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Science

Have Humans Passed Peak Brain Power? (ft.com) 143

Across high-income countries, humans' ability to reason and solve problems appears to have peaked in the early 2010s and declined since. Despite no changes in fundamental brain biology, test scores for both teenagers and adults show deteriorating performance in reading, mathematics and science. In an eye-opening statistic, 25% of adults in high-income countries now struggle to "use mathematical reasoning when reviewing statements" -- rising to 35% in the US.

This cognitive decline coincides with a fundamental shift in our relationship with information. Americans reading books has fallen below 50%, while difficulty thinking and concentrating among 18-year-olds has climbed sharply since the mid-2010s. The timing points to our changing digital habits: a transition from finite web pages to infinite feeds, from active browsing to passive consumption, and from focused attention to constant context-switching.

Research shows that intentional use of digital technologies can be beneficial, but the passive consumption dominating recent years impairs verbal processing, attention, working memory and self-regulation.

Some of the cited research in the story:
New PIAAC results show declining literacy and increasing inequality in many European countries â" Better adult learning is necessary;
Have attention spans been declining?;
Short- and long-term effects of passive and active screen time on young children's phonological memory;
Efficient, helpful, or distracting? A literature review of media multitasking in relation to academic performance.

Have Humans Passed Peak Brain Power?

Comments Filter:
  • natural selection (Score:5, Interesting)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:02PM (#65239877)

    Who is having the most babies? The best and brightest? Or the dumbest? QED.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It could just be micro plastic pollution, or the damage done by COVID, or the post-truth world, or any number of things.

      Unfortunately finding a control population that hasn't been exposed to those things is not easy.

      • by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
        Yeah I bet on plastic pollution combined with decades of exposure to leaded fuel, and tire and brake dust
        • by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Leaded fuel? You mean that thing we phased out almost 3 decades ago? We can probably rule that out at least.

        • by jonsmirl ( 114798 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:52PM (#65240029) Homepage

          Duh, 18 year olds are spending 10 hours a day staring at TicTok which creates an attention span of 30 seconds. They use AI to do their homework. They don't study much and very few of them have hobbies like building electronics, ham radio or programming anymore. Any adult can see where all of that leads to; now there is hard data backing that observation up. The huge shift is to doing massive amounts of passive watching instead of actively participating,.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by alvinrod ( 889928 )
            But if they want to go outside and run around then clearly they must have ADHD and need a regimen of pharmaceuticals to ensure they're good little passive students. If this later makes them feel bad then they must have a chemical imbalance. Fortunately there are pills for that as well.
            • I'd estimate a low end of 85% of the blame for that falls on the parents. Parenting takes skill and dedication; it ain't for the weak. It's too easy to have kids, and too hard to actually parent, when all you want to do is sit on the couch and watch your shows / play video games, so when Johnny doesn't behave the way the parents expect, they want an easy solution, rather than put in the hard work of actually interacting with their kids, and molding behavior and instilling discipline - not to be confused w
          • by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
            You think that, but a lot of people on tiktok (at least until its recent capitulation) were better informed about some things than their parents and grandparents who've been hooked up to a cable news trough feed their whole lives.
            • Being informed about something is not the same as the brain development associated with having hobbies where you actually build things and solve the problems around building them. One is passive, one is active.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ewibble ( 1655195 )

        Its since 2010 so not COVID or post truth. Personally I think (so not founded in actual fact) is its the proliferation of technology we now don't have to think as much so we don't. 2007 was when the iPhone was released, is a correlation. Also there is too much bullshit being taught in schools, as opposed to teaching children relevant stuff. For example my daughter has to learn Academic referencing for her Vet Nursing course? Why on earth is that necessary? Wouldn't their time be better spent learning actua

        • For example my daughter has to learn Academic referencing for her Vet Nursing course? Why on earth is that necessary? Wouldn't their time be better spent learning actual skills needed for Vet Nursing.

          You don't understand why she needs to be able to cite a source?

          She was told that if she quoted an source she had to change the wording of that quote otherwise she could fail.

          Sounds like the telephone game is being played, and lost.

      • Don't forget information overload since the decline coincides well with the appearence of the like button.

        Today people are deadscrolling a lot more.

      • Dopamine depletion through smartphone engagement (social media, notifications) which kills motivation and drive, while numbing the brain, is probably one of the big ones.
        The brain that is addicted to scrolling doesn't want to do hard things anymore.
        This, with all the nonsense people consume on social media (they will cry about "lying mainstream media" but not hesitate to believe a random social media account causing a ruckus for engagement) are legitimately making humanity dumber.

