What to do with "dumb" people?

Who says the U.S. is the "brains" of the world?

Have you seen the disparity between U.S. high-school test scores and those of Western Europe and Japan?

I've got news for you, Dave...we are a nation of Gumps!

I hear McD's is hiring.

While as a whole, we may be becoming a white collar nation, there are still plenty of spots in our economy for the Forrest Gumps of our nation. While "feeding the cattle, driving a tractor, mucking out the pens, etc." may not be as common jobs as they were in the past, they still exist.

And as a personal aside, I'll admit I've done all three as a living.

Are you referring to people who lack education or common sense? Those who lack education can do well in the business world (Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, ...). Those who lack common sense make good school teachers/professors.

"Those who can do, do. Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach PE" --Woody Allen

Well, you know what "Bob" Dobbs says:

"You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half the people out there are even DUMBER."

I worked for a woman who's son had an IQ of 70. Big lummox of a kid that grunted all his responses. By the age of 12 they gave up on him in school and did nothing to encourage him at all. Everyone at work figured him to be the next high school shooter or a future postal employee. He is really not that bright and none of us liked him, but we did feel very sorry for him because his parents have written him off already.

I asked him mom one day ( very diplomatically, which is hard for me at times, especially the closer I am to the subject.) if she had considered taking/sending little Johnnie to some kind of vocational schooling because kids that are not good in books are usually pretty good with their hands. The LOOK she gave me was as if I had grown two heads . " I don't want my son doing blue collar work." I lost my patience with her and said, " Well, he's failing all his classes and you ignore him all the time. So you better get use to him living on the couch because that is all he going to do until you and your husband die and then he'll live in a box in the gutter." THAT got her attention and she was cheezed with me ..well...she probably still is. But all the coworkers, including her parents (the boy's grandparents) applauded me for saying what they couldn't. Last I heard he was 17, a sophomore and failed all her Special Ed classes. When he goes postal, I will be there at the police station stating it was his parents fault.

I also wanted to put my two bits in on how I think this country will be in twenty-50 years with the blue collar field.

Because everything is so high tech and will continue to climb upwards in that department, I see a rapid decline in the blue collar jobs because they are undesirable and hard phsycial work. But in 20 years or so, because you have a generation raised by single mothers who don't know how to do a thing (repair wise) around the house or by parents who just hired some guy down the street to fix what was broken, and because we are such a disposable society, I see an entire generation in a couple of decades being totally useless in the home fix it department. So few fathers interact with their kids today and passing down how to work with tools and repair things is truly a dying thing. Because most of these fathers never did such things with their dads.

Our son will learn how to use tools. He will learn how to use computers and fix a car (which is more complicated than brain surgery.) My hsuband spent most of his free time with his dad on the construction sight and I am constantly amazed at his ability to fix and repair anything. I will bet you in 20-30 years that those who are good with their hands and can apply practical knowledge and who are not afraid of hard physical labor will never be out of work and they will probably make more money because it will be an in-demand job.



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People change not because they see the light but because they feel the heat.

Shirley, I've got to agree with you! My dad made sure I knew how to fix the basics on my house and my car. No sense in getting swindled by mechanics or contractors.

Many (not all) kids now a days are completely put out if you ask them to do any kind of physical labor. It's like they expect you to pay them for showing up and looking good. Is this just cause I'm dealing with a new generation (not mine) or is this truly something others have noticed?

By the way, Shirl, love your sig.

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...it has never been my way to bother much about things which you can't cure.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court-Mark Twain

This question seems vaguely familiar. Didn't some guy with a toothbrush mustache go over all this stuff back in the 1940's?

Have you seen the disparity between U.S. high-school test scores and those of Western Europe and Japan?

And yet what do those same Europeans, Asians and Indians do after high school? That's right--they come to the United States to attend our colleges and get jobs here! So our education system is doing something right.

pldennison: except the reason they're able to get jobs here is because there's a shortage of Americans qualified for the jobs.

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Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.

