Not really convinced that better schools would have made that much difference to our collapse journey. From what I hear Denmark, Finland and Japan have the best schooling systems in the world. Do these countries have anyone talking about collapse and the insanity of growth-based economics? Not really. So, I see no reason why things would be all that different even if Americans could read and do math. What you really need is strong critical thinking and people not to adopt herd mentality.

That is the issue. Herd mentality. You can have the best minds in the world but if the prevailing thought says to believe in business as usual that is what people will do. People will only jump on collapse theories when the truth becomes undeniable and then they will lament that is so painfully obvious it was going to happen. However how many of these people are willing to stick their necks before the event and risk being labelled a moron? Not many I suspect.

I took 8 of the NYS Regents exams required for the so-called "Advanced" HS Diploma.  There were 3 for Math, Algebra, Geometry & Trigonometry.  Science had 4, Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry & Physics.  I only took the last 3 of those because I didn't take Earth Science, better known as "Rocks for Jocks".     That was the science class dummies took to fulfill their requirement of having at least 1 science course during HS.  I took the Amerikan History and English exams also.  They also had Foreign language exams, but I didn't bother taking the Spanish one, though I took the required 2 years of a foreign language.  I hated that class, found it very boring.

The tests were good basic science, not college level like the AP tests but if you could pass them you had a decent foundation for going into a college class already knowing the terminology and basic concepts, making understanding college textbooks easier.  I didn't take the AP tests because I was a lazy HS student, I didn't want to work any harder than necessary. lol.

I also taught the science exams during my short tenure as a teacher in a LI Public Skule.  My students generally did not do too well. lol.  They were even less motivated than me during HS and weren't good test takers. 

Any pretense that there are any minimum standards of proficiency or that a HS Diploma means anything besides the fact you attended are history.  Rather than admit that the education system is a complete failure, they just declare knowing any of this stuff as unnecessary.  Which in fact it is for many of the students who will never need to know any of it for the jobs available that they take.  The few highly paid tech jobs in society are gobbled up mostly by the kids of professional level parents who send them to private schools.  The remaining are taken by the 1% of high IQ kids who are autodidacts and can learn in any school just by reading the textbook.  OK, maybe it's 10%, that's about what I found while teaching in a typical lower middle class HS.  Thee parents in that community either were in goobermint jobs like cops, firemen, bus drivers and garbagemen or in the trades in plumbing, electrical or auto mechanics.  Salesmen and Real Estate agents also.  They had no need to learn chemistry, or with the invention of the calculator even how to add and subtract.

If they had dreams of making big money, it was in music or acting or sports.  Or more realistically, as Drug Dealers, and occasionally in legitimate bizness like opening a restaurant.  Quite a few went into the military also with dreams of becoming a pilot or if they were the tough guy type who liked Rambo, Mercs or Bodyguards.  The academic subjects of HS simply weren't relevant what they figured to do with their lives after HS.

What also was lost though was the ability to think in abstract terms, which is why they are so easily manipulated by politicians espousing one ideology or the other.  This has already happened though, all that is going on dropping the exams is acknowledgement of reality.  There's no reason to keep the tests, not enough kids can actually pass them.

It's hard for me to imagine what life must be like today in the typical HS classroom, for the students or the teachers.  It has to be incredibly depressing.  So it goes.

https://nypost.com/2024/06/12/opinion/new-york-is-about-to-make-its-high-school-diplomas-worse-than-useless/

New York is about to make its high school diplomas worse than useless

RE

As the article details, it hasn't just begun, it's been underway for years already.  Part of it is simple demographics, the falling birthrate started back in the 90s, so that translates to fewer college age students each year now.  Many other reasons though, not the least of which is that for many students, a college degree didn't lead to a high paying career, it merely began their working life with a big pile of debt.

In fact in many ways the expansion of universities in the 60s was a failed experiment right from the beginning and just served to devalue the sheepskin and lower the quality of the degree.  For prpfit schools in the business of putting warm bodies in the classroom seats accepted many students thoroughly unprepared for college level work.

The top public and private universities will survive a while longer, although the Trumpenator is making their lives difficult too and their operations will shrink in size.  University education will once again be available mainly to the elite and a few statistical outliers, bright bulbs that periodically turn up among the poor.  Of course now if they're immigrant kids, they'll probably get deported.

The great collapse of US higher education has begun

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/4/24/the-great-collapse-of-us-higher-education-has-begun

RE

QuoteThe great collapse of US higher education has begun

Yes, but to be more accurate, the great collapse of US middle class education has begun.

JACOBIN.COM • 2025-06-26

A Tech-Backed Influencer Wants to Replace Teachers With AI

Backed by tech money, entrepreneur MacKenzie Price is growing a network of private K–12 schools that promises to replace all classroom teachers with an "AI tutor" that students learn from while glued to their laptop screens.

The proles are not to think critically about society or history.