        Too much easy entertainment

        • Indeed, it was my thought too. "impairs verbal processing, attention, working memory and self-regulation." Is a description of ADHD that any diagnosed sufferer would know. And as DA is a limited resource, when the normies burn it all up getting their 'someone-hearted-me' buzz while infinitely scrolling Xitter, TikTok, they experience depletion too.
      • by Chaset ( 552418 )

        One of my hypotheses is that the 400+ ppm CO2 level is having cognitive effects on those susceptible. If susceptibility were a bell curve across the population, we're now moving the cutoff line into the fatter parts of the curve.

        Or, to come from a different angle, we know higher CO2 levels affect decision making and cognition (well established at higher concentrations). At lower levels, the effect may be subtle and undetectable on the individual level, but say, a 1 IQ point downshift across the whole popu

      • It could just be micro plastic pollution, or the damage done by COVID, or the post-truth world, or any number of things.

        It's good that you can admit that you're part of the problem. The question is, will you ever stop creating disinformation?

    • Re:natural selection (Score:5, Informative)

      by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:21PM (#65239945) Homepage

      That was the premise behind the film Idiocracy [wikipedia.org] that came out in 2006. Worth watching IMHO.

      • If there's one firm takeaway from that movie as we enter the age of AI, never respond to a question from a computer with "I'm not sure".
    • Unnatural selection: who's running the information services you're feeding on, people who want you to be smart, or people who want you to be a dumb AF manipulable piece of human trash?

    • You could have written the same in the 1850s (German, Italian and Irish immigration), the 1920s (eugenics), or many other times in the past. People always think we've peaked and the new generation is terrible, partly because it's the old generation that is setting the (soon-to-be-outdated) parameters on what the important skills are.
      • This is study not an opinion piece, it may well be flawed like many studies are, but unless you can show me a study that states that from the 1850s or the 1920s I don't think the argument is valid. The fact that someone might of doesn't mean they did or that the study would of shown the same results.

      • Except we have empirical data, here. This isn't bigotry, it's a disturbing trend. People are getting dumber, and it's not because of some kind of hyper-rapid devolution. We're training our brains to be dumb.
        • Except we have empirical data, here. This isn't bigotry, it's a disturbing trend. People are getting dumber,

          You're right so far... (for a certain definition of "dumber")

          and it's not because of some kind of hyper-rapid devolution.

          most likely true - given that there are tons of other explanations that seem more plausible, but it's not like we have empiric evidence to show this.

          We're training our brains to be dumb.

          ... and there you go from "empirical data" to wild conjecture. It could be caused by a host of things - environmental pollutants, technological changes, pedagogical trends, nutrition, exercise... some combination of all of the above

          • most likely true - given that there are tons of other explanations that seem more plausible, but it's not like we have empiric evidence to show this.

            No- most likely true, since the assertion is implausible.

            ... and there you go from "empirical data" to wild conjecture. It could be caused by a host of things - environmental pollutants, technological changes, pedagogical trends, nutrition, exercise... some combination of all of the above

            Wild conjecture?
            Environmental pollutants are currently excellent, historically.
            Nutrition is currently excellent, historically.
            Exercise? Yes, because all the smart people in history were well known for their athletic frames.

            Now that bullshit list was "wild conjecture".
            Mine was rational conjecture, and I'll explain why.

            As you note- technological changes.
            Technological changes have not reached into our brains and made us dumber. Rather, they ha

          • Also, fuck off with that "for a certain definition of "dumber".
            Let's evaluate the exact definition (FTS):

            deteriorating performance in reading, mathematics and science. In an eye-opening statistic, 25% of adults in high-income countries now struggle to "use mathematical reasoning when reviewing statements" -- rising to 35% in the US.

            This cognitive decline coincides with a fundamental shift in our relationship with information. Americans reading books has fallen below 50%, while difficulty thinking and concentrating among 18-year-olds has climbed sharply since the mid-2010s.

            That's a pretty fucking universal definition of dumber. I suppose you could argue that since they're smarter at figure out what to put into a prompt to get the text they want to parrot in lieu of reasoning and knowledge, it's justified caveat it, but that's a shit argument.

    • "return to monkey" is what is happening, in another 1000 years civilization will be gone and our descendants will be no smarter than any other ape
    • You were going for funny, right? Or are you one of the worst and the dumbest?

      Most relevant book I've read on the topic was The Anxious Generation (but there are several other books on the topic that I would like to read).