Bill Maher said, and I quote: "The problem is that nowadays, the stupid people aren't being eaten by bears."

Makes you think...

But speaking to the employment issues, the U.S. nowadays is in a state of underemployment, meaning that many people hold jobs they are underqualified for, and that traditional bastions of the stupid (fast food jobs, assembly line jobs, etc.) are having to raise wages and benefits to compete.

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Jason R Remy

"And it could be safely said that at that moment, in the whole of India, no one, absolutely no one, was f^(king a goat."
-- John Irving A Son of the Circus (1994)

Shirley, I applaud you and your husband for having your son learn practical skills and get an education.

I wonder how many of the self-proclaimed brainiacs who ponder the disposition of "dumb people" have to go to one of them to change their brakes or fix their furnace or install a new electrical outlet or landscape their lawn or . . .

Yes, Nickrz, you hit exactly what I meant. Let's decide who's dumb and ship them off to a concentration camp.

OF COURSE I DIDN'T MEAN THAT!!

Jeeeezzz, Nick, as a moderator, I would expect you to actually respond to what I said and not just what you might have a first impression of from the subject line.

My question was not whether to kill these people off, but what is to be "done" with them in the sense that I worry for them.

This guy I mentioned, he stayed with me and my two roommates, on the couch, for about a month and a half, and he never did much of anything. I had a good talk with another guy in the church who did the same thing for about four months, and also had stuff stolen (Aaarrgghh!), and he had a salient point. He said that J. (the guy) refuses to admit to himself that he's a bit different than many of the people his age (26) that he tends to hang around, and that he's not going to get that job that more matches the ones he knows others have.

Because he will not fit into his niche, he continues to have problems keeping a job longer than a month. Although, even jobs that I'd think he could do keep being being beyond his ability to keep. All I can think of is something like putting candy in gift boxes or something. And I feel sorry for him in that respect. But WHEN HE STEALS FROM ME... Whew.

OK, J. in particular has other problems too. but my question is, in a society that seems more and more to demand at least average type intelligence in the workplace, what are those who sadly fall short to do?

Dave - I think you seriously underestimate the need for unskilled labor in this country. Jobs that demand very little skill or inteligence are so plentiful in the USA that hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers illegally enter the country every year! And they come here from places with non-technology based economies.

Come on, everyone here has read the Hitchhiker's Trilogy and remembers about the people who shipped off their "undesirables" (telephone sanitizers and such) only to eventually die from a disease spread by telephones! I don't think undesirable jobs are going to go away. I mean, there's a reason it costs $50 an hour to have someone come unclog your toilet -- you don't know how and no one else wants to!

Re: Dumb people. Who is the comedian who said that all stupid people should have to wear a sign so the rest of us would be forewarned and save a lot of time? His tag line is "Here's your sign."

Bill Engvall.

I saw him in Twin Lakes on Saturday.

OK, now that I've got your attention...

But really, my point is about those who live on the down side of the intelligence bell curve. A good bit down.

There's a guy at church, and it's obvious to everyone I know that he isn't going to invent a new rocket. And he keeps getting fired. That may or may not have something to do with his knee jerk defense of lying about anything that makes him feel threatened.

But... the point is, in times of old, say 50-60 years ago, a greater percentage of the country was living in rural areas, and a greater percentage was able to make a living of some sort with their backs, not their brains.

With America becoming the "brains" of the world, were we supply the designs and engineering, and say, Malaysia provides the labor, how are people that would have lived off feeding the cattle, driving a tractor, mucking out the pens, etc., supposed to survive in an American urban environment, where even the assembly line worker is supposed to be handling invoices and managing just-in-time delivery of parts?

In short, where is Forest Gump *really* going to work these days, and I'm not hopeful that this guy falls bass ackwards into money like FG.

Any ideas or philosophizing?

Luckily, Ameica is still (relatively) a free market. If you have a large group of dumb people or people without other jobskills such as the homeless, newly released criminals, etc. simply cater to that niche as an employment agency and make money as a middle man. Check out www.laborready.com.

