We have the best universities in the country. Some of the best doctors, nuclear biologists, largest charity organizations sans the Catholic Church, richest people of any Western nation….yet the dumbest, most uninformed, most hateful electorate of any Western nation.
When did America culture go wrong
by Anonymous | reply 110 | May 22, 2025 2:45 AM |
1776
by Anonymous | reply 1 | May 11, 2025 2:09 PM |
[quote] We have the best universities in the country. Some of the best doctors, nuclear biologists, largest charity organizations sans the Catholic Church, richest people of any Western nation….yet the dumbest, most uninformed, most hateful electorate of any Western nation.
We have the best universities in the country.
Think about what you just wrote, OP.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | May 11, 2025 2:11 PM |
R2 Why so school marm? It may not be perfect grammar and syntax, but it’s just DL.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | May 11, 2025 2:14 PM |
Rural electrification.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | May 11, 2025 2:14 PM |
R1 That’s hella cynical. You might be on to something though. I said what I said. A nation built off chattel slavery and exploitation of black bodies.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | May 11, 2025 2:17 PM |
Huma n nature is the same everywhere, unfortunately.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | May 11, 2025 2:21 PM |
R6 Fuck off you fkin cunt. Fuck you think playing with? You do this is dumb shit from time. I post on my phone mostly. Fuck you mocking my shit. I told you I have a borderline genius iq.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | May 11, 2025 2:23 PM |
I don't know, R3, I guess it just struck me as funny that OP was bitching about the dumb US electorate, then proved he's one of them with his first sentence.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | May 11, 2025 2:26 PM |
The dumbing down of America continues daily on DL.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | May 11, 2025 2:27 PM |
I didn't mock you. I think it's important for people to realize that the people who supported Slobodan Milosevic in the 90s were j ust the same as our people, and so are the people in so-called banana republics. Sooner later all peoples show themselves to be self-destructive lemmings.. It happens everywhere and always will. That's why it's so important to create a system that tries to block such behavior,but all such systems need to be maintained and managed. You can't write a law and expect it to work 200 years. Human capacity for destruction over time is way too great for that.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | May 11, 2025 2:30 PM |
OP, America has the best universities in the country?
by Anonymous | reply 11 | May 11, 2025 2:31 PM |
When was American culture "correct"? They nuked Japan. They decimated the Natives. They enslaved a whole people. Sounds like a sick culture tbh
by Anonymous | reply 12 | May 11, 2025 2:34 PM |
Easy - its organized religion. The open and tolerated embrace of this fucking book of fairy tales is the epitome of stupid.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | May 11, 2025 2:34 PM |
[quote] When did America culture go wrong
I'm not sure... when were you born?
by Anonymous | reply 14 | May 11, 2025 2:34 PM |
1619 with the introduction of chattel slavery which continues in other forms, just one of the many arms of vulture capitalism.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | May 11, 2025 2:37 PM |
I have been on a lot of forums. I swear at times this one DL is hands down the world class dumbest at times. And most of DL votes.
The OP may be on to something
by Anonymous | reply 16 | May 11, 2025 2:41 PM |
I blame the Republican Party for turning to propaganda after Goldwater lost. That was step one.
Setting up Fox News to spread the propaganda better, after Bush lost, was step two.
It worked. We’re done.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | May 11, 2025 2:42 PM |
R17 blames those smart enough to win. I understand I have done that my whole life when I lose.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | May 11, 2025 2:45 PM |
[Quote] 1619 with the introduction of chattel slavery which continues in other forms
So America went wrong 160 years before it existed. Roger that.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | May 11, 2025 2:46 PM |
By not punishing Confederates after the Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.
They just put their loser tails between their legs AND WAITED.
Nikki Hale was right.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | May 11, 2025 2:47 PM |
There’s no incentive to be better.
There’s no shame in not being educated or what you wear in public or not knowing what fork to use at the table or any kind of manners or etiquette which used to distinguish people in public.
Because of the internet and social media, there’s no insecurities of having a filter and ignorance is mistaken for authenticity.
Trump is the perfect example and why people find him so captivating. Because he “tells it like it is” and he’s “real” because he “speaks his mind”.
People are so beyond ignorant they’re not afraid to look stupid or say stupid things because they’re delusional and self absorbed.
And people are REWARDED for this behavior.