    • The conservatives (who don't like birth control) are out-breeding the liberals.

      For all of the criticisms which have been levied at conservatives, I think it was a particular stroke of genius to convince the folks on the other side of the political aisle that they could "save the planet" by having few, or no, children.

  • Education (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:10PM (#65239907)
    I think this has less to do with brain power and more to do with education. Things like mathematical reasoning are to an extent learned not innate. At least in the US are educational system has deteriorated. Concern about not hurting the feelings of the less gifted and interference of religious and other special interest groups in what is taught has led to graduates with no education. I went I started work in the 1980s in chemistry we hired high school graduates as assistants by the time I retired we were hiring BS chemists for the same jobs, because high school graduates were incapable of doing the work (and paying the BS chemists relatively the same amount as we used to pay the high school graduates).
    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      I think this has less to do with brain power and more to do with education.

      the "peak brain power" thing is just yet another moronic headline proudly presented to you by the ft, funnily proving the point.

    • Look who we have running the department of education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Also of note Financially, the couple fared poorly for several years and, despite her husband working at a quarry,[21] briefly received food stamps.

      Wonder what her current opinion of food stamps is?

    • Re:Education (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ranton ( 36917 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:35PM (#65239989)

      Yes, this article seems to be discussing peak-education effectiveness, not peak-brain capability. We haven't even started the genetic engineering revolution yet, so we have no idea how high peak-human brain capability will get.

      I couldn't read the article because of a pay-wall, but based on the quotes used I also doubt it was looking at peak capability anyway. It seems to be looking at average capability. If you wanted to look at peak capability you should be looking at how the top 0.1% are performing over time. That would show you if today's best and brightest are really declining or if it is just the average masses who are showing weaker results.

    • I think this has less to do with brain power and more to do with education.

      It might also have something to do with the metric for making these types of assessments. There are many ways to assess "brain power." IQ tests, SAT tests, etc. The results of the tests are just numbers, but how well do they reflect reasoning and thinking ability? This is an age-old question. First, what is reasoning and thinking ability? It's not at all obvious how to define this or even to ascertain how many mathematical dimensions are necessary to quantitatively define it. Second, at least partly

    • by Targon ( 17348 )

      When you expect that no matter what your level of education is, you will end up in a low paying job working more than 40 hours a week while "influencers" make a lot more money, that causes a huge drop in desire to put in the effort to get a better education.

    • Re:Education (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @01:29PM (#65240135)
      The "Graduates with no education" phenomenon is real. We hire and fire them on the regular.
      I don't know wtf is going on in schools, but people are being given diplomas even though the school obviously failed them.
      My guess is it's less about hurting feelings, and more about No Child Left Behind, and the successor Every Child Succeeds.
      I think the acts were passed with good intent, but schools figured out it was easier to game the act, than try to fulfill its goals in spirit.
      • by dargaud ( 518470 )

        The US education system gets a lot of hate, but other systems fail in spectacular ways too. In France in the 80s the 1st socialist gov decided that 80% of each year should have their baccalaureate at 18 (the 'no-child-left-behind equivalent'). In order to do so they had to lower the level so much that complete ignoramuses now receive it and can request to go to university (*). I mean kids who at 18 can hardly read. 50 years ago it was 15-20% of a generation, the rest went into trades jobs. Now they go to un

        • phones on tiktok 18 hours a day

          The effect predates TikTok, and applications like it.

          and microplastics in the brain are other big factors

          No evidence of this.

          It seems far more likely to me that the cause of the damage is the facilitation of looking up not only information- but entire arguments for or against a thing, indeed, entire chains of reasoning via that phone. The phones have entirely replaced the need to answer any questions yourself. You just ask your phone.

      • You're right - kids get passed on when they don't deserve it - but you're overlooking the parents in this. Example: I was substituting for a class of 7th graders one day, and this kid, the class clown, squeezed between the back of my chair and the wall so he could get behind me. There was practically no space behind my chair, and absolutely no reason for him to be there, so I kept the eye in the back of my head keenly tuned to this kid. He took a swipe at the back of my head - I could feel the breeze - a
        • I believe you. The guy who married my wife and me is my coworker, and we do a lot of BBQs and stuff of that nature. His wife is an educator, and she says exactly what you just said.

