been covered. As a parent YOU CAN give your child 1 on 1 time. 20 minutes a day can make all the difference between a garbage collector and a maths professor.
Everybody downplays facts and formula. Even in this thread they have been downplayed. Facts and formulas are extremely important.
Now I don’t think you need to understand the exact decade the industrial revolution started but I think you do need to understand what happened and the huge importance it played. If you have the background knowledge you can see that it can help explain all sorts of seemingly unrelated issues. For instance I think an understanding of the industrial revolution gives a lot of insight into Karl Marx’s writings.
Now I hear: Learning about the French revolution is stupid. If I ever want to know about it I can google it. :S
As for formula sure you don’t need to understand the heat equation. However mathematics builds upon itself. Thus if you don’t understand basic primary school mathematics you will struggle with high school mathematics and so on. And I believe that if you understand a concept then you will remember the formula for the concept because the formula stems directly from the understanding.
E.g. (a+b)(c+d) = ac + 2bc + bd
Now although this is very simple mathematics I have found that many university students are still expanding brackets incorrectly. Yet if you have a proper understanding of exactly what (a+b)(c+d) IS then you will remember the formula.
Likewise highschool students struggle with rearranging equations.
Sure the emphasis shouldn’t be on memorizing the formulae but if you understand the concept properly you should know the formula.
Every generation thinks the generation coming after then is going to ruin the world… Plato complained about it. It’s a universal truth that older people in general, think they’re smarter than the up-and-coming.
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Every generation thinks the generation coming after then is going to ruin the world… Plato complained about it. It’s a universal truth that older people in general, think they’re smarter than the up-and-coming.[/quote]
i understand what you saying, but i think that since this is technological age, where computers are almost completely taking over our daily lives there is a whole new era of retarded lazy teens being ushered in. Also since the amount of wealth in the modern countries is forever increasing the amount of spoiled teenagers is also on the rise. Have you genuinely not noticed any decrease in intellect as the generations go on, and I am talking about my generation not looking down upon the new generation.
IIRC from what my psychology teacher mentioned last semester, IQ scores have actually been increasing over time and the tests have to be re-standardized every so often because of it.
Here’s a couple of pages I googled on it. I only skimmed through them, so maybe I skipped something or maybe they’re BS.
Here’s some excerpts from the wiki
Taken at face value, these changes are considered large by some. Ulric Neisser, who in 1995 headed an American Psychological Association task force writing a consensus statement on the state of intelligence research, estimates that if American children of 1932 could take an IQ test normed in 1997 their average IQ would have been only about 80.[2] In other words, half of the children in 1932 would be classified as having borderline mental retardation or worse in 1997. Looking at Ravens, Neisser estimates that if you extrapolate beyond the data, which shows a 21 point gain between 1952 and 1982, an even larger gain of 35 IQ points can be argued, however Arthur Jensen warns that extrapolating beyond the data leads to results such as an IQ of -1000 for Aristotle (even assuming he would have scored 200 in his day).[7]
Related to this, James Flynn’s current explanation (Flynn 2007) is that environmental changes arising from modernization - such as more intellectually demanding work, greater use of technology and smaller families - have meant that people are far more used to manipulating abstract concepts such as hypotheses and categories than a century ago. Substantial portions of IQ tests deal with these abilities. He gives as an example the question ‘What do a dog and a rabbit have in common?’ - a modern respondent might say they are both mammals (an abstract answer), whereas someone a century ago might say that you catch rabbits with dogs (a concrete answer).
