Over the past few years I have started to notice that people are getting less and less informed on subjects that should be considered as general knowledge. My fellow students stare with baffled faces at our teacher as he tries to explain something with simple examples from relatively famous and well known examples from the past(for example: our history teacher tried to explain the concept of dictatorship and used Hitler as an example and some people have absolutely no clue that Hitler was a dictator. This arround the age of seventeen and eighteen is deeply sad), or everybody suddenly just forgot that you can change an equation by changing the same thing on both sides of the equation(Y-6=4X+2 is the same as Y = 4X + 8).
But these situations donât only occur at school, for example take a thread at random in of the communities and it wonât be long untill you find someone that states completely false and misinformed ideas. Others have to correct that person to prevent onlookers to get confused, but in the end the person who is corrected often doesnât even care as he is convinced that his is the correct explanation or answer and ignores an explanation given by someone who took the time to get their facts straight.
What could be the cause for this slow draining of knowledge? Please share your thoughts and feel free to illustrate them with examples from your own surrounding.
People have been slowly been brought up worse and worse. Such as being spoiled or babied. It passes on. (Not saying it is always the parents) These people usually have a very big ego to accompany this.
More likely it is the persons ego, they feel that they can never be wrong and along with this they try to impose what they feel is right amongst other people. There are also always the people who think that yelling makes their argument more substantial, taking a step back in the evolution of our skills in reasoning. Resorting to aggresive tactics and even violence.
This certainly one of the scenarios that occur, but dometimes people just don't know something and find it that exotic and different from their daily lives tht-at they just panic because they can not cope with it.
The examples you've listed I personally consider dumb not to know, since they are pretty well known facts so it kinda baffles me that somebody might not of heard that somewhere or know that from somewhere. Not saying people are dumb for not knowing those examples, but weird that some people actually don't.
And this is exactly what i try to say, how can it be possible that people don't know these things, it was after the dictaor situation that I actively started paying attention to these situations. And I must say that the number of resembling situations is stunning.
"Disappearance of general knowledge"? Sounds like the Golden age fallacy to me. You know, the same thing that makes everyone think that everything was better in the past. For example, just ask anyone on really any sight if things where better years ago.
Why in hell do you think knowledge is disappearing? I have only seen it rise, now that anyone who wants to know anything can just take out their phone, google it, and become a little bit knowledgeable about the subject. We are all caring around an oracle in our pocket, you can't say that we are losing knowledge.
This certainly one of the scenarios that occur, but dometimes people just don't know something and find it that exotic and different from their daily lives tht-at they just panic because they can not cope with it.
What? That doesn't make any since. Hitler being a dictator takes so much away from the lives of your friends?
I have to agree to some point with 314d1, there have always been people who didn't know about such things, but today I see a lot of people who are quite informed about many issues. I don't think there has ever been a bigger change to the worse, maybe simply some fluctuation due to social and educational factors.
One thing though, could be the availability of information, which may make it less rewarding to actually learn and remember stuff; you could always go check about it in teh internetz. Maybe this could be of a certain influence? But this is just hypotethizing and can certainly be debated...
Why in hell do you think knowledge is disappearing? I have only seen it rise, now that anyone who wants to know anything can just take out their phone, google it, and become a little bit knowledgeable about the subject. We are all caring around an oracle in our pocket, you can't say that we are losing knowledge.
This isn't really what i meant, my excuses if I confused you, you see I fully agree with you that we have the possiblety to search nearly everything on your "ocket oracle", but what I meant was more that there are things that you should know, even if it's just the basics.
An other reason why you might have interpreted it differently from what i intended is that it could be considered a very literal translation, as English is not my mothertongue.
could be 1 of the reasons for what you discribe. back in the days we had to remember alot more things. these days we just search it and get the info we need from this "ocket oracle". (i like it how that sounds =P ) so we use our brains less then befor. easyer to forget things in conversations.
and used Hitler as an example and some people have absolutely no clue that Hitler was a dictator.
My sister said someone in her history class (age 16-17) thought that there never was a WWII or Hitler or Stalin.
We are all caring around an oracle in our pocket, you can't say that we are losing knowledge.
Yet having access to the information is now used as an excuse to not need to personally know it. And when they do look it up, their sources may not be the best. There was a national poll of teens about where they get their news from. A majority responded 'Facebook'. It was posted, therefore it's true.
Something to think about is that even though there is a lot of information out there, there is also a lot of false information. I know plenty of kids who will swear without a doubt that the many conspiracy theories they have a completely true without a doubt. People are misinformed on evolution, the solar system, and I'm sure the list goes on. Since anyone can post anything on the internet, it's not hard for someone to read it and believe it. It might help if kids were often encouraged to look for trustworthy sources. So basically I agree with EmperorPalpatine.
There is more information to acquire in the world and it is easier to access. Don't know what the volume is of a function is? Then look up a video on integral calculus. What to know more about the universe? Then just Wikipedia it and follow the links till you are completely lost in the material.
There has been a steady trend of IQ scores increasing over time. This is refereed to as the Flynn effect. There are alot of factors that account for the increases but some of the major ones are developing third world countries and more people being educated.
I think generally that people are not becoming dumber. IQ is at least remaining steady and one factor of IQ is crystallized intelligence which is just random knowledge like knowing who Hitler is.
What could be the cause for this slow draining of knowledge?
It's more of a shift. People aren't learning less or retaining less all of sudden, they're just learning different things. For example, if the teacher had used Saddam Hussein as an example for a dictator, I bet most would have made the connection. WW2 is now pretty firmly almost a full life time ago. People don't talk about it as much because it is old news. This is true the further back you go.
How many Americans know much or anything about the war of 1812? Or the Mexican-American war?
As others have stated as well, it simply is unnecessary for most people to "learn" basic things any more. Retention is redundant when you have a cell phone in your pocket which can look it up (and more accurately/detailed than what most people will remember anyways) so while they are ignorant, they are not uninformed.
Doesn't mean it sticks. Some people read wikipedia to get more information or google certain things, yes, but that doesn't mean he/she will remember it again in a month, week, day, 20 minutes later...
Don't kid yourself. My four years in high school were basically spent bored out of my mind observing the trends of the students there. On average the only kids who remembered 10% of the material past the test on it were the ones who complained about having studied for 3-4+ hours. Even then retention was maybe a 50% after a year, and relatively none after 3.
For anyone who actually does remember the previous class material, you'll notice that in whatever class comes next in any linear teaching subject (Math/English) that nearly the first QUARTER of the school year is review because students don't remember what they did past the last quarter + summer break to any measurable degree.
What meant to say is that I wonder why people seem to not not know basic stuff, the general knowledge you're pretty much obliged to have.
According to your standards. I wasn't aware there was a list of "things everyone should know" out there. Yes, there are things that people in each generation are expected to know. A hundred years ago a woman not knowing how to sew and cook would raise the same issue we're talking about now. We have different emphasis.
Have you noticed that some cashier's can't even calculate my change
