What is Digg?432 Comments
- robfarrell, on 11/27/2008, -8/+191Ignorance is bliss for the majority of Americans.
Off to Starbucks for my full service latte. Gotta be quick though, Ow My Balls is on tonight. - knde, on 02/15/2008, -16/+166I don't believe it's an issue of "Americans" being hostile to knowledge.
I think it's more the case that "Powerful America" (government, mass media, corporations etc.) would like to keep Americans less knowledgeable. It's in their best interest to have a public that doesn't think critically and accepts whatever is shoved down their throats.
It’s easy to accuse many Americans for falling for that trap, but the fact of the matter is a lot of people (around the world) just want to keep their heads down and get on with it. And I can’t say I blame them. There are days when I’m all about being politically active, socially responsible, globally aware and informed. And then there are days when I just want to get through my workday, go home, concern myself only with my personal life and shut the rest of it out.
It’s really unfair to say “Americans” are embracing ignorance. I imagine only a miniscule portion is intentionally doing so. Generalizations = bad! - rpi22, on 02/15/2008, -13/+133Yes.
- sk11, on 02/15/2008, -10/+105"This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said. The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?” “That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied....nearly two-thirds of Americans want creationism to be taught along with evolution.
ROFL. - 4degrees, on 02/15/2008, -6/+64intelligent and educated people are harder to control, if not impossible. Cant run a country on oppression if the people are too smart for it.
- inactive, on 02/15/2008, -2/+56Espescially the gross misconception that all opinions are equal. Which I find absolutely horrible. It is very rare to find someone who doesn't think that way. Try teaching logic to an entire class of people who think all opinions are equal...
"Just because the logic is false doesn't mean it's wrong". I hear this every single year. - ordig, on 02/15/2008, -10/+64smart people don't follow orders.
- inactive, on 02/15/2008, -18/+71Sure, it is just Americans. Never mind, for example, the percentage of Brits who think Churchill was a fictional character. Let's just lump a few hundred million people into one little box.
Anyone buying into such a grand generalization is the real "hostile to knowledge" culprit...
Now, if you ask me whether the news outlets are hostile to knowledge, I am open to that conversation... - kingmanic, on 02/15/2008, -7/+43This one is very correct however. Go through any thread about junk science, count the number of people who openly state having more education is "limiting".
- BohicaTwentyTwo, on 02/15/2008, -3/+34If you watch Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, hoping to be intellectually stimulated, it says something about your intelligence. How's that for "debased discourse" on the internet?
- brentinkc, on 02/15/2008, -7/+38No, it's the way you select your friends. If somebody comes rolling up in a Nascar shirt telling you about how great W. is, do you spend a lot of time hanging out with them?
- twitchr, on 02/15/2008, -52/+83Yay for sweeping generalizations!
- MaynardJK, on 02/15/2008, -13/+42The government is hostile to knowledge, not the people. They are the ones running the education system into the ground.
- swaddict, on 02/15/2008, -8/+37I think part of this stems from news items saying on one day red wine is good for you, and the next day it's bad for you. Also from scientists who find out that a long standing theory is wrong. Who can keep up? What should you believe?
Another problem is that, among teenagers, it is not cool to be smart. If you are, it means you spend more time studying than partying.
For me, I'm going to direct my kids to the articles about 25 year old millionaires. Brains are good for something. - GRANDPAMUNSTER, on 06/11/2009, -2/+31Why come you don't have a tattoo?
- kingmanic, on 02/15/2008, -1/+27Access is greater, actual knowledge is less. Some fully exploit this access, others just browse TMZ. The average junior high kids knows just as much about electronics, geography, politics, psychology or any other discipline as their parents. Most studies of children show they are more comfortable with technology but do not exploit them any differently nor know any more about them then their parents.
- cubeblue, on 02/15/2008, -4/+27Case in point - you, sir make the article's point for it.
"Half the scientific community is pushing this global warming nonsense...and half of them are calling it junk science."
_Half_ of the scientific community is calling it junk science. Since when? - BoneStamp, on 02/15/2008, -4/+25they give orders and decide whether to accept the offer of "fries with that."
