Have Dumbasses Taken Over?

It seems like the longer humanity plays out the more retarded it becomes. There doesn't seem to be any time in history in which there were more idiots as a percentage of the population than their now are. During times when humans were only in the millions, polymaths and geniuses were everywhere. Now idiots complete college degrees, call themselves intellectuals and get basic shit RELEVANT TO THEIR DEGREE wrong. I have many big plans, but they all require a sizable population of non-retards, and I'm starting to think none of them will be achievable because the population has just become too fucking stupid. So my question is, is this true? Has the world simply become too stupid for important intellectual pursuits (not related to fantasy technology)?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E
youtu.be/k3MxuDk7wqo
imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289615000653
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000470
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

There aren't more idiots, if anything WAY less. The only thing that's changed is that those idiots are more visible.

The skill ceiling has been raised, thus less people are hitting their heads.

>There aren't more idiots, if anything WAY less
Yeah this is a common claim by retards. There's no actual evidence to support it and the evidence actually points to a gradual decrease in overall intelligence over time. There are certainly more people who consider themselves intellectual hot shit now, but that's just do to the special snowflake method of raising children to be insufferable that's been going on for decades now.

Not really. Even if you consider the old polymaths of Europe or China, it's hard to find people even on THEIR level.

*due to

>During times when humans were only in the millions, polymaths and geniuses were everywhere.
how would you know that

>Now idiots complete college degrees, call themselves intellectuals and get basic shit RELEVANT TO THEIR DEGREE wrong.
that's the result of higher education being presented as a right in an egalitarian society instead of a privilege in a meritocracy

>I have many big plans
it doesn't matter.

also i don't want to blame the jews but from your post with your big plans it's not hard to imagine someone with more influence and a feeling of grandeur purposefully trying to manipulate people in a way he sees fit, even making them into useful idiots

>how would you know that
Because they existed and left their treatises? Hello, retard. Name even ONE modern day polymath who's published ANYTHING.

>that's the result of higher education being presented as a right in an egalitarian society instead of a privilege in a meritocracy
True. But it also immediately disproves the claim that "people are smarter now". If you can regularly expect people to get their own specialty wrong, then how smart can they be?

>also i don't want to blame the jews but from your post with your big plans it's not hard to imagine someone with more influence and a feeling of grandeur purposefully trying to manipulate people in a way he sees fit, even making them into useful idiots
Yeah that's pretty much all that ever happens, and the end goal is always the same: get more money for me and less for everyone else. People are so fucking retarded about their constant denial of how truly hellish this age is.

Mass education and the media/advertising leaves people disenfranchised from intellectual pursuits and and trained to only provide a mechanistic use of their intellect to do what authority tells them.
This is both an emergent function of state-capitalist systems and organized effort to keep people uninformed and thinking about their favorite sports team or the next big blockbuster, it's manufacture consent. Informed people asking questions is terrible for commercial intrest and is a threat to the power of industry and its nanny states.
People are socialized to perform utilitarian functions, take out debt to buy a house or get a degree, join the workforce and consume products, serve the military, pay taxes, root for the home team, obey authority, don't ruffle any feathers and work hard. People who question authority or its dogma are viciously punished for their dissent until they censor themselves, any ideas or facts that are contrary to the state-capitalist intrests are actively repressed attacked and obfuscated. Just look at climate change denial for the perfect example. Or what the average joe thinks anarchism and socialism means. Most of all people are convinced that speaking up or dissenting can't change anything or while cause them harm.
Free thinkers are weeded out in childhood and you need to be a good little proletariat if you want to succeed.
All you need to do is speak up and inform people about what is going on.

>Mass education and the media/advertising leaves people disenfranchised from intellectual pursuits and and trained to only provide a mechanistic use of their intellect to do what authority tells them.
It's more than that. It has seemed to me even from elementary school that most people just "aren't all there". They just can't grasp complex concepts or do critical thinking. Yes, the education system we've had these past few decades is hyperautistic bullshit, but there seems to be something congenitally wrong with people's brains now.

>This is both an emergent function of state-capitalist systems
I think the effect capitalism has had no mankind is even more pernicious than people realize. I strongly think Idiocracy is hard-coded into it. Stupid people are more beneficial to the rich than intelligent ones. Look who breeds the most. It's literally a dysgenic trend. And it's encouraged by the rich.

