Is Google actively trying to lower people's IQ?

It might just be me, but in the last few years I have noticed a very worrying trend among younger people. They seem to be unable to develop a coherent thought or think for themselves. I have seen them repeat sound bites from talk shows, celebrities, TV shows, movies etc. that they have seen or heard. And if you point that out, they don't understand the criticism.

I know it is a clichée to bring up Idiocracy, but could it be possible that idiocracy was so prophetic it actually foresaw what would happen just 10 years in the future.

...

>has been happening for decades
>only noticed this in the last few years

The movie was less of a prediction of what would happen, and more of a satire on what was already happening

The fact logic and rethoric isn't taught at school is to blame as well.

>hurr durr my anecdotal experience means that the whole world must be going this way too!

google the flynn effect. natural selection is making the average iq (including critical thinking skills) go up demonstrably generation after generation. physical strength is whats being traded for it. the phenomenon youre witnessing user is that media brainwashing campaigns have skyrocketed and it is now being directly pumped into everyone's brains via the internet/technology now.

It's a consequences of easy information.
People's attention spans have been degraded to mere seconds.
That's why they spout off sound-bites, they became too disinterested right after they finished watching the clip

Idiocracy is the most accurate documentary of our lifetimes

Young people are just discovering the world and look to established pop-culture as a point of reference. Adults don't act like that. Dilly dilly.

>They seem to be unable to develop a coherent thought or think for themselves
That is actually just the norm for our species

I want to fuck Maya Rudolph in that movie. IRL, not so much.

No it isn’t. There’s nowhere NEAR enough niggers in the movie to depict things accurately.

And here I was thinking I was the only one!

It’s amazing how dumb people seem to be, and how intelligence is not encouraged. I didn’t take statistics in high school but I remember those who did always complained about how hard it was etc, and when I took it for my degree it was easy. Basic statistics should be taught to everyone. Same with basic logic/philosophy. There are so many classes taught in school that are worthless, we should be teaching kids to think, and then educate them. How can they learn if they can’t think

>The fact logic and rethoric isn't taught at school is to blame as well.
It is not just school and not just on the left. If you regularly watch BBC Question Time, you will notice that many people in the audience will verbatim repeat what some politician has said. Same thing in the US with "build the wall" and "Mexico is going to pay for it" and on the liberal side things like "Multiculturism is good" or "Gender fluidity is natural" or "Take a new for blacks".

Society used to include people who could create their own thoughts.

QED

They are, somewhat. My younger brother is a highschool freshman and is currently doing research and debate. I went through similar classes when I was in school as well, even had a solid 2 week lesson in identifying propaganda in 7th grade. The school system sucks though, and is based almost solely on memorization and repetition, not comprehension and application. Some of the debates described by my bro are appalling in the degree of non- thinking emotional responses and the extent to which others readily support these non arguments.

>I didn’t take statistics in high school but I remember those who did always complained about how hard it was etc, and when I took it for my degree it was easy.

Same thing here. In an accounting class in an unspecified degree of a UK university that shall not be named, I thought people were joking when they said they couldn't understand easy concepts like accelerated depreciation or just reading up on IFRS standards. But they were not, they were not kidding, they truly did not understand simple concepts.

We've created a society where it is now illegal to go against the morality of the masses. If you start to wrongthink, it's off to the local prison for 'rehabilitating shower time'.

>non- thinking emotional responses

That is one of the things that bother me the most today. Rather than reason, people will use emotions to make a point. How has that ever made any sense except pre-civilization when Uga-buga from the Kawohani clan made growling sounds to demonstrate he was the biggest tiger warrier South of the Uwanze river?

Well . . . like . . . I don't really . . . like . . . I don't . . . like . . . really know what you're . . . like . . . talking about . . . like . . . you know.

I remember a little while ago I saw Roger Scruton talking about the phenomenon and that it doesn't really have much to do with iq per say - but people's lack of information and critical thinking doesn't help and their desire to just consume sound bites certainly doesn't help. He argued that it had more to do with inability to articulate thoughts as they never have any real need to as so many things are just spoon-fed to them, and alongside the retarding of social skills due to social media in some respects, it was inevitable that people would slowly lose certain critical aspects of thought.

Well at least the leaf referenced 1984. It's another one of those ridiculously over-referenced works, but in this case it's especially apt because as a writer Orwell was horrified by the concept of Newspeak - language being intentionally deconstructed so that people become physically incapable of having complex, subversive thoughts.

It seems to be quite effective, an entire class of people is being created who you can't even "dumb down" your ideas to explain them to, they are completely incapable of digesting even the most basic rudiments.