American kids, dumber than dirt, The next generation = biggest idiots in US history

CptStern said:
..and promotions are almost always performance based ..your work peers usually have the same education you do, at that point school doesnt matter
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Not necessarily. In fact more often than not I've seen that be the opposite; people passed up for promotions because they lack a degree, no matter what their performance. It's one of the reasons top businesses will send you back to college.

It's a matter of stature more than performance. Degrees = professionalism and knowledge in the field. Book knowledge. Even if someone has more applied knowledge than you, seniority on the job, if you have a higher education than them you WILL rise faster than them.
 
Darkside55 said:
Not necessarily. In fact more often than not I've seen that be the opposite; people passed up for promotions because they lack a degree, no matter what their performance.
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that's why I mentioned "your work peers usually have the same education you do" ..they're not your peers if you dont have the same base level of education ..at least relative to those applying for a job ..someone without a phd in a particular field will not ally to a job that asks for a phd


Darkside55 said:
It's one of the reasons top businesses will send you back to college.
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usually it's because they want you to speacialise not to give you a degree

Darkside55 said:
It's a matter of stature more than performance.
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depending on the size of the business ..performance records almost always counts for more than senority ..unless it's the deciding factor

Darkside55 said:
Degrees = professionalism and knowledge in the field. Book knowledge. Even if someone has more applied knowledge than you, seniority on the job, if you have a higher education than them you WILL rise faster than them.
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not neccessarily ..if it's the difference between having a degree and not having one, well sure that's obvious ..but like I've mentioned above; people do not apply to jobs they're not qualified for ..not if it's out of reach like asking for a masters or a phd or even a BA
 
stern why do you spend so much time browsing the internet for articles about "things wrong with America" just to post it on hl2.net?
 
I say chain them in chairs and slash them whit a whip when they don learn something
 
B.Calhoun said:
stern why do you spend so much time browsing the internet for articles about "things wrong with America" just to post it on hl2.net?
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So that he can find articles about "things wrong with America" and post them on hl2.net.
 
B.Calhoun said:
stern why do you spend so much time browsing the internet for articles about "things wrong with America" just to post it on hl2.net?
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I dont browse, I stumble upon as i'm reading the shacknews chat thread ..visit any of the chat threads on any given day and you'll find most of the stories I post (like this one) ..besides that gametab is my only other source ..really i dont spend time researching or browsing
 
i say we make New England a country, then I dont have to worry
 
Yeah, I do detect a lot of the "get off my lawn you damn kids" syndrome in the original article myself. The American IQ (along with pretty much the rest of the world's) has been trending upwards since the invention of the test, so that should cast some doubt on his conclusion right away. (Yeah, IQ test isn't perfect, but its not bad bell-weather).

Kids today also engage in a whole lot of activities that are more complicated than anything their parents grew up doing, watching, playing, etc. They tend to be more widely aware of the world in my experience, although thats never been an American strong point. And they sure as heck are less violent than any other generation, violent crime rates among youth have been dropping for thirty years and continue to.

Final nail in the coffin for me was this:
But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.
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Forget about my friends, the people I knew, even just the average kid in my high school. I'm confident that every kid in the REMEDIAL class could have at least given him a definition, even if its not one he'd term "correct." A state law demanded that we take a basic civics course which covered material like that, and few people even bothered to attend anything but the testing sessions since it was considered so easy. I don't recall a single person failing either.
 
Darkside55 said:
the same way I don't go around bashing those silly Europeans for "colour," "armour," etc.
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It's called "English" and its been around before your "nation" even existed. Americans took English and raped it in the a** thanks to MTV and the illiteracy of americas youth.
I still can't comprehend how they mispell common everyday words. Your instead of you're, there instead of their and they're, tomarrow, moniter and other similar atrocities... English is one of the easiest languages around yet native american speakers somehow manage to f*** the spelling up all the time but that's a whole another story...
 