Get ready for Prager Screw.  The common man is to worry about the price of beer and trivia.  No "big picture" concerns will be appropriate or possible as idiocracy is pursued at warp speed.  A new age of pharaohs defined by the rentier^* economy the conservative billionaire (NAZI) class is building now dawns as our new reality.

It will not take long to create an nation of morons.  Destroying public education will have a very fast payback for 'them'.  In a few years stupidity, and draconian control by the American elite will be ubiquitous.  Recent decades have shown that poor public education is beneficial to the American upper class.  A large part of the American demographic is already malleable, easily manipulated.  And all too willing to play the fool.


* A rentier is a person who earns a significant portion, or often all, of their income from property rights rather than from actively working.

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 22, 2025, 06:13 AMIt will not take long to create an nation of morons.

The sentence imples future tense. Where have you been lately to think it hasn't already happened? I give origin credit mostly to the internet, I figure AI is the coupe de grace. Trump is a consequence of this happening as opposed to a prime mover.

Quote from: TDoS on Nov 22, 2025, 09:35 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 22, 2025, 06:13 AMIt will not take long to create an nation of morons.

The sentence imples future tense. Where have you been lately to think it hasn't already happened? I give origin credit mostly to the internet, I figure AI is the coupe de grace. Trump is a consequence of this happening as opposed to a prime mover.

You are right, I am a dinosaur who has gone to a library at night more than once in my life, to find when I got home I had explaining to do to my wife.  The paradox is that since I had a decent education and started out old school, the internet and AI do not dumb me down.  I use them both as tools and can I understand their limitations.  A more simple explanation is that my career in electronics inoculated my brain from turning into mush.

And yes, Trump is no more than executioner for the fates.    A nexus of forces made Trump happen.

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 22, 2025, 02:19 PMYou are right, I am a dinosaur who has gone to a library at night more than once in my life, to find when I got home I had explaining to do to my wife.

I'm going to have to remember that one, it is a great "men of our age" angle. I loved libraries, didn't have a wife around to need to explain anything to though when I finally came home though.

Quote from: K-DogThe paradox is that since I had a decent education and started out old school, the internet and AI do not dumb me down. 

Nor me. Which is why I irritate people so often I suppose, pointing out when folks appear to have fallen for some of the more interesting.... "facts" and "interpretations" they find online.
 
Can you believe I got banned from peakoil.com, and big chunks of my posting history erased years before RE showed up, for daring to point out the inconsistencies, lack of critical thinking and zero desire to learn the most basic components required to understand the topic? It was quite surprising, coming from a background where intellectual combat was sought out to test the strength of ones ideas. Figured the internet would be more like that. Boy was I wrong!

 

Quote from: TDoS on Nov 22, 2025, 09:35 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 22, 2025, 06:13 AMIt will not take long to create an nation of morons.

The sentence imples future tense. Where have you been lately to think it hasn't already happened? I give origin credit mostly to the internet, I figure AI is the coupe de grace. Trump is a consequence of this happening as opposed to a prime mover.

It's always been a nation of morons because the vast majority of homo saps infesting the planet are morons.  The main thing the internet has done is to allow morons to communicate their moronic ideas faster and more efficiently to a global audience.

RE

But, since we are on the internet we must not be morons as we have no global audience.

Quote from: RE on Nov 25, 2025, 02:56 AM

Quote from: TDoS on Nov 22, 2025, 09:35 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 22, 2025, 06:13 AMIt will not take long to create an nation of morons.

The sentence imples future tense. Where have you been lately to think it hasn't already happened? I give origin credit mostly to the internet, I figure AI is the coupe de grace. Trump is a consequence of this happening as opposed to a prime mover.

It's always been a nation of morons because the vast majority of homo saps infesting the planet are morons.

Ah....that's a standard smart folks answer. None of the three of us are below average in that regard. And while the normal distribution of alleged IQ doesn't allow your answer to be true..."morons" can sure be shit-stupid regardless of IQ. Peakoil.com being like a shining historical light proving just such a thing. Not the only one of course, reddit isn't bad either if you go way back in the right place. Most of the oil PO sites have disappeared memorializing what was considered the "facts" of the event at that point in time. LATOC would be the absolute GOLD STANDARD but Matt made that disappear because he sure didn't want it coming back on him as he tried to change careers to professional astrologer.

Quote from: REThe main thing the internet has done is to allow morons to communicate their moronic ideas faster and more efficiently to a global audience.

RE

Like a disease. It made people dumber, faster. So sure...it made things worse by spreading stupid shit far faster than it otherwise would have been. And did it really well, which is why it is my marker as a seismic shift.

One quick example. Colin Campball published a global peak oil claim for the world in 1990, in Noroil. Peter McCabe had a far more nuanced article published in 1998 (I was happy to have been a sounding board for him when he was looking for technical holes in his argument) and Colin Campbell came out of the woodwork, as did the French guy, and they went back and forth in print in later publications. It was great! Big ideas from experts fought out in public without the usual internet horseshit. And then the internet gives us peakoil.com....and presto....you can see the difference between the two if you were watching. I certainly did.

