Dumbing down the masses

[INTPINFP]

Drugs (cigarretes, alcohol), junk food (msg, cancer, hydrogenated fats), the media (dumb movies), the news (annoying, annoying voices, personalities, and commercials, and general paranoia), the pharameceutical industry (did I say "side effects"?), the cell phone industry (radiation and cell death), and the fashion industry (removing individual identity), public schools (ridiculuing, bullying, being forced to sit through boring lectures and not being allowed to drink water or use the bathroom, also being diagnosed with ADHD and then committing suicide because of the side effects of the medication.

Did I miss anything?

 

[Ashenstar]

*looks down at her sig*

No, I can't remember something you missed, but if I do I will post it.

 

[Kuu]

You missed the oldest one: religion.

And massive sports. (or is this part of "the media")

I could argue that cell phones don't deserve to be there... but meh.

 

[Da Blob]

Well you might mention that the curriculum of schools in America has been dumbed down 'to be inclusive of the stupid" to the point that some college curriculum are less challenging than the fifth grade curriculum of the 1930's (check out the Mcguffy Readers of that era...)

Now everyone is America is smart enough to get a "Higher" education - even all the idiots...

 

[Ashenstar]

Have to agree with Da Blob here.

I am so against the school system. For one whatever happened to holding children back?

Even if a child is intelligent, children all develop at different rates.

Instead people push their kids into the next grade level when they aren't ready and many of them continue to struggle from the rest of the time in public school. Myself and my aunt both experienced this firsthand.

Or, simply if the person isn't intelligent enough they are allowed to be in a class unsuitable for them.

There is no reason I should be in the same English class with someone who can't remember there their and they're. Not that I have an English major myself.... heh.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

It's looks bad on the Teacher to hold back a student, so most of them are just passed through.

 

[Döden]

Meh, I find most of those things a product of convenience addiction rather than stupidity. Are you suggesting these things cause stupidity? You could easily say that pre-tech cultures were stupid and point to their copious amounts of folk songs singing the praises of alcohol.

Modern societies in general have become larger and more interpersonal (businesses, having "contacts" and "connections" etc) so aiming for the lowest common denominator has become a necessity. Lowest is often most convenient, as well.

That's how I see it, anyway.

 

[sagewolf]

Missed Health and Safety regulations. Although whether that's a cause or an effect of people acting stupidly is a tough call to make. It's probably both. All government regulation into personal safety does is shift responsibility from people to government and when that happens, it causes a psychology shift that it's someone else's business to make sure people don't drive too quickly, that children grow up learning what they need to know to function in the adult world, that workers in hazardous jobs have safety equipment, rather than the business of the people involved, namely (in these examples) drivers, parents, and workers. So people start to shirk their responsibilities, in the belief they aren't their responsibilities, and act stupider than they are.

That is a bit more generalized than I would have wanted it to be...

 

[Da Blob]

Missed Health and Safety regulations. Although whether that's a cause or an effect of people acting stupidly is a tough call to make. It's probably both. All government regulation into personal safety does is shift responsibility from people to government and when that happens, it causes a psychology shift that it's someone else's business to make sure people don't drive too quickly, that children grow up learning what they need to know to function in the adult world, that workers in hazardous jobs have safety equipment, rather than the business of the people involved, namely (in these examples) drivers, parents, and workers. So people start to shirk their responsibilities, in the belief they aren't their responsibilities, and act stupider than they are.

That is a bit more generalized than I would have wanted it to be...

Hmmm One my favorite quotes used to be "Free men Govern Themselves"
One meaning of that is the more government the less freedom... Is that more or less in line what you were saying?

 

[Thoughtful]

Actually the school system works amazingly well for what it was designed for: enable the masses to get a simple job. It dosen't really matter what job, but a job nonetheless.

It serves the same purpose as apprenticeships did in the renaissance, but with less technical training and more flexibility. It was never designed to make people "smarter", If we turned everyone into thinkers we'd have a society that never gets any real work done. (We'd waste all our time looking for better ways to do stuff, sound familiar?)

The flaw with the system is that inevitably some destined for intellectualism consign themselves to be peons, and a great many of the peons decide to become talk show hosts and politicians, who then ruin life for everyone.

 

[sagewolf]

Hmmm One my favorite quotes used to be "Free men Govern Themselves"
One meaning of that is the more government the less freedom... Is that more or less in line what you were saying?

Somewhat. It's the idea of diminishing one's own responsibility for one's actions -- and the main groups generally held unaccountable for their actions are very young children and animals. Nice to know that's how the government sees us. It also sets up a state of dependency, which I suppose is what Those In power want from the masses. Human society could probably govern itself perfectly well, if it bothered to try, but as long as it's constantly reminded it's too stupid to decide for itself what kind of food to allow itself to eat, it's not likely to try running itself.

 

[KazeCraven]

I suppose my question would have to be whether the masses were stupid to begin with, and the media et al is only catering to the masses.

