# Why are Americans...what's the technical term...dumb as shit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 11, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-whats-the-technical-term-dumb-as-shit/643756 "2012-12-11T22:10:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 37
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-whats-the-technical-term-dumb-as-shit/643756/37 "2012-12-12T15:00:20Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > We do lag in some serious issues, usually regarding the social safety net (family/medical leave, universal health care) and investments in the people (affordable education, working public transit, taking climate change seriously, etc). Why we do that, I don’t know. I’d guess religion. For whatever reason we are way more religious than other OECD nations. The fact that we as a country are so religious seems pretty dumb to me. I don’t think it’s so much religion as it is the American mythos of the industrious entrepreneur carving out a success through his own hard work. I think that’s a different attitude from Europeans who have more of an expectation that their government should take care of them. It’s an attitude that is a direct result of how our countries were formed. The US was basically a giant startup venture while the European countries evolved over thousands of years of rule by various empires and monarchs. Ergo Europeans don’t mind paying higher taxes for awesome rail service and universal health care while Americans think that if you can’t afford health care, you aren’t working hard enough. > [@Tiny anomalies/artifacts found on the ground in Apollo photos](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-anomalies-artifacts-found-on-the-ground-in-apollo-photos/76835/389): > > I’ve never been overseas, I have no idea what their media is like. When I was in Italy, it seemed like Sex and the City and Gilmore Girls were constantly on TV. Except they call ‘Gilmore Girls’ ‘Una Mamma per Amica’. > [@Shagnasty](#): > > There is no way the average American has an IQ of 170. 120 tops. [According to this it’s 98.](http://www.statisticbrain.com/countries-with-the-highest-lowest-average-iq/) IQ tests for a population are scored so that the mean is 100. I wouldn’t expect the average for any country to be much higher or lower. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-whats-the-technical-term-dumb-as-shit/643756)._