Does it take less intelligence to survive than it used to?

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   IDONOposted 11 years ago

   Does it take less intelligence to survive than it used to?
   
   Has technology replaced thinking? Many people can't add or do percentages. Many can't find a book at the library without a computer instead of Dewey Dec. System. Can't cook other than microwave. Get where I'm going here? What do you think?

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   duffsmomposted 11 years ago

   I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if the general population's IQ begins to collectively drop over the next few decades.  Kids can't tell time on a regular clock, can't do math without a calculator.  I was stunned at how often my kids would come home in high school and talk about having watched a movie in one class or another during school instead of reading the book.
   
   Times are changing and I am not convinced for the better.

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   JThomp42posted 11 years ago

   I definitely agree we have become a society of convenience. Our ancestors had to live off of the land, kill their own meat, grow their own vegetables, build their own homes, etc. Their survival depended upon their ingenuity and hard work. If they did not get these things done, they would have starved.
   
   Now all we have to do is run to McDonalds and so many other fast food chains. God forbid if something were to happen and people had to fend for themselves, the majority would starve.

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      A Thousand Wordsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      We've been fighting nature for too long.

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   Charluposted 11 years ago

   Without a doubt the new generation of children and adults want nothing more than to find the easy way out, and usually that's the way they are taught. To often they don't realize how exhilarating the experience just might be with a pad and pencil, or working up a good sweat.
   
   I strongly believe that it is the reason we have so many disorders, dementia, diseases, cancer, and medical conditions.  Some people have the attitude who cares if my heart starts to fail they'll just put in a new one, or you only live once, (guilty myself of the later)
   
   It seems like the wave of the future and I hate to think of everything they will miss, from all of mother natures wonders, to just being able to figure out a simple problem in an instant.

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   Angela Kaneposted 11 years ago

   Yes because everything is easier. We no longer have to hunt for food or leave our houses to do anything. We have machines and computers that do all the work for us.

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   An AYMposted 11 years ago

   Yes it does take less intelligence to live in my opinion.  Life has bumper rails on it.

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   Attikosposted 11 years ago

   The thinking people will have better odds of survival when the consequences of the last election come in full bore. The problem of declining average intelligence is therefore a self-correcting one. Once the Obama goupies have died out, we can rebuild the world.

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   Dr Billy Kiddposted 11 years ago

   Worldwide, collective IQ scores have been going up for 50 years. This appears to have been caused by the availability of education being extended to more people. If you don't use the child's brain, it doesn't grow new connections.

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   connorjposted 11 years ago

   
   
   Without a doubt; yes indeed, it does take less intelligence to survive than it used to. Even though intelligence quotient (IQ) is indeed going up; I do not believe that is a significant contributing reason why it does or does not take less intelligence to survive. Simply put, to some degree our lives are at less risk and our life span has increased significantly through the centuries (even though this trend may perhaps be reversing now)... Technology has contributed to this; however, one could also argue that we are becoming to dependent on it and it this dependency could be a significant threat to our longevity in  many ways...

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    onegoodwomanposted 11 years ago

    Perhaps your question will define the arts of :
    
    survival and Living!
    
    Not only do I wish to survive, but I wish to LIVE!

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    tussinposted 11 years ago

    But it also takes more intelligence of a different kind to navigate a world with more technology and where personal interactions are more and more frequent.  "Back in the olden days" people didn't need to communicate with each other so often, so people's emotional intelligence and interpersonal communication skills were probably not as sharp as they are today. 
    
    And I disagree that mathematical intelligence is lower just because people use calculators nowadays.  It takes mathematical skill to formulate analytical problems and come up with the method of solution; crunching numbers is just grunt work. If you know that you need to multiply 5*0.85 in order to find a 15% discount off $5, you obviously know enough math to get by. Who cares if you use a calculator to do the arithmetic? That's why they were invented.  The meat of the problem is in figuring out *what* computation to make.  In that regard, I don't see that people have become dumber.

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       IDONOposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Fair enough. Except, is that "enough to get by" attitude enough to get by in the event of cyber-terrorism?

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    James-wolveposted 11 years ago

    You see, in today s times, we do rely on computers, and sadly, this means that we have lost certain skills that were once commonly used :remembering information (both storing and recalling), and ability to learn (when exposed to new information, synthesizing it with new information)..
    
    On the other hand, we have gained a kind of technological intelligence that has never before been discovered.
    
    So in conclusion, it isn't that we are getting "Less intelligent", its just that we are getting smarting in different aspects of life.

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