Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge? | Hacker News Reader

Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

nytimes.com

18 pointsmatstc11 comments

What would happen if you gave all the candy away. No, really, what would happen if, for one country in particular, candy was free? 10% would show restraint and eat healthily. The rest would more or less bing. If you put escalators everywhere, 90% wouldn't climb stairs anymore. This is what has happened with capitalism in America. We've made everything easy and most have binged on it. In fact, I think it's part of a natural cycle. America will lose the power to compete (the escalators will stop), and the next generations will be quite smart because they have to be.

Companies go through this all the time. Company X was at the top of the world, got complacent, lost its competitive edge, and had to start over. What makes us think that countries are any different?

Of course the article cherry-picks evidence to support its claim, and that's not fair. But I think, outside of America, no one questions its premise. Worse, it's evident there is nothing that can be done to remedy the situation; all we can do is wait and let nature take its course.

Meh.

Most people are wrong about most things most of the time. Some people are right about some things some of the time.

Work hard, collect your "some things" into a narrow category and you'll be a professional, maybe even an expert. Just go with the flow and you'll have a brain full of random pop culture trivia.

The world is chock full of stupid people, it just seems like they're somehow easier to spot in America.

Sure they are. Once we have established that (look, we have plenty of anecdotal evidence!), we never need to reconsider our judgement or allow exceptions, since everybody arguing against it is clearly (in mentality) an American and thusly, (due to what we already know about Americans (they're dumb and dumber)) not a reliable source of information. Call me Logic Master.

BTW, notice how my argument (the one behind the irony) is based on an incorrect assumption about the message of the article. (I read something about rhethorics.)

BTW, notice how I try to get away with not reading TFA by pretending it was a special rhethorical feat.

Further, notice how I seem to be replying to myself all the time.

It surely is the expression of an inner intellectual dialogue; no, no MPD here, go along!

The youtube video the author is referencing is this one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=juOQhTuzDQ0

Well, yeah: If you pay them to be entertainingly ignorant, Americans are very good at being entertainingly ignorant.

I mean, geez, the show is called "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader". If I were a guest on that show, I would damn well find a way to make the fifth grader look smart. Otherwise I would be a spoilsport, a far greater sin in American culture than pretending to be stupid.

Replace Ms. Pickler with the all-time Jeopardy champion, and the show is boring. The guy just gets everything right, the kids get frustrated, the premise falls apart. Then they leave him on the cutting room floor. Not much of a way to get ahead in your career.

I'd say that Pickler did an excellent job -- her bravura performance as an idiot seems to have landed her a mention in the Times, made her extra famous on YouTube, and probably boosted her asking price for her next gig. Now even I have heard of her, and I've never watched five minutes of American Idol!

Whether or not I think that such a show should exist is a different question, but that's kind of beside the point. Who am I to decide? I am pretty sure that, in a culture that has spent fifty years promoting egghead-positive television like Jeopardy and the more recent Millionaire, this kind of parody is bound to become popular now and then.

Yeah, American's are meta-stupid!

Why the hell should I care?

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