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Has Our World Been Dumbed Down?

The responses that I often get in here from a few key individuals really makes me think that this lady is on to something.

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt was the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the US Department of Education under President Reagan and is the author of The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyDtYy2I0M

No, the United States has been Dumbed Down, The U.S. wont do anything until we have lost so much, and by then it will probably be to late anyway.

/nuff said


The issue is nothing new and is only growing rampant throughout all corners of american society day by day

Has America been dumbed down? You be the judge..

quote:

Originally posted by Capitalizt Has America been dumbed down? You be the judge..

These are exactly the kind of people that worry me in this election. I want to hurt these people for being so uneducated.

quote:

Originally posted by Capitalizt Has America been dumbed down? You be the judge..

lol

Check this one:

Topic related, I recommend watching a great movie called Idiocracy

its not just happening in america , over here it is too.
you can draw a line and two dots and still walk away with a phD nowadays

i blame the people that deliberately shun a tertiary education in favour of watching clips on youtube.

I wonder how many of the trolls on this board actually read books?

It's funny how they always seem to attack people for wanting to broaden their perspectives by doing things like watching independently produced, non-commercialized, alternative streams of information but yet they seem to have little to no clue of their own in regards to the majority of what is discussed on this board.

It's almost like they just want to get rid of free speech and independent thought altogether, something which is never going to happen just so long as the internet as we know it remains free.

oh yeah. your research methods and sources and topics of interest are so very broad your topics and your interpretation of "facts" displays the worst levels of confirmation bias in the entire PDD. a perfect example are all the errors you've been making on recent economic talking points. if you went to school and parroted that nonsense they'd fail you, which is why you stick to message boards and youtube.

when you fool yourself into believing fantasies like NWO socialist world government plans and 911 conspiracy theories are you dumbing yourself down or just being really naive? maybe i should start a thread about whether society is becoming more naive?

Attack the messenger instead of the message. Yeah, that takes a lot of skill.

It's interesting that the trolls are always so concerned with the posters on this board but never seem to be able to debate the topics themselves.

I guess that's what happens when you have sh*t for brains. Everything that comes out of your mouth is crap.

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium Topic related, I recommend watching a great movie called Idiocracy

I want to watch that again!!

Personally, I thought that this was the best scene:



with these not being too far behind:



BTW - I think I spotted pkc in that crowd
(and it definitely wasn't the one smart guy)

Idiocracy is no documentary, far from it, but it does portray in a funny way a possible future with the way the current way of life is going ... Its just a way to remind us of how much stupidity and ignorance there is today ... blended with satire, even subliminal political messages, its a good package overall, despite what some people may think. Beats watching Angelina Jolie's weekly dose of bullshit.

quote:

Originally posted by Magnetonium Idiocracy is no documentary, far from it, but it does portray in a funny way a possible future with the way the current way of life is going ... Its just a way to remind us of how much stupidity and ignorance there is today ... blended with satire, even subliminal political messages, its a good package overall, despite what some people may think. Beats watching Angelina Jolie's weekly dose of bullshit.

I'm building a Time Masheen as I speak.

It had actually been a little while since I caught a good dose of fiction but I do have to say that it was quite entertaining.

Having said that, though, I think that I'll continue to stick to the universal truths which have been so cleverly veiled amidst the allegory and myth of such classics as Virgil's Aeneid, Goethe's Faust, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride, Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia, and Godfrey Higgins' Anacalypsis.

quote:

Originally posted by adi_hanson its not just happening in america , over here it is too. you can draw a line and two dots and still walk away with a phD nowadays

Formal education is over rated, although there are certain skills and information that are harder to have the discipline to learn outside an institutional setting... like getting a good grasp of discrete mathematics and formal logic.

quote:

Originally posted by shaolin_Z Formal education is over rated, although there are certain skills and information that are harder to have the discipline to learn outside an institutional setting... like getting a good grasp of discrete mathematics and formal logic.

no, formal education acts as a balancing force when doing research. it provides a more rounded experience and challenges you with different points of view. that's why trancer only has 1 opinion, and everything relates back to the grand conspiracy. he's self-taught and by fuck it shows

seriously, no historian with any semblance of intellectual integrity would post things like this

quote:

"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." - David Rockefeller, Memoirs, pp 405

and argue that it supported a thesis of world government controlled by the Rockefellers. if trancer had gone to school and actually learned how to do research, then perhaps he wouldn't be so paranoid with his nonsensical ideas.

One of the most brilliant people I've ever met, one of my Professors that teaches the programming theory class I took ages ago (which has a prereq of Formal Logic & Discrete Mathematics), who also has done incredible thesis' and is actually a publisher of one of the more popular string matching algorithms (more like one of the few, and I think google used it too) and I think a number theory problem / proof / theory, actually made a sarcastic reference to building 7 in one of the classes... which isn't a bad indicator of what his views on certain subjects are . Plus, there are many academics who have supported and / or called for an independent investigation. You'll find plenty of dissent in the academia as well on a multitude of issues .

quote:

Originally posted by shaolin_Z One of the most brilliant people I've ever met, one of my Professors that teaches the programming theory class I took ages ago (which has a prereq of Formal Logic & Discrete Mathematics), who also has done incredible thesis' and is actually a publisher of one of the more popular string matching algorithms (more like one of the few, and I think google used it too) and I think a number theory problem / proof / theory, actually made a sarcastic reference to building 7 in one of the classes... which isn't a bad indicator of what his views on certain subjects are .