>All you need to do is speak up and inform people about what is going on.
I really wish that were true, but I really don't think it is.

>tfw the only conscious human in a world full of sheep

>modern day polymath
That's not how the world works user, it's really obvious why it doesn't work like that too. If you want to be proficient in a field that has been developed for millenia you have to specialize. Now if we take the number of people that publish stuff in their respective fields you will be left with a pretty significant number. So having that in mind, how would you know geniuses were 'everywhere'?
>Because they existed and left their treatises?
Exactly, but how does that compare in relation to the population? How many polymaths can you name, like two dozen successful ones, ever?

>immediately disproves the claim that "people are smarter now"
I didn't claim that, I didn't dispute that people aren't morons now but that they weren't back then. You have to define in what way you're using 'smarter' though.

>another dumbass who thinks he's clever and isn't

> If you want to be proficient in a field that has been developed for millenia you have to specialize.
Again, you're missing the fucking point HARD. I've come to rely on the fact that you can never trust "experts" because they're almost always wrong about something critical related to their own field. So called "conservationists" don't grasp actual ecology, doctors tell you things that are wrong at a fucking MIDDLE SCHOOL level. Incompetence is literally everywhere and I've never seen anyone in any field, no matter how renowned that didn't get something wrong that there was simply no excuse to get wrong.

>Now if we take the number of people that publish stuff in their respective fields
Yeah, and publishing from this perspective has gone to shit. People publish flawed bullshit literally all the time now.

>How many polymaths can you name, like two dozen successful ones, ever?
Yes and during a time when the population was significantly lower. How many can you name NOW? Oh that's right ZERO.

So, I guess the consensus answer to this question is, yes AND they all think they're geniuses.

what evidence points to more stupid people relative to total population compared to the past?

The replies in this thread.

environmental selection for intelligence is completely gone OP, in fact I'd say the selection for it has gone negative

it's never been easier than it is now for people to have multiple children and have every single one of them survive into adulthood. even if the parent is too fucking stupid to keep them alive, the state will take the children and raise them so they survive.

meanwhile, intelligent people are pressured to spend most of their lives studying or working long hours, in environments where having children is detrimental. this applies exponentially to women, as society expects them to choose between family or career.

only stupid people are having children.

>environmental selection for intelligence is completely gone OP
I know. Guess I'll just wait out the inevitable idiot-caused apocalypse and pray for a miracle to survive it long enough to do something I want.

>only stupid people are having children.
I know.

It seems you're relying on a lot of anecdotal experiences regarding these "experts" you keep bringing up.

>I know. Guess I'll just wait out the inevitable idiot-caused apocalypse and pray for a miracle to survive it long enough to do something I want.

it will take several hundred years of hardship before the shift in population genetics brings back enough smart people to be successful again.

just look at places like greece, the middle east, etc. that used to be world powers; they're all fucking dumps.

if you want to use your smarts you'd have to go to a country that has potential which is basically just asia.

basically

modern society relies on the belief that things like intelligence are not inheritable traits, and can just spring up in anyone. it's going to be a disaster.

the replies in this thread present no evidence suggesting that. OP is just trying to present anecdotal evidence as fact. If youre referring to the actual posters, the sample size is so small and only represents now in time with nothing to historically compare it to.

youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E

It wasn't supposed to be prophecy.

I believe this is a consequence of the crazy advancements in technology that we have experienced in the past decade. There's just too much instant gratification available to distract people from pursuing intellectual goals. I don't think the amount of outright stupid people has necessarily increased, it's just that it's very, very easy in today's world for a person with potential to never develop their capacities, which is ironic considering the amount of knowledge that we have access to now.

I've witnessed many intelligent people being sucked into the mind-numbness that is video-games and social networks and completely neglect their studies. People just don't give a shit about the real world anymore. Sharing pop-culture memes on Facebook, having followers on Instagram, winning at a shitty game. This kind of stuff gives people a sense of importance and accomplishment and once you've got that there's no need to pursue it any further by studying and working hard.

Considering their are 4 billion more people in this world since I was born I have to say you are completely incorrect.

Its women, male scientist are too autistic to give a shit about people's feelings, female scientist cant resist the instinctive need to ego trip over moral superiority or virtue seeking. Women need to be banned from hard science.

>need to ego trip over moral superiority or virtue seeking

Sounds like every PhD carrying person I've ever talked with in my life.

I know, that's why I said pray for a miracle, like life extension.

