Intelligence in the Internet Age

ErikPeterson writes to tell us about an article on News.com that takes a look at technology versus intelligence of the general population. From the article: 'Is technology making us smarter? Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?'

Comments

Average intelligence is a constant

[Lord Grey]

So the article basically says that intelligence remains the same overall, but how the intelligence is applied changes wildly as time goes by. Also, that specific applications of intelligence (skill?) in one field does not necessarily translate to another. Both points make sense, but I don't think either one is really news to anyone here. The article actually relates (without saying so) to one of my favorite quotes:

"Civilization advances by increasing the number of things one can do simultaneously."

I wish I could remember who actually said that, and whether I'm remembering it accurately or not. A quick search didn't turn up anything concrete, but I was probably looking in the wrong places.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[absolutspl]

"Civilization advances by extending the number of operations which we can perform without thinking about them." - Alfred North Whitehead good ole' google.com

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[RealAlaskan]

A quick search didn't turn up anything concrete, but I was probably looking in the wrong places.

Does that tell us something about your intelligence in the internet age?

Seriously (didn't want to be mean, but couldn't help myself), were you maybe thinking of Alfred Whitehead, who said:

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the thing that your mother told you, when you say that you wished you had listened when your mother told you what to do.

Remember?

I asked you what she said and you said "I didn't listen"

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[jejones]

Alfred North Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics.

An Asimov essay made a point apropos to TFA, and that points out at least one major gaping hole in the "here's an eighth-grade test from a 19th century elementary school; could you pass it?" meme. The Asimov essay dealt with a math book of 18th or 19th century vintage, and pointed out how much of it was spent on things that aren't studied today--because they're of minimal worth in today's world. The example Asimov gave was mixed-base arithmetic (adding shillings and pence and pounds)--the eighth-grade test was chock full of similarly antiquated and now-worthless units of measure.

That said--there is a core of information that people should learn well enough to not need to consult Google, lest one spend one's time looking things up rather than doing something worthwhile. The question is, what is that core?

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[mbrother]

The above post, and others, proves the point that we're "smarter" using computers. But ascribing a quote to someone isn't hard...

What's going to be harder in the future, and can be hard right now, is knowing how to verify and sift through the information you find on the internet. A "smart" person will be the one who can do this, and a "dumb" one is the one who gets their information from a bogus website full of crap.

That would have been a better and more interesting direction for the article to go.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[twiddlingbits]

Just recently I saw an article somewhere (maybe here?) that said because we do more things at one time now, we don't do each one as compeltely as we should therefore we are getting DUMBER. I thought that was a huge jump to a unsupported conclusion. I tend to think it reduces our workload doing the mundane and we can focus on the more important tasks (like posting to /.)

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Surt]

On the contrary, I think that slashdot grammar and spelling nazis would be stunned to learn that their skills have been rendered irrelevant by technology, and I think they would leap at the chance to deny the claim that how intelligence is applied ever changes.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Henry V .009]

The Flynn Effect actually shows that intelligence has beening rising ~2 IQ points a decade since 1900. Some recent data suggests that this may have petered out beginning in the 1980s though.

It remains an open question as to the cause. It's far too fast to be genetic. A combination of better childhood nutrition and lower disease burden may explain most of it. There has been some suggestion that the Flynn Effect is mainly concentrated on the lower-half of the Bell Curve, but this is contested.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[phaggood]

>what is the core?

And how do we let the curriculum gatekeepers know that the 'core' has moved? A cabinet-level 'Core Identification Officer' like the french have for grammar? If we did identify today's core, how much of that core would we have to toss out once 2020's bigbrain.google.com takes questions like 'how many dissertations on cold fusion in the last thirty years failed to take into account doping irregularities of the palladium annode?'

(Answers google; "3. Shall I place them onto your iPod Quarko?")

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[LWATCDR]

You mean like inches, feet, and miles? Then throw in feet to meters, inches to centimeters, and miles to kilometers. Scary thing is I know that 25.4 mms make one inch.
Would you believe that many kids do not learn to tell time with an analog clock until 7th or 8th grade. I wonder how long until they become obsolete.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[RealAlaskan]

What's going to be harder in the future, and can be hard right now, is knowing how to verify and sift through the information you find on the internet.

That little insight is what made Google what it is. Anyone who figures a good way to really automate that is going to get far richer than they did.

Intelligence is so ill-defined that I feel a little foolish talking about it, but it's more or less correlated to lots of good things, like success in school, ability to write page ranking algorithms, and so on, so we do all keep talking about it, whatever it is.

I do think that over-reliance on technology can keep folks from using their brains, and thus keep them from developing their intelligence. Even someone who is reasonably shrewd about finding factual facts won't gain much by it if he can't analyse those facts.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[jp10558]

Isn't that analogous to both fractions as well as the various science classes stressing getting things in like terms?

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Alpha_Traveller]

The question is, what is the core?

I dunno. I'll uh...look it up on google.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[jejones]

You mean like inches, feet, and miles?

I wish. Unfortunately, the US, while sane enough to make the switch to "decimal money," hasn't gotten around to switching to a sane system of measurements.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[marct22]

The core is a really bad movie... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Core

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Digital Vomit]

The question is, what is that core?

And how many nuclear bombs will it take to jump-start it?

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[flyingsquid]

Well, if you don't have to work very hard to perform tasks A, B, and C (because of calculators, the internet, spell check and various other thought-saving technologies) you can focus really, really hard on D (whether it is inventing a new computer algorithm, cold fusion, frictionless sandpaper, or new things to sue people over). Good old fashioned division of labor.

At least, that's the theory.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[LWATCDR]

Yep but you know I read a motorcycle mag from the UK called bike. They give MPG for the fuel economy but give the tank size in liters.
And when I look at at the VW uk site they give the fuel economy in MPG but I think it is in imperial gallons. They also include the liters per 100 km value.
It would seem that the US isn't the only country to have some horrible mixed base systems.
And then you have the wost mixed base system of all, time. I mean 60 seconds to the minute, 60 minutes to the hour, 24 hours to the day, seven days to the week, 4 to 4.3 ish weeks to the month. 12 months to the year!
I mean how many stinking bases can you put in one system. The problem is there are no easy fixes for it. That is just they way things work.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Doctor Memory]

Answers Google: "Did you mean palladium anode?"

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[plover]

Anyone who figures a good way to really automate that is going to get far richer than they did.

Except that reality is perversely the exact opposite of this. Witness the evolution of Google's PageRank or of any set of spam filters.

What happens is that you have people with bad "stuff" (spam, ignorant ideas, marketing hype vs. facts, or whatever.) And these flat-earth people are filtered out by effective spam filters, or left behind by legitimate search engines. So what do they do? They rig the game. Spammers start quoting Jane Austin in between pictures of Vl4GR4. Casino operators place spam-links in unrelated blogs. Homeopathic quackery is disguised as "medical" advice. And all these idiots have to do is figure out how to splatter spam all over until their Google PageRanks show them to be the world's leading authority on "all-natural cures for cancer" or whatever.

Google tries hard. They really don't want quack medicine to show up as the first hit for "cancer treatments," but they've provided the ultimate testing ground for the shysters. All the flat-earthers have to do is keep trying until they look legitimate.