Being delusional is so marketable today.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | May 11, 2025 2:48 PM |
Stupidity in politics is social in nature. People who are embarrassed by their beliefs stand up for them when other people support them.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | May 11, 2025 2:51 PM |
R19 They’re right. America created a crazy class system that’s non-existent in other western countries and why white Americans are the most uncivilized white people in the western world.
It’s why we operate like third world countries. It’s why we have the death penalty, crazy gun laws, laborious and corrupt prison system, no universal healthcare, etc etc.
Trying to maintain racism and white supremacy has caught up with the US.
That’s why we’ve been basically having a white trash civil war right now.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | May 11, 2025 2:55 PM |
R18 doesn’t understand OP’s question. OP asked when the culture went wrong. The republicans can be “smart” (euphemism for amoral) enough to win, but also cause a decline in American culture.
R18 knows I’m right and doesn’t like thst, so is changing the subject.
R18 also said
[Quote] I have been on a lot of forums. I swear at times this one DL is hands down the world class dumbest at times.
For being the only one that can’t ban you?
If it’s so dumb, what does it say about you that you’re so obsessed with playing here? Just go back to Gab and truth social and Breitbart and rightwing Twitter then.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | May 11, 2025 3:46 PM |
The dawn of social media and "content". It meant that there were no gatekeepers anymore. Game changer. On the positive side, it meant that incredibly talented but un-commercial artists could put their art dictionary in front of the world, and the world would decide. It's why so many current musicians started out self-producing and/or starting a YouTube channel. They now had control.
On the negative side, there's everything else. Yikes. Any shitty "personality" can "create" a "viral moment". The flow of new content on YT, IG, other apps is like a million firehoses. Netflix, which was originally very curated and consumable, is now filled with "content" that looks like it cost five dollars to produce.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | May 11, 2025 3:49 PM |
Maybe it was never right. Maybe it was all just bluster.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | May 11, 2025 4:00 PM |
A friend of mine summed it best. The problem with America is people think those with no journalism or investigative background, reporting the news is FREEDOM.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | May 11, 2025 4:03 PM |
R6 apologies. I thought you were my stalker.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | May 11, 2025 4:03 PM |
[quote]When did America culture go wrong
"Reality" TV
by Anonymous | reply 29 | May 11, 2025 4:05 PM |
Perhaps genocide of indigenous populations and the acceptance of slavery have something to do with American culture's wrongness.
But OP is not an English speaker, obviously.
Foreign troll.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | May 11, 2025 4:08 PM |
R30 Que?
by Anonymous | reply 31 | May 11, 2025 4:10 PM |
Ok so I forgot the n in American. Sue me.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | May 11, 2025 4:11 PM |
Even if OP meant to say America has the best universities in the world, that would still be an arrogant statement. Americans who think Americans are the best, or have the best, are either naive or ill-informed. Such ignorant statements often come from people who have never traveled out of the country.
American culture has never been “all that.” We enslaved people, we stole land from the native tribes, the Wild West was full of stupid people who used guns to get their way. The current situation with Trump is not out of line with historical American values - these are American values.
We are not a kind culture.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | May 11, 2025 4:18 PM |
R18 is DeFucktardo. You can smell the faux superiority all the way through the Internets.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | May 11, 2025 4:31 PM |
Roseanne made white trash respectable.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | May 11, 2025 4:45 PM |
Bad public education and bad parenting. I’m around tweens all day for work, and at that age you can really tell which ones have strong, attentive parents who are around, and those who do not. Other cultures have a much stronger family culture than we do, and it matters more than we realize.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | May 11, 2025 5:00 PM |
R32/OP, You also "forgot" that it's "OK" and that you don't need to be sued.
You need to be reviled and expelled like a bad mushroom for the trolling idiocy.
You have your answer. No choke on it, cunt.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | May 11, 2025 5:03 PM |
R37 I am not trolling. I hope your days gets better. Happy Mothers Day to the birthing bodies in your family. Love you. It was a mere typo Gheesh.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | May 11, 2025 5:11 PM |
I suspect 1876 marked the subversion of our revolutionary principles. But for a more recent turning point, the election of Ronald Reagan was the beginning of the end for modern America.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | May 11, 2025 5:17 PM |
2000 was deffinitely the turning point. Bush clearly lost but was allowed to take office anyway by a corrupt and degraded Supreme Court.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | May 19, 2025 5:00 AM |
And instead of rising up to stop him, people just shrugged.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | May 19, 2025 5:01 AM |
Around the time of reality TV and social media. It's all about me
by Anonymous | reply 42 | May 19, 2025 5:08 AM |
Ronald Reagan and all of his worshippers.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | May 19, 2025 5:10 AM |
Slavery and guns
by Anonymous | reply 44 | May 19, 2025 8:51 AM |
I think it's always been wrong and many of us have always known there were huge parts of the country that should be avoided. The question is why did it go right in particular times and places and how do we recreate those conditions again?
