Is society becoming more stupid

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Is society becoming more stupid

Huh. What'd they teach y'at school? Ya didn't even remember the question mark.

[vintagengineerParticipant @vintagengineer]

I think people are becoming very lazy and relying on technology rather than using ther brain and common sense. They blindly believe whatever the computer tells them.

[Alan VosParticipant @alanvos39612]

An A4 sign in the local Halfords. "AdBlue is not a substitute for engine oil."

[vintagengineerParticipant @vintagengineer]

No, but it's a substitute for poor engineering!

Posted by Alan Vos on 09/03/2018 17:26:30:

An A4 sign in the local Halfords. "AdBlue is not a substitute for engine oil."

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

Re the 'Fallacy of Composition' post from Dave (SoD) earlier. I used to like watching the Discovery/Nat Geo series on Air Crashes, or whatever title it went under, until one day I was sat watching it with the missus. (OK, we all like different things!), when the missus said 'why are the pilots of these aeroplanes all highly experienced'?

After that as we watched each episode, we both began waiting until the commentator said something like 'and Captain Bloggs had 23 years experience of flying this type of aircraft'. – it always happened. Then we noticed the plane was a Boeing 737 in a large proportion of the cases, and somehow it always seemed to belong to one of two particular American airlines.

The only logical conclusion we could make is if you must fly, don't use that airline, don't go if its a 737, and ensure the pilot is a rank beginner!

Once we realised this, watching the program became a no-no.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I was Scout leader for many years (no sicko comments please) and I can assure you that today's young people are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and sorting out a week's camp once they have comprehended that:

We have arrived in a field miles from anywhere with a load of camping gear

The adults are not going to do it for you

If you don't get your tent erected and a cooking fire lit you are going to have a long, cold, hungry night.

They never failed, the older ones who had been before took charge and order would emerge from chaos. Yes we would have sorted it out had it all gone pear shaped, but it never did. The only hindrance to this process was if we made the mistake of taking a parent with us. On several occasions I had lads coming and asking me to send his dad home as he was an embarassment.

I reckon bemoaning modern youth is a sign of old age, and if thety are pampered, who's fault is it?

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Posted by duncan webster on 09/03/2018 18:57:20:

… I can assure you that today's young people are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and sorting out…

Thank you Duncan – I totally agree.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by An Other on 09/03/2018 18:35:41:

when the missus said 'why are the pilots of these aeroplanes all highly experienced'?

Basically because they have to have a huge amount of experience befiore you can pilot an airliner. Wikipedia:

Airline Transport Pilot

Airline Transport Pilots (ATPs) must be at least 23 years old and have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight time, including 500 hours of cross-country flight time, 100 hours of night flying, and 75 hours in actual or simulated instrument flight conditions. ATPs must also have a commercial certificate and an instrument rating. ATPs may instruct other pilots in air transportation service in aircraft in which they are rated. ATPs must have a current Class I medical exam (which is more stringent than Class II or Class III), which must be renewed every six months or one year (depending on age). Like all pilots, they must re-validate their certificates every 24 months with a flight review.

[MeunierParticipant @meunier]

SoD Dave, if you are going to include " Saggar Makers " you ought to have included "Bottom Knockers" too !
DaveD

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 09/03/2018 15:32:04:

Bad idea to criticise a youngster face to face relative to the achievements of previous generations. If you push too hard, they're likely to forget politeness and put you right with a vengeance. Silly old granddad, no way would he ever pass a job interview.

 

With all due respect that is not my experience. I know for a fact that the standards required for entry to professional levels in my industry at least has fallen ( I still have the college notes from when i was a student!!)

After I retired I was asked to return & get involved in training some of the younger degree students.I was really up for this & set up a schedule that i thought would really give them some useful help

I had situations where I had to get a female colleague take a 20 year old into a separate room because he was crying. ( there were others!!). I had one idiot ( 2nd year degree)who thought 10% of 100-00 was 3-00 I had one 20 year old who claimed I was bullying him but he was so immature it was unbelievable & another who could not use a tape to measure a window about 3 metres wide. Their Saturdays were spent loafing, watching TV or playing computer games. No interest in life whatsoever. There were about 12 of them & I only found one who was any good (& he was really good so I had him pushed up the promotion tree very quickly)

Out sailing club has cadet training for about 40 kids in sailing dinghies. Some are so slow ( victims of molycoddling) you would not believe it. They have minimal ability to drive themselves (not all I accept- some are brilliant) they just do not have the ability to work things out for themselves & apply any practical thought. That has to be the failing of computer technology that removes the old method of learning. If daddy does not rig their boat & they are not supplied with the best wet suit they are lost.