ZeeM said:
It's called "English" and its been around before your "nation" even existed. Americans took English and raped it in the a** thanks to MTV and the illiteracy of americas youth.
I still can't comprehend how they mispell common everyday words. Your instead of you're, there instead of their and they're, tomarrow, moniter and other similar atrocities... English is one of the easiest languages around yet native american speakers somehow manage to f*** the spelling up all the time but that's a whole another story...
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American interpretation of the English language and the subtle differences when it comes to such words as armor(armour), color(colour) is HARDLY something to get worked up over. "Raped in the ass" is a ridiculous thing to say.

Dialect(that's the key word people) among the english language differs greatly, just as it does to pretty much all languages the globe over.

Besides... isn't the English language just another Germanic language anyways? One that has gone over countless changes throughout it's history.
 
Don't get your knickers in a twist over bollocks like this, ZeeM.

:p
 
ZeeM said:
It's called "English" and its been around before your "nation" even existed. Americans took English and raped it in the a** thanks to MTV and the illiteracy of americas youth.
I still can't comprehend how they mispell common everyday words. Your instead of you're, there instead of their and they're, tomarrow, moniter and other similar atrocities... English is one of the easiest languages around yet native american speakers somehow manage to f*** the spelling up all the time but that's a whole another story...
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I take it you have never heard a British chav speak? Every language has its incompetent illiterate ****tards, misspelling words has absolutely nothing to do with Americans using English in the wrong way.
 
ZeeM said:
It's called "English" and its been around before your "nation" even existed. Americans took English and raped it in the a** thanks to MTV and the illiteracy of americas youth.
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My post was called "humor" (humour), which you didn't seem to "grasp." Before you get all "pissy" and "butthurt" over what I said, why don't you try actually "reading" between the "lines?"

It would "seem" I will have to purchase an "extra" sarcasm device "for someone else" on this "forum."

"Jesus."

"Christ."
 
I know places look to see things. "If he couldn't make it through something like High School, who's going to say they won't stay here?"

May not be true in cases to some people, it's just a generalized idea towards people.
 
Tyguy said:
i say we make New England a country, then I dont have to worry
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Until The Mid-Atlantic Republic decides to open up a can of police action on your ass. ;)

Oh, and I also support the re-institution of serfdom for all those deemed dumber than goldfish and absolutely useless.

Technocratic Feudalism ftw!
 
CptStern said:
dont shoot the messenger I didnt make up the thread title:



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/10/24/notes102407.DTL

interesting article ....so do you dumb dumbs think your generation is an idiot breeding ground just waiting to give us a new generation of slack jawed yokels and idiots who cant tie their own shoes? or do you see some hope at the end of the tunnel
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I agree with that article. I would know, I live in america, and the description fit the teens at my high school pretty well.

Our generation is rediculously arrogant too.

But I don't think our parents generation helped with this, a lot of them are **** ups.

Oh yeah, and the excessive amount of politically correctness within the past decade hasen't helped all this crap, now people use it as a shield whenever they are attacked in an arguement.

I know it will sound far fetched, but I think the whole emo fad was a perfect reflection of our generation. Why?
Because our generation is only concerned with their petty problems, and no matter how terrible the real world is, it's always "me, me, me, me"

Our generation doesn't do research with anything either. It's pretty pathetic how little they know.

You can't hold an intellectual discussion in a classroom either because either someone won't understand a "big word" or "big idea", or someone will become bored and start talking about MTV or some lame bull shit.


Yeah, our generation is going to be a **** up.
 
your blowing things out of proportion, theres just many bright kids with tons of potential in the US(and everywhere else for that matter)
 
I would say a large number of the current generation of kids are simply growing up without any concept of personal responsibility drilled into them, plus an entitlement attitude, and topped off with a light dusting of narcissism.