by Anonymous | reply 45 | May 19, 2025 9:48 AM |
R45 exactly when in American history do you see decades long stretches of peace harmony and things going right? And a great culture.Or should I assume you have never studied American history?
We lost the generations of American people that could deal with stress uncertainty and truly bad times that have always been a part if history.. Now we are soft pussies afraid of the dark. We have had it so easy and thought easy was always going to last.
We won’t fight we will whine and post and whine some more.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | May 19, 2025 10:01 AM |
Maybe.,.it was never perfect. What culture is?
by Anonymous | reply 47 | May 19, 2025 11:17 AM |
The bastardization of our culture truly begin when they replaced the mom on Fresh Prince. Sad.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | May 19, 2025 1:13 PM |
We're living through a cultural backlash that began in the late 1960s/early 1970s, OP. There was a cultural shift, then, thanks to the Civil Rights movement, the feminist movement, and gay liberation, which all brought about significant social, cultural, and political changes for the better over time. The same forces that brought about those changes brought about those forces inimical to the changes. Add to the mix the financial crisis fifteen or so years ago, the growing gulf between the very rich and the rest of us, the forever wars and their failures, and social media and the development of news as entertainment that confirms rather than challenges your point of you. That's a recipe for deep polarization in society.
Then people will look to those who are not the traditional models to solve their problems...people like the charlatan who is now POTUS.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | May 19, 2025 1:32 PM |
Lack of education in the arts and humanities combined with tech companies rewiring our brains. A recipe for the decline of civilization that we’re currently experiencing.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | May 19, 2025 2:07 PM |
R18 is a moral vacuum.
"Smart enough to win" is no kind of standard. Using cunning and lack of principle is not the smart way to win. How is it "smart" to destroy the foundations of the government (by sowing mistrust in all our institutions and appealing to the voters' basest nature) in order to win it? Debasing everything around you to obtain and keep power is as crude and stupid as it gets.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | May 19, 2025 2:25 PM |
People seem way meaner now than they ever did before and that is not saying much because they werent great to begin with. I feel very sad and disillusioned and I am not sure what the answer is. I am burnet out on the behavior of nasty MAGA twats that I have to deal with daily
by Anonymous | reply 52 | May 19, 2025 2:39 PM |
R51 as you point out so well winning is not everything. Principals are what is important.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | May 19, 2025 2:51 PM |
The loss of the most pussified president to a shit heel Reagan.
That started it.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | May 19, 2025 2:58 PM |
1965 made Southern racists go crazy.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | May 19, 2025 3:13 PM |
I think that would be 1865 r55. But really, I get it. They thought they'd come up with a little "compromise," no more slavery exactly but still a heavily racist society where everyone knew their place and weren't nobody allowed to get uppity.
Then it fell apart.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | May 19, 2025 4:13 PM |
Reagan trickle down economics
by Anonymous | reply 57 | May 19, 2025 4:36 PM |
Japan deserved to be nuked. The war ended soon after...
by Anonymous | reply 58 | May 19, 2025 4:49 PM |
I don't know that it all "went wrong" but there is something depressing about the 1980s. There were definitely problems with the 60s and 70s, little problems like the Manson family and big honking problems like burning cities and assassination as a national hobby. but still, we were kind of moving toward general liberation. And the 1980s seem to be a massive, angry, bitter overreaction to all of that, when we decided that no, we're all going to worship money and power instead, fuck all that freedom shit. Not a disaster, maybe, but a real setback.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | May 19, 2025 9:16 PM |
A well educated population and a critical,reflective culture requires money to be spent on public schools and on media outlets with a mandate to educate as well as entertain. The US has been mich less willing to tax rich people to spend on poor people or to regulate markets than most other high-income countries. It didn't have the same comprehensive postwar welfare state programme that Europe did, and Reagan dismantled a lot of what there was.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | May 19, 2025 10:01 PM |
By “culture” do we mean US “civilization” generally? It has always been a giant real estate bubble. Things can only get so much better when you start from a base of fixer-uppers with violent tendencies.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | May 19, 2025 10:03 PM |
Why do you think that The Children of the Plantation Owners have thrown Evangelical Christianity at public education. It is a corrosive argument from a different angle than the teachers unions only want easy pay arguments
by Anonymous | reply 62 | May 19, 2025 10:05 PM |
Education standards started declining in the mid 60s.