Some people might actually agree with that above statement, but for the record I'm joking. In some ways I'm sure less dumbing down could occur, but that's culture for ya. I'm continually surprised at how many people think they can pass responsibility of their own actions to another person on the basis of obedience to authority. I suppose that's legally true, but it never fails to baffle me.

 

[merzbau]

Somewhat. It's the idea of diminishing one's own responsibility for one's actions -- and the main groups generally held unaccountable for their actions are very young children and animals.

may be nitpicking here, but what about animals that attack people, like sharks and pitbulls and such..? they're usually hunted down and destroyed, aren't they?

Actually the school system works amazingly well for what it was designed for: enable the masses to get a simple job. It dosen't really matter what job, but a job nonetheless.

this was discussed in a previous post on the forum (which you may not have seen).
the modern scholastic system was designed to:

- instill/demarcate/ossify the child's place in the societal order (hierarchy); to "sort the wheat from the chaff".
- allow limited, barely adequate information in a compartmentalised and minimal way for the child to utilise in various low-level tasks which will enable them to both exist in later life and provide stimulus for the economy, without upsetting the hierarchy.
- defuse potential for future dissent by frowning on originality, ostracising troublemakers and accentuating false competition to keep them from participating, unless they subjugate their own thoughts/desires to the herd.
- encourage dependence upon appointed official specialists, experts and authorities for ascertaining truth and to increase confusion and frustrate innate curiosity by providing answers (in a purposely fragmented and meaningless way) before questions can even be asked; in other words, to arrest mental development to keep them in a state of perpetual childishness.

 

[Zero]

I think they should have a voucher system in the US for the schools.

As far as the list. Did we miss pollution? Improper dumping of waste and etc...?

My friend once had to tell me that the water I was drinking was a million year old dinosaur pee. That's a cool thought, the scary thought is the more recent things that have been peeing in water and how we recycle it.

I've read that they can't extract all the estrogen from water that birth control has put there. Also, most places have traces of chlorine and fluoride in the water. They're changing that, but still, then there are pipes water comes through. And/or the plastic bottles it comes in. Glass is supposedly the best option.

Everything is toxic.

I try to stay away from doctor crap...

I'm taking one antibiotic (dermatologist), when and if I feel like it. And one supplement for hair, skin and nails. I've been told it's basically a prenatal vit.

I think if I had a problem I'd go the naturalist route before the medical one. You see an eleven year old die from cancer treatments when her immune system was doing pretty well and you kind of reconsider these things.

Unless it's a broken bone or kidney stones. They pretty much just make sure you're set right and then it's painkillers. But the body does the rest.

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

I think they should have a voucher system in the US for the schools.

I've read that they can't extract all the estrogen from water that birth control has put there.

vouchers: Yeah, I agree.

estrogen: yeah, it's starting to become a huge problem. i was reading about how other species are being affected, especially frogs and fish. in one particular lake, the concentration has risen 100-fold or something, too many of them are becoming female and it's damaging the ecosystem.

 

[Zero]

That's freaky.

I think I will put the money into a better water purifier...

Geez, humans are so irresponsible. I guess it's one of those hindsight things though. We didn't really think about how something convenient could end up causing a problem. I've read some about male birth control and it seems like some of the alternative are a lot better than female birth control. There was one that had to do with sonic waves (I think?) and it worked for a number of weeks. It wasn't well tested as far as I read and I don't know how legit it was, but the very idea is pretty amazing... If anything even similar to that could actually work without permanent side effects, that would be amazing. But it kind of kills me. Because I know people are too bias to consider it...

The voucher idea was influenced by my dad. I kind of wanted to completely do away with the public system. He said the voucher system worked though. The voucher system is sound. But I would still almost prefer to destroy the system entirely. ( I can't help myself...)

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

The voucher idea was influenced by my dad. I kind of wanted to completely do away with the public system. He said the voucher system worked though. The voucher system is sound. But I would still almost prefer to destroy the system entirely. ( I can't help myself...)

it's been a while since I considered it carefully, and dammit I forgot what my conclusion on abolishing public education was. I do think that preschool, and maybe kindergarten, is way too early for the government to be able to influence children.

I think I'm in favour of your basic elementary, middle, and high schools. But you need a voucher system, and you need more emphasis on standardized tests so that parents can make an informed decision, and the invisible hand can improve our schools. Would work way better than the current policy (which even the general populace has decided to support), which is throwing at the schools as much money as can be printed.

Zero, are/were you schooled publicly? I am.

 

[Zero]

I was privately schooled, but I didn't really like that school much. It was a Christian school and was okay academically, but the kids at private schools... I ended up at a public middle school, had a breakdown before highschool and I was homeschooled for about two years before starting community college.

I enjoyed community college and some middle school. I learn a lot just on my own. Depending on what my interests are.