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 25, 2025, 04:21 AMBut, since we are on the internet we must not be morons as we have no global audience.

I agree with the unstated but implied conclusion. Not even RE can shout loud enough into the wind to overcome the hordes of mentally diminished, uninformed and desiring to stay that way folks that the internet consists of.

It took him, what, this entire century to arrive at one or two people who think similarly, and an objective observer along for the ride to watch a particular idea purely as a professional curiousity?

Quote from: TDoS on Nov 25, 2025, 09:15 AM

Quote from: RE on Nov 25, 2025, 02:56 AM

Quote from: TDoS on Nov 22, 2025, 09:35 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 22, 2025, 06:13 AMIt will not take long to create an nation of morons.

The sentence imples future tense. Where have you been lately to think it hasn't already happened? I give origin credit mostly to the internet, I figure AI is the coupe de grace. Trump is a consequence of this happening as opposed to a prime mover.

It's always been a nation of morons because the vast majority of homo saps infesting the planet are morons.

Ah....that's a standard smart folks answer. None of the three of us are below average in that regard. And while the normal distribution of alleged IQ doesn't allow your answer to be true..."morons" can sure be shit-stupid regardless of IQ.

A standard answer yes, but I can objectively show why it's true with a very high level of confidence.

As you point out, IQ alone does not make a person a moron, other factors are involved.  A fairly large number of them no doubt, but I'll just pick out a few important ones to show why this is true.

Beginning with IQ, by definition half the population has an IQ 100 or below. considered "average" intelligence.  Not necessarily a moron, but not the brightest bulb in the box either.  Genetically, being really smart is more complex than just a single gene, but in aggregate behaves like a recessive trait.  Looked at in this way in a Punnet Square, a child needs to be Homozygous for the smart gene and only 1:4 kids come out smart, the other 3:4 are Stupid.



However, many smart people are morons, because they lack the also recessive Common Fucking Sense gene.  Instead they have the dominant Easily Deluded gene. Only 1:4 kids are homozygous cfs.  You don't need to be smart to know Trump is a moron, all you need is CFS.  Neverthe less, half the people voted for him,  showing they migh not be morons themselves, but at least lack CFS.

In order to NOT be a moron, you have to be homozygous for BOTH the smart gene AND the cfs gene, which means only 1:16 people, or 3.75% of the population.

Beyond that is the consequences gene, how many steps ahead someone can work out a problem. The typical person can think 1 step ahead and be right half the time, but 2 steps ahead only a quarter of the time.  The ability to think 3 steps ahead is rare by itself and to be right more than half the time even more rare.  However, to not be a moron, you need to be able to think more than 1 step ahead and be right more than half the time.

At the very least, these three factors control human thinking and behavior, and being on the right side of the moron/not moron divide requires all 3 be positive.  It's not really so clear cut  as a single gene for any of them, otherwise less than 1% of the population would not be morons.  However, my own personal lifetime cumulative study of all the people I have ever met indicates that a MINIMUM of 90% of the global population of homo sap are MORONS.  Besides the FSoA, my lifetime sample includes Brazilians, Australians, Brits, Frogs, Krauts, Vikings and a smattering of other countries.

QED. 😀

RE

The blind obedience gene is dominant.  For sure it is not recessive.  It works with the socialization gene to make morons of otherwise capable people.  Their other abilities, being in the normal range; let them pass easily.

You need the special glasses to see them.

Quote from: RE on Nov 25, 2025, 11:55 AMAt the very least, these three factors control human thinking and behavior, and being on the right side of the moron/not moron divide requires all 3 be positive.

For starters, I liked the gene calculation explanation and went and looked up more about it prior to responding. Looking things up also revealed that a consequence and CFS gene look to be flyers, and when you ask AI about it what gets mentioned is an interaction between genetics and experience/environment. CFS seemed to also include/require a general intelligence and ability to learn. At best a "consequences gene" was attributed to combinations of others rather than its own thing.

Quote from: REIt's not really so clear cut  as a single gene for any of them, otherwise less than 1% of the population would not be morons.  However, my own personal lifetime cumulative study of all the people I have ever met indicates that a MINIMUM of 90% of the global population of homo sap are MORONS.  Besides the FSoA, my lifetime sample includes Brazilians, Australians, Brits, Frogs, Krauts, Vikings and a smattering of other countries.
QED. 😀
RE

However, jumping to the morons conclusion, 90% strikes me as a bit higher than I would have WAG'd myself. But as with experience, intelligence, and critical thinking being involved in CFS and consequences, I imagine such a number might also involve the attitude and expectations of the person making the estimate.

You are a smart guy, it isn't a surprise you would think most folks are morons.

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 25, 2025, 04:32 PMThe blind obedience gene is dominant.  For sure it is not recessive.

Couldn't find that as a specific gene either.

Quote from: K-DogIt works with the socialization gene to make morons of otherwise capable people.  Their other abilities, being in the normal range; let them pass easily.

And what type of test would you recommend to identify these types of people?