Already it's become hard to convince my wife that the top hit on a search engine isn't necessarily the most honest or accurate place to get advice. Looking at Google's results, even I might get caught by a sham site at the top named mayo-clinic.com (the real site is mayoclinic.com) Fortunately, many of the stupid sites (alternative-medicine-and-health.com, for example) are self-announcing.

On the bright side, it's possible that intelligence is going to be subject to evolutionary pressures. If the people who fall for the flat-earther's scams run out and try to cure their cancer with laetrile (or whatever the 2000's equivalent is,) then Charles Darwin's theories suggest that they are going to be a self-limiting lot.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[rgmoore]

The question is, what is that core?

Each person has their own core of knowledge that's essential to them in their lives, but much of that isn't shared. As a trivial example, I need to know the layout of streets in my neighborhood but not in yours, while you need to know your neighborhood but not mine. If I ever want to visit you, I can use a map (though you'd need to provide your address first). An auto mechanic needs to memorize different things from a surgeon. To a considerable extent, we wind up learning those kinds of things without necessarily trying. I find that I'll wind up memorizing things incidentally when I've looked them up enough times.

The things that everyone needs to know are essentially how to get along in society- the three Rs, the basic structure of society, and how to coexist with others without fighting. Add in the ability to learn new things as you discover that you need to know them, and you've come to the end of what everyone needs to know.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[agraupe]

Well, at least MPG makes sense. A higher number is better! It always screws me up when I have to think about L/100km, even though I'm a Canadian who has grown up with the metric system.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

The children or the clocks?

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[jnicholson]

?

The reasonable metric alternative is surely km/L, which is what we use in NZ.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[NineNine]

There has been some suggestion that the Flynn Effect is mainly concentrated on the lower-half of the Bell Curve, but this is contested.

You horrible, horrible racist asshole! There IS NO BELL CURVE! You shouldn't even mention that. Facts that people don't like aren't facts! You should know that, you evil, evil bastard. As soon as somebody starts talking about a BELL CURVE, that instantly puts half of the population in the bottom half, which we all know, ISN'T FAIR!

And yes, I firmly believe that people are actually getting stupider as time goes by.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Flynn Effect actually shows that intelligence has beening rising ~2 IQ points a decade since 1900. Some recent data suggests that this may have petered out beginning in the 1980s though."

I blame disco.

All those prancing idiots and bimbos bred all kinds of stupid children!

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[jaseparlo]

The problem is though that the idiots usually manage to reproduce before they knock themselves off, so hoping Darwin will save you won't get you anywhere.

This is the geeks misunderstanding of natural selection - intellectuals love evolution because they think their superior brains will win in the end. This works in the work world to some extent, but on a species scale it's different.

The reality as far as evolution goes (and remember that evolution works on a macro scale, not in your lifetime or the foreseeable future) is that stupid people are at a distinct advantage. While intellectuals tend to have two or one children, the stupid masses are going at it like rabbits. Intelligent are at a selective disadvantage, because we don't pass our genes on as often as the trailer trash chicks that drop out of school by the time they are pregnant at 14 and have 8 kids by their 30th birthday.

*They* are the evolutionary giants, not us. We live side by side now, but when society breaks down in a few hundred years or whatever, the billions of big dumb kids will finish us off very quickly.

Of course, it's even less of an issue for most /.ers, because sitting at home by yourself with your 20 gig porn collection isn't gonna pass your genes on to anything but your keyboard...

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Lars83]

This is correct. Since every new IQ test is normed on the current population, we actually see the scores of older people decrease on the new measures. This is probably because of environmental factors (better nutrition, schooling, etc). Older people's lower scores don't reflect a decline in their cognitive abilities, just that the new test is normed for a new, smarter population.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Concerned Onlooker]

The question is, what is that core?

It's a really interesting question at that. I was in a book store a while ago and asked a young clerk there where I could find books written by Plato. She looked questioningly at me and said "is that a poet or something?"

I was a little shocked by this but when I told the story to my mother, who was a teacher, she pointed out that the amount of knowledge that we have available to teach just keeps getting greater and greater and who is to say that the things we once thought of as indispensible really are?

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[dustinbarbour]

Factual facts? As opposed to the not so factual facts?

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

Core knowledge required:

- natalie portman and hot grits
- All Your Base
- A beowulf cluster
- In Korea, only old people ...
- In Soviet Russia, ...

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

The new generation isn't smarter, it's just less stupid. The upper 50% of IQ hasn't changed (that is, if you took the average IQ score of the upper 50% of IQ in 1950 compared to the average IQ of the upper 50% of IQ in 2005, the averages would be the same.) The Flynn affect is on the lower 50%--those whose cognitive growth may have been affected by poor nutrition.

You'll also find that there isn't much of a Flynn affect in rich countries (those where malnutrition isn't a problem), and that in the richest countries average IQ has tended downward in the last 20-25 years.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

I really do know the difference between affect and effect, damnit.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[kesuki]

your elitism towards superior intellect is over-rated. as dumb as 'sheeple' seem it's not that they don't have the capacity to think and learn it's simply that they've turned it off in software mode.

yeah, the human brains of your typical genius and your average sheeple aren't actually all that different. in fact with the exception of those who've used alchohol and drugs to damage there brains they're usualy identical. so what is the difference? it's the software. The intelectually superior have through trials and tribulations sought to learn vastly more than the typical person cares to. frankly, the primary problem then is not who's reprodicing (as you would suggest) but rather the quality of upbringing and education of the children that is making a difference.

It is true some people have genetic flaws that ihibit normal brain function and require single minded focus on specific problems, but frankly if those proeple are not reproducing like jackrabbits in heat then the human geneome is doing just fine.

oh and BTW when civilization breaks down, those billions will be eating each others corpses, and those who have the ability to hide themselves the best, sneak about the best, and make sure the people they eat aren't contaminated the best will be the ones who run the world. a pretty high standard, when the end of civilization comes the truly stupid will be the first to die.

remeber without oil and coal and phosphate based fertilizers and genetically alterted plants, and refrigeration and electric cooking etc etc this planet will have a damn hard time supporting 60 million people, much less the 6 billion who are supported by it now.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

"stupid sites ... are self-announcing."

I don't know about you, but I have met a lot of stupid people to whom many of these self annoucing sites aren't so obvious. Perhaps the easily fooled will become extinct. Although that would do bad things for reality television.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been combing this whole thread for a mention of "bell curve" just so you could make your little "PC stuff sux" comment? God, you're fuck-noxious.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

but do you know the difference between damnit and dammit? I'll give you a hint, only dammit is a real word.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[ScrewMaster]

True ... although what you're really talking about is critical thinking. Part of the problem is the old one where anything presented by a computer is given special status, and is often accepted without question. I've had this happen time and time again on software projects: the customer looks at the shiny printed report and says, "Cool. Looks good to me." Ask them if they plan on verifying the results and the math that generated them, the answer is usually, "Nah." Yet, hand that same person a report generated by another human being, and he'll question it until he's blue in the face.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

In most engineering applications, the use of decimal feet is the standard. ie. 12.25' 25+03.38', unfortunately architects still love artsy stuff and fractional inches (ick) and moving coordinate systems because they don't line up... (SCREAM, sorry, that was a couple of months working with an architect who also couldn't deal with 3d, placing stairs through support beams doesn't work to well...)

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

And here's a hint for you: we generally capitalize the first letter of the first word of our sentences.

