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I feel the underlying cause of this is the continuing stupidification of Western Societies. It ties in well with the fact that most people just aren't well equi
by rafiki6 8y ago
I feel the underlying cause of this is the continuing stupidification of Western Societies. It ties in well with the fact that most people just aren't well equipped to navigate complex issues and are easy prey for unscrupulous marketers. Companies take advantage of that fact just as much as politicians do. It's easy to tell people to be afraid of complex sounding ingredients just as much as it's easy to tell voters to be afraid of complex scientific phenomena like climate change. And then you can push your unscientific agenda (whether it's climate change denial or it's marketing your food as natural and your competitors as poison and thus charging your customers double or more for it).
- heurist 8y agoPeople are about as smart as they have always been. The world is just getting more complicated around them.
- rafiki6 8y agoNot true. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146752-we-seem-to-be-getting-stupider-and-population-ageing-may-be-why/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146752-we-seem-to-be-g...
- heurist 8y agoThat article isn't convincing to me. IQ testing has known issues and if they didn't control for age then the assertion might apply to the general populace right now but not as a general trend that will hold over time, especially since Millennials and Gen Z together are much larger than Boomers. The fertility argument is dumb IMO because while intelligence is heritable, environmental factors and education play at least as large of a role in ability to perform on an IQ test. Also that trend, if it is anything other than a blip (because the wealthiest may actually tend to have more children) just began do there would not be much reason to think gene shift would be a strong factor in IQ trends. https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-us-are-the-ones-having-the-most-kids/ https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-u...
- maxerickson 8y agoThings are improving though, not getting worse. The evidence is that people on average are more intelligent, and educational attainment has increased (maybe completing a particular grade has been watered down, but it wasn't so long ago that lots of people stopped school at 6th grade...).
- rafiki6 8y agoHmm, really? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146752-we-seem-to-be-getting-stupider-and-population-ageing-may-be-why/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146752-we-seem-to-be-g...
- maxerickson 8y agoIt suggests an increase of ~20 to 30 points and a decrease of 3 to 6. So yeah, really. Or do you think the other poster meant to establish 1970 as the baseline?