          So you're right- the fault may be more that of the parents, and the schools just... unable to assert themselves.
    • While there is probably no doubt the US education is going downhill, this does not stand for the wider brush of TFA stating that brain skills are going down in high-income countries, of which there is more than one. The thing is, education only gets you so far. Doing math, or using whatever other measuring stick of a skill, is a muscle - you either use it or lose it. With the highly specialized jobs in high-income countries, not many people need math, or even functional reading ability.

      The success of fordis

  • by zawarski ( 1381571 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:14PM (#65239917)
    1999 was the peak of human civilization.
  • Maybe it has reached a peak, maybe not.

    It's clear that if the population peaks, and without good AI, the total brain will peak one way or another.

    It's not the population peak, not yet. But adding people is just one of the factors, so other things can accelerate the peak a little.

    BUT, that doesn't mean that's a stop for humankind. So that peak would be forever.
    To grow exponentially we clearly needs grow, but we need to create more "space" to grow without collapse our environment.

    That's exactly what a space p

  • Phones (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:18PM (#65239931)

    I got my first smart phone in 2010. It's all been downhill from there.

  • Commercials started it... going down to 30 Sec sound bites... Now Tik Tok and Insta (etc) have cut our attention span to seconds... Commercials get LOUDER... Visuals get more compelling as our attention span gets abused. Role of facts is being "poo poo"ed by some that seem to want a more controllable, docile populace. Bring back the appreciation for lucidity! Coherency of thought! Bring back the perspicacity that builds on previous strengths. Creating a treadmill of sugary information and compelling-false-need ( "you need this product to be desirable") has not done us well. Seems to center on the worship of money, not contribution to society.
    • I heard a guy talking about "the attention economy" a while back, and just hearing that term and looking around and what's happening makes so much more sense now. Everything is a competition for a newly discovered constrained resource: your attention. And you have the power to freely give it where you wish, but a lot of people haven't realized that yet and continue squandering it.

      Your attention is a scarce and valuable resource to many organizations and people. Do not freely give it to billionaires throu

  • But we have passed peak use of brain power, because clever people go to university and instead of studying a useful science, they waste their time on nonsense subjects and unscientific research like this.
  • by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @12:24PM (#65239957)

    Smart phones make people dumber. And kids raised with smart phones never pass through a time in their lives where they feel they need knowledge in order to survive. They can look up anything they need on the phone, or text someone to help. AI, even as it currently exists, is going to accelerate this.

    Social media exacerbates the natural habits formed around smart phones. Short, staccato bursts of info become the norm, and hard to think about problems, or subjects where you can't learn about them without consuming vast amounts of information, like most sciences, actual history outside the big flashy subjects, and other areas that lead to developing real brain power, are seen as wastes of time. Why study astrophysics when you could just follow an astrophysicist or two on social media and pretend you know astrophysics by regurgitating tweets and memes?

    Nobody really seems to be thinking about the long-term consequences of our current tech obsession. We even see backlash to the suggestion we ban smart phones from classrooms because people addicted to their digital leash want to be certain their kids stay addicted too. There's no easy fix to any of this, save maybe de-incentivizing social media consumption. And the only way that happens is by making it less profitable for the big businesses currently profiting off of dumbing down our entire society.

    Minor issue: Those social media companies currently have their C-Suite buddying up to the current ego-maniac in chief. I don't see it changing in the US anytime soon.

    • by ranton ( 36917 )

      Smart phones make people dumber. And kids raised with smart phones never pass through a time in their lives where they feel they need knowledge in order to survive. They can look up anything they need on the phone, or text someone to help. AI, even as it currently exists, is going to accelerate this.

      That doesn't make someone dumber; it makes them less knowledgeable in certain areas. Smart people today are learning to rely less on accumulated knowledge of facts and instead are focusing on building capabilities. I'm a software architect, but I don't spend nearly as much time learning all the details about the tech stacks I work with as I did 20 years ago. I have Google and now AI to help with that. Instead I put my efforts towards learning how to communicate more effectively, how to build influence at wo

      • Smart phones make people dumber. And kids raised with smart phones never pass through a time in their lives where they feel they need knowledge in order to survive. They can look up anything they need on the phone, or text someone to help. AI, even as it currently exists, is going to accelerate this.

        That doesn't make someone dumber; it makes them less knowledgeable in certain areas. Smart people today are learning to rely less on accumulated knowledge of facts and instead are focusing on building capabilities. I'm a software architect, but I don't spend nearly as much time learning all the details about the tech stacks I work with as I did 20 years ago. I have Google and now AI to help with that. Instead I put my efforts towards learning how to communicate more effectively, how to build influence at work, and how to think more strategically.