Oh, and you misused the comma between "hint" and "only".

Oh, and you had nothing to say, so you should have just STFU.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Shoggoth of Maul]

Fortunately, many of the stupid sites (alternative-medicine-and-health.com, for example) are self-announcing.

Take the time to thank whatever god you pray to that "alternative health" and "new age" are industries. Most of their business depends on customers recognizing the shibboleths and clicking as opposed to scrolling past. Perhaps commoditization can be a good thing.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[mcrbids]

yeah, the human brains of your typical genius and your average sheeple aren't actually all that different. in fact with the exception of those who've used alchohol and drugs to damage there brains they're usualy identical. so what is the difference? it's the software.

I wish I could agree with you, and once upon a time, I did. However, being a parent has dramatically altered my views.

Much of who you are, and what you like, what you'll be good at, and what you'll become, is hardwired at birth.

I'm one of those weird intellectuals who is both reasonably intelligent (at least, I'd like to think so) and has a good-sized family. (5 children) The truth is that I could see who and what my kids were likely to become at a very early age - by the age of 6-8 or so.

It's not training or parenting styles - it's the simple and true fact that genetics does account for a large percentage of what you are and who you'll most likely be. There's definitely a cultural and educational component - but basic personality is quite significant, too.

And thank Evolution that's the case - otherwise anybody born to dysfunctional parents is simply doomed! My experiences make it clear to me that people can be raised by nutjob parents and still come out decent. (Alternatively, they can be born by great parents and still end up nutjobs, but I digress)

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

We live in a situation, where information is most often already available somewhere and search for it can be automated quite easily. This means most questions have an answer ready somewhere.

Which in turn means that most important skill is not making up right answers but asking right questions.

And then there is also that important skill of recognising the situations where answer is not actually available.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[rtb61]

There is a significant difference between the two ends of the intellectual spectrum. Brain chemicals and the means by which they can be activated. I think therefore I get high, so I think some more.

You might think you are seeking something more significant but the basic motivation is the edorphic reward the you receive. If it didn't feel good for you, you would stop and go bask in the warm glow of day time television and mass media marketing.

Technology must be able to reduce intelligence, why else would a swift kick in the ballmers cause someone to do the billy goat dance.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is why all geeks need to start donating sperm now!

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Branko]

"Civilization advances by reducing the number of things one must do simultaneously."

I.e. specialization.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[danila]

That's the functional core, that's why you need to get along in society. But there is also the human core, things that you need to know in order to be a worthy person, in order to be able to personally develop. If you don't know that Earth goes around Sun and that Sun produces energy by turning hydrogen into helium converting some of the mass into energy, you can't be fully human. Even if you can find your way around your neighbourhood. The same goes for knowing where dodo lived and thousands other things.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[kesuki]

Much of who you are, and what you like, what you'll be good at, and what you'll become, is hardwired at birth.

I'm one of those weird intellectuals who is both reasonably intelligent (at least, I'd like to think so) and has a good-sized family. (5 children) The truth is that I could see who and what my kids were likely to become at a very early age - by the age of 6-8 or so.

age 6-8 isn't 'at birth' you've just contradicted yourself. I personally have memories to when i was 3 yrs and under, and frankly my development was greatly altered by my parents. not for the better, either.

It's not training or parenting styles - it's the simple and true fact that genetics does account for a large percentage of what you are and who you'll most likely be. There's definitely a cultural and educational component - but basic personality is quite significant, too.

personality is not dictated by genetics. The entire human genome has been mapped, and there is no indication of personality traits being anywhere in there. the standard deviation is incredibly miniscule. I'm sorry but 'unique' personality is NOT part of your genetic code, it's part of the software that runs you. Fortunately, the human psyche is Designed from the ground up to deal with stress and trauma, and that part is indeed 'hard wired' but virtually everyone has the same code design. so what you're saying about bad parenting not dooming kids is in fact true, but has nothing to do with genetics as you've implied.

think about it, the difference in your genentic make up and the makup of michael jordan's is less than 1%, and the entire data set is only about 750 MB of data. between your 'individual children' the difference in genetic data is less than 0.01% yet you know they're all Vastly different! how is this 'possible' if they're all 'hardwired at birth' I tell you it is the software, the problem is the software is 'self writing' and is a complex self writing algorythm that operated under an uncertainty prinicipal which can most easily be explained by chaos theory.

two lobes of brain matter, and one data set (the world around us) even though the data set can be predictable, the effects are made chaotic and unpredictable becasue of the effects of the two lobes on each other.

Believe you me, I have worked around and with pretty much completely stupid people, and the fact is they've programmed themselves to be stupid. sure, most of that programming was well in place by age 6, but ultimately that programming did not come from genetics, but rather from mostly random environmental influences..

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[plover]

[ I apologize in advance for anthropomorphising evolution. It just seems to be the fastest way to phrase my points. ]

You seem to be skipping the fact that evolutionary pressures over time have consistently produced a smarter and smarter animal. Otherwise, we'd still be scratching fleas, trying to figure out where the apple grove is with the ripe fruit.

Yes, we have a blip now. For one thing, our society has come up with this notion of equality (I'm not saying it's bad, but I'm saying it's something evolution hasn't really encountered before.) And we have instant, global communication. Even stupid people can learn "don't stand in the way of a hurricane", thanks to TV. But I doubt these are the first blips evolution has had to overcome.

We also have provided novel "avenues" for evolution to explore. Jet travel is a perfect vector for a fast-moving organism (we just haven't had an overly destructive one take a jet yet. Apart from the Bruce Willis bits, "Twelve Monkeys" is an eerie peek into the near future.) Terrorism or WMDs could change the population-scape of the planet in a moment; the depletion of affordable energy will change it just as quickly (evolutionarily speaking.) But these won't be the first setbacks evolution has encountered, either.

Sure, we have no end of "American Idol" fans today, but we also have a lot of very smart people. I don't imagine every monkey simultaneously recognized the groves with ripe fruit, but I believe that at some point the "smarter monkey" led the others to the red apples. That's our job (if you will.) If some of the monkeys stay behind to watch TV, well, perhaps they won't evolve with the rest of us. Maybe our society will decide to physically fragment itself into two or more populations (go read virtually any near-science-fiction story, esp. Philip K. Dick, Huxley, or even Orwell for plenty of possible scenarios.)

But these are all "short term" observations, none based on an evolutionary time-scale. Overall, sooner or later, some of us will get smarter. Evolution hasn't stopped.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem I see most is that people tend to confuse 'intellegence' with 'knowledge'. I define intellegence as 'the ability to think' - which is completely independent of any and all knowledge that you may have accumilated over your lifetime.

Technology can either increase (make it easier to learn about things) or decrease (by depending on it & NOT actually learning things) the general KNOWLEDGE of the population, but only genetics (& parents who encourage thinking or discourage it) will affect the overall INTELLEGENCE of the population.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[LWATCDR]

Actually for a while the US really pushed the metric system. When I was a kid cars had the MPH and kmH on speedometer. The signs had kmH and MPH listed. In school went over and over it... I think it lost favor for some reason.
Now the scary thing is I was buying a sub at the Winn Dixie next to my office and the MORON at the counter asked the other guy that worked there how much meat to put on it. He said 25 ounces! I was shocked I like a big sub as much as the next guy but that is just too much. Then I saw him put the meat on the scale and it said .25 lbs! I was dumb enough to ask about this saying that .25 lbs was only 4 ounces. Then I got the answer... We use different ounces here!