>letting women be in charge of dictating the genetic make up of the next generation of humans

Well no shit. What did you expect?

this

I'm not missing the point hard. I'm letting you know you're not in Ancient Greece anymore. As a polymath in todays society you will be a) completely worthless and b) not an actual polymath because you won't know shit. I'm trying to make a parallel between two societies 2000 years apart as valid as possible and you're going back to something irrelevant and non-comparable.

>my posts are dumb
say it to my face whiteboi

Oh dad, We're all devo!

>not an actual polymath because you won't know shit
What is this "argument" even based on? Are you actually implying that a modern day polymath would know LESS than an Ancient Greek? That's basically impossible.

Flynn effect.

This person is on the right track. Or it might be the case that you simply don't remember stupid people.

Are we not men?

No. There are more idiots.

In absolute values? Surely, there are more people after all.
In percentage? No, IQ is normally distributed.

Are people less intelligent now than they were before?
No. The opposite actually. See Flynn Effect.

>I have many big plans
such as?

...

Survival doesnt depends on intelligence therefore no natural selection, even worse, idiots tends to reproduce more as they dont care about the consequences and only seek pleasure.

>In percentage?
Yes. Absolutely. Just playing the numbers and looking at demographic trends it literally has to be the case. Also, you're objectively wrong. Study after study has found the average IQ is slipping, even when accounting for the Flynn Effect.

World-fixing.

Crashing this plane.

>Yes. Absolutely. Just playing the numbers and looking at demographic trends it literally has to be the case.
How can that be true and yet IQ be normally distributed?

>Study after study has found the average IQ is slipping, even when accounting for the Flynn Effect
How is that possible if the flynn effect states the exact opposite of such results?
How can IQ be increasing and decreasing at the same time.

>How can IQ be increasing and decreasing at the same time.
Forgot the question mark.

Who gave you the permission to quote me?

How fucking old are you?

The heritability of intellegence isn't very imporant in this. Knowledge has superseded rationality. developmental plasticity and genetic accommodation are critical roles in determining intelligence, especially considering intellegence is limited by experiential knowlege. Humans are at punctuated equilibrium as far as intelligence go and are too connected for natural selection to make a difference, especially for a trait that isn't selected for.
This problem is etho-ecological, specifically niche construction, we made a world that lets adults remain infantilized, and the vast majority of people's intellegence is highly repressed by environmental constraints like I explained hereAlso intellegence is the least of our worries, our etho-ecological mismatch is causing us to disappear in the near future during this mass extinction we have caused.
Take it from me this is what is actually going on
Art
youtu.be/k3MxuDk7wqo
Science
journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fevo.2017.00003/full
Art was hip decades before science

Old enough to call you a newfag I would assume.

At least 12 then?

imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

Truth

>ow is that possible if the flynn effect states the exact opposite of such results?

Because the largest population gains are occurring in countries where the average IQ is 70.

>During times when humans were only in the millions, polymaths and geniuses were everywhere.
The last time there were less than 1 billion humans, Napolean was marching across the Alps, 9 out of 17 US states thought slavery was ok and the locomotive hadn't been invented yet.

In 1800, the average US citizen was rural and didn't travel more than 50 miles from his birthplace. Ever. Education centered around if you could read and write. That's basically all you needed. If you got enough math to run the books on your farm, you were doing good.

So who exactly was the genius here?

t. never studied history

note that up until recently 99% of the world was illiterate

The Flynn Effect was observed in many parts of the world.

Also, if your claim were true, intelligence would not be normally distributed.
But for asserting your claim you had to assume that intelligence is normally distributed (you used IQ to measure intelligence) which leads to a contradiction.

I was about to post something about there being better marketing strategies for mass consumerism along with information filters that hide people from points of view that differ from their own. You don't learn shit if you don't have the remaining attention to question shit, and you never correct yourself if you never doubt yourself. Those are the two principles that are inoculating critical thought today.

I don't understand normal distribution. The post.

Why does this whiny buttfucking thread have any replies

>He has no understanding of the topic and argues in basic semantics

Look retard, countries have different average IQ's. I'm not going to argue about the difference between Intelligence and IQ because I cannot directly measure intelligence, but I do have lots of IQ data.

Most of Africa has an average IQ between 60 and 80 and Africa is also experiencing the largest gain in population. ERGO the average world IQ is dropping.