        Not being able to read a financial statement is still bad, but that isn't caused by smart phones. That is just poor education.

        Poor education isn't helping at all, for certain. And we've seen our share of that in the US. But the smart phone thing is an accelerant for negative learning behavior, and a distraction that too many parents seem to feel is necessary within the classroom as well.

        I don't think a phone *HAS* to be a negative hit on intelligence, but by and large in our society it has become one. Your statement of "less knowledgeable in certain areas" can, in some cases, be applied to "all areas" and thus is a direct link to

      • That doesn't make someone dumber

        Of course it does.
        The brain is a neural network. It prunes and reinforces neuronal connections based on use.

        it makes them less knowledgeable in certain areas.

        No, it makes them worse at thinking/reasoning for themselves.

        Smart people today are learning to rely less on accumulated knowledge of facts and instead are focusing on building capabilities.

        There's more value to accumulated knowledge of facts than just the facts themselves.
        Is an LLM trained on more tokens smarter than one trained on less?
        What if we forego training altogether and just train it to answer queries by pumping them into Google?

        I'm a software architect, but I don't spend nearly as much time learning all the details about the tech stacks I work with as I did 20 years ago.

        You have the benefit of a brain that constructed itself out of a need to be intelligent

    • I think the real problem, like you mentioned, is that we have essentially trained our brains (less so for us older folks, since our neuroplasticity is less) to interact with Google via our phone, rather than trying to reason ourselves. Our brains have pruned the synapses that previously would have been used to reason, and instead have focused on how to query Google for Truth- even though we know, at some level, it isn't that.

      Social Media, like you said, has caused a problem with attention span, but I don'
    • Why is it a problem for social media companies to "buddy up to" the current administration but wasn't when they did so with the last administration?
      • Why is it a problem for social media companies to "buddy up to" the current administration but wasn't when they did so with the last administration?

        I thought that was bullshit too. Don't assume calling the current admin out for being shit means I love Democrats. The only difference I can see between the parties is the Republicans fuck you hard and fast and the Democrats do it slow and gently while whispering good tidings in your ear.

  • Because of reasons, eugenics is considered evil. It needn't be, though. Why not encourage people with good genetics to have more kids, and discourage people with poor genetics from doing so?

    Intelligence is one possible target. Reducing heritable diseases is another.

    Of course, I can already hear it: "Why are you discriminating against my family of obese, diabetic school dropouts?"

    • I think we can all agree the Nazis shut the door on that one.
    • Define which genetics you want to encourage. Sir John B. Gurdon shared a 2012 Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine. I recently saw a short video where he was read notes from his teacher in school. Essentially, he had no scientific aptitude, couldn't absorb material, and finished 250 out of 250 in his class.

    • I'm not a fan of slippery slope arguments, but this is one that is VERY slippery.

      Once you start talking about encouragement of behavior, it doesn't take much for a malevolent actor to mutate that into discouragement of behavior. Now we've gone from "you guys are smart, please have kids" to "you have a disability, do NOT have kids regardless of how much you want to."

      Oddly, that's exactly what happened in Germany in the 1930s. Except now we have genetic testing and surgical sterilization techniques. No fuc

    • Maybe AI will just sterilise all of us, ultimate eugenics.

    • Because of reasons, eugenics is considered evil.

      I think you'll find there are very good reasons.

      It needn't be, though.

      I agree.

      Why not encourage people with good genetics to have more kids, and discourage people with poor genetics from doing so?

      What could possibly go wrong?

      Intelligence is one possible target.

      Actually, I think the best target is those that don't think eugenics is a good idea.

      Stopping you from breeding will do us all a lot of good, don't you think?

    • Re:Eugenics? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday March 17, 2025 @02:51PM (#65240393) Homepage Journal

      Because of reasons, eugenics is considered evil. It needn't be, though. Why not encourage people with good genetics to have more kids

      Poor, uneducated, and apparently dumb people can have kids who are smart and have a thirst for learning, that's why.

      Intelligence is one possible target. Reducing heritable diseases is another.

      Do you plan to prohibit "undesirables" from breeding, perhaps through sterilization, or do you want to reward people with what you consider desirable genetics for breeding, and if so who is going to pay for it?

  • There is clearly a shift in how newer generations think vs older generations, and that is clearly due to internet access, social media, availability of information, and the way that younger generations consume information in small bits very fast vs. sitting down to read a long book or something. That is clearly a change that is difficult for current testing paradigms to measure.

