Have Americans always been this stupid?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Lawdoggo@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

Sorry if the premise is inflammatory, but I’ve been stymied by this for a while. How did we go from something like 1940s era collectivism or 1960s era leftism to the current bizarro political machine that seems to have hypnotized a large portion (if not majority) of the country? I get it - not everything is bad now, and not everything was good then. FDR’s internment camps, etc.

That said - our country seems to be at a low point in intellectualism and accountability. The DHHS head is an antivaxxer, the deputy chief of the DOJ is a far-right podcast nutball, etc. Their supporters seem to have no nuance to their opinion beyond “well, Trump said he’d fix the economy and I don’t like woke.”

Have people always been this unserious and unquestioning, or are we watching the public’s sanity unravel in real time? Or am I just imagining some idealistic version of the past that never existed, where politicians acted in good faith and people cared about the social order?

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kepix@lemmy.world ⁨54⁩ ⁨seconds⁩ ago
the only reason their kkk ass didnt join the nazi german campaign is that the president realised a big ass war against the germans and rebuilding europe is a super great deal.

us school lack of worldwide geography and history lessons, keeping the kids stupid as fuck.

the 2 party system makes sure no other new ideology comes beetween their bew god: the lobby money from the top 1%.

answering your question: yes

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nibble4bits@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨29⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I don’t fucking get the religious right in my country, all I can say is they’re so fucking gullible by the corporate mainstream media, facts and hit them in the fucking face and they’ll always move the goalposts. They form an opinion and never be swayed by it, despite the strong evidence against it. They picked a guy who cheated on every wife he has, a criminal past, massive security clearance violations, is the most un-christlike in behaviors… And they excuse it all because they don’t like being told they can’t do things that are harmful to ourselves, or they only like receiving socialism but don’t like the responsibility of paying into it. They’re selfish as fuck, and I’m sick of it.

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krakenfury@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This is not about intelligence. People, in general, are really fucking smart. Think of the dumbest person you know, who is not cognitively disabled. I’d bet they are intelligent enough to hold down a job and live a meaningful life. Of all the things I’ve seen that hold people back, lack of intelligence doesn’t even rank.

I think high levels of bias are to blame. Current media and culture encourage the embrace of bias because it makes people easier to sell to; more suggestible to marketing. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, if your navel feels good when someone sings your tune, you’ll believe whatever they tell you. Especially if you aren’t even making an attempt to understand your bias tendencies.

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Teppichbrand@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
“My Chancellor says we should not indulge in superficial anti-Americanism now, but I assure you: Mine is not superficial at all.”

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- kerntucky@infosec.pub ⁨38⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Thanks for that quote.
  
  I wanted to know who said that so I looked it up and here’s the full quote with attribution:
  
  Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has several times made statements to the effect that we Europeans should not cultivate a superficial anti-Americanism.
  
  But mine isn’t superficial at all.
  
  Personally I have nothing against the US itself - it’s a beautiful country - it’s the people who live there that are the problem.
  
  I guess you could say it’s the same thing with Bavaria.
  
  – Volker Pispers, a German kabarett artist who is well known for his political satire.
  
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conicalscientist@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There was definitely a time when people were smarter. I read a comment on r/xennials that stuck with me. They were lamenting the loss of a the culture of their youth. I’m not sure I can rephrase it as well as they said it.

Basically they were describing how it used to be about how we questioned things. Like the show The X-Files. It was about seeking the truth. They noted how that show was reflective of how reality was. There was this common mindset that the answers are out there. That we can work together even to seek the answers and we will find them inevitably.

You see that doesn’t make much sense in 2025 because everyone has the answer to anything and everything. Except it’s their own answer. Not the answer. More than ever their answer is one which is derived from their internet / social media bubble.

There is no longer some big unknown out there full of mysteries to unravel. Not anymore. The zeitgeist right now is that I have my own world view and that’s the one. I know how the system works. I know the way. It’s the way I see the world. So why doesn’t everyone else come join my world view??? Are they stupid?

In the past we didn’t know everything. Nobody knew anything. Nobody had any illusion that they did. Nor could they whip out their pocket rectangle and find answers immediately.

In the past people had to be more open minded. They had to be honest about not knowing. Without modern media they had to be seekers of knowledge. As opposed to over confident purveyors relying on a quick internet search (these days a simple GPT query). The modern zeitgeist is one where everybody talks. Nobody listens. 8 billion deaf ears listening and learning nothing. Just waiting for their turn to talk. Everyone learned everything and they’re so damn sure of it.

