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
Seems fair to me!
Peace,
mangeorge
Monty said :
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
“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.
“There will always be somebody who’s never read a book who’ll know twice what you know.” - D.Duchovny
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.