Speaking as someone who's been fostering kittens... the dumb ones are less annoying than the smart ones. 🐱

@Nuttall's word devolution is apt. It's a devolution of the mind. The pertinent question is whether it's all some negligent accident, or not.

Either way, it's on us to raise the bar.

That's done systematically and on purpose. Make people dumber, it is easier to sell BS you see on TV every day. Less and less people think for themselves, look at the "plandemic" numbers, if that doesn't tell you anything, I don't know what will. Critical thinking is gone with the wind.... sadly. What do to you might ask? I would home-school my kids if I had smaller children. Once again the nature tells us "You are on your own Buddy" You have to save yourself while you still can.

I wouldn't be exactly sure how to tackle this problem at large, however, I can share what I've done personally to improve my reading and writing skills. As I kid I remember immersing myself in books and also remember having high marks on any sort of writing assignments all through elementary and middle, but this began to change as I got into high school and college. During those times, the feeling of enjoyment towards reading and writing diminished, and with it my grades as well. It began to feel more like a chore than for leisure and pleasure, therefore, I only did the bare minimum to obtain average grades. Post school, I would read here and there, and would attempt to write in journal format, but I would always struggle for consistency.

Things definitely started to change after stumbling upon Bitcoin. If you truly want to understand the importance of Bitcoin, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable and learn, which sparked the intellect in me to start reading and eventually writing much more frequently. In addition to Bitcoin, it's effect of lowering one's time preference helped me to optimize my health, which further resulted in increasing my motivation to read and write more.

The past three months or so have been the most consistent I've been with reading and writing. I haven't missed a day of writing in my journal since about three months ago, and I have been reading everyday for the past three months or so as well, both long form content and short form. The big change I made three, four months ago was lowering my carb and sugar intake drastically and focusing on getting the bulk of my daily calories from quality fats and protein. Additionally, I've started to supplement with fish oil in the past 3 weeks and these dietary changes and shifting from being carb dependent to fat adapted has clearly increased my capacity to learn, to read, and write with much more clarity and consistency.

With that being said, I believe the clear decline in intellectual ability in the West stems from multiple factors, as I had to fix many aspects of my own life to get to where I am now. But if I were to change something to get the ball rolling towards fixing a very complex issue (thanks to the fiat system), I would start with implementing a course or a lesson of sorts on the topic of an optimized diet. One that teaches people objectively what people should think about eating and not eating or eating in moderation in order to live to their true potential. Something like insulin resistance is a huge handicap when it comes to living and more people should at least have access to the knowledge to reverse certain dietary detriments. Access is one thing, a person's willingness to change is another, but for those who are frustrated with their intellectual ability deserve to understand that the fix could be much simpler than we may think.

Whenever I hear adults talk about this problem, I ask them if they read a lot of books or write, even just journal. The answer is almost always no. These are people who are able to read and write. They just don't because they don't think it's important. I think that's a large part of the problem.

Kids don't read anymore they grow up with mobile phones and tablets. People also don't write, they type and everything as autocorrect. So there you go, its up to parents to try to correct this at home imo.

It's devolution. The real question is why can't we build pyramids anymore?

Who wants critical consumers?

Education is a pit that will gladly deepen itself for government subsidy.

The State demands better pass rates, and educational institution do their darnedest... for a price. Yet that price mostly purchases grade inflation, like an under-the-table agreement to pass Bucky from one level to the next despite his lack of preparedness.

An article shared by @brandonsbytes in Christianity talks about the politicization within higher-ed which effectively replaces education-centered content with an instructor's subscribed propaganda. I see that firsthand at my institution, and I would not be surprised if it's happening in high school.

My bride used to work in elementary education. The school's philosophy, which was not uncommon for the district, was that the students feel loved in the classroom. I would hear day after day how certain disciplinary and education routes were expended with in service of that end (while not meeting that end at all).

Government education is a key problem. I would close the Department of Education. Remove truancy laws. Open the education market fully.

That said, I think we also have a cultural problem in the US. We value conformity over curiosity. We value entertainment over knowledge. We do not appreciate our wealth. We do not teach personal responsibility. We don't realize our potential.

The system is designed like this. The level is falling, we are less and less demanding of the children in terms of writing, reading, and mathematics.

Children do not make the effort because we allow them not to and we do not teach them to have a taste for reading and writing.

Video games, social networks, etc. are all activities that bring them immediate satisfaction and take precedence over more relevant long-term activities such as reading and writing.

From then on, the trend is growing.

You may also think that this is done to make people more and more stupid and distract their attention from important things. The more they play, the less they will think and the less likely they are to see the system in which they are locked up.

Give the kids a break, They are now focused on what gender they feel more close too.. And you have to reckon its hard to choose from the 92 available

Who need maths anyway.. Not like bitcoin is build on mathematical rules :)

one other thought…

if 75% of 11th graders aren’t reading or doing math at an 11th grade level, why are they moving on to 12th grade?

isn’t the entire point of having grades in school so that you progress to a new level once you’ve learned the concepts in your current level?

If you're looking for the standardized government schools to actually give a damn about children's abilities here, I think the point is being missed. The school system exists primarily to foster obedience and fear of authority to produce compliant citizens and obedient workers, respectively.

One side note - I've noticed that even among older adults, people don't read anymore. Like actually READ, a physical (or even kindle) book.

Instead, they listen to audiobooks. The audiobook listening population has grown a ton, actual book-reading population has shrunk.

i've noticed since my kids were in 4th grade they are pretty much just pushed through. nobody is held back anymore.

counterpoint: i haven’t found a ton of data to suggest that reading comprehension scores have ever been a whole lot better than they are today.

maybe this poor state of literacy is actually the best it’s ever been…

Not only are these trends not due to high standards, they are occurring in an environment of continuously declining standards.

Government spending on education has been negatively correlated with attainment since the '70s. Unless proven otherwise, the simplest explanation is that government schooling is counterproductive.

Here's the same in Turkey.

Leaders do not want people to think and be informed. They are working hard for this. The result is obvious: They were successful.

A minister in our country once said, "I love those who have not studied."

If kids aren’t reading at their level by age 9 then it’s impossible for them to catch up, according to a Baltimore public school teacher, teach for America program

sure "spending doubles" over the course of two decades.. is that enough to keep up with inflation in both the dollar and class sizes due to rises in population? Nah.

Scary and sad... how do these people function in life?