As kids years ago some of our old members just went & got on with it in jumpers & shorts in any weather & definitely had more fun & were mentally/socially far more aware. They were certainly far more independent.

 

 

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 09/03/2018 21:25:15

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Meunier, you forgot, 'Ockle Cockle ' makers too.

[Martin DowingParticipant @martindowing58466]

There are kids like here in the past but mainly in Far Eastern societies.

Incidentally it is where our wealth migrates.

Plainly speaking Western societies are old , tired, turning decadent and yes – failing.

Insistence that everything must be safe produced environment where nothing can be done and "equal rights for all" culture in practice means "all rights for the stupid". This situation cannot go for too long before substantial loss of wealth and influence have occurred. We are already noticing it.

Healthy development of knowledge and personal responsibility does require that 1-3 kids in 100 get drowned, electrocuted, blow themselves up but rather alone in the fields while experimenting and not in crowded area for religious reason, chop off finger in the lathe etc.

Culture of safety nazizm is largerly preventing accidents like those mentioned above but this 1-3% are still lost to substance abuse, street violence, mindless operation of vehicle etc. Overall outcome in numbers is about the same but we are nurturing society of the stupid.

Martin

 

Edited By Martin Dowing on 10/03/2018 06:33:50

Edited By Martin Dowing on 10/03/2018 06:37:26

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

I think the phrase 'safety nazism' is introducing a whole new area of oxymoron.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Sam Longley 1 on 09/03/2018 21:24:26:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 09/03/2018 15:32:04:

Bad idea to criticise a youngster face to face relative to the achievements of previous generations. If you push too hard, they're likely to forget politeness and put you right with a vengeance. Silly old granddad, no way would he ever pass a job interview.

 

 

…

 

I had situations where I had to get a female colleague take a 20 year old into a separate room because he was crying. ( there were others!!). I had one idiot ( 2nd year degree)who thought 10% of 100-00 was 3-00 I had one 20 year old who claimed I was bullying him but he was so immature it was unbelievable & another who could not use a tape to measure a window about 3 metres wide. Their Saturdays were spent loafing, watching TV or playing computer games. No interest in life whatsoever. There were about 12 of them & I only found one who was any good (& he was really good so I had him pushed up the promotion tree very quickly)

…

 

 

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 09/03/2018 21:25:15

That reads like a confession Sam! Multiple incidents where the common factor was you.

I started work with a boss who had spent 3 years in Personnel doing nothing but interview promotion candidates. This would have been in the mid-sixties. He had a fund of stories about candidates making fools of themselves:

• Chap who started the interview by reaching unbidden across the table to shake hands with the Chairman and knocking the Board's water carafe over.
• Chap who finished the interview by leaving by the wrong door. After waiting a few minutes for him to emerge from the broom cupboard, the Board Secretary found him hiding inside.
• Chap who being asked the warm-up question "Did you have any trouble getting here?" exploded with "Don't waste my f** time – ask me a proper question"
• Chap responding at the end to the wash-up "Do you have any questions for us?", replied "Do you know which bus goes from here to Camden?"

These are stress reactions that don't tell you much. Managing stress might be a selection criteria but usually flooding someone's adrenal system by pressuring them only masks their qualities. People perform best with a touch of fear; if you go too far you trigger the animal 'fight or flee' response that tells you sod all about the person. Young people today are no different from young people of earlier generations. Never forget that you too once filled nappies, annoyed your elders and were a complete waste of space. Then you grew up and became a useful member of society.

Dave

Edit: multiple mistakes corrected!

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 10/03/2018 10:06:18

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I once went to an interview in high-up room at an old university, duty and arcane enough to be Dumbledore's study.

Welcomed in by two of the interviewers, they asked me to take a seat, which i did.

"Oh that's professor Blanks's chair!"

I offered to move but the other interviewer said, "no, don't worry."

'Professor Blank' arrived, and gave me a particularly lancing look.

