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Have Americans always been this stupid?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
654 points (92.2% liked)
No Stupid Questions
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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.
It's not uniquely an American problem. The American symptoms are quite a sight to beheld though.
So our technological progress has brutally outgrown our cultural one. I think you're right.
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.
I think the same thing happened in the beginning of the 20th century and partly is the reason for the two world wars which makes me afraid of the future seeing the global development of increasing tension and rearmament.
There was a time when computers were designed to grow our culture:
https://www.quora.com/Who-invented-the-modern-computer-look-and-feel/answer/Harri-K-Hiltunen
This is very insightful.