A new report from Pew Research makes an attempt to better understand U.S. adults who get their news largely from social media platforms, and compare their understanding of current events and political knowledge to those who use other sources, like TV, radio and news publications. The top-level finding, according to Pew, is that social media news consumers tend to follow the news less closely and end up less informed on several key subjects.
That seems to reinforce a belief that many people already hold, of course — that people who get their news primarily from Facebook, for example, aren’t as informed.
SM does not attract the brightest bulbs. That, coupled with the woeful state of the “information” provided on SM (if any), easily explains the lack of knowledge. Across the board, except for independent sources (in all media), the same story is generally put forth by the same usual suspects. Discerning minds are frequently able to spot narratives and falsehoods wherever found. But that leads back to the lower IQs of people on SM, along with those watching TeeVee and reading, on-screen or in print. They get the same mass messages from Langley and Madison Avenue.
Of course, SM users get those delightful cat videos and such.
A great deal of focus these days is placed on the possible harm many athletes may be doing to their brains due to the hard hitting nature of contact sports like football or hockey. While the serious and debilitating nature of CTE-related and concussion injuries are indisputable at this point, an interesting new study conducted at Northwestern University is playing devil’s advocate in the debate surrounding sports and brain health.
Researchers say that as long as an athlete avoids head injuries, their brain is likely healthier than a non-athlete’s. This was found to be the case across a variety of sports, including contact sports like football, soccer, and hockey.
“No one would argue against the fact that sports lead to better physically fitness, but we don’t always think of brain fitness and sports,” says senior author Nina Kraus, the Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, in a release. “We’re saying that playing sports can tune the brain to better understand one’s sensory environment.”
After analyzing close to 1,000 participants, including roughly 500 (both male and female) college Division I athletes, the study found that athletes develop an enhanced ability to quiet electrical noise in their minds. This makes it easier for athletes to quickly and efficiently process external sounds on hectic playing fields, such as their coach yelling instructions from the bench.
This has been an accepted fact for decades. Now, some try to put an anti-Nationalist spin on the phenomenon.
To estimate the effect of cable television on I.Q. scores, the Norwegian scholars analyzed data on the introduction of cable network infrastructure by municipality. They calculated years of exposure to cable by considering the age of eventual test takers when cable became available in their municipality. They controlled for any potential geographic bias by comparing siblings with greater or less exposure to cable television based on their age when cable infrastructure was put in.
They estimate that 10 years of exposure to cable television lowered I.Q. scores by 1.8 points. In related research, Mr. Hernaes finds that exposure to cable television reduced voter turnout in local elections.
This is all partly true. But, the truth goes deeper, into hard neuro-science. TeeVee acts literally like a digital narcotic. It turns off certain brain centers, sometimes with lasting effects. If lower rhetoric and trash nonsense account for the 1.8-point drop, then how much else can be attributed to diminished physical capacity in the brain? Better not to find out. Turn off the tube!
We know Western IQ averages are falling, plummeting. I’ve covered it. Vox Day covers it. Stefan Molyneux covers it. Dutton and Woodley own the topic. In a sloppy bit of journalism, even NBC dives in. At least they didn’t print thewell-worn “the average IQ is 100” statistical fallacy. But, they dance all around the issue, ending with something about climate change (shock!).
Ultimately, it’d be nice to pin down the precise reason IQ scores are dropping before we’re too stupid to figure it out, especially as these scores really do seem connected to long-term productivity and economic success.
Two primary reasons: 1) Smarter native people in the West aren’t having enough children (if they have any at all), and; 2) immigrants from lower-than-average countries keep having more children. No time, today, to explain mean regression, why smarter native people aren’t breeding, why not-so-bright natives are breeding, etc. Read “At Our Wits End” by Dutton and Woodley if you can’t already grasp the obvious (if you work for NBC for example).
This stuff matters mightily if you care about things like societal stability, electricty, abundant food, and indoor plumbing. If not, then pop a pill and chill out with the glowing screen on the wall (while it still hase power and programing).
It’s much worse than declining general intelligence and the end of the Flynn Effect – it’s the end of Western Civilization as we know it. Winter is already underway and there appears to be nothing to stop it.
This will likely feature in a future TPC bit – just submitted this week’s entry on drafting women into the Imperial military (another sign of advanced decay).
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Thirty-five percent of Americans name the government, poor leadership or politicians as the greatest problem facing the U.S. This is the highest percentage Gallup has recorded for this concern, edging out the previous high of 33% during the 2013 federal government shutdown.
But, dig a little deeper and it starts to look like that declining IQ in action.
The current percentage of Americans naming government as the most important problem is nearly twice as high as the 18% recorded in November. That increase likely reflects public frustration with the government shutdown that occurred from late December through most of January. Gallup observed a similar double-digit spike spanning the 2013 government shutdown, from 16% in September 2013 to 33% in October 2013.
Americans have different things in mind when they name the government as the most important problem. An analysis of the verbatim responses to the question from the latest survey finds that 11% of Americans specifically cite “Donald Trump” as the most important problem, while 5% name “the Democrats” or “liberals” and 1% “Congress.” About half of those who say the government is the most important problem — 18% of U.S. adults — blame both parties or cite “gridlock,” “lack of cooperation” or the shutdown more generally. The latter figure has grown from 6% in December and 12% in January.