I suspect I may have sacrificed that job to entertain the other interviewers!

Still, the next time I found myself in a similar situation, with a chap who studied landslips (apparently by simulating them with piles of books and papers) I retold the story, and it may have helped me get the job!

Neil

[Tractor manParticipant @tractorman]

Kids are not stupid per se, rather they lack awareness of actions and consequence and an alarming lack of practical knowledge.
My niece recently sliced off a finger pad whilst washing up, claiming she didn’t know knives were supposed to be sharp!
The spate of fatal stabbings is down in part to kids having no concept of knives and the consequence of their misuse; they see people on films and in games get up after being stabbed and carry on with their lives,which surprise surprise doesnt tend to happen.
Even crossing the road safely is beyond the grasp of most teens because they are not aware of their surroundings.
I heard the other day that millennial kids will not answer the door or phone to avoid potential confrontation, preferring to filter their interactions through Twitter etc.
One day David Attenborough will have to explain how the human race became extinct because their mating became unsuccessful due to social media and the fear of being accused of assault.
Off back to my lathe now, rant over…

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Tractor man on 10/03/2018 10:31:42:
…
One day David Attenborough will have to explain how the human race became extinct because their mating became unsuccessful due to social media and the fear of being accused of assault.
…

No danger of that round here. They're at it like rabbits and the place is crawling with rug-rats…

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Nothing wrong with the youngsters I meet around here (N.E. Scotland), and nothing wrong with the teachers, either. But the teachers have to operate under such hideous restrictions set by the idiotic paper-shufflers in the council education departments that holding class discipline and imparting knowledge are all but impossible.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Kids arn't the only stupid ones, when I was nursing, I had a patient come in after he had chopped the end off a finger with his lawn mower, we sent him off to a larger hospital with the bit of finger, and it was reattached and did well. A few months later he was talking to someone while he was mowing his lawn, and the other person asked him how he managed to chop his finger, Oh that was easy, I just did this, and he stuck his finger under the mower. This time they couldn't reattach the finger. The bloke wasn't really considered to be dumb, I think at on time he was the town mayor among other things.

Ian S C

[Martin DowingParticipant @martindowing58466]

Posted by Tractor man on 10/03/2018 10:31:42:
Kids are not stupid per se, rather they lack awareness of actions and consequence and an alarming lack of practical knowledge.
My niece recently sliced off a finger pad whilst washing up, claiming she didn't know knives were supposed to be sharp!

………

One day David Attenborough will have to explain how the human race became extinct because their mating became unsuccessful due to social media and the fear of being accused of assault.
Off back to my lathe now, rant over…

No worry.

Safety officials are already working on that. Most of knives you can buy today do not cut at all, so they are safe. Within few years all of them will be made that way so your niace is no longer going to hurt herself in a ktchen.

Regarding possible extinction, I don't think that it will go that bad and if there is a real danger officials will introduce Sexual Intercourse Consent Form (to be crossigned by a lawyer before deeds are done).

However I supect another trouble in making. No one will want to teach them out of fear of being accused at whim of being a paedophile. So they will grow even more stupid than now.

Martin

[norman valentineParticipant @normanvalentine78682]

During my daughters formative years we lived in the Falkland Islands and behind our house was a mountain. They used to go there to play and there was many a time that I would look up, with my heart in my mouth, to see them standing on the top of a rocky outcrop. Despite my fears I never told them no, I did say take care. They have grown up to be very self reliant and prepared to take on challenges that their peers in UK are too scared, or their parents won't allow, to accept.

Let kids take chances, don't blame somebody else for the accidents. It is all part of growing up!

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

If you want to see stupid then look no further than our government's over-the-top reactions to the poisoning of the British/Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

Martin.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

The army is having a ‘practise exercise’. It has only taken them a week to organise it, mind.

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

Posted by not done it yet on 10/03/2018 14:57:27:

The army is having a ‘practise exercise’. It has only taken them a week to organise it, mind.

What's your point??

Jim

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by jimmy b on 10/03/2018 14:59:59:

Posted by not done it yet on 10/03/2018 14:57:27:

The army is having a ‘practise exercise’. It has only taken them a week to organise it, mind.

What's your point??

Jim

I'm guessing he means they have the practice exercise before they do the real one.

Kind of like cricketers playing endless test matches but never somehow seeming to play the proper one …

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