Emo kids, furries, goths, chavs, wannabe gangsters, weeaboos, I believe are all symptoms of this problem.

but hey, at least we aren't the grand part of africa, where every day looks like something out of Mad Max
 
Flyingdebris said:
Emo kids, goths, chavs, wannabe gangsters, I believe are all symptoms of this problem.
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Fixed. The other two were always around, and the sudden explosion of them is more a result of the internet and the increase of Asian culture influence than anything.
 
hah.

I don't think so. I think, yet again, it is the cynicism and disconnect of the older population with the younger one. Every generation thinks their kids are dumber than they were, and are headed into disaster. It's the same all the time.

If the competition to get into college is any indicator, I do not think that the US population is "dumbing down" in any way. If anything academia is becoming far more competitive, and it is only the dumb kid's visibility which has made them seem overwhelming. The media thrives on the stupidity of people, and for many adults, whose only exposure to young kids is the media, thinks the generation to be dumb. In fact, I would say that kids are of exactley the same intelligence of kids in the previous 10 generations, and it is only our access to education, technology and the media which has changed.
 
If people played more video games and read more books, rather than hanging out and taking drugs, I think we may have a better culture. I mean, there are many amazing games which have a deep storyline and teach a lesson. Books also open your mind to many a possibility.
 
I'm American, I ain't stupid! I'm edumacated! I can use a calculator! And we've got George Dubya Bush fer president. And we have huge, honkin', gas guzzling, American 4x4 SUV's Yee-haw!
 
Acepilotf14 said:
If people played more video games and read more books, rather than hanging out and taking drugs, I think we may have a better culture. I mean, there are many amazing games which have a deep storyline and teach a lesson. Books also open your mind to many a possibility.
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It's not fair to put much, or any, of the blame on drugs or alcohol. The use of them seems to be only a symptom of mass stupidity in high school kids. There are a number of people on this forum who drink and/or use drugs recreationally and quite often - Absinthe and Ennui are perhaps the most visible, and I could be lumped in there as well - who are definitely some of the smartest, nicest (well maybe not Absinthe :p), and most well-adjusted people I've come across in my entire life. Drug and alcohol use doesn't make someone stupid, but many stupid people use them.

And "hanging out" is a fundamental part of socializing, so it shouldn't be in there either.
 
I dunno. I've learned a whole lot of useless information at the university I go to. Yay, yay, differential equations!
 
I'm from America. I would have to say thats accurate, to an extent. America's education system just isn't there. I've been born and raised in a small Wisconsin town. When I look around my school, there is a small portion who are really smart and try hard. There are a small portion who are lazy, but naturally smart at math and science. However, there are many kids who wont try at math and suck at literature.

Furthermore, the kids who really try hard and go past the minimum required math credits needed to past high school don't actually understand math. They take notes constantly, and depend on them to do well. They don't understand why when I do f(x) + 1 and graph it, all points will be 1 unit higher on that graph than on graph f(x). Thats just how it is to them. Our education system is failing because of this. Some of the kids wont get past algebra, many wont get past geometry, many of those who do don't really comprehend what is being taught to them.

Also our education system is not a unified system. It's divided. Math and Science vs English. I'm a very bad english student. We get homework constantly. In a single day(and every day) I am notified of homework I have due the next day, and homework due next week. While in math we don't actually get that much homework, and it really isn't graded. Most of our math is based off of test scores. I'm smart and quick to comprehend. However, i'm not motivated by much. Competition and money are my motivations. What i'm trying to say is our English and Math classes are taught completely different from one another. Furthermore there are very very very very few kids in advanced english classes.

Another problem is that Americans are becoming LAZY. Our education system isn't build the same way they are in europe. Our education system is ment for us to get a basic understanding of everything, then in our last 2 years of high school we choose classes that we want to accel in and continue classes that push our basic understanding. The problem is that most of us Americans are lazy. Many of the kids in my school don't go in classes that push them. This is the problem. Kids are not being pushed to specialize in any one thing, and are taking the easy way out of high school.

