Are We Getting Dumber?

[Dglgmut]

The common assumption is that civilization constantly progresses, and we're supposed to look back with contempt at past societies for their ignorance. I think everyone on these forums is at least skeptical of that idea.

 

Here's an interesting talk by a highly respected computer programmer that explores technological regression, which seems to tie in to a more general ethical regression of a society.

 

[anthony]

Great question. Yes. Will watch the presentation now.

[Dglgmut]

It gets into computer talk for a bit in the middle, but he makes some great general points.

Here's a couple that I think are interesting.

1. When the tools we use become more advanced, we forget how to use the lower-level tools. There is a balance--you want to use tools that make things more efficient, but you don't want to lose understanding of what exactly you're doing.

2. The more complex a system is, the less sustainable it becomes. At some point the high-level work detaches completely from the low-level, at which point very few people understand the low-level.

I think this really says something about what's happening in society in many aspects.

[anthony]

On 10/8/2021 at 4:18 AM, Dglgmut said:

It gets into computer talk for a bit in the middle, but he makes some great general points.

Here's a couple that I think are interesting.

1. When the tools we use become more advanced, we forget how to use the lower-level tools. There is a balance--you want to use tools that make things more efficient, but you don't want to lose understanding of what exactly you're doing.

2. The more complex a system is, the less sustainable it becomes. At some point the high-level work detaches completely from the low-level, at which point very few people understand the low-level.

I think this really says something about what's happening in society in many aspects.

He lost me in there with all the computerise, but your general synopsis is spot-on I think.

In a simple sense, we are in danger of getting 'too clever' for our own good. There are apparently few minds which have a total comprehension and skill-set to return to "low levels" (basic concepts) because of over-specialization by programmers and computers programmed to take over their own self-design. (If IT collapsed entirely, who could build it back, from first principles?)

 Could this process be likened to philosophical rationalism? Abstractions at levels out of touch with concrete facts.

As you say, there are many aspects to the dumbing down and regression of societies. One, that in recent studies the average IQ which was constantly and previously adjusted upwards, has declined since the '70's. Second and most critical, but unrelated to native intelligence, that in the deluge of instant information and data available to one, by way of these most valuable tools quite ironically, many people appear mentally lazier and hardly better equipped with personal knowledge. Although the wealth and ease and speed of the info makes many over-confidently believe they are, I've noticed. How effective is their conceptual retention? How much more critically do people think? How well do they integrate and reduce virtual reality to 'real' reality? Importantly, how well do they ~evaluate~ the huge amount of competing opinions? I'm firmly convinced that the trend to absolute reliance on our e-gadgets has in general rather promoted anti-conceptualism (and anti-individualism as a result). 'Collective knowledge', a self-contradiction.

Good topic, Dg.

[tmj]

I haven’t seen the video yet , but based on the comments I’ll put it in the queue .

The algorithms are bringing me a lot of societal/technologically effected culture critiques from the 30k foot level. Eric Weinstein and Curtis Yarvin have some interesting views and concepts.

[Dglgmut]

5 hours ago, anthony said:

He lost me in there with all the computerise, but your general synopsis is spot-on I think.

In a simple sense, we are in danger of getting 'too clever' for our own good. There are apparently few minds which have a total comprehension and skill-set to return to "low levels" (basic concepts) because of over-specialization by programmers and computers programmed to take over their own self-design. (If IT collapsed entirely, who could build it back, from first principles?)

 Could this process be likened to philosophical rationalism? Abstractions at levels out of touch with concrete facts.

As you say, there are many aspects to the dumbing down and regression of societies. One that in recent studies the average IQ has been dropping since the '70's. Second and most critical, but unrelated to native intelligence, that in the deluge of instant information and data available to one, by way of these most valuable tools quite ironically, many people appear mentally lazier and hardly better equipped with personal knowledge. Although the wealth and ease and speed of the info makes many over-confidently believe they are, I've noticed. How good is their retention? How much more critically do people think? How well do they integrate and reduce virtual reality to 'real' reality? Importantly, how well do they ~evaluate~ the huge amount of competing opinions? I'm firmly convinced that the trend to absolute reliance on our gadgets has in general rather promoted anti-conceptualism (and anti-individualism as a result). 'Collective knowledge', a self-contradiction.

Good topic, Dg.

 

Another analogy I was thinking of today is economic stratification; particularly the way small businesses suffer over time while corporations grow. As a result we have a much smaller percentage of the population operating their own businesses, which has led to a society with a poor understanding of business and a fixation on labour. I read people complaining today that billionaires don't actually earn their money, the workers do.