There's a lot of mental ruin in a nation
by Anonymous | reply 63 | May 19, 2025 10:17 PM |
[quote] A nation built off chattel slavery and exploitation of black bodies.
And it seems our form of capitalism has always had an element of cheap, quasi-slave labor attached to it.
Even after actual slavery was abolished, the agrarian economy depended on sharecroppers, with some historians claiming it was worse than slavery. Then, when the Industrial Revolution hit, Southerners pointed to the "wage slavery" up North and how immigrants in sweatshops were being treated also saying it was worse than slavery. Child labor, anyone?
The remedies that strong labor unions fought for now look temporary. And with the global economy, the United States dependence on slave labor has just been transferred to foreign countries. Out of sight, out of mind.
In the meantime, the Federal Minimum Wage remains at $7.25. When I was in high school in the late 70s. I worked a minimum wage job while saving for college, and I remember when we got a bump from $2.65 to $2.90. Using an inflation calculator, that $2.90 would be $14.22 today, so five decades later some people are working for nearly half of what I did.
by Anonymous | reply 64 | May 19, 2025 10:25 PM |
the problem with the education answer is that people always assume, people will be "educated" to think exactly the way I think about everything. That is rarely true. Some people, some ruling people were indeed hugely, highly, incredibly well "educated" in the 16th and 17th and 18th centuries and they reached very, very different conclusion. Merely invoking "education" as a magical answer isn't good enough.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | May 19, 2025 10:43 PM |
And I really should've added, plenty of people in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s were again highly, hugely educated, they just came up with really shitty views of how to govern entire nations.
by Anonymous | reply 66 | May 19, 2025 10:45 PM |
You want to look.at it on the societal, rather than individual level. Yes, education is no defence against believing terrible things, and deep and prolonged economic insecurity often.provokes a right-wing backlash. But a more educated society is one which is more likely to welcome debate, critique and discussion and less likely to cast people out for being different or having opposing views.
Most of the West is heading down the toilet right now but some countries are in deeper than others.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | May 19, 2025 11:03 PM |
Republican party since the 1960s. Seriously. They've been chipping away at everything and making up lies for decades to turn the country back into the barons and feudal classes of the turn of the century.
by Anonymous | reply 68 | May 19, 2025 11:11 PM |
[quote]Even if OP meant to say America has the best universities in the world, that would still be an arrogant statement.
It is an accurate statement, based on objective performance indicators. Six universities in the Top 10 of the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings are in the United States.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | May 19, 2025 11:22 PM |
I blame the FCC for scrapping the fairness doctrine which opened the door for the right to seize the low power TV and radio stations, fertilizing the ground for the FOX invasion.
by Anonymous | reply 70 | May 19, 2025 11:32 PM |
It’s true, Trump attacking US universities is utter madness. It’s almost like he’s a shitty businessman.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | May 19, 2025 11:32 PM |
[quote‚We have the best universities in the country. Some of the best doctors, nuclear biologists, largest charity organizations sans the Catholic Church, richest people of any Western nation….
The US has been blowing its "We're No. 1!" horn for so long that it lost that distinction, certainly for any measure of good.
The US is still #1 in GDP, depending on what measure of GDP is used.
By measures of Median Wealth it's in 14th place. By Quality of Life it's in 22nd place. By Average Wealth and by Salary it's in 4th place in both cases, by Median Wealth it's 14th.
By education it has 4 universities in the top 10 worldwide by two rankings I saw. Of course it depends on what kind of university: of the 20 best medical schools, 8 are in the US by one ranking. It has a high degree of tertiary education. And IQ results 30th in the world. . By Health Care Index of the health of citizens it's in 38th place. By Life Expectancy it's 60th. By ranking of Healthiest Countries it's in 69th place. By IQ results it places 30th. By Work-Life Balance, it's in 55th place.
