I read something today that seemed to imply that the average level of intelligence in human beings is dropping. Evidence such as responses on social media and voting for things that equate with self harm is cited. Here’s an example of just how dim some people are:
I honestly do not know how anyone could come up with this nonsense. Unless it was a joke. It’s like the rumour that Americans have stopped drinking Corona beer in order to avoid catching the coronavirus.
To be fair, I don’t see many Americans drinking a decent beer like Corona. They prefer lo-alcohol fizzy water like Budweiser.
Still, I think the Corona thing is a joke (and funnier than the moon landings letter above) because I seriously cannot conceive of someone being so utterly stupid.
Mind you, who knows where this letter was printed. It could have been Private Eye. It reads like a Private Eye letter. Also, there’s a climate scientist called Keith Haines at the University of Reading which implies that the joke is quite clever.
Even so, this train of thought made me wonder why. Why do people keep saying dumb things?
An easy answer would be that social media is so user friendly and easy to access (and free) that it has given a voice to everyone regardless of what the voice is saying. (It would be brilliant if there was some sort of IQ test attached to Twitter whereby you couldn’t sign up unless you score above a certain level. Maybe there should be an intelligent version of Twitter.)
Of course, the echo chamber that is social media reinforces the stupidity but I think it goes deeper. Could it be a result of rewarding everyone equally regardless of their level of achievement?
Like giving every child in a running race a medal. What is the value for the child that came first? It means first and last are the same thing. The kid that came last isn’t going to bother trying any harder if it gets a medal just for competing.
A child needs to grow towards its own level of expertise in order to exceed it. Sitting admiring the view painted on the wall because you can’t see beyond it is not good for anyone.
Have we created a generation of stupidity? Have our children lost the ability to reason? Can we blame technology?
Too many questions and no-one to answer them. I think I’ll just keep reporting on the every day things happening in my life.
Like going to the garden centre when my wife said we weren’t going this week.
I managed to behave myself.
