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Comment by keepamovin | Hacker News Reader

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Something being old doesn't meant it's false. It even has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty

People have predicted the end of the world for literally thousands of years. Should’ve happened by now, right?

This has names too btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

And what do you call it when someone flings the names of fallacies at their opponent without argumentation?

(I agree with you, though)

There's a first time for everything, and an end to most things. The roman empire lasted hundreds of years, and then it ended. Many empires did. The sun will end too, at some point. Ice ages last for thousands of years, then they end. And there are countless other examples.

"X has lasted a long time so it will last more" is so obviously wrong. Think about it for more than 3 seconds.

Or was it sarcasm? I can't tell anymore.

> “X has lasted a long time so it will last more” is so obviously wrong.

Smarter people than you and I have thought about this problem and come to the opposite conclusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

> is a theorized phenomenon

I wonder why they put that "theorized" word in there. It would be so much easier to say "it is a phenomenon". Only that sentence would not be true now would it?

Come on. The wiki article just connects a name to an explanation, does not prove or even claim the effect is real.

Perhaps some folks don't get the reference.

They capitalized “Idiocracy” so it seems pretty likely they’re unfortunately, whether they know it or not, endorsing the eugenics-based thesis of the movie.

We don't have to support Eugenics to understand there's probably a real effect.

You can’t disentangle “smart people have few kids, dumb people have lots of kids, ergo we are gradually getting dumber” from eugenics (or class for that matter). It’s inherent in the argument. It’s also not how genes work.

It’s a very classist, flawed argument. In some way it’s emblematic of what the right calls “East Coast elitism” yet I find people from across the political spectrum have no issue embracing the argument (because they all assume they’re part of the “smart” group). “Wow look at all these dumb hicks having kids while the smart, responsible, educated people aren’t.“ You really don’t see the issue with that?

There’s even an XKCD for it: https://xkcd.com/603/

Your assessment of "classist" gives away the game. It's either a real thing that can happen via selective pressure (or lack of selective pressure) or it isn't.

You can call it a flawed argument, but then you need to point out the flaw. Intelligence is heritable. Flynn effect has reversed. High IQ people have less kids. What's the flaw?

It’s impossible to make a serious argument while citing IQ as a useful measurement of someone’s cognitive potential.

I also don’t need to prove anything. If you are claiming this phenomenon is real the onus is on you to prove it. I can link a dozen articles about the flawed argument people channel from Idiocracy but you should search it if it interests you.

If we can't agree that IQ is a useful predictor ("measurement") of cognitive performance and potential, perhaps the most supported and studied theory in all of psychology, then I'm afraid we have no common point of discussion.

That’s an alternate reality. IQ as a measurement of “intelligence” is highly controversial and is better explained by home life/environment.

Lots of people find it very politically and idealogically important that IQ be considered controversial, yes.

You can find a lot of ancient people saying it was happening. They were obviously wrong, right? Things are better now than then, so they were wrong. Nevermind that many of them were speaking of real social decline, not of humanity altogether in the long run but of their own society in a less global sense. When Socrates was bitching about "kids these days", Athens was peaking and a long period of uneven decline was starting. So really, he probably wasn't wrong.

Plato, and Heraclitus before him, both thought that society would eventually collapse. They sounded smart but would’ve been quite surprised to see what we’ve done with the world.

Their societies arguably were doomed. I'm sure they'd be impressed by much we have today, but after the shock wore off are you sure they would change their minds concerning humanity's long term fate? Between climate change, the nukes and dark forest aliens, a lot of people today think we're doomed in the long run. (For what its worth, I don't.)

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