Except at GDP, (and ignoring negative indicators like gun violence, school shootings, incarceration levels, etc.,), the US has lost a lot of its former lustre and the pace of shedding positive measures is not slowing, it's accelerating. Nor are these losses tied entirely to IQ scores and Life Expectancy and salaries and indices of health and wealth and spending power, but in exports of ideas and popular culture and material products, it's a world stage now, and the US is but one player trending the wrong ways on the lists..
by Anonymous | reply 73 | May 19, 2025 11:49 PM |
Where do you find a global clearinghouse for IQ test results? Is this peer-reviewed?
by Anonymous | reply 74 | May 19, 2025 11:52 PM |
Money in politics = corruption.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | May 20, 2025 12:07 AM |
The Republicans have waged war on public education for half a century. Nuff said.
by Anonymous | reply 76 | May 20, 2025 12:50 AM |
I am not that old (I look years younger) and I remember the good old days before they flooded the US with cheap battle rifles. Everything took a turn after 9/11 for sure.
by Anonymous | reply 77 | May 20, 2025 12:53 AM |
R53, thanks (truly), but I didn't mean winning isn't everything. I meant that if you have to poison the town's water supply to keep your spa in business, and silence and ruin everyone who speaks against you, you don't have anything worth keeping. (Something about the Republicans here made me think of Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," so I went with it.)
It's not "smart" to win by chicanery; it's cowardly, cheap, and destructive.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | May 20, 2025 1:18 AM |
Deregulating everything, gutting unions and not regulating the internet. So now disinformation and propaganda reigns supreme. People get their "news" from fascist Twitter, FB memes.and TikTok pundits.
by Anonymous | reply 79 | May 20, 2025 1:25 AM |
3-way tie between the 1970s debuts of Carol Burnett’s variety show’s ‘The Family’ recurring sketch, “The Gong Show,” and “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”
by Anonymous | reply 80 | May 20, 2025 1:30 AM |
Why "Mary Hartman"?
by Anonymous | reply 81 | May 20, 2025 1:38 AM |
The second season of Twin Peaks
by Anonymous | reply 82 | May 20, 2025 1:38 AM |
Gerrymandering
by Anonymous | reply 83 | May 20, 2025 3:29 AM |
Well, um, that was 200 years ago r83
by Anonymous | reply 84 | May 20, 2025 3:36 AM |
R84 the Republicans have been quietly altering districts on for years
by Anonymous | reply 85 | May 20, 2025 3:44 AM |
Take out the "on" sorry errant letters
by Anonymous | reply 86 | May 20, 2025 3:45 AM |
No Child Left Behind, Citizens United
by Anonymous | reply 87 | May 20, 2025 4:47 AM |
Hair metal
by Anonymous | reply 88 | May 20, 2025 4:50 AM |
Ronald Reagan. He was the president sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, and they credit him with accomplishing about 60% of what would be called "Project 1980". The main thrusts were to remove the barriers preventing a fascist movement: good public education, fairness in media, strong unions fighting for labor, and keeping money out of politics. It took them nearly 50 years, but they accomplished their goals. That Reagan emptied the mental hospitals (with cover provided by the ACLU in their righteous pursuit of cleaning up those hospitals, which were scenes of horror) and gifted us with our homeless problem is just shit icing on the poop cake. His trickle-down economics (or as George H.W. Bush called them, "voodoo economics") made the pursuit of personal wealth at the expense of public good acceptable and even enviable. And ultimately, Reagan created the atmosphere in which a man like Donald Trump can thrive devoid of morality, values, ethics and empathy.
He paid for that microphone; we've paid with our freedom.
by Anonymous | reply 89 | May 20, 2025 5:22 AM |
Slavery and separating from Britain. They wanted to outlaw slavery early on but the rich southerners didn't want to.
Greed.
by Anonymous | reply 90 | May 20, 2025 5:35 AM |
Things perceptibly plummetted with Reagan (who gained credibility from Thatcher's contemporary rule in the UK and vice versa), but victory did not resolve the problems underlying the Civil War, and nor evidently has anything since.
What R59 describes is the thing Baby Boomers are not blamed enough for. It was them protesting for civil rights and withdrawal from Vietnam in the 60s and 70s, but once they themselves stopped being conscripted and started making money they turned their backs on the idea of freedom and fairness for everyone. (Not all of them, but enough to make a cultural wave.) I am a tail-end Boomer, and I watched it happen.
by Anonymous | reply 91 | May 20, 2025 6:03 AM |
When Boomers, the scar dick generation, came of age.
by Anonymous | reply 92 | May 20, 2025 6:09 AM |
With the greed is good opulence of Dallas, Dynasty and all of their spin-offs.
