Idiocracy - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Sionyn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2012, 06:46:14 pm
content: with the idiots of this planet i wonder what the future of humanity is i just saw a film about, man was it funnyhere's the reviewtrailer

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2012, 08:27:50 pm
content: Yep, that was a great movie. It's got, like, electrolytes.

author: WhyMe
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 12:25:34 am
content: I don't know if it's the future of humanity, but sadly I believe that's the road the U.S.A is traveling down now. Kids know more about sports/entertainment and less about history, math, science, etc... A year ago at a family party I was talking to some family kids that were in high school. All had passing grades in every subject, in the 80's to 90's level. So I asked them a few basic history questions. I asked about the U.S. revolution and who fought in it. Not a single kid knew the answer. I asked more basic U.S. history questions, they had no clue about the Civil War, WWII, Korea, or Vietnam. But they knew every stat on almost all the players on their favorite football team and knew everything on all the hottest actors and who they were sleeping with.And a friends child didn't do the math the way she was taught, she did it the old way that her parents showed her, the answer was the same but just a different way of doing it. She failed the test even though EVERY ANSWER WAS RIGHT. They don't teach kids to think, they teach them to follow and if you don't follow you are failed.These will be the adults that will be looking after our country in 20 years. It's scary. But they will have electrolytes.

author: johnboxall
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 12:35:33 am
content: Quote from: WhyMe on December 23, 2012, 12:25:34 amIf they're not too busy 'batin...

author: MikeK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 12:36:15 am
content: The upside is: You need not be concerned about losing your job to a youngster when you're in late middle-age.

author: JoannaK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 04:25:36 am
content: Quote from: MikeK on December 23, 2012, 12:36:15 amAssuming the jobs have not been outsourced to some 4th world country by some Mba-tallents.

author: ttp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 06:52:05 am
content: Quote from: WhyMe on December 23, 2012, 12:25:34 amThat's really sad, sounds like teachers don't understand math but follow the rules themselves.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 07:10:20 am
content: QuoteI have mixed feelings about this one. My son was like that; not showing the work or doing the problems, but getting the right answers. Except everyone let him get away with it. Now he's in pre-calc and suddenly things are harder, and the answers AREN'T coming out right any more. "Write down the intermediate steps", I say. "huh? I never had to do that!" he replies. And he's pretty much flunking...OTOH, I'm constantly shocked by how little "chemistry literacy" there is. Considering that nutrition, medicine, and environmentalism are major social issues, it's very sad that people believe that heating their lunch in a polyethylene container might lead to the formation of dioxins. Or "an m80 has the power of a quarter of stick of dynamite." Or the whole "Ban DiHydrogen Monoxide!" movement... Sigh.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 08:05:35 am
content: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."-- William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence. An observation by the late Director at his first staff meeting in 1981.What's even sadder, is that almost everyone still insists this decline has been due to entirely accidental effects, usually claiming stupidity and incompetence as the primary cause.Suggest that it isn't accidental at all, and try giving people references to the actual causes (eg Globalism, Agenda 21, Communist Manifesto, population cull ideology, etc) and they get all offended and start talking about tinfoil hats and conspiracy nutters.Never mind that the standard process of history is and always has been primarily driven by 'conspiracy.'Anyway:http://everist.org/archives/links/

author: ecat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 09:20:19 am
content: Looks to be a fun film, I'll have to track down.Meanwhile a few links on the current state of school education in the US and UK which I found interesting:

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 10:09:42 am
content: Quote from: westfw on December 23, 2012, 07:10:20 amBut aren't these two different issues? Not showing intermediate steps is not a good idea, independent of which calculation method was used. Unless of course you are Srinivasa Ramanujan.Yesterday was Srinivasa Ramanujan's 125 birthday anniversary. He was a famous mathematician who died at the age of 32, and had the habit of not writing down proofs. Some say because of his lack of formal training, others say because paper was expensive at that time. Anyhow, 93 years after his death other mathematicians are still plowing through the four notebooks he left behind and proof his statements.QuoteBut Dude, that stuff is dangerous shit, man! *burp*

