Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why
Being a long-suffering thoughtful inquisitive type that can turn their hand to anything I have spent many hours pondering why it seems that most people around me show traits of &#x27;stupidity&#x27;.<p>I&#x27;ve come to the conclusion &#x27;stupidity&#x27; is not the issue; &#x27;unthinking&#x27; is, and the specific sub-type is &#x27;unable to apply logical analytical thinking&#x27;.<p>I have a relation who, when challenged that the way they&#x27;re doing some task is the opposite of optimal, responds along the lines &quot;I thought ...&quot;. In this case it is a sure sign that no logical analytical thinking took place.<p>Maybe the crux of the issue is that in general our societies have become so complex and fast-moving that technology, standard procedures (best practice), and fundamental measures of performance are changing so rapidly that very few individuals have the mental energy to keep up throughout their lifetime.<p>Some I&#x27;m sure have become tired of it and given up thinking altogether.<p>I would suspect many HN readers may have experienced this in their own highly technical fields alone.<p>For the general population who aren&#x27;t - or don&#x27;t want to be - interested in the world in general it&#x27;s easy to deliberately avoid learning simple tasks and instead &#x27;leave it to an expert&#x27; and continue in ignorance, or to expect someone else to have done it for &#x27;convenience&#x27;, or not want to attempt it because of the dangers due to &#x27;health and safety&#x27;.<p>Here in the UK at least there&#x27;s a very simple example of the culture behind this: the electric plugs on AC mains-powered equipment.<p>In the 1970s when a new item of white-goods for the kitchen arrived
it was unlikely to have a plug fitted to the cable although some equipment came with a plug - you fitted it yourself and were expected to have the basic knowledge required to unscrew, strip the insulation from the cores, attach wires to poles, screw-down, insert fuse of specified rating, and screw back together.
It often had a piece of card slid over the prongs with a diagram to help.<p>In the 1980s the cable almost always arrived with the cores cut to length and stripped and if you were buying a premium item the plug fitted by the supplier.<p>By the 2000s the plug was always fitted and more often than not it was molded onto the cable; and yet some of these still have the wiring diagram card attached. The plugs mostly no longer required the &#x27;lid&#x27; removing to get to and replace the fuse - there is a captive sliding carrier that pops out when pried with a flat-blade screwdriver.<p>By the late 2000s the three metal prongs (earth longest, live and neutral slightly shorter) were encased in a plastic sheath which you have to remember to remove or else it won&#x27;t fit into the wall socket.<p>Now, all of these incremental creeping changes can be seen as product improvements to provide greater convenience.<p>But the result is we now have several generations that have no idea about even the basics of the second most important technology in their lives: electricity (after water and food). They need an &#x27;expert&#x27; to do it for them.<p>Ditto for basic plumbing skills, routine car maintenance, and more and more I notice even preparing basic meals, cooking and baking from raw unprocessed ingredients.<p>Oh, and a humorous anecdote on the subject of food: about 15 years ago a 17 year-old friend of mine was visiting for a week and I asked if she would like fish and chips (fried potatoes to the North Americans!). I grew up on a farm and so fetched the 25kg bag and selected some potatoes ready for peeling and chipping.<p>This 17 year old (who ate chips from chip-shops frequently) had no idea that to make chips required peeling and slicing raw potatoes and was incredulous at the process; she &#x27;thought&#x27; chips just grew as long square pieces of potato - see: &quot;unthinking&quot;.<p>I was left speechless that something that I considered so obvious and fundamental had escaped her for 17 years!<p>Multiply these examples up for every major and minor aspect of coping in a modern technology-based society and the result is the appearance of &#x27;stupidity&#x27;.