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[LWATCDR]

I do understand. I have been working on a project where all the metal is in fractions. Any guess as to why sheet AL comes in .0625" sheets? And all the electronics are in metric. Thank goodness solidworks will flip between them with no fuss or muss.

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[tabrnaker]

I though D was watch more TV?

Re:Average intelligence is a constant

[Reservoir Penguin]

I would be scared of the future where Google inteferes with my searches by applying its own ideas regarding which OS is more secure or which path of cancer treatment is mainstream. Certainly as a firm practioner of homeopathy I would get really mad if they started actively sensoring in favour of treatment and drugs whose side-effects will kill you faster than thr actual desease if left untreated.

Huh?

[Kid Zero]

Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?'

You're asking this here? Can't wait to see the answers. :)

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?

My computer says no.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using Firefox 1.0.6 with two tabs open, and firefox.exe is using 33MB!!! So much for a lean browser...

yes or no question?

[zbose]

Yes?

Re:yes or no question?

[zoloto]

Are you asking for a yes or no question, or is your answer being ended with a questionmark an effect of technology having to make your choices for you?

I'm confused...

Re:yes or no question?

[Bonhamme Richard]

Define intelligence:

If it's based on mostly memory specific tasks (like speling, for xampl), then I'd say the information age, with spell checkers and the like do make us 'dumber.'

But if its based on reasoning ability, the information age has probably raised average intelligence. I may not be able to spell, but I can handle many different kinds of systems and adapt to new ones in ways that people 100 years ago probably couldn't. And the fact that I have to constantly learn new tech (how to upgrade this software, how to program my new VCR, etc.) plays into that.

Re:yes or no question?

[rg3]

... and yet if you were abandoned in a uninhabited island you'll face more difficulties to survive that someone who lived 500 years ago. You are able to adapt to current systems, just like people adapted to "systems" ages ago. The "systems" have changed but that doesn't really mean that they're more complex now. Just different.

I *think* that society moves forward but the average individual moves backwards. That's the feeling I have.

Re:yes or no question?

[KinderSpirit]

And you probably constantly learn to play new games :), just like my 2 year-old :)

I think that if not for the ability to adapt, we (humans) would not exist. But if not for the ability to intelligently choose good from bad, we would be reading all sorts of junk rather than have a fruitful discussion like this one :)

Re:yes or no question?

[flight19_got_lost]

Intelligence, to me, is not defined as the ability to crunch numbers or perform arbitrary calculations based on predefined rules. Intelligence is that remainder (the thing that is outside any formal system) the thing that cannot be computed. See anything by Godel or Penrose. Cool stuff.

Hmm

[ZakuSage]

Lazy != Dumb

Re:Hmm

[CDMA_Demo]

I agree, infact Lazy people, being lazy try to find ways to cut corners, and find smarter ways to get things done so they don't have to work as hard as others.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

unless of course you are too lazy to talk ;)

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats what a keyboard is for.

Re:Hmm

[moviepig.com]

'Lazy' isn't the same as 'Dumb'

In a way, it is. Using your neocortex more leaves you more "intelligent" than using it less.

But, with intelligence tests measuring many of the skills that technology increasingly performs for us, it's unavoidable that we'll eventually start to look pretty dumb. The fact is, though, that we (non-lazy folks) have, in all likelihood, merely migrated to a different skill-set.

Re:Hmm

[ArsonSmith]

quote from an old co-workers callender:

"If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy man. He'll find an easier way to do it."

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a typo. It should have been "pie"

Re:Hmm

[bradbeattie]

But Lazy and Dumb != {}

Re:Hmm

[sconeu]

Quote is from Heinlein, specifically the notebooks of Lazarus Long.

Re:Hmm

[arevos]

In a way, it is. Using your neocortex more leaves you more "intelligent" than using it less.

Assuming that by 'lazy', one means a tendency to avoid work, then being lazy requires one to use their mind more, not less.

A truly lazy person will work out how to achieve the same results with less effort. Necessity being the mother of invention, most innovations come about from people trying to reduce the work they have to do.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ambition, is a poor excuse for people without enough sense to be lazy."

Yes, that is a real quote. I may not remember who said it first but I have enough sense to be lazy and not bother looking it up.

Re:Hmm

[pdbaby]

"Ambition, is a poor excuse for people without enough sense to be lazy."

It's by "Charlie McCarthy", the ventriloquest Edgar Bergen's puppet. Another great quote by "him" is "Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?"

Re:Hmm

[Threni]

Exactly. A lazy programmer and a good programmer both attempt to achieve the most with the least effort.

I'm sure...

[chphilli]

...Slashdot makes me dumber!

But I'm still addicted.

Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

This story will make for a nice intelligent philosophical debate.

Or a flame war.

Re:Let me guess

[cp.tar]

I actually fail to grasp the difference.

IME intelligent people flame just like the other kind; they only use bigger words properly.

Not much of a difference, if you ask me.

Even the ancient philosophers, whom we mostly percieve as dignified and wise, flamed each other quite the same way we flame today... it's just that there were not that many of them.

We?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?'

When you say "we" do you mean just Slashdot editors, or the rest of us too? Arrrrr.

Re:We?

[Linker3000]

'bit, bit' - or as the parrots used to say: 'pieces of eight, pieces of eight'.

Intelligence

[mysqlrocks]

Is technology making us smarter? Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?

I don't think it makes us smarter or dumber. What we are smart about changes. We can use technology to do things we could never do before. But there are things we could do in the past that we can't do anymore.

wut

[DrEldarion]

i think that you're conclusion bout da net makin ppl dum is rong. their not dum their just typin in da web way. u just dont get it.

Re:wut

[DrEldarion]

Oh god, I think I lost around 20% of my brain mass just typing that out, and that's still not nearly as bad as a lot of what I've seen. :(

Re:wut

[Anonymous Coward]

There must be something wrong with me! When I read that I heard Bill Murray's voice from Caddyshack while reading the above comment! Ahhhhh! I am getting dumber

As a General Rule

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think an article dealing with..." technology versus intelligence of the general population. From the article: 'Is technology making us smarter?" is anything other than sensationalist technobable, then you are dumb.

sounds like "Feed", by M.T. Anderson

[saarbruck]

for an interesting fictional look at the result of always having the digital world instantly available, check out "Feed" by M.T. Anderson (ISBN: 0763622591)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0763 622591/qid=1127163377/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2061 972-8686328?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Good question!

[fireboy1919]

Hold on, let me check my new brain for the answer.

Nope. It looks like that's all background noise.

Clearly we is just as smarter as we used to was, and can did our stuff just as much as we used to could.

Re:Good question!

[hcdejong]

I'd write a GrammarNazi comment, but I just can't be bothered. Consider yourself flamed.

Both

[phasm42]

Smart people will use technology to augment their intelligence. Dumb people will use it to become lazier. And in between there will be mixes of augmentation and lazy reliance. I don't think there's a single answer to this question. I think this has always been true, but technology amplifies this gap.

Re:Both

[Freexe]

I agree with what you are saying, but for me the ratio of augmentation:lazy seems more dependant on how late I was out the previous night and how much I drank.