Stupid people think they know it all. Smarter people are unsure of what they know. Of course there were stupid people before. But they knew they were stupid. Today the stupids can mask it by repeating words from the podcast, the tiktoks, the youtube videos they just watched.

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- PurpleSkull@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  So our technological progress has brutally outgrown our cultural one. I think you’re right.
  
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  - krydret_ismaskine@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    That’s exactly it. Our biases and community instincts (for lack of a better word) can’t keep up with the firehose of information and direct communication with so many people and from so many sources.
    
    In the past, small societies sort of kept things in check. You knew the people around you and everyone sort of found a common ground to share. Like when I was a kid in the countryside, I made friends with the other kids on our road because of proximity, not because we had tons in common. But we became friends despite being different and gained new experiences and built common ground through that. We learned to compromise and solve differences or issues.
    
    Today you can find community anywhere online, so you’re less likely to have your “rough edges” smoothed out a bit.
    
    Not that life in small societies is perfect, Svante described the Jantelov for a good reason, some small villages communities can get very insular, xenophobic and oppressive of anyone slightly off from the standard mold.
    
    But I do think our range and speed of communication has outpaced our instincts and reference frames.
    
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- swelter_spark@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This is very insightful.
  
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blakemiller@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Advantageous geography has allowed the US to fall upward in success throughout its existence. It’s as simple as that, no joke. By sitting on a mountain of natural resources and having no formidable enemies in the western hemisphere, the US was the default player to take center stage post WW2. Europe was decimated and America funded the war. Bam, the US gets success in spite of its thoroughly racist and regressive culture. Their position (and hubris) became too entrenched for there to ever be a legitimate contender. We might get to witness a changing of the guard now though, we’ll see how much damage 47 does.

FDR era is an incredible circumstance though. The past North’s failure to reconstruct the South led to all kinds of strategic chess moves that ultimately saw the D and R parties swap. The liberals had to put aside the racism problems for a bit so they could unfuck the economy. It was probably the best that the progressives could have hoped to achieve given their challenges.

All said as an American. So we’re not all morons. But it’s a sticky, uphill battle. I’m not sure if it’s fixable without a big change to the world order. Thanks for the question!

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Duamerthrax@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Probably? I haven’t been very impressed with American adult society since I was in high school witnessing how easily they followed Bush II into war.

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DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” - George Carlin

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- LengAwaits@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  As much as I love these quotes, I think it’s important to qualify them:
  
  Everyone is born stupid, but people can be educated. If we want an educated populace, we must put in the work to create functional systems of education, and celebrate intelligence as a society. It’ll be hard work, and there are plenty of people out there who would prefer to see the masses remain stupid.
  
  “The way Americans regard sports heroes versus intellectuals speaks volumes” An article by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
  
  “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov
  
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  - loudambiance@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Not to be a jerk, but I’d argue everyone is born ignorant due to an inherent lack of knowledge. Ignorance can be rectified through education. I would also argue that everyone is born with varying levels of intelligence and ability; so not everyone is stupid but there are those who are, unfortunately. Stupid and ignorant mean very different things, even though they get colloquially misused often.
    
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AidsKitty@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
America had an election and made its choice. Democrats want to transform America into Europe 2.0 but most Americans do not want that. We have a binary political system so that only leaves one other choice. It is what it is.

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- krydret_ismaskine@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  That’s wildly misrepresenting the mainline Dem platform.
  
  Bernie Sanders would be a centrist or social democrat in a general European perspective and most Dems are to the right of that, in some cases very much so.
  
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GaMEChld@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

“The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

-Isaac Asimov

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- aaron@infosec.pub ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Post-modernism laid the groundwork for an ‘I have my facts and you have yours’ culture. Or call it ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’. Community has been replaced by an atomised screen time facing our individual echo chambers. Decades of neoliberalism has impoverished swathes of the population, materially and intellectually. There are many chickens coming home to roost.
  
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  - orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I don’t think postmodernism had much to do with it. Go ask your average MAGA racist if they even know what that term means and they’ll shrug their shoulders. Similarly, the research does not show that your echo chamber theory holds water, and in fact it suggests the opposite. In the days before the world wide web, people were actually stuck in echo chambers, that being the communities where they lived.
    