Lets not even get started on bigger schools in cities like milwaukee.

Overall we are ****ed. Kids are getting lazy. College costs are rising. The kids our generation are going to be in an insane amount of debt by the time we get out of college. America is already in a massive debt due to "War on Terror". Damnit!! I wanna go to sweeden already!! For now though...hey Stern... hows Canada?



When it comes to lazyness, well around here lazyness is not that big of a problem. Most of the kids in my school are in some sport. However, I would have to agree that there is a trend growing where more and more kids spend less time outside. However there are far more adults who don't get enough time outside. Many many adults simply are to "busy" to get outside and do something that gives them a sweat everday. Yet they get home and watch hours of TV, stick to there computer, or something else. This spawns off to there children.
 
Although i agree alot of kids nowdays seem dumb, some of it isnt stupidity, it is mere lack of understanding and knowledge of things outside of their own environment shown to them, which is... the outside pretty much nowdays. when was the last time you had to identify plants? when was thel ast time you had to create a boat, or a trap to get your own food, or survive, or to create a shelter? such things have no good need in these times, and thus often ignored and pushed aside as irrelevant knowledge.

Why spend time fixing something when you can hire someone to do it, and during that time, you either relax, or work to make more money? its how the world revolves, its irreversible.
 
American kids are always picked on as the stupid ones. Great idea! Lets make a sweeping generalization and blow this way out of proportion. American kids are not stupid, kids in general are stupid. Every country has its intelligent people and its unintelligent people. I'll admit that I get sickened when I proofread a person's paper and it's filled with grammatical errors, non-academic tone, slang and misspellings, but it's not just American kids that do that. Almost all of my high school friends are in universities across the state of California, the rest of the country and even other countries. One went to Oxford, one went to Yale, and another went to Cornell. My high school was a public school as well. We had 16 valedictorians simply because their GPAs couldn't get any higher.

America's next generation isn't doomed to a life of ignorance as all these people from other countries seem to think. I'm sure you have completely stupid people in your countries as well. I don't appreciate being stereotyped as an idiot by others simply because I'm from America. If you come to this country, you'll find many intelligent people with interesting things to say who live successful lives. No country is perfect or has a population made up entirely of geniuses. Stop talking down on a country you've never been to and people you've never met.

theotherguy said:
If the competition to get into college is any indicator, I do not think that the US population is "dumbing down" in any way. If anything academia is becoming far more competitive, and it is only the dumb kid's visibility which has made them seem overwhelming. The media thrives on the stupidity of people, and for many adults, whose only exposure to young kids is the media, thinks the generation to be dumb. In fact, I would say that kids are of exactley the same intelligence of kids in the previous 10 generations, and it is only our access to education, technology and the media which has changed.
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I completely agree with you.
 
Cole said:
Also our education system is not a unified system. It's divided. Math and Science vs English. I'm a very bad english student. We get homework constantly. In a single day(and every day) I am notified of homework I have due the next day, and homework due next week. While in math we don't actually get that much homework, and it really isn't graded. Most of our math is based off of test scores. I'm smart and quick to comprehend. However, i'm not motivated by much. Competition and money are my motivations. What i'm trying to say is our English and Math classes are taught completely different from one another. Furthermore there are very very very very few kids in advanced english classes.
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See, this is actually a completely different approach than my high school took. So where you are, even from town to town, counts for a lot in the US. And we're not the only ones like that.
 
Fogeys whining about kids, stop the press. I'm the first to get in on the act when it comes to the slagging-off-dumb-americans malarkey, but I truly doubt this article is of itself indicative of any larger trend.