Re:Both

[Anonymous Coward]

But best of all, the intelligent people will continue to use the lazy people to augment their technological breakthroughs and empire building. Case in point: how many coal workers, oil drillers, and other "blue-collar" workers must there be to provide the energy (in the form of electricity) to power that which we call "The Internet"? (In other words, all this whining about the shrinking middle-class in America is just more of the same from times of old: domination of the weak, stupid, and ignorant by the more powerful) Except the catch is that there will always be a fair share of mixups between every two ends of a spectrum. (Stupid people mixed in with the class of "intelligent people", and intelligent people mixed in with the class of "stupid people.")

The world is the same today as it was 100 years ago, 1,000yrs ago, and however many years ago it is that you believe humans first started "civilization." The only difference is the ways in which we use the resources of earth in our day-to-day lives from one epoch to the next.

Re:Both

[phaggood]

> Smart people will use technology to augment their intelligence. Dumb people will use it to become lazier.

Thus proving the lazy really are a hell of a lot smarter than most folks; how else could a phys-ed major beat out a nuclear engineer for the highest office in the land?

For an alternate view, check out Siglo:Freedom - "Manila 2004" and wonder again if we really are as damned smart as we think we are.

Re:Both

[tktk]

Actually I think tech. can make dumb people even more dumb.

Instead of people saying "I don't know.", which only makes them, "ignorant", they'll google for a quick answer. But quick answers are not always the right answer, especially when the topic is complex.

Re:Both

[Spy der Mann]

The only difference is the ways in which we use the resources of earth in our day-to-day lives from one epoch to the next.

Yes, but the ways in which we waste the resources of earth, are the same.

Re:Both

[MurphyZero]

Smart people use technology to speed up activities they don't like, so that they can spend more time on the activities they do like. To the untrained eye, this may appear to be laziness, but instead it is just good time management. Technology can provide order of magnitude decreases in time spent. Smarter people will make it appear to only be reduced a small amount ("The Scotty effect") so that a job that used to take 8 hours a day, will be shortened to an hour by the smart person, who will tell his boss that he's reduced it to 7 hours around the time that performance is evaluated. This must be carefully guarded because the 'management' %$^@%# (expletive deleted) will then try to claim all the benefits, reduce your pay anyways (to justify his pay increase) and add 4 hours of work a day. As much as possible avoid this to continue to apply those 7 hours to your favorite 'lazy' activity: slashdot, WOW, Quake, whatever

Re:Both

[t35t0r]

Smart people will use technology to augment their intelligence. Dumb people will use it to become lazier. And in between there will be mixes of augmentation and lazy reliance. I don't think there's a single answer to this question. I think this has always been true, but technology amplifies this gap.

Should be, smart people will use technology to augment their intelligence so that they can be lazier. Dumb people will remain dumb (you can be dumb and still work hard). And in between there will be mixes of augmentation and lazy reliance.

Re:Both

[tektrix]

MIT's Marvin Minskey has said that intelligence has much to do with the ability to learn. He goes on to say that genius is a function also mediated by ones ability to integrate and use the things they've learned. A "genius" is someone who can learn more efficiently than the majority of the population. (Society of Mind is the book I'm alluding to.) Indeed, in our societies, when one can learn and utilize knowledge more efficiently than someone else, that person is generally considered to be more intelligent .

Learning and using that knowledge efficiently is a key survival skill. It's not about focus on any particular topic or class of knowledge, it's about ones ability to learn anything and then make the right associations with everything else they know to give them a better chance at survival.

Under this theory, if a technology accelerates and enhances ones ability to learn, then it's a boon.

IQ scores go up every generation

[davidwr]

Well, they would go up if they didn't keep raising the bar to get a given score.

Did you score 100 on your IQ test in 1980? Well guess what, by today's standards that's below average.

Barely crack the top 2% 25 years ago? Sorry to disappoint, but you're not a genius anymore.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[Red Flayer]

"Did you score 100 on your IQ test in 1980? Well guess what, by today's standards that's below average. "

Not so. If you were to score 100 on 1980's IQ test today, then fine -- because the average score today on that specific test would be over 100.

By definition, an IQ of 100 on a normalized, current test is the statistical average.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[porcupine8]

It's called the Flynn effect, and it's something on the order of 3 IQ points per decade since the test was normed. So if you were in the top 2% 25 years ago, now you're around top 5%. Not horrible.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[robavery]

I think the parent is refering to the Flynn effect, which is the documented increase over time (even in years, not just generations) of non-normalized IQ. This is a phenomena that is not yet really understood.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[Mr2cents]

This is a phenomena that is not yet really understood.

Did you ever see the Darwin Awards?

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[Savantissimo]

It is clear that the GP poster meant "below average today on the 1980s test. So you are both right.

However, as Rushton noes: "Principal components analyses show that whereas the IQ gains over time on the WISC-R and WISC-III do cluster (suggesting they are a reliable phenomenon), these are independent of g factor loadings..." So the rise in IQ scores (which varies greatly by country, is primrily evident in non-verbal tests and which is mostly due to increases in the lower end of the ability spectrum) is not indicative of a rising intelligence level per se but of something else.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[Red Flayer]

Sure, but Flynn himself speculates[1] that his results are not necessarily due to increased intelligence, rather increased aptitude for the kind of intelligence tested by IQ tests -- abstract problem solving.

There are a host of other possible causes of the Flynn effect, but extrapolating IQ to intelligence in general is problematic.

If we were to measure intelligence as the ability to adapt and thrive to our environments, as in my OP, then we wouldn't see the Flynn effect, I'd bet. Practical problem-solving would be more important to adaptation than abstract problem-solving, in the earlier half of the 20th century.

The problem with the Flynn effect is that we're measuring intelligence by limited criteria.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[hackwrench]

The Flynn effect says nothing about the distribution within the population.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[porcupine8]

I'm just assuming it keeps a normal curve, which it generally does. So an IQ score that was in the top 2% 25 years ago would still be in the top 5%.

Re:IQ scores go up every generation

[hackwrench]

Yes, but does his score stay the same?

right-

[conJunk]

Both points make sense, but I don't think either one is really news to anyone here

exactly... it seemed like it was written because some editor really needed a technology article, fast, and just pulled first thing he could find out of his butt... it didn't really offer anything at all, and when it did, it was all obvious

anyone who grew up in the last 30 years probably remembers wanting to use a calculator in school, and being told we couldn't because we had to learn how to do it first. that's basically still the case, isn't it? technology isn't going to make anyone dumber, unless we opt not to learn things any more.

but really, those people have always been around, and there have always been geeks who want to learn everything anyway. i don't think anything is going to change, except there will be more toys to play with.

Re:right-

[brokencomputer]

Lots of high schools have really bad teachers who basically teach their algebra classes as if they were a "learn to punch things into a calculator but not understand what happens" class. Students don't really have an option as to who their teacher is and even then, some school systems make this type of thing go on uniformly. When people try to go up in higher level college math, they're fucked.