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CalipherJones@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Billionaires are extracting all the wealth from this country and convincing the idiots that Maria from El Salvador with 2 dollars to her name is the problem.

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Seleni@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’

-Isaac Asimov

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- coffeeisblack@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth: It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." -George Carlin
  
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- NeilBru@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  ACH, beat me to it.
  
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rational_lib@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Miss Cleo was big in the 90s. And she wasn’t even the dumbest one. Americans have always believed in stupid bullshit. The CIA used to hire psychics too. Go back to the 1920s, and Americans pretty much took it for granted that fairies are real.

What’s changed recently is that the media went from being a mostly curated place where completely lunacy was hard to find, to a right wing clown show led by con artists. And don’t underestimate the degree to which this was done deliberately - Elon buying Twitter was a pretty clear example of the billionaire mafia taking a platform that was sort of trying to be more attached to reality and making it a lot dumber and more right wing.

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Goretantath@lemm.ee ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The republicans have been ruining the education system for decades. Can’t have smart people without paid teachers.

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- melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  you can, but it doesn’t happen often.
  
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InvertedParallax@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The south was always this racist, they were just isolated.

When social media unleashed their filth upon the nation the billionaires realized they had the ultimate weapon: a political bloc that voted purely on emotion, especially hate.

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- missandry351@lemmings.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Add internet to fuel the fire
  
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el_bhm@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
What had happened is nothing new.

Thing is, USA never had a pure dictatorship. Or were affected by imperialism. People in Europe take to the streets far faster because there are generations that remember the boot of russia. Or were under imperialist rule. See again russia and/or nazi germany.

And while what had happened is nothing new, propaganda fuel hate circle had happened in such a short timespan and force humans has never seen before.

Further more. Explaining lies takes way longer and much more effort than spreading them around.

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Pronell@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The gish gallop has gone mainstream.

What we needed, twenty to forty years ago at the bare minimum, were journalists who were willing to shut that shit down.

I remember being a child watching the news with my parents and seeing an oil company defender accusing the scientists of chasing profits.

Like what the fuck? How did that not end immediately with “And who is currently profiting?” is and always has been beyond me.

…I’m not sure that’s a great example of the gish gallop. Technically.

My point was that we now report the untrue claims rather than saying, from the start, “This candidate said something completely false and not worth repeating.”

For clicks, views, the algorithm, for profit. Nope. It was all to game the system in order to destroy it.

Sorry, this probably isn’t coherent but I’m tired and tipsy, and I’ve chosen to hit save.

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- Philote@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Of course this is death by a thousand cuts. For me a lot of blame goes to the Reagan administration. They really set up the next 40 yrs plus with trickle down economics. It really hammered home that government is for profit of corporations, not a non-profit service for the people. Citizens United vs FEC (1988) also opened the flood gates to money in politics with no recourse by the public. It’s been a downhill from there in my opinion.
  
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  - Pronell@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I should’ve given the full context - when I was a kid watching the news with my parents it was likely late in the Carter administration, or early in Reagan’s. So yeah, fully agreed.
    
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  - banadushi@sh.itjust.works ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    *2010
    
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melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
so, the 1940s were a result of what happened in the 20s and thirties. and america almost went nazi. like, we almost had a nazi president elected instead of FDR the first time, and the business plot almost worked. would have, if they hadn’t chosen a military leader who’d turned socialist since retiring.

the 1960s… honey. do you really believe america was leftist? there were some kids who were. the anti war movement was pretty big, and they all had to be okay with lefty tactics, but it’s not fair to say ‘america was leftist’. richard nixon still got elected the first time.

americans are traiend to be cattle. this is true. and yes, the techniques for that training are better than they used to be.

look up what happened in the late 70s and 80s. it kiiiinda started under carter, but you get the sense he would have pulled back once he saw how it was going, and also tried to do good stuff (it just literally all got stopped). look at the career of newt gingrich. plus, ronald reagan and it’s consequences have been a disaster for humanity. they set in motion subtle sabotage of society that devastated the potential of future education or anything becoming less awful, while most of the cool people around at the time were exiled locked in deep dark cages or straight up assassinated by feds.

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- nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  who is the Nazi that was almost president instead of FDR?
  
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  - melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    lindberg; guy who famously killed his own baby. apparently pretty good at planes.
    