The advent of evil, nasty, rich people with style.
They prefigured Trump.
by Anonymous | reply 93 | May 20, 2025 1:54 PM |
You mean, evil, nasty people with "style". What they had, and what Trump has, is an ironist's version of true style.
by Anonymous | reply 94 | May 20, 2025 2:41 PM |
To always blame the Kardashians is never wrong.
by Anonymous | reply 95 | May 20, 2025 3:14 PM |
These scientists you speak of, they are also often schooled all over the world, and come to the US because they got the best working conditions and financing. Same with universities, which attract talent from all over the world. Hollywood, you name it.
American exceptionism was largely propaganda. Now the bubble is bursting.
by Anonymous | reply 96 | May 20, 2025 3:20 PM |
On the conservative side, when Reagan started trickle down economics, and the American people just started believing that not having a living wage was normal. That was the goal. On the liberal side, gaslighting and pressuring everybody to believe ridiculous things that aren’t true. “Hey, that person standing in front of you who is obviously a woman is literally not a woman because she, despite having tits and a cunt, FEELS that she is neither male or female.”
by Anonymous | reply 97 | May 20, 2025 3:22 PM |
Take those global university rankings with a pinch of salt, since in part they are made up on the results of a survey of academics and managers of the qualities of other universities, which has meant that the older, richer and more prestigious institutions tend to score higher. There's no doubt, though, that the Ivy League is an excellent place to study if you can find someone else to pay.
by Anonymous | reply 98 | May 21, 2025 3:05 AM |
Oh yes, and pay absolutely no attention at all to 'Global IQ rankings';. Ever.
by Anonymous | reply 99 | May 21, 2025 3:06 AM |
[quote]On the liberal side, gaslighting and pressuring everybody to believe ridiculous things that aren’t true.
R97, Republicans see civil rights as a ridiculous thing that we slaves should not have. First it was the women's vote, then it was voting rights, Gay and Lesbian rights and now Trans rights.
Cutting off the dicks and tits of every trans person in the United States costs much less than a year of Trump golfing. It is pathetic, distracting nonsense.
by Anonymous | reply 100 | May 21, 2025 4:51 PM |
It’s the glut of rich, bible thumping boomers who never had to put forth much effort to get things. Sadly, there are millions of overeducated and underemployed millennials who are victims of their parents’ mindless faith and outdated beliefs about capitalism. And hilariously, now Gen Z whores just show their ass and make millions online lol. Great. The only good news about the future is that the people without power by definition can’t be responsible for the future. When Trump arrests us for being homeless and sends us to El Salvador, our responsibilities will end there.
by Anonymous | reply 101 | May 21, 2025 5:17 PM |
r67
[quote]But a more educated society is one which is more likely to welcome debate, critique and discussion and less likely to cast people out for being different or having opposing views.
This, sad to state, is somewhat of a popular fairy tale and needs to be fine-tuned. Anyone who has worked in an academic department in higher education can tell you that a large percentage of the faculty is completely ossified in their views in their field (and worse about things out of their field), intolerant of opposing opinions ("I've spent fifty years studying this--and you just out of grad school doubt me???"), arrogant to those they consider their lessers, patronizing about the "quaint" views of their students, and frequently hold bizarre opinions about that thing they rarely think about--the world at large. And if the educators are this way, what can we expect of those they "educate"?
An educated society of this sort will go through the motions, kowtow to symbols, and become expert at window dressing; but when you cut this cake, you find that there's nothing under the frosting. Look at the French Revolution: The aristocrats were far indeed from being uneducated, but that didn't keep them from supporting an oppressive society; meantime, the common people were largely ignorant . . . and ended up being just as bad as the aristocrats, if not worse, in their own way, societally speaking. The critical thing is not education; the critical thing is to have an understanding of human nature and a wish to give it a dynamic of progress.
by Anonymous | reply 102 | May 21, 2025 5:55 PM |
R102 " The critical thing is not education; the critical thing is to have an understanding of human nature and a wish to give it a dynamic of progress. "
It is both. Civics and ethics are considerably under-taught and undervalued today. Too many reach adulthood thinking only about, what's in in for me. People also need to learn what critical thinking is when they are young. By the time they are in their twenties it's basically too late to change their way of looking at situations and at the world as a whole.