Re:right-

[conJunk]

Lots of high schools have really bad teachers who basically teach their algebra classes as if they were a "learn to punch things into a calculator but not understand what happens" class. Students don't really have an option as to who their teacher is and even then, some school systems make this type of thing go on uniformly. When people try to go up in higher level college math, they're fucked.

i don't know... i've had bad teachers, and i've had good teachers. I think if a student is really interested in a subject, he or she will find a way to learn it.

algebra is a funny example, becuase the number of people who would put in the effort to learn algebra despite a bad teacher is a small group of people. that's us, the geeks. we like algebra, we think it's pretty. we're a minority.

i think that with the kinds of people we (geeky slashdot people) like to hang out with, and with the kinds of jobs we get, it's easy to get a skewed perspective of how people really think and what they are in to. it's like in college. i went to a small liberal arts college, and i would meet kids all the time who would say stuff like "how do these conservatives get elected? *i* don't know anyone who would vote for them"... well... there's a big america out there that i just don't like to be in touch with...

the same is true for technology... when we invented calculators, people who would never have leared math in the first place could now do it... that didn't stop anybody who would have learned it anyway from still learning how it's done

Re:right-

[bjwest]

It was only about 25 years ago that calculators became even remotely commonplace, and I'm glad of that. Having to do everything by hand, wheather or not I needed it in the future (I did, by the way, I went into electronics), really helped understand mathematics. Now I don't know about other places, but I sub part time in the middle school of a very small town ( 4000 people, 150 middle school students (how the hell do I get the damn less than sign in this thing??)) and I can tell you, none of the 8th graders can do simple arithmetic without a calculator, much less algebra. I don't think it's dumbness on their part, so much as laziness. They're allowed to use calculators for everything, so they do. This may make most of them ignorant, but not dumb. Although there are a fair share of the dumb.

Re:right-

[sgt_doom]

Personally, I think the posters to /. have gotten dumber....

Re:right-

[robertjw]

It was only about 25 years ago that calculators became even remotely commonplace, and I'm glad of that.

Isn't that a crazy thought? My parents still have an old TI calculator from the late 70s. They spent a relatively significant amount of money for a simple electronic calculator that would do basic math. Now calculators are everywhere, computers, cell phones, whatever. I'm all for kids learning how to do math by hand, but can you imagine a world without electronic calculators? I think that is probably THE most significant inventions of the 20th century and it's so often overlooked.

Re:right-

[Jackmn]

To be frank, a student that needs to be taught algebra shouldn't be going to college anyways.

The textbooks have everything a student needs to learn algebra on his own.

Re:right-

[j-cloth]

we like algebra, we think it's pretty
I want that on a t-shirt. ThinkGeek? You Listening?

Re:right-

[TheFlamingoKing]

Troll away!

People learn things in different ways, jackass. Some people need to see someone do an action correctly to be able to do it themselves. And pretty much every competitive college has a College Algebra requirement or equivalent.

If you truly believe that everyone needs to have taught themselves know how to find the roots of a binomial to succeed in college, you need a reality check.

Re:right-

[coaxeus]

Agreed - my thoughts exactly

Re:right-

[Oligonicella]

I don't think one out of nine is too bad for a liberal arts student.

Re:right-

[siriuskase]

I went off to Ga Tech in 1976 armed with a Casio with 4 functions and a memory. That set my folks back a couple a hundred. A couple of years later, I bought a programable TI-59. I still have my programs I wrote in a notebook on the bookshelf. I had the special printer and everything, I even had the programing forms, but that was because I bought everything but the calculator from a broke ubergeek. Hey, my boss let me write work related programs on company time. The company computer wasn't much more programable, so my calculator was an asset.

Re:right-

[Joe Tie.]

Sadly I think that kind of teaching extends to every subject out there, all the way from science to gym. One of my biggest beefs about my own high school education was that none of my science classes went into experimental design. It was basically just a long list of facts to memorize, with a big sticker saying "because SCIENCE says so!" From what I've heard, that seems to be more the norm than the exception. Which I think is one of the worst things that can happen in a highly technological society. It's just teaching a blind faith which can easily lead into all kinds of other crap. Exactly the kind of things that a firm grounding in scientific thought should prevent. A new ager says one thing about the world, a funamentalist christian another, and a scientist yet another. The good reaction is to critically examine their data, looking for flaws in their design and demanding repeatability. Kids aren't being tought that kind of skill, and instead have to either rely on blind faith in what they think is science, but with no idea of how to really determine what's true. So they can't tell the difference betwean a fact coming from a real scientist, exagerations to get grant money, exagerations in the popular press to sell papers, and so-called "creation science".

Re:right-

[Jackmn]

If somebody needs to see it, then they have no place in college.

Honestly, the stuff is dead easy. If an individual finds himself constantly requiring guidance for such simply subject matter, then he is an idiot. No two ways about it.

Colleges are already flooded with enough idiots as it is. Let the truly intelligent make good use of them, and have the simpletons find employment more fitting to their own level intelligence.

Re:right-

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't know... i've had bad teachers, and i've had good teachers.

It must have been one of the bad ones who tried to teach you about capitalization.

Re:right-

[JohnFluxx]

In the UK we are taught how to prove every algorithm we use. I've heard that in the US this isn't the case.
As a result, the US students know a lot more algorithms, but don't know how to prove them until they do a math degree.

Re:right-

[danila]

it seemed like it was written because some editor really needed a technology article, fast, and just pulled first thing he could find out of his butt... it didn't really offer anything at all, and when it did, it was all obvious
It may be obvious in retrospect, but the article puts the ideas very well together (and for some reason they even decided to interview the 3 big guys, although their quotes are used very sparingly... may be their next article will have more).

The idea that "it has become easier to program a cell phone or computer--instead of your brain--to recall facts or other essential information. In some sense, our digital devices do the thinking for us now" is very insightful and not everyone realises that. Perhaps, even this article is not sufficient, but if you learn (not necessarily do, for our purposes here) about things like GtD or keeping notebooks, you start to get a very good picture of how the brain interfaces with external tools. This helps you understand the natural gradual progression of improvements that will lead in a few decades to the exocortex.

i don't think anything is going to change, except there will be more toys to play with.
It's really easy to dismiss the change, but you are wrong. Things will change. It's not just the calculators. It's that part of your thinking really does go outside of your brain, literally. Some thinking process happens outside your cranium and it's not just adding 2+2. And as it happens outside, you gain unprecedented control over your thinking, you can direct it on the meta-level, you can now decide how you want to think, what do you want to think on. Yes, most people don't realise that yet, but we are talking about fundamental changes here, not just some new toys.

Re:right-

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I thought it was one of the bad ones that taught him about logic.....

Re:right-

[cathouse]

Here's an even greater absurdity from a few years earlier:

When I showed up to take the final exam in Trig (1961) the Proctor, who was one of the regular Math teachers but not the one who had taught my section, confiscated my sliderule about 5 minutes into the test. Using only half familiar printed trig tables and gawd awful quantities of flopsweat I barely managed a *B*.

I wish to hell I had known enough about reality back then to have walked out in protest. And this was at a *good* school [for public].

It would be nice to think that there might be less of this sort of stupidity as technology becomes a constant for even the most rabid Luddite, but I suspect we've all been burned too many times to put any money behind that hope.

Re:right-

[SatanicPuppy]

That's some nice math snobbery there. Mathematical ability is not the same as intelligence, and algebra is not the same as mathemicatical ability. And the ability to do basic algebra without being taught is not something that everyone has, and that lack does not make them fit for nothing but working at McD's.

I hated Calc I, I was no good at it. I loved Calc II, I found it very intutive. Hated plain algebra, loved linear algebra and geometry. Does that mean something's wrong with me? No, it just means my math abilities are far greater when I can apply them to a real world problem.