- crunchdigg, on 02/15/2008, -0/+20since he heard it from the pulpit
- lowerlogic, on 02/15/2008, -3/+23All sweeping generalizations are bad.
- lmhiatt, on 02/15/2008, -2/+21don't forget to pick up some brawndo on the way
- pianomahnn, on 02/15/2008, -3/+22Wrong. The persons running it into the ground are the communities that don't care or are part of this knowledge hostility. There may be some federalization to the school system (No Child Left Behind) but overall education is still handled at the local level. Communities and the people within them are why education is failing. You can't blame the "government" for this one.
- ZenMojo, on 02/15/2008, -3/+21I give Americans more credit. It's not that Americans are hostile to ALL knowledge, they are just hostile to knowledge that challenges their beliefs. Just try to convince people Truman didn't need to drop two nuclear bombs on Japan. You can bring all of the evidence in the world and most Americans would actually think it was a personal attack on their country.
Plenty of rational humanists argue that religion is the problem, but it's not. It's any strongly-held belief. Many rational humanists refuse to believe that the United States made Iraq worse or that the United States created al-Qaeda or that the Likud is descended from a terrorist organization, the Irgun, or that Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship or that the UAE is ALSO a dictatorship and Dubai runs on slave labor or that the military is responsible for several dozen homicides in Afghanistan detention centers (how many Americans would accept that we torture verifiably innocent people to death?).
Ignorance is bliss because the truth is scary as hell. - inactive, on 02/15/2008, -5/+23you all play smart but you're nothing without google.
admit it, the google generation needs learning too. - SteelChicken, on 02/15/2008, -9/+27most of the people I know are fairly intelligent and well informed. Do these interviews only happen in walmarts in the deep south or what?
- raid517, on 02/15/2008, -4/+21Knowing things is for dumbasses lol.
All that smart stuff is just gay... - kingmanic, on 02/15/2008, -1/+18The problem you are pointing to a very poor media reporting of science. The Media wish to have succinct and authoritative science which is absolute and unchanging. Of course thats not science. Science is verbose and dynamic. don't blame science for failure of media. Media also paints "smart" people in a bad light. From Malcolm in the middle to the Simpsons. Smart people are always losers. It mirrors or contributes to the anti-academic bent in America.
- bhrgero, on 02/15/2008, -1/+18i can only speak for Germany, and even as we have problems with our school system at the moment. i believe 70-80% of the population could answer at least 7 of your 8 questions in a split sec.
that's not meant to put Americans down. i just believe as our society (and that's directed towards the society and systems of the western world loves to put more money into "defense" budgets than in the education of our kids this problem will be an even bigger one in no time. societies who put money and power first and people second and like to keep their people single minded (easier to control this way) will have to live with the consequences. my daily experience gives me the impression that even educated people shut down on new info and knowledge more and more because its easier that way. just met this guy from Tennessee the other day here in my hometown Berlin(Germany) and after conversation about music and whatnot we ended up talking about evolution / creationism, and he said, he didn't care..."cause who can now what really happened 10.000 years ago... i wasn't there" ... i honestly didn't know what to say there... and the guy didn't seem like the dumb type at all... - PopcornDave, on 02/15/2008, -1/+18No, smart people listen to orders, dissect them, and then decide on the appropriate actions.
- inactive, on 02/15/2008, -21/+38sweeping generalizations?
Yeah, thats why a border-line retard is "President"
Thats also why our country is going bankrupt.
sweeping generalization? I think not - brentinkc, on 02/15/2008, -4/+20The correct answer is "no", btw.
- robbob, on 02/15/2008, -2/+18'Shoot, I don't know that *****! I'm just keeping it real, just keeping it real.'
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Yeah, you're keeping it real, real dumb. --Chris Rock's stand-up - skinkaid, on 02/15/2008, -0/+16What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?
I don't know and I don't care. - kungfoolou, on 02/15/2008, -0/+15Full service latte in idiocracy is NOT a coffee drink. Dugg down for missing a great reference.