I don't know. Have you seen what painters, plumbers, welders, masons, carpenters, and mechanics make? I've got a college degree and I've never made close to that kind of money! For that matter, I know a couple of street sweepers who make more than I do now.
(I'm an A&D counselor)

"There is no lifeguard at the gene pool."

Cheese Head: There's no such thing as "Common Sense." Check with Mark Twain for verification.

[quote]

I don't know. Have you seen what painters, plumbers, welders, masons, carpenters, and mechanics make? I've got a college degree and I've never made close to that kind of money! For that matter, I know a couple of street sweepers who make more than I do now.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Obviously a college degree does not make you intelligent, or you would have learned that say plumbing pays better than whining.

Dave? You asked for "ideas." I had the idea your question resembled those the Nazis asked before and during WWII.

Hitler and his cronies first posed those questions "innocently," just as you did - my pointing out the resemblance was completely justified. So please do not ask for ideas if you only want to hear the ones you like.

"I've got a college degree and I've never made close to that kind of money!"
---TennHippie
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Seems fair to me!
Peace,
mangeorge

Monty said : There is no such thing as common sense...etc

If I ever wanted to write a self help book, the title of it would be "The Death of Common Sense." I'm sure it would make it in the Oprah Book of the Whatever Club, much to my check book accounts delight.

To deal with the "america is the brains of the world" bit, while this is a major exagerration...it's also somewhat true. I live and teach in asia, and while kids here can do math problems and memorize like you wouldn't believe, the truth is that in regards to critical thinking skills, social savvy, logic and creativity, most students here are waaaaay behind US or western European students. This is not racial, but the result of an ingrained educational system that has existed for centuries. Nearly everybody here--parents, teachers, students, govt-- agrees the the systen needs reform--to be more "American" (in their words)-- but it's a slow process.


And for what its worth, I agree that there will always be a place for slower people, provided they can accept those places. I think the people who have it toughest are the ones >almost< smart enough for college etc. They have it tough. My friend's brother's borderline retarded, and works at a burger barn, and really doesn't feel like he's missing anything (and who's to say he's not right).

Does anyone know if IQ scores are rising due to nutrition, etc?

Sorry Dave..I agree with Nickrx..thought you were looking for a caste system.
As TennHippie, PDL and others have pointed out...there are plenty of places for people with lower IQ's than others. In my work with children and adolescents and I have seen countless cases of parents and kids who could not write a complete sentence (much less diagram one), and yet they benefit you urban folks everyday. I wouldn't be too quick to discount the roll of truckers, cattle ranchers, farmers, loggers, (or any of their hired hands). Book smart does not necessarily = usefulness anymore than wealth = success.
When my son was 14 his best friend was shot in the head (accidently). After an extended coma, 3 months of residential rehab/therapy and 2 years of physical/speech therapy as well as "reprogramming" his thinking and communication skills; today (they are now 21), he still has no use of his left arm/hand (& he was left handed), impaired use of his left leg and various mental impairments. He is quite proficient on the computer, he attends college, he can work on his own car, he has held jobs in the logging industry, road maintenence (though he finds this boring) and construction. These things are all huge struggles for him and he depends a great deal on support from family and friends. From the day he woke from his coma we all worked on moving him forward. And we have never done "for" him, without constant urging for him to help himself. It sounds like your friend has a lot of other problems. He must have exhibit some potential or employers would not hire him in the first place. Remember, there are wealthy, well educated, people everywhere that don't or won't hold a job either. "Dumb" may not be his biggest problem.

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Lew
"Man, the 60's must have been real good for you!"
George Carlin..."Outrageous Fortune"

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore"
Dorothy..."The Wizard of Oz"

[[If I ever wanted to write a self help book, the title of it would be "The Death of Common Sense." I'm sure it would make it in the Oprah Book of the Whatever Club, much to my check book accounts delight.]] ShirleyUJest

I hate to break it to you, Shirl, but a guy named Phillip K. Howard beat you to the punch not long ago. It's not a self-help bok, though -- it appears to be a mediocre polemic about the legal system.

