Smarter or Dumber?

I was just watching rise of the planet of the apes trailer and something came to mind. From what I got from watching the trailer is about some experiment done on a monkey that makes him smarter. The last movie I watched was Limitless, which is about a drug that makes people smarter.

I had came to a conclusion a while ago that humans had probably reached their maximum intelligence level by now. I look around me and only see people getting dumber, not smarter. I believe that without some kind of "alteration," things are probably not going to get any better.

What are you guys thoughts on this? Keep your minds open for other peoples opinions and don't get too passionate about it.

It's probably the failure of public education.

^ Agree. But I think Priss is more referring to brain capacity and usage rather than training or advancement.


This is part of the problem as well.

I believe the issue this movie and Limitless as well is getting at is, like you said, reaching a higher brain usage level. It is true that much of our brain capacity is unused and in some ways unattainable. As for the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, though, I think what you'll see is more a message about not messing around with nature, tinkering with intelligence, and the like. I personally think humans are fine the way they are and there is plenty of room for advancement and ingenuity. It then becomes a matter of educating people with the know how to get to those advancements. Anyways, it's an interesting topic, but probably more fictional than realistic...at least in this point in time.

So in other words, you guys think it is mainly because of how the media is controlled?

Media shouldn't be a problem, just watch FOX News, they report news not garbage. If you want the latest on Lohan's crimes go watch CNN.

That aside, media does control quite a bit of what we think of our world. People need to take a break from watching tv, playing video games, posting on forums, watching youtube, etc. They need to get out there and read a book, take a class, go do something that isn't related to technology and open their minds. I'm not talking about smoking the weed or freeing your mind in the hippie sense, but rather in the intellectual sense. People need to go out and see what else there is in this world and what can be improved. If you just watch tv, you're not really contributing to society nor learning anything that important. Media, in many ways, is more hurtful than helpful.

I think that people could be smarter BUT whatever are their intentions nowdays, they've become truly lost.
Humans have reached a point where they have stopped evolving. They don't have reached the top of possible intelligence (because I strongly think it's limitless.) they're just blocked and can't go up.
They fear everything. They fear their own capacities, power and strength. And while they're fearing everything and everyone, they're always living in self-doubt and it prevents their self-improvement.
They have priority at the wrong places, they care about useless details and forget what's really important. Who cares about how much money you make, what happens in Justin Bieber's life, or whatsoever.

And heres something that people should consider:
Forget the idiotic and materialist crap. It doesn't even matters and simply make you look stupid.
Educate yourself a little, you'll look dumb if you have a very poor level of general knowledge
Teenagers, Stop speaking and writing like retards. And quit whinning about how crappy is your life.
(And I'm not trying to offend a special someone, just talking about generic teens.)
That's a few of the many reasons why humans sound dumb nowdays.

Humans in general have the potential to become way smarter than you can ever imagine. But they're lacking of will power. Will is everything. If I want to be smart, I'll be smart. If everybody wish, everybody will. That's simple as that.
People could be smarter, but they just don't want to.

That's my opinion, huh.

I think the "limitless source of information" that is the internet could be part of the problem instead of a means to increase the average user's intelligence. It is a great tool to further our collective knowledge as a species, but not so great for the individual. Why does anyone have to remember anything when they can just look it up real quick on the internet? You see it all over the internet, people asking stupid questions rather than just thinking about it for a moment.

Since internet access has become basically a de facto right in our society in the past decade, kids in schools get it ingrained in their heads over the years that what they are learning is useless when it is available just a few clicks away at anytime. I think education needs to change to get more people interested in learning. It's just a rush program. Remember this. Now write this test. Now, no need to remember that last stuff anymore, remember this. Now write this test. Schools are underfunded and don't do enough to encourage kids to learn on their own. They just pile on more homework and tests and take away things that would actually get kids interested in learning. I don't mean we need something like that awful "no child left behind" program that is thankfully finally being replaced in the US. No, kids need to be shown more often the practical uses of what they are learning and why it is fun to learn. More experiments and hands on learning for science classes, more field trips to historical museums for history, etc.

Parenting is also a problem. A lot of parents never do anything with their kids or even monitor what they are doing. There are 10 year olds and possibly younger who are just given an xbox subscription (or possibly a runescape subscription? ) and left with that as their baby sitter.

Anyone who hasn't seen the movie "Idiocracy" might find it interesting. It deals with the subject of this topic of people in the future being a lot dumber, or how dumb people already are now depending on how you look at it.

I do believe the education in the US has gone to hell. Schools need to have a plan on what to teach, not teach to a test (like Mike said). Schools have gotten rid of their music and art classes. Kids need this classes. Not only it helps develop new abilities, but it is also fun. Nowadays a child goes to school to be in textbook for 5+ hours. This is not good. We are loosing in our children's creativity, which is greatly developed at a young age.



The firsts one to be cut should be the government itself, but of course... no... they cant touch that. (a bit off topic) Obama was also talking about cutting from our soldiers salaries. What is wrong with him? Soldiers risks their lives for the country, while he sits in a chair and tells people what to do.