Are we stupid

i have similar thoughts

never really thought about this but now that you mention it...

anyway that is true, we got sucked into it, we know it and do not want to change because it's easier to stay numb

no humans are smarter than they have ever been. In this day and age we like to recognize stupidity a lot more than the past as well probably. retards like Westboro Baptist Church will get on the news a ton. while people making ground breaking acheivements get not as much attention

And as you grow up and learn more you can recognize the mistakes of younger people, so there is definitely a bias in perceiving stupidity there.

I feel like my brain has gotten slower as I've aged, but my knowledge has grown. I'm pretty sure that's normal, though.

yep the connections between neurons in ur brain become weaker as you grow older....
thats why old people are grumpy n shit

I feel a lot smarter than when I was younger (except I suck at games now, when a kid I was godlike right of the bat in any game, now I'm a newb lol), I also feel really smart around people where I live. But I feel stupid and pretty thick when I read on the forums I subscribe to + Show Spoiler +

And when I watch Youtubes of clever people.

You probably hang around dumb people

or it's the fluoride in the water i hear it's for brain control

People have always been dumb. The problem with today's world is that now the stupidity is accessible for all to see whereas before computers and internet usage you didn't have videos of retarded people to entertain yourself with.

actually its school system

Thought about this as well because I felt dumbed down, slower. But came to the conclusion that it's because I am learning and mastering way more difficult and complex stuff now than I was at 10-16 year old when it was just all about some dedication to be godlike at a lot of child stuff, so i'm probably not as dumbed down if any right now, I only fear for the 60+ years.

Smart people are smarter than ever. Dumb people are making news more than ever.

On February 05 2013 06:37 Mariuslol wrote: I feel a lot smarter than when I was younger (except I suck at games now, when a kid I was godlike right of the bat in any game, now I'm a newb lol), I also feel really smart around people where I live. But I feel stupid and pretty thick when I read on the forums I subscribe to + Show Spoiler + askscience opphev abonnementbestof opphev abonnementbooks Fitness food GetMotivated IAmA LifeProTips linguistics Meditation philosophy pics psychology QuotesPorn science seduction sex space technology todayilearned writing And when I watch Youtubes of clever people.

Did you use the A-Z thing on Word for this post? or did you remember the sites in alphabetic order? wtf

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On February 05 2013 05:10 goose58 wrote: I feel like my brain has gotten slower as I've aged, but my knowledge has grown. I'm pretty sure that's normal, though.

Kinda this, at school when I was like 6 I was bonjwa at math, but as I got at high school I kept getting worse to this day. Dunno wtf.

On February 05 2013 03:58 Target-x17 wrote: I feel like im getting more dumb, I feel like everyones getting more dumb, Thoughts?

I got this feeling about myself semi-recently. I thought I was actually dumb after a lifetime of being considered intelligent by myself and others.

A number of things came together and helped me realize that being dumb wasn't my problem. I'm not going to write a story book here so I will just throw out some of the pieces:

1. I realized the extremely large difference between "smarts" and "intellect"
2. I learned that I suffered from extreme intellectual projection. I literally thought everyone was equally intelligent. This resulted in an incalculable amount of confusion for me when others disagreed with what was obvious to me, and a very, very wide variety of other problems in my life (for instance, I sucked at poker partly because of the habit of considering my play relative to a person who thought "as deeply" as myself, the only time I would have allowed myself to make an exception for this might be if I was playing against someone who literally had down syndrome -- never happened btw).

Note: The definition of projection that psychology uses is inadequate to describe the meaning I'm trying to convey here. Projection of intellect is probably one of your problems, as it is a pervasive hurdle.

3. It became very clear that language is an extremely ineffective way to communicate understanding as I willfully "put myself out there" and began trying to communicate with others about complex situations. This is of essential importance to understanding #2 btw.
4. Nassim Taleb explained to me that there is no absolute measuring stick in life (extremely deep, refer to the opaque nature of the generators of reality, narrative fallacy, etc).
5. I learned that fear does not always manifest itself in obvious ways, and the related fact that the only power within fear is fear itself.

There's more. I could expound about the above until my fingers bled, but I don't wish to get too autobiographical in your blog here.

The main point is that, in my experience, the biggest hurdle to overcoming the concern of feeling dumb is to realize that there is no such thing as a winner or loser, the only truly deducible difference between men comes from the dichotomy between those who do and those who do not.

btw this completely "fixed" a lifelong problem with "low self confidence" that I've carried most of my life. I recommend reading Nassim Taleb's works because they are what set me on the journey.

OP continued I dont have anything to compare it to as I have no lived a long time

This is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo relevant. Shorter the life, the less amount of time someone has had to be lucky enough to have enough experiences (ie day-to-day life, or reading a book) that show them the true nature of the world (some components of which I've briefly summarized above). As an example, here is a microcosm of the phenomena: "He was raised very sheltered" -- and in the modern world, it is very easy to live your entire life sheltered (welfare, computer-nerd life).


side note in spoiler

+ Show Spoiler +

seems to me like you are waking up, you already suspect something is wrong out there, and yes.. your worse thoughts are correct, they're killing you softly.
wake up, dont look outside, look inside.

stupid youtube, stupid tv, stupid movies, stupid video games, stupid activities on smart phones, the lack in in person socialization + the lack in reading...... yes, I do believe the prior list is making us stupider....

but

I actually feel the potential to improve knowledge is much higher than it has ever been by a wiii i i i i i i de margin. The ease and simplicity in finding insanely amazing sources of knowledge these days is almost unfathomable.

man every generation thinks they're the worst.

Let's be real, we are most awesome than we've ever been. How can anyone even think otherwise is beyond me.