To the people saying that this is because of “laziness” or “lack of curiosity”:
I’m bombarded with so much information every day that it’s not feasible to fact-check it all. I have to pick my battles and take things I care less about at face value until I have a reason not to.
I’m bombarded with so much information every day that it’s not feasible to fact-check it all.
Source?
You are right, but that seem a “feature” and not a “bug”
As with any TOOL it is all about HOW YOU use it…
dumb people still had access to bullshit information prior to the internet. remember grocery store tabloids? papers with “Bat Boy” on them or how Jesus was constantly coming back, etc? I knew a couple adults that firmly believed and bought that shit.
Sure, but before the internet somebody had to actually print a magazine or a book etc. to spread it wider than word-of-mouth
I remember seeing a lot of people expand their horizons on all kinds of topics when the internet first started catching on.
Now I think it was because they were actively looking for understanding something new, and did not represent the general population.
Now I think it was because they were actively looking for understanding something new, and did not represent the general population.
Assuming that intelligence (and I don’t mean IQ or any other psychometric “proxy” for intelligence, but intelligence as an abstract trait) is normally distributed like most other traits, 50% of people are going to be dumber than average because in normal distributions the mean is the median. The “general population” is not smart by any definition.
And anyone trying to claim that intelligence as a concept is completely socially constructed and that there is no difference in intelligence between people, or tries to conflate IQ etc psychometric measures and intelligence, can shove it up their ass.
I wasn’t even commenting on IQ, just the general population’s interest in even trying to understand new things.
A lot of otherwise smart people I know just can’t get past the indoctrination of bigotry from their youth that is reinforced by conservative media.
Oh I know you weren’t, it was just a disclaimer because a lot of people seem to think that any references to intelligence specifically mean IQ and go into frankly incredibly tedious tirades on IQ’s faults
intelligence as an abstract trait
I read something about this two days ago, it’s called “g factor” or something. And yes, it follows a normal distribution.
Apparently, it’s very similar in animals than it is in humans.
The g factor is actually a psychometric construct to an extent, and its distribution isn’t known but it’s generally thought that it’s probably normally distributed. Basically the g factor just summarizes how results on a bunch of different cognitive tasks tend to correlate.
i think its more about deliberate disinformation than about it being just a subset of people.
i remember everyone was in awe that they could just type out a question and get the best information we had
The net is more an amplifier than an elucidator
You’re not wrong. Never before in human history has there been a megaphone available to anyone and everyone that is loud enough to be heard around the world – and it’s available to evil people.
…nah. we didn’t think that. You’d meet motherfuckers with a grade 3 education that were on it, ignorant somewhat, not dumb
Remember: IQ is on a bell curve, not a straight horizontal line. If everyone had at least an IQ of 100, we’d be living in a totally different world than what we’re living in right now, guaranteed. All more access to information has done is give the dangerously stupid people mroe things to misinterpret and misuse. It’s also given malicious people a way to access the stupid and the gullible to use them as tools for whatever bullshit they want to perpetrate on the world.
Huh. IQ is normalized. 100 is always the mean no matter if the entire population got smarter. It’s impossible for everyone to have an IQ of at least 100.
IIRC there are around 51Million americans thats have low IQ (~80 and less). I imagine its worse in developing countries. Not much you can do about them.