The flynn effect is also generally only observed in industrialized countries.

I don't understand the difference between assumptions and reality the post.

we're all stupid animals. you should be thankful you aren't digging through shit to find food in africa.

hes talking about the time gauss and cantor and all those other goofballs were alive making incredible advances in many fields i think

>I have many big plans, but they all require a sizable population of non-retards

Yes, this OP is spot on. Its because, in the developed world, people on welfare have 10 kids while responsible intelligent adults have 2-3. Food stamps is the problem but it wont go away because letting morons starve themselves to death is apparently racist and inhumane. Natural selection has been effectively reversed and humanity is going to get more and more retarded until the movie "Idiocracy" becomes a documentary.

>>He has no understanding of the topic and argues in basic semantics
Who are you quoting?

Is not basic semantics, you contradict yourself.

>Look retard
Are you upset?

>Most of Africa has an average IQ between 60 and 80 and Africa is also experiencing the largest gain in population. ERGO the average world IQ is dropping.
Africa is experiencing the largest population gain in absolute values?

>The flynn effect is also generally only observed in industrialized countries.
First of all: [citation needed]

Second, even if it's true, the thread is mostly about normal countries anyways.

Third, suppose it to be true. There is a proper subset of the population getting smarter.
The average IQ is set to be 100, so there are two options:

A - There is another proper subset of the population getting equally dumber at the same rate. i.e. an increase in standard deviation.

B - The ratios between smarts and dumbs is changing.

The IQ of the world population is normally distributed. Therefore B is impossible.

So assuming your statement is true it doesn't follow that the population is getting dumber. On the contrair, it says the there are more dumb and more smarts but the net result is the same.

Notes:
B also cannot be true because because you had to assume intelligence to be normally distributed to arrive to B in the first place.

An infographic without a link to the article is not a valid source.
I'm not going to waste my time looking for that shit.
The link in the picture is not source.

Theres no way most africans are significantly below mentally retarded on average. Im fully aware they are stupid but having an average of 59 would mean some of them are practically stupid enough to forget how to breathe.

I want /pol/ to leave.

I'm implying you won't be a polymath because you won't be proficient in more than one field because of the depth of knowledge we have on so many subjects unless you become an absolute meth fiend and instead, because that's what our society is based on at this current moment, you will become really good in A subject and de facto specialize in it.

>no actual evidence
you must be OP; faggot.

>machine test accurately tells him to be president
>the intelligent are given power and status
WE COULD ONLY WISH FOR THIS MOVIE TO BE TRUE

Africans are morons, they could just spear african wildlife but instead prefer to starve to death, I sometimes wonder how the fuck blacks are not extinct because their stupidity is astronomical not even chimps are that braindead.

>facts are racist
kys

Who are you quoting?

Jesus christ niggers are fucking stupid.

First day here?

Pic related got elected president. /thread

Using the quote feature when you don't intend to quote someone is poor form!!!

This habit first appeared in ~2012 with the >implying meme.

I think you are the one that is new here.

How were the test calibrated? You can't make this assertion if the population used to calibrate the test didn't include the "lower" demographics.

Yeah, I agree. The fact that Donald Trump is president may mean that society is shifting and we are getting in average smarter.

Yeah, if society was as retarded as we think then Hillary would have won. So true. Thanks user, you gave me hope.

>Study after study has found the average IQ is slipping
Source

>OP is obviously talking about his peers in the U.S. or europe
>but take a look at this world average where an undeveloped continent is breeding like mad!

>the quote feature
haha okay friend

It really seems you are new here.
It okay!! We all have been new some day.
If in doubt you can look knowyourmeme.com before posting.

Don't forget to post a lot of anime and have fun. We are going to be here forever after all!!

>n-no you're the newfag!
just lurk more and learn how greentext works, okay friendo?

...

Who are you quoting?

...english isn't your first language is it?
whatever, as long as japanese was

All IQ tests are conducted by random sampling of the population. The ones in the chart I posted come from Raven's Progressive Matrices (1998).

>europe
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289615000653
The results of the French WAIS III (1999) and the French WAIS IV (2008–9) are compared based on a sample of 79 subjects aged between 30 years and 63 years who took both tests in 2008–2009. It is shown that between 1999 and 2008–9 the French Full Scale IQ declined by 3.8 points.

sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000470
The Victorian era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study. Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition. In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1889 and 2004 to estimate the decline in g that may have resulted from the presence of dysgenic fertility. Using psychometric meta-analysis we computed the true correlation between simple reaction time and g, yielding a decline of − 1.16 IQ points per decade or − 13.35 IQ points since Victorian times. These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations.