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Bruncvik@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

Isaac Asimov, 1980

There were people warning against the glorification of ignorance in the US nearly half a century ago. It’s nothing new; it just reached critical mass (also thanks to social media where ignorant people can self-organise).
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- bradinutah@thelemmy.club ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Excellent point about the ignorance. I would also add ingratitude. People look to whiners like the Donvict and think that complaining about first world problems is a legit reason to destroy founding principles like integrity, justice, and separation of powers. Americans have it good overall and they spoil themselves with greed. Thanksgiving to them is about football and cryptocurrency commercials and not enough about actually giving thanks, giving back, selflessness, service, kindness, empathy, and goodwill. Add a drop of ignorance and social media brainwashing and you get a nation with too many zombie mooks wearing red hats that turn out to vote. Easily conned, they ignorantly vote against their own interests. Bernie Sanders and AOC have been showing that there’s a better way to solve problems and to work for every American. But it takes gratitude, selflessness, and work, not lazy golfing and whining.
  
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- dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Unsolicited advice, but you have to escape your - to make it not create a bulleted list.
  
  Lemmy uses markdown for its formatting, and this means - is has special meaning, it is syntax used to create bulleted lists with.
  
  For example,
  
  - Isaac Asimov will look like:
  
  Isaac Asimov
  
  If you want it to look like
  
  - Isaac Asimov
  
  you have to escape the - character with a \:
  
  \- Isaac Asimov
  
  The \ basically says “ignore the special syntax meaning of - as starting a bulleted list, and instead treat it as a literal -”.
  
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Montreal_Metro@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They were pretty stupid back in the 90s and got worst over time. Obviously this is a generalization as there are some non-stupids too but judging by the election results they seem to be the minority.

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hihi24522@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I grew up in a small Utah town. The only four adults I ever remember hearing admit they were wrong especially when it came to politics or science or religion were my father and three of my high school teachers.

All the rest would literally tell me that the research papers and encyclopedias I tried to cite as evidence were made up by either satan or some government deep state conspiracy. Or they’d say we can “agree to disagree” about shit like animals feeling pain and the flaws in eugenics (I wish I was joking)

Yes, they have always been this stupid. Learning requires accepting when you’re wrong and the vast majority of people I knew growing up saw that as weakness.

I thought it would be different when I got out of that place, and while living in a larger city is better, it’s not better by all that much.

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- HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  You forgot Satan. They also like to blame anything bad on Satan’s apparently limitless power and also Satan being so unbusy that they’d devoted time and energy into stealing your shoes.
  
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  - MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    They literally mentioned that.
    
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- Xttweaponttx@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Grew up in southern Idaho. Yeah that’s pretty much what I experienced growing up, too!
  
  Wasn’t just admitting wrongness that was seen as weakness, though - honestly I came to find that most empathetic, society benefitting behaviors are spun and contorted into a weakness.
  
  Ironic to me that, at least thru my eyes, spinning stuff like that into a “weakness” indicates to me that they’re avoiding the work they’d need to put in to be better… Which, is the real weakness here!
  
  I think a significant portion of the problems in the US stems from a lack of willingness to work on themselves, aiming to minimize their impact on those around them (and thus themselves, through societal proxy). On the contrary, people install loud ‘mufflers’ to show they don’t give a fuck. Or leave carts outside the corral. Or scream at fast food workers, display flagrant racism, refuse to wear COVID masks - whatever.
  
  Good ol Golden Rule really would solve it all, I think.
  
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DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Are we more stupid than we used to be? Yeah. But I’d use the word ignorant instead. It’s a bit more accurate. Ignorance is chosen, and that’s what our current epidemic of stupidity is. Chosen.

There have always been a lot of ignorant people, but now, with social media, those people have platforms to infect others with their ignorance. Also, in my own lifetime, I’ve witnessed a shift from ignorant people still being able to set aside partisan politics to condemn obviously bad actors or decisions to 100% doubling down on partisan politics no matter how bad the person or action is.

I’ve definitely FELT this increase in willful ignorance over the course of my life living in this country. People in my own life choosing to believe things they absolutely would not have believed a couple decades ago. People not understanding super basic concepts.

I think there are other factors than just bad actors spreading ignorance on social media. I think a lot of it has to do with simple distractions. The modern world has so many. A lot of the people I know don’t even read books. Like, they simply don’t read. If I ask them what book they read last they have to concentrate because it was multiple years ago. That’s fucking crazy. Instead of picking up a book they’re watching Real Wives of Whatever. Getting involved in some wealthy person’s 1st world problems, instead of, you know, learning something.