[i]The Flynn effect may have ended in some developed nations starting in the mid 1990s. In the United Kingdom amongst teenagers, it peaked in the 1980s and has since remained the same.[24]
Teasdale & Owen (2005) “report intelligence test results from over 500,000 young Danish men, tested between 1959 and 2004, showing that performance peaked in the late 1990s, and has since declined moderately to pre-1991 levels.” They speculate that “a contributing factor in this recent fall could be a simultaneous decline in proportions of students entering 3-year advanced-level school programs for 16â??18 year olds.”[25][/i]
He gives as an example the question ‘What do a dog and a rabbit have in common?’ - a modern respondent might say they are both mammals (an abstract answer), whereas someone a century ago might say that you catch rabbits with dogs (a concrete answer).[/i]
[/quote]
That wouldn’t work anymore. Everyone would exxpect a lame joke now. Damn, I hate those kinds of jokes.
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Every generation thinks the generation coming after then is going to ruin the world… Plato complained about it. It’s a universal truth that older people in general, think they’re smarter than the up-and-coming.[/quote]
I used to say shit like this.
Actually, Plato was right. When he said that Athens was, in fact, going down the shitter. Only the most successful civilizations produce talking heads like Plato. That level of success also breeds it’s own destruction, because it’s citizens become cursed with a powerful sense of entitlement and a weak work ethic. They become divorced from the harsh reality of survival, and when the time comes they get swept aside by societies that aren’t afraid to do a little dirty work.
[quote]phaethon wrote:
E.g. (a+b)(c+d) = ac + 2bc + bd
Now although this is very simple mathematics I have found that many university students are still expanding brackets incorrectly. Yet if you have a proper understanding of exactly what (a+b)(c+d) IS then you will remember the formula.
[/quote]
You might wanna re-check your math, before you talk about other students doing this incorrectly.
[quote]malonetd wrote:
phaethon wrote:
E.g. (a+b)(c+d) = ac + 2bc + bd
Now although this is very simple mathematics I have found that many university students are still expanding brackets incorrectly. Yet if you have a proper understanding of exactly what (a+b)(c+d) IS then you will remember the formula.
You might wanna re-check your math, before you talk about other students doing this incorrectly.[/quote]
[quote]malonetd wrote:
phaethon wrote:
E.g. (a+b)(c+d) = ac + 2bc + bd
Now although this is very simple mathematics I have found that many university students are still expanding brackets incorrectly. Yet if you have a proper understanding of exactly what (a+b)(c+d) IS then you will remember the formula.
You might wanna re-check your math, before you talk about other students doing this incorrectly.[/quote]
Why would I do that? If I want to expand brackets I can just google how to. Or I can use an online tool that will do it for me. Remember learning facts and formulas is a waste of time.
[quote]elano wrote:
Umm when I looked at that, I FOIL’ed it and got ac + ad + bc + bd … What’s the answer?[/quote]
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Every generation thinks the generation coming after then is going to ruin the world… Plato complained about it. It’s a universal truth that older people in general, think they’re smarter than the up-and-coming.[/quote]
This is correct. A poster (sorry don’t remember who) posted a quote from Socrates that made the same complaint as the OP.
[quote]phaethon wrote:
I think the problem is 3 fold.
Teachers have no authority. At high school I remember one student punched my maths teacher. My maths teacher pushed him away. And the school fired the teacher for .
Because they have no authority they have no respect. And because the job commands no respect and is paid poorly the quality of teachers has gone way down.
I’ve tutored 4th year teaching students mathematics and most of them are hopeless. If they can’t understand basic maths how will they teach it?
Parents expect teachers to raise their children. Fact is as a parent you need to get involved with your childs education. A teacher has to deal with 25-30 other children. They can’t spend enough quality time with your child to make sure he/she understands what has been covered. As a parent YOU CAN give your child 1 on 1 time. 20 minutes a day can make all the difference between a garbage collector and a maths professor.
Everybody downplays facts and formula. Even in this thread they have been downplayed. Facts and formulas are extremely important.
Now I don’t think you need to understand the exact decade the industrial revolution started but I think you do need to understand what happened and the huge importance it played. If you have the background knowledge you can see that it can help explain all sorts of seemingly unrelated issues. For instance I think an understanding of the industrial revolution gives a lot of insight into Karl Marx’s writings.