which is why he was teaching mathematics and not civil engineering but youre right, a formal education is no panacea for stupidity. but i'll bet my left nut that he knows an awful lot more about formal logic and programming theory than someone that just read a few texts on the web

quote:

Originally posted by shaolin_Z Plus, there are many academics who have supported and / or called for an independent investigation. You'll find plenty of dissent in the academia as well on a multitude of issues .

yes, but virtually all of these academics that do so are well outside their area(s) of expertise. the lack of a peer-reviewed engineering paper supporting their theories is all that matters. and the academics that have attempted to muddy the waters with junk science are liars and frauds so if youre saying that this is how trancer-x would turn out with or without formal education, i think you might be right.

quote:

Originally posted by shaolin_Z Formal education is over rated, although there are certain skills and information that are harder to have the discipline to learn outside an institutional setting... like getting a good grasp of discrete mathematics and formal logic.

Schooling (academia) really only gives you the tools to become another cog in the wheel, anyway. It doesn't empower anyone to rise above the crowd, it simply teaches you how to integrate yourself into the machine.

People are continually discouraged from seeking the truth and ridiculed for deviating from the status quo while intellectual pursuits have devolved into mindless distractions that usually only appeal to our base human (or animalistic) instincts. It's pretty sad.

For many who suffer from exceptional or profound giftedness, formal education often feels intellectually and creatively stifling rather than encouraging.

Some of the greatest minds that our world has ever know have been autodidacts, anyhow. So I don't see why one should be dissuaded from following their own path especially if they've long since grown tired of the rigorous monotony that's axiomatic to being bound in a typically stagnant class setting.

Did you know that Manly P. Hall only had an eight grade education? I thought that was pretty wild considering how amazingly brilliant that man was. I just thought that I'd mention it since it seemed relevant to the topic at hand.

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Schooling (academia) really only gives you the tools to become another cog in the wheel, anyway. It doesn't empower anyone to rise above the crowd, it simply teaches you how to integrate yourself into the machine. People are continually discouraged from seeking the truth and ridiculed for deviating from the status quo while intellectual pursuits have devolved into mindless distractions that usually only appeal to our base human (or animalistic) instincts. It's pretty sad. For many who suffer from exceptional or profound giftedness, formal education often feels intellectually and creatively stifling rather than encouraging. Some of the greatest minds that our world has ever know have been autodidacts, anyhow. So I don't see why one should be dissuaded from following their own path especially if they've long since grown tired of the rigorous monotony that's axiomatic to being bound in a typically stagnant class setting.

Yeah, kinda hard to disagree there. All formal education really means is a degree and there's a bunch of idiots out there with degrees who suck at their careers and professions. So at the end of the day, what it boils down to is a means for getting a document you need to get a well paying job or pursue a career path; just a cog in a machine. Plus, being educated implies you're more likely to be indoctrinated by the system... and formal education or not, the power of denial and capacity for irrational thought, is not something you'll find any lack of, especially on a collective level, in human history. The institutions, weather secular, religious, or "mystical" (in ancient times), have always been used to keep the masses in check and in line.

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Did you know that Manly P. Hall only had an eight grade education? I thought that was pretty wild considering how amazingly brilliant that man was. I just thought that I'd mention it since it seemed relevant to the topic at hand.

I haven't read that much of Hall's work but I know he's recognized in esoteric circles as a genius by many.

I think that the muddying of the waters comes from the people who seek to constantly engross our society with a constant barrage of mindless entertainment and Hollywood-style fictions. It's like mental chewing gum which provides little to no intellectual sustanance.

To get to the heart of the truth, one must truly endeavor to pierce the web of deception that's been spun around us rather than ignorantly masquerading it's individual strands as some form of intellectual integrity, as the trolls on this board always seem to do.

Sometimes the hardest part can be unlearning the nonsense you learned in school and from other institutions.

quote:

Originally posted by Trancer-X Schooling (academia) really only gives you the tools to become another cog in the wheel, anyway. It doesn't empower anyone to rise above the crowd, it simply teaches you how to integrate yourself into the machine. People are continually discouraged from seeking the truth and ridiculed for deviating from the status quo while intellectual pursuits have devolved into mindless distractions that usually only appeal to our base human (or animalistic) instincts. It's pretty sad. For many who suffer from exceptional or profound giftedness, formal education often feels intellectually and creatively stifling rather than encouraging. Some of the greatest minds that our world has ever know have been autodidacts, anyhow. So I don't see why one should be dissuaded from following their own path especially if they've long since grown tired of the rigorous monotony that's axiomatic to being bound in a typically stagnant class setting. Did you know that Manly P. Hall only had an eight grade education? I thought that was pretty wild considering how amazingly brilliant that man was. I just thought that I'd mention it since it seemed relevant to the topic at hand.

A formal education gives one the authority to speak about a specific subject. If some guy on the street starts talking to me about astro-physics, and makes the claim, "A gamma ray beam is on its way to earth." I'm gonna ask him, "How do you know? Are you an astro-physicist, or just some guy on the street?" 99.9% of the 9/11 conspiracy followers are just some guy on the street...I'm all for an independent commission, but I'm not jumping to conclusions either.

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