We’re entering an age of concentrated ignorance and, unfortunately, that’s very unlikely to end anytime soon. And the stakes are higher than ever for something like that to happen because we possess greater power to decimate this planet than we used to. Through pollution or braindead child-like politicians who can wage war or launch nukes.

It takes a lot less effort to allow things to keep going the way they are than it does to turn things around and responsibly educate the masses. So we’re probably going to continue spiraling.

Things are going to get dark. Our quality of life will decline.

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drmoose@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
As a westerner who lived in Asia for the past 2 decades I have unusual take on this.

Americans generally aren’t more stupid than anyone else but they have no face saving culture which acts as a useful bottleneck on social and information exchanges. Because of this Americans can easily subscribe and announce their beliefs even if theyre low effort conspiracies because they are not afraid of losing face for believing in something stupid.

Combined that with information flow that is too fast for most to even comprehend let alone keep up with means that Americans are quick to believe lies and don’t feel punished for doing so.

This is very different in face saving cultures like Asia where if you say or do something stupid you’ll have strong social consequences and even spiritual/religious ones if you’re a Buddhist.

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- Condiment2085@lemm.ee ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Wow you putting it like that:
  
  TL;DR: Americans are stupid because they are shameless
  
  That’s literally it. You are so right.
  
  I cannot count the amount of times that “annoying uncle/dad” is spewing racist/sexist/uneducated bullshit and everyone in the family feels like they just have to let them say it.
  
  We really need to normalize pointing out stupid pov’s with harmful consequences.
  
  This also reminds me of the common experience in the US of some random white dude with a megaphone screaming “Jesus saves blablabla” in public places. Why the fuck do we deal with that shit?
  
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  - My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    “My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
    
    - Isaac Asimov
    
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- SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Maybe part of it is the whole “greatest country on earth” stuff as well. In other words, a lack of humility
  
  In the European countries I’ve lived in, pride like that wasn’t really encouraged. And if you’re too boastful or what not to the point of arrogance, you tend to get the stink eye
  
  And this applies to patriotism as well. Here in Norway for example, despite us having a stronger claim for stuff like “greatest country”, very few people, if any, really feel like being “proud” of one’s own country is something that one should be doing, or it being honorable at all. The best I see is that people enjoy living here and, if they see another Norwegian out there or Norway mentioned, they just get happy to see a fellow Norwegian, just because we are relatively small
  
  Honestly, most Norwegians I’ve met complain about Norway’s problems more often than not lmao, despite, all things considered, you can hardly find better countries to live in, except some other European ones depending on your own preferences
  
  There really is just, no culture of like, arrogance. Something that I feel like is very different to the US with its super heavy emphasis on individual capitalistic success
  
  Maybe that’s a large part of it as well. A consequence of American culture being so extremely individualistic
  
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- NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  The caveat here is why Europeans are a bit better than this?
  
  The European countries had their own wave of fascism and dictatorship in recent centuries. Some seem to have leaned from the experience.
  
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- starlinguk@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The Netherlands is tiny and has a right wing extremist government full of very, very stupid people. In fact, the Dutch version of The Onion sued the minister of foreign affairs because it’s impossible to distinguish between what she says and what they come up with.
  
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- czardestructo@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This comment hits hard. There are a lot of ignorant people in my life that spout idiotic stuff and I brush it off, I disengage. I could take the time to listen, converse and correct but I don’t. I disengage, I brush it off as just “Oh boy, there goes crazy Joe rambling again! But generally he’s a good guy so I’ll tolerate it”. I need to start taking the time to push back and correct people I care about so they understand people are judging them when stupid things are said. Thank you!
  
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  - coffeeisblack@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Something people are discussing but not enough is America and the world’s refusal to diagnose and medicate mental illness.
    
    Crazy Joe may just need meds.
    
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HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Yes, they’ve always been here. There has always been more stupid ignorant people than educated and intelligent people.

Previously, the stupid had no platform.

The fire hose of stupid shit we are inundated with nowadays used to only trickle through in person.

Someone would say something insanely stupid to you at the bar, at the grocery store, at the barber shop etc… and all we had to do was ignore them or tell them to shut up

Thanks to social media, now they’ve teamed up and have millions of followers.

The question ought to be, How are the the educated and intelligent going to rise above it?