I can make my way through basic, step by step courses. I can't do so well in courses that require a ton of memorization, homework and are tedious. I can't memorize or my memory is kind of weird. I tend to scramble the order of things, it tends to make memorizing detailed structures very difficult. I'm somewhat dyslexic (I'm pretty sure of it [I also have CAPD which makes things difficult]). I get the word "attach" and "attack" confused sometimes. Things that sound similar screw me over.

I don't know how memory works into this, but I don't remember things in a linear fashion. I played a game with my relatives before where we were given a list of things and we had to recite them back. It seems like I recalled them in second to last, last, second to first, first order. Or it was second to last, last, first, second. This happens with language and speaking in general. Sometimes I'll switch around parts of the sentences.

There wasn't a school that was really prepared for that sort of thing.

CAPD it a weird spectrum of disorders, it's not a really well known one, but it's come a long ways since I was in elementary. People call it auditory dyslexia, but it affects a lot of areas in language. It kind of creates it's own dyslexia. I guess kids these days would go through speech therapy and all this. I didn't. They didn't really know what to do with me. I'm pretty sure that f'ed up my schooling experience, no matter where or what it was.

Being an INTP probably also had something to do with it, but then that could be related.

 

[Thoughtful]

the modern scholastic system was designed to...

I have long held most of the listed beliefs,* and would like to add:

-Designed to teach immigrants English and to force them to become part of the larger culture, as opposed to letting them separate themselves into groups of exclusively Irish, Italian, German, Japanese, etc.
-To keep children out of the streets, and allow each parent work on the jobs that are "more productive to the powers that be" than teaching their children.

_________________________________________________________
Now, about me:

I had a fresh out of school teacher when I started kindergarten, and she immediately recognized me as one of her brightest students, and so she treated me that way. I was too young to realize it at the time, but this simple fact earned me many enemies, who proceed to drive me from their heard, and pick on me whenever it was convenient. It upset my mother to have me come crying to her every day, and so began our swap to homeschooling.

It was much like "traditional" school at first, but my mother, clever INTJ that she is, studied homeschooling like only an INT can, and decided to give me and my siblings the "Unschooling" approach.

This has lead me to a rather unusual mix of knowledge compared to those with "conveyor belt education". For example: I lack some of the mathematics skills those on the "belt" get, as I've never needed to apply it in real life, and have therefore not studying them. (though I am taking classes in algebra via the internet, so that I won't be too behind when I go to college.) On the other hand, my father, who is a veteran businessman turned college teacher, told me I know more about economics than most of the people he knows. and I'm only just 18.
​

To fix the current system, we need to start the privatization process, if nothing else, to give some of the responsibility of rearing the kids back to their parents.

*interactions with others trained me not to mention them, (brainwashing?) Great to hear that list out in the open.

 

[Darby]

the modern scholastic system was designed to:

- instill/demarcate/ossify the child's place in the societal order (hierarchy); to "sort the wheat from the chaff".
- allow limited, barely adequate information in a compartmentalised and minimal way for the child to utilise in various low-level tasks which will enable them to both exist in later life and provide stimulus for the economy, without upsetting the hierarchy.
- defuse potential for future dissent by frowning on originality, ostracising troublemakers and accentuating false competition to keep them from participating, unless they subjugate their own thoughts/desires to the herd.
- encourage dependence upon appointed official specialists, experts and authorities for ascertaining truth and to increase confusion and frustrate innate curiosity by providing answers (in a purposely fragmented and meaningless way) before questions can even be asked; in other words, to arrest mental development to keep them in a state of perpetual childishness.

this makes me want to cry. I remember in 3rd grade when I got made fun of for being the only person in my class who could read....why aren't we meant to learn? it's not like the people who designed these systems will live forever, what's supposed to happen when they die? we'd be a bunch of working idiots with noone to herd us around, it'd be chaos

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

One of the worst offences of the public school system in America is how they delay reading to age 6 at the very earliest. I was reading by age 4. Schools should teach reading as the priority, ASAP in the early years.

Of course, the public schools shouldn't even have the kids when they're that young. But whatever.

 

[UppyDownyMouth]

The problem is making something smart means a lot of people wont understand it and therefore not buy it / recommend it... So intelligent people have the moral obligation to champion intellectual material in the hope even a few people join in...

I think you have to accept being above average means the majority of people wont understand what motivates you and would have no rapport with anyway.

 

[Luminates]

I have never placed my trust into the Schools of America as a whole, even private schools. For one reason or another, there simple motive is to get you a job, whether it's the job of your dreams, or just as a simple employee behind the counter of a Wendy's. The Government implements that they care about the education, but how can they when there isn't any sufficient results being produced?

I agree with the voucher idea though, that seems to be a rational way of fixing things.

as for the list, well the only thing I have yet to see is the deviant crimes and the punishment behind those acts. Basically the unjust laws of The American Government. You can't tell me that you believe the American government is justified and fair. I'm sure that the 1960's helped create more order in things, but it didn't completely fixate the problem.