Now I hear: Learning about the French revolution is stupid. If I ever want to know about it I can google it. :S
As for formula sure you don’t need to understand the heat equation. However mathematics builds upon itself. Thus if you don’t understand basic primary school mathematics you will struggle with high school mathematics and so on. And I believe that if you understand a concept then you will remember the formula for the concept because the formula stems directly from the understanding.
E.g. (a+b)(c+d) = ac + 2bc + bd
Now although this is very simple mathematics I have found that many university students are still expanding brackets incorrectly. Yet if you have a proper understanding of exactly what (a+b)(c+d) IS then you will remember the formula.
Likewise highschool students struggle with rearranging equations.
Sure the emphasis shouldn’t be on memorizing the formulae but if you understand the concept properly you should know the formula.
[/quote]
I find it ironic that someone with the handle “Phaethon” would actually agree with the OP in this thread. Maybe if Helios had taken his parental duties more seriously, his bratty know it all son wouldn’t have crashed his chariot and killed himself.
Actually, I do agree that school should be more demanding.
[quote]timbofirstblood wrote:
Spartiates wrote:
Every generation thinks the generation coming after then is going to ruin the world… Plato complained about it. It’s a universal truth that older people in general, think they’re smarter than the up-and-coming.
This is correct. A poster (sorry don’t remember who) posted a quote from Socrates that made the same complaint as the OP.[/quote]
You can’t post a quote from Socrates because Socrates didn’t write anything down, Plato did. And again, he was right, Athens was going down the shitter. Do you ever hear civilizations that are on the rise complaining about how worthless their kids are? No, this kind of talk only surfaces when civilizations are in a state of decline.
[quote]Uncle Gabby wrote:
timbofirstblood wrote:
Spartiates wrote:
Every generation thinks the generation coming after then is going to ruin the world… Plato complained about it. It’s a universal truth that older people in general, think they’re smarter than the up-and-coming.
This is correct. A poster (sorry don’t remember who) posted a quote from Socrates that made the same complaint as the OP.
You can’t post a quote from Socrates because Socrates didn’t write anything down, Plato did. And again, he was right, Athens was going down the shitter. Do you ever hear civilizations that are on the rise complaining about how worthless their kids are? No, this kind of talk only surfaces when civilizations are in a state of decline. [/quote]
But Plato attributed the comment to Socrates. One can quote someone’s spoken words, no?
I guess I was responding to the quote in the context of the original post, which claimed that the IQ of progressive generations was shrinking at an exponential rate and that the current young generation was going to mess up the world. Empires come and go, but you can’t tell me that the human race is travelling backwards in terms of intellect and achievement.
I would say that the claim “This generation is going to ruin society” is voiced a lot more frequently than it comes true. Empires fall over the course of several generations, and I’m sure Socrates’ own generation contributed to the decline of Athens.
There are plenty of brilliant young people in the world today. If it seems like populations at colleges are getting dumber, that may be because more people are going to college than ever before. There have always been, and will always be, morons. it comes true.
[quote]timbofirstblood wrote:
But Plato attributed the comment to Socrates. One can quote someone’s spoken words, no?
[/quote]
Some say Plato wasn’t the most reliable source, that he used Socrates name to advance his own ideas, but you’re right, I’m probably just quibbling over words.
But the human race doesn’t always travel forward. When the Roman Empire fell a massive amount of human knowledge and technology was lost.
But what are those brilliant people working for, and are there enough of them to carry the burden of the morons? 80 years ago the average person would have scored much lower on an IQ test, but they grew up with labor, and they were competent and self-reliant enough to take care of themselves. I don’t see many people like that around today.
But what are those brilliant people working for, and are there enough of them to carry the burden of the morons? 80 years ago the average person would have scored much lower on an IQ test, but they grew up with labor, and they were competent and self-reliant enough to take care of themselves. I don’t see many people like that around today.
[/quote]
I think you and I agree.
For the individual and societies, the cost of success is often complacency.