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- abbadon420@lemm.ee ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Democracy might be the problem. You could put a threshold to vote in place, something to test that you know all the views from all the parties and the relevant topics. It’s a slippery slope though, because once you enable restrictions on voting, it’s hard to disable it again. If you accidentally get a Trump in power, he might just as easily restrict voting back to cis, white males only.
  
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  - Condiment2085@lemm.ee ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I was wondering if a top age restriction could be good though. People use to not live so damn long that they could fuck over the future generation.
    
    Like shouldn’t people who will actually be alive to see the changes they are making make the decisions? Why are we letting people vote who are on their death bed, probably base their decisions on stuff from 50 years ago, and don’t really care about what the people who will actually live that reality will experience?
    
    Not sure what the cutoff should be. But if 17 year olds aren’t old enough to vote, maybe 60+ year olds aren’t young enough to vote?
    
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RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
We’ve spent multiple decades making sure our kids didn’t receive the best education and our government officials are complicit in fueling propaganda for pocket change.

There’s a reason we’ve been the worst first world country in everything that matters except school shootings for a while now

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Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Lead poisoning. Leaded gasoline started in the 1930s, but in the 50s and 60s we destroyed our public transportation and then destroyed millions of black homes to build highways through our cities. So leaded gasoline peaked in the 70s.

Oh, and boomers, who have the most lead brain damage, hold all the political power because they hold all the wealth.

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- leauxhigh@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Saying that boomers hold all the wealth is not correct, unless you’re including billionaires. Your comment is ageist and your blame is misplaced. Placing blame on any age group of ordinary people is both stupid and ignorant at the same time. You’re as brainwashed as those you are blaming.
  
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  - FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Perhaps they didn’t word it eloquently, but they’re not wrong.
    
    The elderly are the wealthiest and that affords them tremendous political power, seeing as how young people can’t afford to miss a day of work to vote.
    
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  - EightBitBlood@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You know those scam phone calls from India pretending to be Microsoft? They overwhelmly target the elderly, because their success rate with them is so high. The elderly are without question more gullible when it comes to being taken advantage of over the internet and social media.
    
    The elderly control every branch of our government. Their gulliblity is now something that lets all of us get taken advantage of - not just themselves. They are collectively buying MAGA Hats for the country because some guys on the internet told them it would make America Great. It’s clearly not, hasn’t, and is a scam, but now our entire country has to pay for it.
    
    Even the best, most well trained guards cannot provide protection if they are too old to lift a shield. Our entire government hasn’t been able to lift that shield in decades.
    
    Which explains why 9-11 was “Never Forget,” but Columbine is “Always Forget” for every school shooting that’s happened since '99.
    
    I was a Sophomore in highschool when Colombine happened, and now my kids get to see others their age die yearly in school shootings while President crime grandpa tells us it’s because of trans kids.
    
    It’s not boomers as a generation that’s the problem, it’s that generation is just now old to provide security. At worst, they are too proud to admit their age causes issues in their ability to lead and protect this country. But it unquestionably does.
    
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  - DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    Saying that boomers hold all the wealth is not correct
    
    They don’t hold ALL the wealth, but they do hold the most. And that allows them to contribute more to political campaigns and have an outsized effect on legislation.
    
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  - Coreidan@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Reddit/Lemmy has taught people to hate boomers. Doesn’t matter if their hate is accurate or not. They’ve been brainwashed to put all blame on boomers and call anyone they don’t like “boomer” as a “gotcha”.
    
    You are 100% right.
    
    In the end it’s turned into an identity for them.
    
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ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I think so yes (there is a stereotype about them for good reason after all), but I think things are trending in an extremely concerning direction and things are going to get worse. I mean, they’re clearly trying to make younger Americans less intelligent, look at what they’re doing with the department of education.

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My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Yes. Image aphelis.net/…/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf

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Underwire@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I don’t know but check out the show All in the Family which was aired in the 70s. I don’t think they have exaggerated the character of Archie Bunker. I really think that there were many people like him during that era. And he is exactly like the pro Trump that we are seeing right now.

I remember him saying in one episode “Nixon is intelligent as he knows how to avoid paying taxes”. That argument comes up from pro Trump people.

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NeilBru@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I moved to the Netherlands from the U.S. in July of 2022.

My opinion now? There are morons everywhere. I think more, per capita, back in the U.S. of A.

The world is a circus, but in the U.S., you have front row seats.

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