Not as smart as I used to be.

[raegun]

Based on an article* I've been reading today, the discussion came up about someone proposing to relocate polar bears to Antarctica to 'fix' their habitat being melted away by global warming. Bear said something about polar bears and penguins being a bad mix. I realized I honestly didn't know if there were any penguins to the north, or if there

Comments

[ameliabeare]

Way to make me look like I think all Americans are ethnocentric dummies! :p

I've never been there so I can't honestly say. The Americans I 'know' are all online, and are all pretty intelligent people. I have a couple of gits on my friend list from America, but I have gits from all over the world too.

I really should thresh the gits from my friend list.

For some interesting 'world news', you should look up some of the affects the Burma military regime is having after cyclones and various weather anomalies have depleted the world food supply.

To hear my mother talk, you'd think the End Days were coming.

Your critical thinking class should cover World Views, too. You'll find those pretty interesting I think, given that you're noticing more and more the various stand points and perspectives of people from different.. world views. :D

[hammond]

To be honest, I think of Americans in general as quite a dumb and ignorant people. I don't think they all are, most that I speak to online and such are well educated about the rest of the world ad that is comforting but it is the "everyday Americans" that worry me.

I like to think that I'm smarter than most. I know most of the countries in the world (and where they are) for example. I know a wide range of stuff in lots of areas (I'm good at trivia stuff) and if I think about something that I don't know, I'll look it up somewhere.

In Australia, I don't feel particularly misinformed about things, but don't have an opinion on what others elsewhere are/aren't exposed to.

[raegun]

Ignorant is really the word I should have used instead of unintelligent. I think we have a feeling of such high privilege that we can do not wrong, and we'll never fall 'behind.'

Obviously, I am a look-up-aholic. I spend 2 hours reading one chapter of a text and 1 hour looking things up in encyclopedias online. I've just realized that I don't know as much as I thought I did. And I think that American society doesn't put such a high value on knowing.

[nkuvu]

I think that's the Big Thing here (here in the discussion, not the country

[raegun]

I think the average American (keep in the mind the average part) sits on his (yes, I am being sexist) fat ass (even more stereotypical, yet probably true) after work (if he has a job and isn't just collecting unemployment because he can) playing WoW or EQ or whatever. I also think he slept through classes or tried to get away from them (like I did in high school) or just slid by in some of them because the teacher didn't want to see him again when he repeated

[jai_dit]

Man, I am totally with you on the impending doom. I'm hoping it's just the effects of eight years of Bush and the Republicans, but if things don't get better in the next eight years or so, I am strongly considering fleeing somewhere saner.

Except then part of me wonders, could I really do that? I really value the stated ideals of the country, but find the reality slipping so far away from them. But if people would just wake up and do something... and if there's other people like me, who also want change and etc., but if all of us leave, who will do it?

I really don't know. It's tough. :(

[djchai]

I think on average Americans are on par with the level of intelligence of the rest of the Western world. However, we as Americans do not use our intellect on global issues or global knowledge. We choose to waist our brain power on things such as baseball stats, Hollywood actors and actresses, TV shows...so on and so forth. Geography has never been a strong point on American history.

Basically what I mean is that we are not stupid, we have the same capacity to learn as everyone else. We just don't put forth the effort and therefore we appear dumb.

[raegun]

I agree with everything you've said. We're shallow.

[nuchtchas]

depends on where you are, but I find that Americans can be really dumb and it saddens me. Though are we dumber then others? Who knows, but I do know that we don't mind flaunting our ignorance and celebrating it to create a picture that we are on average a much dumber nation

[raegun]

I think what I meant to get at was ignorance. I don't truly believe Americans are IQ-stupid.

[nuchtchas]

we might be :)