    That doesn't mean younger generations are dumber, which implies a single dimensional range of smart vs. dumb, they just act an

    • You can call it thinking differently, but what it is, is a measurably deficiency in the ability to use reason. Without that, you cannot generalize your intelligence- you can only finely tune it.

      If you don't see a problem with that, you're likely amongst those with broken reasoning ability.
  • These social scientists need to walk across campus and talk to the neuroscientists. There's abundant evidence that every Covid infection, even asymptomatic ones, results in neurological damage. We won't know how much that cumulative damage affects our collective "brain power" unless studies like this at least acknowledge that damage as a possible factor.
  • So we haven't been imagining that the younger hires are dumber than a shiat covered stick?

    VINDICATION!

    All evidence/argument to the contrary will be ignored. Anecdotal evidence beats all.

  • Well, if human intellect is inferior, it stand to reason that AI proveyers should stop stealing everything from everyone.
  • by 0xG ( 712423 )

    This on the same day there is a slashdot item titled 'There's a Good Chance Your Kid Uses AI To Cheat'

  • I'm not disagreeing with any of the statements the article is making per-se but... I somehow doubt that we're currently in the process of pursuing peak brain power, so I don't think we can really know what the maximum humans are capable of (maybe we'll never know). I can't speak for the rest of the world; but here in NA it has never seemed to me that our culture was all that interested in really pursuing "peak brain power"; just look at where most of the money flows and it should be obvious what we, as a cu
  • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @01:35PM (#65240157) Journal

    Not to try to dismiss our current problem, but it strikes me that I'm old enough to remember the tail end of the "golden age of television" and the claimed detriment to society TV watching was claimed to cause, since it was just passive consumption of information.

    Despite the number of hours weekly our youth spent in front of the TV having declined sharply from earlier decades, we're still claiming passive consumption is the problem. That would seem to fly in the face of "peak brain power" have been achieved during the time-frame when TV viewing went into this decline?

    I have a suspicion that it's not necessarily active vs passive consumption that's a problem. (Even in school, a lot of time is spent in classrooms just sitting, listening to a teacher lecturing.) It's probably good to experience BOTH active and passive consumption because they help develop different skill-sets. But I think a person could become quite intelligent, just by absorbing knowledge presented to them passively. I suspect the problem lies with the QUALITY of information being absorbed. The Internet and social media encourage a great deal of focus on things that are relatively unimportant/inconsequential, and there's usually a lot of competition for your attention among multiple applications running. (EG. You might try to focus on reading your new email but then your device dings to announce a new text message or instant message from one of several "messenger" apps. It's always encouraging you to break your concentration.) Worse yet? Your friends trying to get you to laugh at the goofy video of your cat they just sent you is probably NOT helping you as much as, say, the car repair YouTube video you were trying to watch to get your spark plugs changed yourself.

  • Why would we think they have stopped developing new structures and capabilities now?

  • Why do we still have homeless people? Why is crime still a thing?

    These should be international priorities to solving. The solutions don't require new tech just willpower.

    Homelessness - There should be free 150 sq. foot cabins available for people to live in 10 to 15 miles away from the cities. They won't meet 100% of building codes (other than tornado, hurricane or earthquake resistance) but neither to does a cardboard box or tent. https://www.theguardian.com/ar... [theguardian.com] https://palletshelter.com/ [palletshelter.com] No hoarding, p

    • Yes, willpower. The will to power. Will your problems away and let the Gestapo clean up any bits of reality that fail to play along.
  • I'm going to say this is an indictment on how far our educational system has declined over the past 20-30 years. Likewise, I read news paper articles an am disgusted with atrocious grammar, missing words, and nauseating verbosity. Underfunding education so the rich receive tax breaks and refusing to hold poor performers accountable has taken it's toll.
  • We are becoming Elois [wikipedia.org], but without the gardens. The question is who will be the Morlocks.
  • The goal should be to increase brain power of the entire species. And it's easy as fuck to do that. Clean air and water, good nutrition for the mother during gestation and for the kid is their growing up, and lots of education.

    We know what we need to do but we don't want to do it because we have these old systems in place where we want to keep certain people at a certain level. Sort of like how the old book brave New world would intentionally cause brain damage to create stupid people.

    That was a wor
  • In 2010 the iPad was introduced, making tablets go mainstream. Instagram also launched in 2010. That's a really unhealthy combo. XD
  • Status is based on your bank account. Not your physical prowess or intellectual capacity. Don't have money, then you will be quickly stripped of rights, property, and political power.

You are an insult to my intelligence! I demand that you log off immediately.

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