EvilGhandi said:
<Have you seen what painters, plumbers, welders, masons, carpenters, and mechanics make? I've got a college degree and I've never made close to that kind of money!>

I just wanted to mention that all of these posistions call for a resonably intelligent person---someone that can do math, run a small business, and/or has had some form of advanced training (either in a classroom or in some sort of on the job program). Never think a carpenter is stupid. The original question was about a very different type of person--the slow and under-motivated. I think everyone has at some point worked with someone who could not or would not learn to do the simple tasks asked of them. I myself worked with a women who in three months never really learned how to use a numerical fileing system. There is always the question of whether this is a lack of ability or a lack of will, but the issue remains--how are people like that to obtain food, shelter, and clothing? Yes, there are still jobs for these people, but less than there used to be.
To compare, my boyfriend has a degenerative bone disease. He would be well nigh useless in a pre-industrial agricultral society. Their is no way on earth he could plow a field or clean a stable. But he makes a very competent libraian and in fact could fill any number of cerebally oriented modern jobs--jobs that did not exisit in any signifigant number prior to the industrial revolution ago. This same shift has benefitted all the phyically handicapped. However, it is inevitably hurting the mentally less able. I think the solution is that society will have to do for those who cannot keep up in the modern age what society did for those who could not keep up with the pre-industrial age--support them.

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At least our glorious leaders are taking action.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3324/noabilities.html

(Added url codes - Nick)


[Note: This message has been edited by Nickrz]

Douglas Adams handled this topic pretty well in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For those of you who don't know this, I'll sum it up briefly, from memory:

Scientists on some distant planet determined that their sun was going supernova and decided to evacuate the planet. They arranged people in order of intelligence and sent off the bottom third first. These were people with meanial jobs like public telephone sanitizers and the like. At this point, the remaining two thirds decided to stay because the whole thing had been a hoax. They lived in relative happiness until they were wiped out by a diesase that was spread through the public telephones. As for the least intelligent third, they wound up landing on, and populating, a distant planet which we now call Earth.

Phil--

Bravo!! You COULD be my new idol! (Today, at least).

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Lew
"Man, the 60's must have been real good for you!"
George Carlin..."Outrageous Fortune"

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore"
Dorothy..."The Wizard of Oz"

Back to the original question (anybody remember it?) A bell curve has two sides. Being on the left side myself, I have managed to keep my family fed & clothed. Do we believe that the Space Shuttle is built by computers & robots? It takes many, many of us "left siders" to get them built & off the ground. Computers are only a concept without us "wrong-siders" to do the actual construction. We also drive the trucks that deliver the computer & shuttle parts. Are observitories, laboritories, factories & airports built by thoes who concieve them? No! We will be needed for a long time, prehaps, always....Lefty

Well, I finally got back here.

Carl, I would think that your post may indicate that you're not on the "left side." And I'm not trying to say that blue collar workers are there automatically either. My roommate is an audio/video installer, which could be catagorized as blue collar. Lots of crawling through attics.

But...
He knows an awful lot about the equipment, and recently built his own loudspeakers, matching components. The point being that working physically doesn't mean at all that you don't have any brains. I find it amazing what some people know about some systems.

I do agree that J's major problem isn't really the smarts thing, although that may be a big part of it. I think that he doesn't have the motivation to do what he can toward getting some real training in something.

Really, it's not the "dumb" thing. It's that he has enough of an aspiration toward getting a "respectable" job that it clashes with his refusal to do much to accomplish that goal. And I think it would be genuine hard work for him, especially as I don't think he's been trying to train his mind over the past few years.

So, I suppose this isn't really about intelligence exactly, but about a white guy in America that wants to live as he sees his acqaintances, but who doesn't have many of the God-given skills, and even more unfortunately, enough of the motivation, to make it happen.

