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.
Some people are just stupid, and they do not seek knowledge. It can be argued that many of your peers should know better. However, this is not evidence that people are growing more dumb. If you want to prove that people are becoming dumber, you must compare it with the knowledge of people from the past.
That being said, I'm sure there have always been stupid people. The fact you're stuck in class with some dull blades isn't evidence that knowledge is diminishing.
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.
Well you were implying it. General knowledge is crystallized intelligence which plays a large role in IQ and like I mentioned above IQ is increasing partly due to education.
it's not that we have a higher IQ. but what we learn is more advanced then befor. so it seems we are getting smarter ut we wouldn't be able to whitout the ideas made in the past.
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.
This is just an opinion though since this "general knowlege" is just general to you but seems to not be general for others. One thing that is general knowlege for me is how many feet are in a mile, unless you use the imperial system you never have to know that but if you do than it is general knowlege.
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.
Also I don't know if you noticed this or not, but almost every year you are in science class you are literly relearning the same exact thing that you learned in your younger years, yes it goes into a tad more detail, but it always makes me wonder why didn't they just get specific from the beggining since most of it is not hard to understand.
Also I don't know if you noticed this or not, but almost every year you are in science class you are literly relearning the same exact thing that you learned in your younger years, yes it goes into a tad more detail, but it always makes me wonder why didn't they just get specific from the beggining since most of it is not hard to understand.
because you learn things by repeating it. if you would get all the info at once and learned it only once then you will forget about it shortly after and only some thing will remind. they repeat it to makes sure it's clear for every1 in the class.
The problem with saying "general knowledge" is that there is no such thing. look at infants, or the severely mentally retarded. I'll place money on the fact that some people are so far gone that they don't know they need water and food to survive. By the term "general knowledge", you're under the assumption that everyone knows it. It goes into the argument of what you consider a person. what makes a person a person, and how do you know? Without answering that question, you can't place a term like "General knowledge" into the picture
On a global scale, general knowledge depends on the accessibility of knowledge, whether it be through education, the internet, television, or some other form of media. The problem is that some poorer countries don't have access to this and are left out of the loop. But I don't see general knowledge in decline, countries that have been poor in the past (India, China, a few Latin American countries...) are experiencing economic growth. This allows for better education systems and increased internet access, resulting in connections to the rest of the world and general knowledge.
But people have to want to learn general knowledge in order for it to be gained. Some people just simply don't care enough to learn about Hitler, (which is shocking, none of your classmates heard a joke about Hitler before?) or basic algebra. Others just think they're absoulutely right about everything even if they're completely wrong. Maybe these people really don't need to care because everything for them has been easy-breezy all of their life. Maybe they're just a bunch of egotistic idiots. Whatever it is, they can't be helped. But this group of people usually don't have any power over anyone because they don't have the knowledge to get there. Good thing too.
I think another thing that may be affecting the "erceived" general knowledge dip is what the new generation is filling their heads with. For example I take the original posters example of the teacher explaining dictatorship with an example of Hitler. It seemed you were dissapointed with the amount of people who understood the reference but here`s another example I would put money on that more people in your class would understand. Voldemort ran a dictatorship in the 7th HP book (or the 7-8 movies if you prefer) because he ran everything himself, not allowing for any other opposition of ideals and using scare tactics to keep his subjects in line.
Sorry, watching that video must have damaged my own brain, here's the actual link. Taking a breather, the oppressive weight of ignorance is suffocating me...You have been warned
are those the kind of people i talk to here? thats a no right? (i hope)
In all honesty, the people who are that caliber of ignorant are probably 15-20% of Americas (in my experience) so yeah, quite possible. Most would know the answers to the majority of those questions.
Sometimes general knowledge is not accurate though. Case in point, because I see Hitler popping up a lot, in history class I tried to explain to my classmates while in WW2 topics that Stalin actually committed more indirect murders than Hitler did and to his own people. Needless to say, no one believed me.
As the 1940's grows more distant people are going to forget details if they don't care enough. Like those that call Hitler German. But this really is more connected to the fact that more people are becoming ignorant about world events and if they can't follow those, how can they be expected to know things that happened decades or centuries ago? For example, almost no one I talk to knows much about the turmoil in Syria, or the NK declaring itself nuclear, or anything at all in the Middle East. If no one knows about these, then I don't really expect them to know much about anything in the early or mid 1900's.
Forgot to add this, recently I have been roaming the CNN comments just to find conversation about world stuff. No one I know knows enough about world events to hold a conversation with. So I turn to the interwebz to do my talking, or typing I guess. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