If the government’s the problem, then why not celebrate it closing (even temporarily)?
Bottom Line
Federal government shutdowns have clear, negative effects on Americans’ views on a variety of measures, including their general satisfaction with the direction of the country. But shutdowns aside, Americans’ views of the government itself as a problem — rather than the means of solving problems — have increased over the past two decades. On one end of Gallup’s 2001-2019 trend is the record low of 1% naming the government as the greatest problem, recorded one month after 9/11. On the other end is the latest 35%, as the longest shutdown on record left bad feelings on both sides of the political aisle.
At the moment, Democrats and Republicans are aligned in this view, though likely for different reasons. For Democrats, the shutdown was a stalemate over a border wall they overwhelmingly reject — from a president of whom few in the party approve. For Republicans — who show an even greater recent increase in mentions of government as the top U.S. problem — the ramifications of losing control of the House of Representatives and the party’s inability to pass legislation it favors may be dawning on the party’s rank and file.
The people seem to sense some sort of odd issue emanating from the Democrats and Republicans. But they keep identifying as Democrats and Republicans. Einstein had a saying about this pattern of action. Also, there’s more cooperation at work than most people understand; the uniparty keeps the government going and the government keeps causing trouble. And, if one still believes that the United States Empire is in any manner democratic, then where does the ultimate blame lie? Maybe with the … people themselves?
A little good news from the other findings in this particular poll: the second biggest problem the wise citizens see is with immigration. However, given their track record with accurately assessing their own chosen number one issue, Lord only knows what they’re thinking about number two. My guess is that, whatever that is, it is also indicative of the general mental decline.
The Details is in the Decline: The Fall of the American IQ
We’ve known for some time that general intelligence is declining, at a rapid and alarming pace, in America and across much of the West. I mentioned it, here, earlier this year. This issue is important, critical to the survival (or death) of civilized society and is directly related to my other option for this week’s column – President Trump’s failure to arrest unchecked migration into the United States.
A new book, At Our Wits’ End, Dutton and Woodley, Imprint Academic, Exeter, UK, 2018, sheds damning light on the reversal of the “Flynn Effect” and what the precipitous decline in national IQs means for us and for our children’s future (it ain’t good).
One of the five major causes of the lowering average intelligence is: “Western elites are now deliberately sponsoring the colonization of our nations by vast numbers of low-IQ persons from Africa, Asia and Latin America.” The other causes are mind-boggling but this one touches on the invasion and Forty-Five’s failure to halt it.
In 1960, five years before the disastrous Celler-Kennedy Nationalization Act, some 85% of immigrants to America came from Europe, home to both Western civilization and to higher than world average IQs. In 2015, fifty years after the disaster, Euros account for only 13% of our new arrivals. The great majority of the others do indeed come from places with much lower than normative average intelligence, the exception being some immigrants from East Asia.
Today we can confirm that hereditary intelligence has been declining. Dutton and Woodley summarize the evidence, which includes deterioration in simple reaction times, color discrimination, the use of “difficult” words, working memory, special perception, child developmental schedules and—most critically—frequency of macro-innovations. In 2017, an Icelandic study found the first direct genetic evidence that a set of alleles predictive of g has been declining in frequency in that country’s population. More such studies can be expected in the years ahead.
According to a 2015 meta-analysis of studies conducted since 1927, IQ in the USA and the UK appears to be declining at a rate of 0.39 points per decade. Declines are also reported in Russia and a number of non-Western countries.
The authors emphasize five reasons (besides improved public health) why this is happening: 1) naturally gifted people have a tendency to trade mating and parenting opportunities for the opportunity to develop their abilities, e. g., through higher education; 2) being forward-thinking, such people are likelier to use contraception; 3) the modern welfare state taxes the more successful in order to support single mothers, who can often increase their benefits by having more children; 4) the modern movement for sexual “equality” has encouraged the brightest women to pursue careers and postpone marriage, often until it is too late; 5) finally, and most unforgivably, Western elites are now deliberately sponsoring the colonization of our nations by vast numbers of low-IQ persons from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Declining general intelligence has been masked during the Twentieth Century by the so-called Flynn effect, an improvement in specialized mental skills independent of g. This may be one factor which made possible the continued technological progress of the twentieth century. But there is good evidence that the Flynn effect has now done about all it can do, and lower genotypic intelligence will increasingly make itself felt.
I calculated this several years ago in Cuckservative. The affects of our cognitively-challenged societies are already beginning to make themselves felt. The Age of Progress is over.
Sorry … just a straight ripoff. This may be the subject of this week’s TPC column. Not sure yet as I kind of covered the subject a few weeks ago. There’s the “emergency” and immigration failure. We’ll see.
Many thanks to Vox Day and Co. for a social media platform for the bell curve right extremists: Social Galactic.
I’m there, @perrinlovett. It’s beta testing right now. And, with my SM history, don’t expect too much from me. However, it’s a great concept and a welcome change from the failure of Gab and the … letdown of Oneway. If you’re still on Faceberg or Twitter, it’s probably not for you; there’s a math test to get in.
UPDATE: Well, that’s over. Site pulled. No socials for me for now.