- ZenMojo, on 02/15/2008, -3/+18Technically, the Google generation doesn't need learning. We have Google. Search engines are the 21st century encyclopedia.
- whalt, on 02/15/2008, -4/+19The tendency to attribute the cause of every problem to a conspiracy theory is itself a sign of a degraded intellect.
- josegutz, on 02/15/2008, -3/+18Idiocracy is the funniest ***** I have ever seen... Even sober...
Especially the courtroom scene, or the St God's hospital scene...
Oh and does anybody even read the background stuff? That ***** is funny altogther... BIG ASS TACO!!! - kingmanic, on 02/15/2008, -4/+19"Just because the logic is false doesn't mean it's wrong"
pedant: Actually that statement is true. You can have a logically flawed argument where the conclusion is correct. all it means is that statement does not support that conclusion. So a Fallacy of Undistributed Middle may still have the right conclusion although the conclusion does not follow from the argument. - BoneStamp, on 02/15/2008, -5/+20I mostly agree with your dissenting tone, but I don't think it matters if they're intentionally embracing ignorance, they're still choosing NOT to know whether consciously or not. It could be the media's fault, it could be the education system's inability to interest them in politics, world history...etc. It might be their parents fault for letting them go to the mall everyday instead of reading a book or doing their homework. I think the problem is balance, they choose to NOT know whenever given the chance to do something more entertaining/fun.
The manufacturing sector has been strong in America for many years, and not knowing much could still make a person reasonably "successful." Now that a lot of those jobs are moving elsewhere and the economy turns to mostly service oriented business, people are going to be required to use their brains a little more and this is where the "college isn't necessary" thinking get problematic. I'm not saying college is necessary, but some people who don't think they need it - need it more than the rest of us. - fasda, on 02/15/2008, -1/+15so people learn better when all perceptions of reality are skewed making it impossible to accurately determine the facts of a situation?
- NonLeftistDiggr, on 02/15/2008, -8/+21Half of your example questions are irrelevant. Who is the Secretary General of the UN? Who cares? They are so corrupt they are irrelevant.
I don't get why it is so important to know stuff like that (I know about 75% of your questions), yet 85% of the planet couldn't explain why they come back down to the ground after jumping. - MrFancy, on 02/15/2008, -1/+14Most brits I've met know more about American history than most American's I know.
- inactive, on 02/15/2008, -3/+16Take our President for Instance.....
- whalt, on 02/15/2008, -6/+18Um no. The vast majority of scientists with expertise in the field acknowledge the reality of global climate change while a few assorted cranks, most of whom have no expertise in climatology beg to differ. But you wouldn't know that because you get all your science information from Fox News.
- PopcornDave, on 02/15/2008, -1/+12Well honestly, political campaigns would look better on a head full of LSD wouldn't they? They might even make sense.
- EntropyFan, on 02/15/2008, -3/+14I was showing some pictures of a trip to Fort Ticonderoga, and mentioned Ethan Allan.
One of my co-workers asked, "What, the furniture guy?"
I told her yes, and the Green Mountain Boys were the delivery crew. - KraftDinner101, on 02/15/2008, -5/+16Anyone here ever read Fahrenheit 451? The current state of affairs in the US reminds me of it.
- kingmanic, on 02/15/2008, -3/+14Global warming: 95% notice a trend in the temperature, 5% are being paid to decent. Of those 95%, 75% of them note it may become a problem 25% are rabidly over reacting. Notice who the media reports on (the 25% that are rabid and the 5% that are shills). also note how you think it's a 50/50 split due mostly on media reporting. It's nto failures of science it's failures on science reporting and viewer comprehension.
- nihilite, on 02/15/2008, -3/+14That in itself may be true, but I have traveled around the world and I have never met any people so smug about their ignorance as Americans. Americans are given every opportunity to enrich themselves and the world around them but they choose to be complacent and astonishingly ignorant of the world outside of their backyard. Being ignorant is not a crime but willful ignorance in people who believe themselves to be superior is pathetic.
- fasda, on 02/15/2008, -1/+11But starches provide good energy for all the long hours in lab and can be consumed quickly.
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