Thank Google. Thank technology.

I to wonder who he was quoting.

There were around 3.5B people in 1970s. Stop acting like being 40-something is a big deal.

>All IQ tests are conducted by random sampling of the population. The ones in the chart I posted come from Raven's Progressive Matrices (1998).

And was this test calibrated with well distributed samples from all those countries?

>79 subjects
Isn't that kinda too little?

>The results of the French WAIS III (1999)...
The abstract doesn't say shit, can you provide the link to the full article?

>The Victorian era was marked by an explosion ...
Same as above.

Since the fact that intelligence is diminishing is a well known, wouldn't it be better if you used studies widely available? Instead of two articles with mediocre results and questionable methods from literally-whos?

>And was this test calibrated with well distributed samples from all those countries?
Yes, you can google for the Raven's Progressive Matrices yourself, I'm done spoonfeeding you.

>Instead of two articles with mediocre results and questionable methods from literally-whos?
They are not "articles", they are scientific papers. And they are not "literally whos" but respected researchers.

The burden of proof is on you to prove IQs have increased this last decade. From everything I've read world IQ peaked in the 1990s. And if you take reaction times as a proxy for IQ, in the Victorian Era for Western nations.

>IQs

>Yes, you can google for the Raven's Progressive Matrices yourself, I'm done spoonfeeding you.
I did, but I didn't find information on the samples.

Since you are using it as an argument, you should cite the source. Also there is no cost to that, if you cited it you have to know where to find information about it, right?

If I was to be naughty I would say that the burden of proof is on you.

>They are not "articles", they are scientific papers.
It's the same thing, everyone call papers articles and vice versa.

>And they are not "literally whos" but respected researchers.
Are they? Can you point me to any well referenced article by them? I didn't find any.

>The burden of proof is on you to prove IQs have increased this last decade.
You don't seem to understand how discussions work.

I already presented my argument, the flynn effect. Which no one disproved.
(no, your articles without citations, from literally-whos are not a disprove and they are not even up to consideration until you link the full article)

The other arguments are were simply logical reasoning, they don't need citation to anything, just someone that studied logic. And none of them tried to directly prove an increase in IQ, they just showed logical inconsistencies with the arguments that asserted decrease in IQ.

>And if you take reaction times as a proxy for IQ, in the Victorian Era for Western nations.
Is there anything in intelligence literature you can point me to?

Again, can you link me the complete articles? If you are citing them you certainly read them, so this should be easy right?

>Has the world simply become too stupid
no. you are finally realizing the truth behind what this guy was saying.

>Questions the Raven's Progressive Matrices Results
>Ignores that James Flynn's Theory was based on Raven's Progressive Matrices Results
You can't discredit one while championing the other since the latter is based on the former.

Goes to show you are fucking clueless on what you are talking about. All this information is easily googable and like I said I'm done spoonfeeding you because you are wasting my time.

Next time stick to topics you know about or take the effort of studying them throughly before opening your mouth.

>You can't discredit one while championing the other since the latter is based on the former.
I'm not trying to disprove ravens mtrices, retard. I'm just asking if the test was well sampled in the countries with extremely low IQs. Nothing in my arguments even depend on the fact that this countries have low IQs, I just found it to be strange and wanted more information.

One more thing retard, if you understand that you can't disprove one without disproving the other you should also understand why all arguments for decreasing IQ presented here are flawed.

>Goes to show you are fucking clueless on what you are talking about. All this information is easily googable and like I said I'm done spoonfeeding you because you are wasting my time.
So since you used them to back your arguments up you will have no problem in providing sources, right?

>this much backpedaling
stop it dude its embarrassing

Who are you quoting?

So, it seems you ran out of arguments. I'm going to to other things now, it might take sometime before my next reply.

>9 out of 17 US states thought slavery was ok

So we were a lot smarter then.

>abolish slavery
>let our children race mix with former slaves

soo smahtz

>I wonder why these things are like they are
>OH! I got it, race XDDDDDD

pseudo science.

>how to spot a delusional /pol/ cuck who still thinks people who criticize trump are either libs or hill cucks that think she was any better

You must be 18 to be here, user.