Don't knock playing dumb. It works well for so many things.

Quote from: Kaelin on December 23, 2013, 02:01:47 AM
... you said that because I used the word "behooves," didn't you? 

Actually, I said it because My Little Pony is the best show on television.  I wish it weren't the case.  On the bright side, it is fairly entertaining...

Great, I'm another rarity – born in America with a PhD in the sciences. 

I need a hug!

Jen

And here we have a real Rarity.

Man, these My Little Pony references just keep coming in.

If people think that US adult are dumber than the average human then they obviously haven't spent a day or two in my home town, I've met people who couldn't count to twenty even if they took their shoes & socks off!!

Yes these people do have all of their fingers & toes 

i don't think studies work in cases like this. easily manipulated and always subjective whether the makers realize it or not.

To say Americans are dumber than (just as example) Canadians is sort of like saying women like pink more than men or that men are sloppier than women -- one may be able to support a tendency, but one has to think wisely about how to use those results, as the results often serve as justification for staying within a stereotype.  We have to be prepared to dismiss this manner of thinking where it comes.

Quote from: Jayne on October 09, 2013, 12:54:26 PM
I can now tell you with the utmost confidence that 2 + 2 = 5

Well, for very large values of 2 it does

I am definitely less intelligent now, than I was before I began to read this thread.. 

kidding aside tho, I think the last time I had to figure out the co-sine of the tangent.. of a.. a taco, was in high school.  As I aviate for a living, it was -never- going to enter into my job field.  Same with Trig, Calculus, I think you get it.. you know, we were much smarter just out of school than we are now, as the knowledge we have dragged around began to leak out as it just wasn't needed.  Now those that went into fields that use trig, calculus, functions, sentence structure, poetry, chemistry, ... frog dissecting (that one was for Jessie), yes, it's used and reinforced every day.. I don't have to know or use quadratic equations to know how what happens if I get too high (and no, the wax does not melt and my feathers come off and I plummet to Earth)..

Granted, some never get that initial education others do..  a 10yr old in West Virginia, Kentucky, or PS148 in Harlem, will not have the same Math or English opportunities as a 10yr old in Oregon, Illinois, or Beverly Hills.  Sadly, it has been like that for generations.  And not likely to change for several more.  But it is interesting to note, that many of the brightest students in the US in the past decade or so, have come from other countries.  Even tho they have gone thru US school systems, they excelled.. Nature or nurture?  What was the parental involvement in those homes?

A comedian had a quip in his monologue years ago.. I think it might have been George Carlin, as funny as he was, truly an intelligent man also.  He commented in a joke.. "American television is just gotten so stupid.. I tried turning up the brightness on my tv.. didn't work.."   ..something-something, about pouring water out of a boot too.. 

Intelligence has nothing to do with Common Sense, and vise-versa..

Country-bashing has been going on for a thousand years (well, ok, hundreds, maybe) and it will continue until the tectonic plates (see, Mr. Peterson, I remembered that one!) move and form Pangaea again (he would be so proud, and we are all One People again..  but Mrs. English [yes, really was her name], my English teacher, would be writhing in agony seeing all the contractions I have used).   Sloppy?  maybe.  Lazy?  Lots more likely.  (overall, I think I would get a C- on this post for content, but an F on structure.  =)

Quote from: Cindy on October 09, 2013, 12:33:21 AM
I didn't want to post this - the Devil made me!!!

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/lifestyle/us-adults-are-dumber-than-the-average-human/story-fnixw28h-1226735154370

At least, they are far smarter than Koreans, especially those at 55-65 years old.

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-south-korea-calamity-20140423,0,7203262.story#axzz30J8HvLIS

barbie~~

Oooooooooh don't even get me started on this one.   

Rant!

As a USAF (military) vet, I am disgusted that I almost died...literally...."protecting" the morons here in this country.  Really.  Call me whatever you want...I'll confess to just about any vulgar name you may have for me at this point...but...oh, words cannot describe the disdain I have.  It borderlines resentment.

Okay, so it IS resentment.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that me...and plenty others like me...an atheist and a transgender, has to be blamed (primarily by the Right) for all the problems in this country.  Excuse me, armchair patriot: I served.  What the heck did you do for this country?  Love it or leave it, eh?  Sure.  I'm out of here as soon as I raise the money to jump to Europe or something.  Care to donate to the "get this atheist LGBTQ veteran out of the US" fund?  No?  Then stuff it and keep watching American Idol while texting on your iPhone.

Then, on the Left, you have the people who go crying to the government to fix all their problems, which raises taxes on the working bloke who is already struggling to get by.  They cry for minimum wage increases, but that raises the prices of everything else and then so minimum wage has to be increased again to compensate (in their minds.)  Then vets and servicepeople like me...you know, those ladies/gents/everyone in between who don't get raises proportionate to your burger-flipping job...is stuck shouldering the extra costs of inflation AND dodging bullets while you really didn't get anywhere with your minimum wage hike because now everything else has gone up?

I have to deal with the BS of the Right on the streets because of their moral ignorance, and the BS of the Left while I am in my home because of the Left's economic ignorance.  I don't know which is worse.

And people wonder why I am a recluse? lol

The problem with the world today is that the ignorant people are too sure of everything and the wise ones are not sure of anything...and it is the ignorant people who vote.  DUMMIES!

There.  All better now.