Reliant on computers...

[chris_eineke]

Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?

Interesting flame.

A person's average intelligence is going up while a person's average knowledge is going down.

Sounds like a good opportunity for under-achievement! :}

Re:Reliant on computers...

[MikeFM]

Knowledge isn't really going down. It's just changing to meta-knowledge. Instead of knowing things we know methods. We know how to look up information quickly, how to process that information, and how to spew out new information that can be used by ourselves, others, or our machines.

Yes, if you unplug us we cease to function fully but while we're plugged in our reach is much further than our unplugged peers. It's really nothing different than people of the past that've relied on written data and social networks of peers to do these things. It's just gotten much faster which makes much more possible.

In the near future when Internet access is wired directly into the human brain we'll see this process accelerated even more. We're really beginning to function as a single humanity entity rather than as individuals. We're still individuals but we function as a group much better than in the past. Mobile blogging and similar tech is really just a foreshadow of things to come.

Re:Reliant on computers...

[cp.tar]

Whatever the reasons are for intelligence going up (and I'd guess it's the increased information flow that does the trick), the only reason for a person's average knowledge going down are crappy school systems nearly worldwide.

I'm quite sick and tired of governments that have the money for weapons, but not the money for schools, just as I'm tired of incompetent bloody politicians that want to please the parents by reducing the strain put on the poor children by the horrible schools.
School is not too hard and it was not too hard. If you could take it, than we could've also; if we could take it, the kids of now surely can.
[/my everlasting rant on this subject. Sorry.]

Mixed bag here on this account... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

GOOD POINTS, in this one, just reading the topic & premise summary itself:

Does KNOWING where to look & what quetions to ask to find the info. you NEED, make you smarter than having to think out a solution (one that might or might not be, the MOST optimal) yourself?

See, I think that having to go thru "hardships" & struggle make YOU better than ever, provided they don't knock you dead that is.

The "University of Life" is a great teacher... even the skinned knees & all, along with the rewards/good.

One of my "mentors" in the field of programming told me a GREAT many things that came to pass as true over time! This is where & from what point-of-view I am going to reply to this one on: From the perspective of computer science as it is WHAT I do for a living (and I am lucky - I like my job).

Heck, even the INITIAL things he told me like "you need to get a computer, as there is NO SUBSTITUTE for hands on learning" came to pass as 110% right & not just for myself, as I have passed on nearly all of it when asked to others...

E.G. -> His telling me things like "reading about martial arts, or fixing cars won't teach you much, until you get into the mix yourself hands on" etc./et all.

I agreed, especially NOW, looking back in hindsight.

This one?

Well, imo, it's a "mixed bag"...

I.E.-> Things like GOOGLE are great, because they will often speed you to a working & viable solution for coding @ least... but, then again, GOOGLE's NOT THERE to save your ass when you're in the midst of a job interview and have to think your way thru their questions.

APK

Re:Mixed bag here on this account... apk

[ChocoBean]

It seems like your comment is a bit of a mixed-bag too.

I agree with you if you're trying to say that sometimes in life there are things that count for more than intelligence, such as "experience".
But I would also like to point out that you need intelligence to make the best out of things too. Example: we've all met cry-babies who go through hardships again and again and again simply because they don't learn anything from it. *cough*EMOs*cough*

and yeah, our gianticized wealth of information isn't going to help us much in a pinch, but that's what makes smart people smart and stupid people stupid: both can be exposed to the same amount of knowledge, but intelligence is what you make of facts, and wisedom is what you make of intelligence.

Meh

[Nick of NSTime]

I don't like to read on the computer, so I was going to print out the article, but I'm too lazy to click the link.

Not stupider

[Anonymous Coward]

Just more dependent, much like we're dependent on cars throughout much of the world. Much like how hunter-gatherers formed agrarian societies and eliminated the need for everyone to hunt for their own food.

Marked decrease

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been a marked decrease in general intelligence over the years. When asking friends what their favorite TV show is, most of them usually pull out some sort of electronic gadget (PDA, Internet phone, laptop) to surf to a webpage to find the answer.

I think there might be a niche market in "Favorite TV show" crib sheets.

Re:Marked decrease

[Eric604]

There has been a marked decrease in general intelligence over the years. When asking friends what their favorite TV show is, most of them usually pull out some sort of electronic gadget (PDA, Internet phone, laptop) to surf to a webpage to find the answer.

Cool! I wish I had friends so I could observe such behaviour. Totally weird.

I...

[neurokaotix]

I consider myself lazy and intelligent. Did technology make me lazier? Doubt it. Technology has certainly given me the ability to almost instantly gain most any knowledge I want to obtain... and only a few clicks away at that. If used correctly the many technologies at our fingertips could easilly raise the average person's level of knowledge, not their intelligence though. I don't consider how much you know (knowledge) to be the same thing as how well you can process new ideas and thoughts (intelligence). Perhaps people are just dumb? I think that sounds about right.

Re: Progress of technology

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent message sure is a good example of where things are going. Or maybe it is that we are noticing the idiots more often than before?

Not an amazing revelation

[jandrese]

Basically, technology makes us more efficient, which is an assertion that few on slashdot are going to dispute. This means we can either do more with our time, or have more leisure time and look "lazier" to someone without proper context.

During the dawn of agriculture, humans had to work their butts off every day tending to fields or getting ready for the winter or they would die. These days you can work a mere 8 hours a day in a cushy office job and have all of the food and shelter you need. Modern man looks a lot lazer--he only works half as much time wise--but due to technology he's actually contributing more to society than his primitive ancestor.

Re:Not an amazing revelation

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to quibble too much, but it does take more than sitting in an office for 8 hours to have "all of the food and shelter you need". You also have to go get that food/shelter and get to/from that job (transportation) and I personally spend a fair amount of time maintaining and enhancing my shelter. True, you could live in a condo and hire a maid, but I think that's more the minority of people than the majority.
AND you are totally ignoring the large classes of people who do physical work like farmers, truckers, plumbers, maids, cooks, messengers, etc. Our society has specialized and automated many tasks but most physical work still needs to be done. Just because you didn't grow your food doesn't mean it wasnt' grown by someone.

Re:Not an amazing revelation

[jandrese]

Yeah, but look at the modern farmer compared to the ancient farmer. He works just as long (or even twice as long, just for argument) and produces 100 times as much food. Theoretically, if he wanted to, he could work a tiny percentage of his land and have enormous amounts of free time (in practice maybe not, but in theory it works). As another poster pointed out though, we want to improve society, and that takes work, so even though we are more productive, more of that work goes into improving society instead of just feeding/sheltering ourselves and our family.

Re:Not an amazing revelation

[syousef]

Proper application of technology makes us more efficient. (Improper use, or badly implemented technology often slows us down). But as the technology improves more is expected. (eg. a clerk may have been expected to process 20 documents a day by hand, now 100 by computer)

As for the 8 hour work day that has more to do with social trends than efficiency. By the way the 8 hour work day is on the decline if you haven't noticed.

It's a trick.

[hungrygrue]

Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?'

Any honest answer to that question will be modded -1 flamebate.

Re:It's a trick.

[Not_Wiggins]

Any honest answer to that question will be modded -1 flamebate.