I still think this wouldn't have been such a problem maybe 100 years ago, when so much of the labor was physical, and seen as more "respectable," because there wasn't so much of an opportunity to do otherwise.

In the end, it's just sad.


And........
I just went back and read my original post, and I really don't see the indications of a caste system. How about trying to assume the best instead of the worst? I mean, Nick, what else would be worse to assume? We usually use Nazis as the worst possible example of what someone could be, and based on one post, you go and imply that someone is one? I mean, what if I said something really offensive? Where else do you have to go? I'm sorry, but I'm a bit offended. Nazi implications are things that should have to be proved a lot more than that.

or landscape their lawn or . . .

That is something EVERYONE should learn. Why hire a contractor when you can do it yourself? I've prettymuch done the landscaping here at my parents home. Anyway, there is also a segment of the population who may be book smart, but they're dumb as hell socially. A lot of the "top ten" in my High School were like that. And of course you dont need a College Degree to make money. My friend Will works on cars, and after he graduated, he was hired at his cousins shop where they put together racing cars. He gets paid pretty well also. However, if you dont have skills like that, a college degree is better than nothing.

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"Let me show you something
that you've never seen before
like a light im gonna shine on you
forever is a word i dont often get to say
but if you say it loud enough i'll say it too"

Dave - I'm sorry if you were offended.

I did not seek to compare you to a Nazi, I compared your question to one the Nazis asked before and during WWII.

Just the thought that something should be "done with" "dumb people" set off alarm bells in my head. Perhaps my age has me in closer proximity to the horrors of that era, but for that I cannot apologize.

Lumping people into a "dumb" category has inescapable negative connotations for me. Your intentions for "special treatment" (my quotes) may be all well and good, but just the fact you are perhaps setting yourself as judge for who fits this classification says to me you are operating on a stereotype.

I did not phrase the question, you did. My answer stands on its own merits.

furt asks:

> Does anyone know if IQ scores are rising
> due to nutrition, etc?

I.Q. scores are definitely rising. This is called the Flynn effect. It was discovered by James R. Flynn, a New Zealand researcher, in the early '80's. He looked at I.Q. tests in many different countries and he found that average I.Q.'s have been rising by about 3 points per decade.

(O.K., the average I.Q. is by definition 100. The tests are regularly renormed to make that the case. More precisely then, if you were to take a test that was normed 10 years ago so that children of a given age scored 100 on average, children of that age now will score 103 on average.)

This effect has been subsequently checked and verified by other researchers. Many of them were sceptical at first because it contradicted their expectations. They thought that the average I.Q. would be unchanging.

No one knows why the Flynn effect works. It seems to be astonishingly consistent during the whole time that I.Q. tests have been used and in all the countries where they have been given to most children. All the reasons proposed have flaws.

It's been suggested that better nutrition is causing the increase. Experiments have shown though that improved nutrition could only have caused a small part of the increase.

If the increase is caused by cultural changes, why is it that the areas of I.Q. affected most by culture are actually the places where the increase is the least? For instance, there have been larger increases in spacial manipulation tests (supposedly not affected by culture) than in vocabulary tests (supposedly heavily affected by culture). It may be that we don't know what kinds of questions really are affected by culture.

It's been suggested that the effect is caused by the fact that people are more adept now at taking tests. Experiments have been done to check this, and it doesn't seem to be correct.

The Flynn effect has consequences that don't make sense. It would mean that in the '20's, when I.Q. testing on a large scale started, the average I.Q. was around 80, low normal by today's standard, just a little better than borderline mentally retarded.

I'm a dairy farmer with a B.S. in Business Economics. It seems that a lot of 'city folk' are coming out to the country and starting 'farms', most of us call them hobby or retirement farms. I tend to agree that book and street smarts are two totally different things and these new hobby farmers tend to confirm my theorys. Exceedingly interesting if you're talking about the latest lit in the book store but stand next to them when their cow is having a calf and you might as well call them a therapist before they totally freak.