 

I think a society should not become disconnected from its foundation.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

DG,

Two observations.

1. Rand constantly said technology could go away once the brutes took over like what happened in the Dark Ages. She would use a warning tone ("Don't think that can't happen today because it can" and so on.) 

So there is another element involved than just the habituation and mental laziness Blow talked about. Or confining knowledge to a small group of elites. He hinted at it by mentioning the devastation of cities at the end of the Bronze Era.

It's a culture of respect for the reality-based mind as a source of wealth instead of weapons and conquest .

For example, coastal elites laugh up a storm at Preppers, but learning how to hunt and dress game, grow your own food, build a shelter from scratch, etc., is smart. A reality-based mind will find learning this stuff fascinating, not silly. It even used to be fun in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts before the gender perverts took over.

(The people who think learning this stuff is silly think food is replenished in supermarkets like getting more points in a video game. And they demand others provide them with food irrespective of any context, including their own behavior. If that isn't a form of getting dumber, I don't know what is.  )

Applying this to software, I think it would be a good idea to come up with simple games in Assembler and so on so that coders can get their feet wet in low level languages. (By simple, I mean challenging but simple in a Flappy Bird manner. I don't know what would be possible in low level languages, but I'm sure a little ingenuity could come up with something. And they could sell it as going "primitive" or whatever. Maybe use the coding geniuses of yesteryear as characters in the game.

2. There is a problem coding-wise that contributes mightily to the problems Blow was talking about that he didn't mention. I know this because of a misguided attempt I made at trying to learn code. It's code cleanliness. I tried to go through a course aimed at teaching how to write clean code. I got the fundamental ideas down, but I got so bored, I only made it through a few videos.  

Believe it or not, most of the programs we use today are full of literal garbage--characters and strings and whole sections that mean nothing at all. They are nothing but bloat and they were left there for convenience (read laziness). And they get passed down from one person to the next.

Out here in reality, we see this with the way people handle technology, too. Especially food.  

And speaking of food, this is good food for thought.

Great video.

 

Michael

 

 

 

[Dglgmut]

1 hour ago, tmj said:

I haven’t seen the video yet , but based on the comments I’ll put it in the queue .

The algorithms are bringing me a lot of societal/technologically effected culture critiques from the 30k foot level. Eric Weinstein and Curtis Yarvin have some interesting views and concepts.

The first 15-20 minutes are good, but after that I'd just skip around. There is some philosophical substance in the programmer specific content, but I think I summed it up above.

 

I haven't listened to too much of Eric Weinstein, but I'm definitely a fan of Curtis Yarvin. A lot of the 2021 Gray Mirror posts have been brilliant. Here's a great one I'd recommend that gets into the systemic problems within the softer scientific fields. He focuses on the lab leak here, but it's very relevant to creation and politicization of the vaccines as well.

Covid is science's Chernobyl - Gray Mirror

GRAYMIRROR.SUBSTACK.COM

---

Covid isn't China's Chernobyl. Or even America's. Covid belongs to science itself.

 

[anthony]

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. [...]

"The Second Coming" W.B. Yeats

-------

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

[...]

"The Rock" T.S. Eliot

[anthony]

11 hours ago, Dglgmut said:

 

Another analogy I was thinking of today is economic stratification; particularly the way small businesses suffer over time while corporations grow. As a result we have a much smaller percentage of the population operating their own businesses, which has led to a society with a poor understanding of business and a fixation on labour. I read people complaining today that billionaires don't actually earn their money, the workers do.

 

I think a society should not become disconnected from its foundation.

Marx's "Labor Theory of Value" sticks around. It is most prevalent here by SA intellectuals. A very concrete-bound view of industry and commerce, because that's all what they 'perceive' in factories (etc): The workers working. 

To my most general way of thinking, the small entrepreneurs that suffer are predominantly the modern day's independent, moral Capitalists, with no recourse to government favors, nor a desire for assistance - only to be left alone. If they and others could see themselves in that light, as the ethical foundation of laissez-faire capitalism, perhaps Capitalism would earn a broader following. As it is, capitalism is associated exclusively with Corporations. Unjustly, considering how many have adopted a leftist and woke ideology.

The average highly Business School degree-d, mid-management executive, I believe lacks the creativity and resourcefulness to operate a small business successfully.

But maybe I'm being too severe on mega-corporations and their individual staff, it's not all of them.