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 11:26:44 am
content: Writing down intermediate steps - at first the problems are easy so this seems stupid and pointless, but the teacher could always give a more complicated problem (one that has too many steps to remember them all without writing down at least some intermediate steps) then writing down intermediate steps would no longer be pointless.Not knowing history - I am quite terrible with names and dates (for example, I may know a law of physics or some formula, but not know after which scientist it was named), I can remember the events, but not the names.As for knowing stats and not knowing school subjects - well, don't we all have some hobby or something we are interested in and remember it easily while having difficulty remembering boring stuff, like history or a bunch of rivers?

author: WhyMe
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 11:50:08 am
content: Quote from: tronixstuff on December 23, 2012, 12:35:33 amLOL I just had to re-watch the movie last night. "The Masturbation Network. Keepin' America 'batin' for 300 years."

author: WhyMe
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 12:06:51 pm
content: Quote from: westfw on December 23, 2012, 07:10:20 amI should have been more descriptive... she showed the way she got the right answer but it wasn't the way she was taught so they were marked incorrect. She did it the "old" way instead of the "new" way.

author: WhyMe
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 12:14:45 pm
content: Probably already know about this but I'll post the link anywayhttp://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdfOh and I found this little essay on the moviehttp://www.frederica.com/writings/idiocracy.html

author: WhyMe
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 12:31:05 pm
content: Quote from: Pentium100 on December 23, 2012, 11:26:44 amThe point is that this is OUR basic history (USA). Very simple stuff that everyone should know. Some of the kids said they never even heard of the American Revolution or the Civil War! Key wars fought on our own soil! I don't know the key points in your country's history but I bet you know them.

author: A Hellene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2012, 10:43:17 pm
content: As I have written before,Quote from: A Hellene on April 28, 2012, 01:44:05 amThere, inmy Scridb account, you can enjoy reading a copy ofThe Marching Morons (Cyril M. Kornbluth, 1951).-George

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2012, 06:41:23 am
content: QuoteDude; they're messing with you! I might do the same if you start quizzing me at a party...OTOH, I found the "Physics Misconceptions" video to be rather pointless nitpicking. The difference between classical and relativistic velocity in their example comes out to about 1e-15, and their gravity example is more a demonstration of mass/energy equivalence than a deep mistake (IMO; I am not a physicist. Maybe these are terrible simplifications that forever prevent advanced understanding. Like learning BASIC as your first programming language :-) ) Sort of like the now well-taught fact that the earth is pear-shaped rather than perfectly round. Except that it turns out that it's still about as round, say, as a bowling ball. Leaving me to wonder which statement ("round" or "pear shaped") is really closer to "correct" (in that most people don't interpret "round" as "perfectly nine-nines round", anyway.)It's somewhat a matter of stressing qualitative information over quantitative information (because, you know, "math is hard.")

author: WhyMe
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2012, 08:24:26 pm
content: Quote from: westfw on December 24, 2012, 06:41:23 amNo they were telling the truth. I know these kids very well and they all were serious. They have gone to public schools all their life. Their grandfather was there when I was asking them these questions and he was appalled at what they didn't know. It's the dumbing down of America.

author: MetraCollector
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2012, 12:45:54 am
content: My younger brother (18yr) was in USA (Univeristy of Maryland) this summer on International Chemistry Olympiad and when he returned to Slovakia, he demanded piece of bread and glass of water for invitation.He hated USA and didn't tell any good word arguing that people in US are very dumb, stupid, there are pictured instructions nearly at the toilet. He disliked consumption style and wasting of resources concerned with food.In fact, US things are subjects of many jokes and are symbols of low inteligence known by students in our countries.But do not misunderstand me please. Devolution is coming to us too and I am afraid we can't do anything with it.

author: Hypernova
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 25, 2012, 01:38:07 am
content: Quote from: WhyMe on December 24, 2012, 08:24:26 pmWith a crap load of movies on those subjects how can they not have heard of them?

author: WhyMe
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2012, 09:55:33 pm
content: Quote from: Hypernova on December 25, 2012, 01:38:07 amBecause they don't watch them.