Dave, I'm going to jump to your "in short" question at the end of your original post here and respond.

"Where is Forest Gump *really* going to work these days..."

Anywhere he wants, including a chawklit facktry, a shrimp boat, etc. And if you think those won't be around forever, or will be manned by robots or people only with PhD's....think again.

The idea that these jobs are becoming fewer and fewer is ludicrous as mentioned by others in this topic line.

As far as the "dumb" ones accepting their lot in life...geeze! Should that be the roll call now? ACCEPT what you've got and strive NOT for more? If that were the case, shouldn't we all be living in caves?

Finally, there will always be people (no matter how "dumb" or "smart") who would prefer others to *do* for them. What you decide to do with them is your own personal choice. Categorizing them as "dumb" makes me wonder who the really dumb one is.

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"There will always be somebody who's never read a book who'll know twice what you know." - D.Duchovny

"Finally, there will always be people (no matter how "dumb" or "smart") who would prefer others to *do* for them."
=================================

Mazey, I think that is exactly what I said. I have admitted, twice, that what the problem is in this particular case is not really the lack or not of smarts, but more a lack of motivation to make the best of what is there. Whatever that best is for J., it certainly is not being reached. There are all sorts of factors in his background that contribute to this problem.

It's also true that if he were of over-average intelligence, they might not be screwing up his life so badly, just for the simple fact that maybe he wouldn't need as much discipline to get the skills he wants to find the positions in life that he wants.

What I keep thinking is getting lost here is that I *did not* start all this to say that we need to do something *to* people like J., but that it is harder these days, atleast in Orange County, CA, where all the white people seem to have white collar jobs, or something that involves thorough understanding of say, elevators and everything about them, for someone with all these accumulated setbacks to get where he wants.

Ok, final summary:
J. has less than average intelligence. He may or not really realize that. His lack is not what is the overriding problem. It's a lack of discipline and honesty that keep sabotaging his occasional efforts. I keep thinking that he's looking for something spectacular to fall into his lap, without him having to go back to school, apprentice a trade, or something that involves a lot of dedicated effort.
So, would it help if I admitted that I misstated the problem initially? Although at this point I'm beginning to despair of everyone trying to get my actual point.

I see a rapid decline in the blue collar jobs because they are undesirable and hard phsycial work Pure poppycock. Thank high school counselors and college recruiters for this sort of thinking.

I walked out of my second year of college and got a job in the industrial sector back in 1973. I was immediately making more dough than my microbiology professor who had a PhD, and I have never looked back.

Sure, I worked hard, but I never had to put in more than 10 hours a day, or take work home to finish on my own time. I never wore a beeper or answered to a fax machine. I did not have to wear a tie or suck up to any mucky-mucky in the interest of politics.

Today, I use computers to program other computers that control machines costing upwards of half a million dollars apiece, and I'm in the top 25% of all wage earners in the U.S. Sometimes I sit on my ass and read for 5 or 6 hours a night. Hard work?
Uh-huh.

I've laughed a thousand times at the pitiful wages offered to college grads in just about any field you can name, and most professionals would kill to make the dough I do and have the job security I have.

Just call me blue-collar and proud of it. I'm kinda glad the rest of the working world does not have a clue.

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor and really short guy Robert Reich has written what I consider a modern masterpiece on this exact problem (which could be summed up as "so then who pumps the gas?") The book is The Work of Nations. It was the only book I have read in college that I thoroughly enjoyed, outside of English classes.

For all the failings of the U.S. public school system, it's colleges and universities are without peer. The problem is, a lot of social groups are still having a hard time getting into them. So, as we export all the dirty work to 3rd world countries, these people that didn't go to college may be left behind.

The solution, in my opinion, is two-fold: One, reduce the numbers of these people and two, make sure we keep enough jobs around for them. Given the growth of the service and retail industries, and the constant urbanization of the country, the second part shouldn't be too difficult. It's the first part that concerns me.