by Anonymous | reply 103 | May 21, 2025 7:20 PM |
r103
I agree.
by Anonymous | reply 104 | May 21, 2025 7:22 PM |
I agree r103, but unfortunately there are strong disincentives. Parents freak the fuck out when their kids are taught things that question their own beliefs. It's a tough barrier to cross, but I agree that should be the goal. Sadly, most people are lying when they say they want kids to be taught how to think not what to think. Generally they want a whole lot of "what to think" and very little "how to think." And so often "what to think" is an idiotic mess of superstitions, racist nonsense, nationalist crap and just all around bullshit.
by Anonymous | reply 105 | May 21, 2025 7:40 PM |
Reagan.
by Anonymous | reply 106 | May 21, 2025 8:33 PM |
When did America culture go wrong?
Embracing Kardashians, Taylor Swift, Jersey Shore, Bad Bunny, Kanye West, Real Housewives, the Jenners, Diddy, Dance Moms, etc. etc.
by Anonymous | reply 107 | May 21, 2025 8:44 PM |
r98 Most of the Ivy League colleges, which, by and large, have very large endowments, practice a needs blind admission policy, meaning they don't consider a prospective student's financial background when admitting. In practice, that means that they will try to figure out a patchwork of loans, grants, scholarships and work-study to allow people to attend whose families could not possibly afford it otherwise. However, that is not true of their international applicants.
Critical thinking is easy in theory, difficult in practice. In theory, a person is given a statement. He evaluates that statement for accuracy by, first of all, looking to see if the person making that statement provides evidence to support it. If not, he can opt to reject that statement in the absence of further proof, or at least treat it with a grain of salt. If there is evidence, the next step is to investigate the quality of that evidence. Is the evidence of the type that can be checked? "Studies show"...... What studies? Can they be named? Who financed them? etc
Then there is the common sense test. "The sun actually rises in the west". Um.....I've lived for many years, and have seen with my own eyes that the sun rises in the east. So, people should be analyzing statements in light of their own experiences.
There is the written vs. spoken evidence. "I saw it written, so it must be true". Or, "I read it on the internet, so it must be true" It should be obvious that this is a poor way to validate a statement, but apparently many people feel it is a perfectly reasonable guarantee of validity.
There is logic. One of the most important logical rules is that Correlation does not equal Causation. "All serial killers have watched porn in their lives, therefore watching porn causes people to become serial killers". If looking at legislators trying to regulate behavior, they nearly all use correlation equals causation to make their arguments.
Finally, there is the appeal to universal common sense. ":Everyone knows". Well, does everyone actually know? In many cases, that's just an excuse for saying something that is not true.
These principles should be taught from first grade onward. But teachers are too busy "teaching to the test" to even devote tiny amounts of time to these principles. But in a nation which has never valued education except as a stepping stone to some sort of economic success that equates to the American dream, critical thinking skills are far down the list of skills that most parents think should be taught in school. And if truth be known, many don't want their children to learn to question things such as the religions that they were raised in, or the ethical principles that they themselves follow in their daily lives.
by Anonymous | reply 108 | May 21, 2025 8:55 PM |
Excellent, R108. I would also add that something else -- which is inherent in some of the things you point out -- is questioning assumptions. Why does this person have the opinion I'm reading, and why might they be spreading it at this particular time? What about their point of view: is there an opinion about the world that they're taking for granted and hope you will, too? Is there an unexpressed assumption that their language is obscuring? Do they seem to have an agenda that this message is promoting? Stuff like that.
by Anonymous | reply 109 | May 21, 2025 9:26 PM |
r108 Yes, these points are worth stating; but even with them cleverness and semantic jugglery can pervert or blockade either side of a question:
"Everyone knows that the sun rises in the east."
"EVERYONE??? Do you know everyone? Do you have a signed and notarized statement from everyone testifying as to that fact? Excuse me, sir, but I won't let you just sweep me along with your cynical and misleading 'everyone'!"
[italic]Everyone[/italic] knows that when we say "everyone" we don't really mean "everyone." And so it is with language; we communicate by context, experience, and inference, not so much by words. The important thing is the [italic]bona fides[/italic] of the participants.
by Anonymous | reply 110 | May 22, 2025 2:45 AM |