Teachers are often full of this self-important bullshit. 'I asked my class to define 'agriculture' today and not one of them could do it!' BS, I've been in countless classes when teachers have tried do stuff like that and acted like they were astounded at the stupidity of the class, when in actual fact the class was dumbfounded by the pointlessness of the material or hatred for the twat stood in front of them. In most cases the teacher would get perfectly satisfactory answers from several kids, but fail to understand what was said, or dismiss it because it wasn't the exact wording that the teacher sought, or because the kids who answered weren't teacher's favourites, or generally because the teacher is just too damn inflexible to cope with the varied input that you would get from a class full of distinct individuals. And that holds true of every one of the dozens of teachers I encountered on my trek through the English education system. Schools aren't palaces of learning, let's face it, at least not in the academic way. It's a place where you're supposed to get inculcated into patterns of conformity, and where, if you're lucky, you learn how to game the system of life.

Yeah, kids are getting dumber nowadays, yada yada... BLAME YOUR DAMN SELVES, geriatrics. The older generations are never quick to talk about how so many of them completely fail, nay, refuse to understand the importance of the internet, which is possibly mankind's greatest achievement as a race. Same goes for technology as a whole, digital media like video games, and so on and so forth... So yeah, wilful ignorance and laziness swings both ways. You can be ensconced in academia or off classifying types of beetles, yet still be just as lazy in your own way as someone who sits at their PC all day, if you're refusing to adapt to changing times.
 
I blame Reagan. Too much emphasis on drugs and not enough on education.

His greatest attempt at education reform was attempting to rid schools of drugs.

The importance of his contribution, or lack of it, is because his presidency lasted nearly the entirety of the 80's when many of us grew up and his lack of effort affected the schools in which we grew up to attend.
 
Dear America,

Please, for the love of your heathen God, hand the torch of world superpower to someone else, before it becomes too late for ALL of us.

Seriously, you're scaring us.


Yours hopefully,

World.
 
Moto-x_Pat said:
American kids are always picked on as the stupid ones. Great idea! Lets make a sweeping generalization and blow this way out of proportion. American kids are not stupid, kids in general are stupid. Every country has its intelligent people and its unintelligent people. I'll admit that I get sickened when I proofread a person's paper and it's filled with grammatical errors, non-academic tone, slang and misspellings, but it's not just American kids that do that. Almost all of my high school friends are in universities across the state of California, the rest of the country and even other countries. One went to Oxford, one went to Yale, and another went to Cornell. My high school was a public school as well. We had 16 valedictorians simply because their GPAs couldn't get any higher.

America's next generation isn't doomed to a life of ignorance as all these people from other countries seem to think. I'm sure you have completely stupid people in your countries as well. I don't appreciate being stereotyped as an idiot by others simply because I'm from America. If you come to this country, you'll find many intelligent people with interesting things to say who live successful lives. No country is perfect or has a population made up entirely of geniuses. Stop talking down on a country you've never been to and people you've never met.



I completely agree with you.
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Amen fellow American. :thumbs:
 
Moto-x_Pat said:
American kids are always picked on as the stupid ones. Great idea! Lets make a sweeping generalization and blow this way out of proportion. American kids are not stupid, kids in general are stupid. Every country has its intelligent people and its unintelligent people. I'll admit that I get sickened when I proofread a person's paper and it's filled with grammatical errors, non-academic tone, slang and misspellings, but it's not just American kids that do that. Almost all of my high school friends are in universities across the state of California, the rest of the country and even other countries. One went to Oxford, one went to Yale, and another went to Cornell. My high school was a public school as well. We had 16 valedictorians simply because their GPAs couldn't get any higher.

America's next generation isn't doomed to a life of ignorance as all these people from other countries seem to think. I'm sure you have completely stupid people in your countries as well. I don't appreciate being stereotyped as an idiot by others simply because I'm from America. If you come to this country, you'll find many intelligent people with interesting things to say who live successful lives. No country is perfect or has a population made up entirely of geniuses. Stop talking down on a country you've never been to and people you've never met.
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Agreed
 
But you brits and your tea time with crumpets is what REAL MEN are all about, right? :)
 
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