That's flamebait ... you've obviously answered both questions in a single go without risking the "-1" mods! ;)

What Technology Has Given Me...

[jpiggot]

Today, technology has allowed one of my friends to send me a video of someone juggling and playing the piano at the same time, two other friends sent me jokes I'd heard several years ago, countless marketers have offerered to make my penis more rigid while I refinance my home, and no less than four people have informed me that it is "Talk Like A Pirate Day"

Hell yeah, technology has made me more smart-thing !!

Yup, and he wouldn't survive today either!

[garcia]

Does that mean he's not as bright as an economist from the 1950s? Is he smarter? The answer is probably "no" on both counts. He traded one skill for another. Computer skills make him far more efficient and allow him to present more accurate--more intelligent--information. And without them, he'd have a tough time doing his job. But drop him into the Federal Reserve 40 years ago, and a lack of skill with the slide rule could put an equal crimp on his career.

Or, on the other side of the ruler, put that same economist from 40 years ago w/his slide rule knowledge into today's world and watch him be as equally worthless.

Computers, the Internet, and the information available to us nearly instantaneously has made us a completely different culture all together. There is no use comparing us to those in the past. It's just not the same... I remember when I was learning about cells and my father said to me, "When I learned about cells we knew of the cell wall and the nucleus. Look at what you have to know." Now students probably don't even have to know that - Google tells them everything they need to know. That doesn't make them dumb - that makes them have room to learn TONS more.

I am honestly looking forward to the day when wireless Internet is combined with Internet mapping software (i.e. GMaps) and an online collaboration. Say goodbye to speed traps (your autorouting will know the locations of the traps and route you around it or warn you to slow down).

The possibilities are endless and the creative factor is incredible!

Re:Yup, and he wouldn't survive today either!

[Anonymous Coward]

By then, don't you think speed traps will have evolved as well? Perhaps even just using GPS to pinpoint a car at random over some time interval and assess if the car was exceeding the limit. All I'm saying is, don't get your hopes up that one day we will have somehow conquered speeding tickets :)

Re:Yup, and he wouldn't survive today either!

[twifosp]

I am honestly looking forward to the day when wireless Internet is combined with Internet mapping software (i.e. GMaps) and an online collaboration. Say goodbye to speed traps (your autorouting will know the locations of the traps and route you around it or warn you to slow down).

A nice outlook, but probably not accurate. In all probability, your GPS link to google maps will also submit data to a local "saftey enforcement" group and when your speed exceeds the limit, you get an automated ticket printed out on your laptop. In your car. While you are still driving.

Of course, cars like BMW will come with "one touch" ticket payments where you can click a button on your steering wheel and pay all tickets drafted from your credit accounts :D

Re:Yup, and he wouldn't survive today either!

[bigdavex]

I remember when I was learning about cells and my father said to me, "When I learned about cells we knew of the cell wall and the nucleus. Look at what you have to know." Now students probably don't even have to know that - Google tells them everything they need to know.

I can't see how that's conceptually different from saying that books made knowing things obsolete.

Re:Yup, and he wouldn't survive today either!

[foobsr]

Say goodbye to speed traps

Yes, and it will not be possible to calculate your speed between those automagic toll collecting spots.
So we learn that Googlelism would not help in a Fisher-Byrne scenario.

CC.

Re:Yup, and he wouldn't survive today either!

[Anonymous Coward]

...put that same economist from 40 years ago w/his slide rule knowledge into today's world and watch him be as equally worthless.

I take offense to that. As an engineer who learned to use slide rules, I survived the transitions to personal calculators, personal computers, networked computers, the Internet, etc, etc. And don't misjudge me, I know the new technologies and use them effectively, sometimes more effectively than new graduates that don't have my experience.

I don't think you give people enough credit. The ability to grow and use new tools as they become available should be at the heart of this discussion about intelligence.

Sometime Laziness Takes Work

[geoffrobinson]

What's the easiest way between point A and B? Taking into account traffic, hills, etc., etc.

I'm lazy and I put a lot of mental energy into my laziness.

Obvious?

[mbrother]

The article is pretty obvious, I think anyway, and makes a lot of obvious statements and conclusions. Am I smarter if I can calculate a cube root in a few minutes with paper or a pencil than if I have to use a calculator? No, probably not, just a different skill than others. However, the point that is made, but not made strongly enough, is that our technology is now part of us. A computer isn't smart -- it's a machine that executes commands. A human is smart, at some level. A human with a computer full of software tied to a database is very smart, capable of answering many questions accurately and rapidly.

In the old days, astronomers used to laboriously reduce data and publish a dissertation on one or a few spectra, learning a little bit about quasars, for instance. Today, an astronomer of similar or even lesser intellect can get the help of a computer and write a dissertation on the analysis of thousands of spectra, and in principle learn a lot more, more quickly. That's not just intelligence, it's efficiency and power.

one way technology hasn't helped intelligence

[H310iSe]

Aside from the obvious one, spelling, I think the word processor has encouraged at best a different kind of intelligence.

It used to be you had to conceive your entire essay/story/etc., then have each paragraph, and each sentence, held in your head to some extent before you started writing. Think once / write once (edit once) and then type it out. Now you can start a paper/paragraph/sentence with nothing in your short term memory, just kind of roll it out and go back a million times to edit/redu/rethink/rework it until it's all coherent.

Basically, for certain tasks, the more that's stored in the electronic memory the less is (needed to be) stored in your brain.

Re:one way technology hasn't helped intelligence

[decipher_saint]

Am I the only one who used to write essays on scratch paper first and then collate what I was trying to say in a rough outline and then write my essay?

Personally, I think the word processor encourages people to write essays in a colossal brain-dump 'cause maintaining multiple document files is bothersome (versus my unruly bundle of scribbled notes I can cram into a folder).

Re:one way technology hasn't helped intelligence

[Cruxus]

Speak for yourself. I always wrote papers as the ideas flowed off the top of my head. I admit, though, this style is less effective for research papers, but it is quite effective otherwise: essays, poetry, short stories, etc.

I always found the requirement of multiple drafts bothersome because I usually couldn't find anything wrong with the initial (rough) one! Most of the time, I just changed a couple of words and corrected a spelling mistake here and there.

Re:one way technology hasn't helped intelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

i could never figure out why they made us "learn" to write papers thay way, but that explains it. I used a computer/word processor since I was in first grade, when paper writing came around I was stunned by how many edits\outlines\rought drafts\final drafts they made us do. I was already so used to using a word processor to edit my thoughts that I thought that that extent of pre-planning was waste of time.

Re:one way technology hasn't helped intelligence

[Jim_Callahan]

So you can use your brain as an analysis tool instead of a spell-checker. Still ends in better essays/stories.

Summary?

[Tal0n]

Can someone please explain to me what the article said? I started reading it, but I didn't get it and was too lazy to finish reading it.

IMHO....

[lem0n263]

The truth is that we (humans as a whole) haven't grown progressively smarter or dumber, just we have learned how to get information when needed. just my 2 cents

Re:IMHO....

[interiot]

So, 100 years ago, people could have set off an atomic bomb, flown to space, and printed up some million+ transistor circuits, if they only knew the right people to talk to? The only difference between Einstein and Pythagoras is that Einstein talked to more people?

No, it's because our knowledge builds on top of the last generation's knowledge, and along with writing those ideas down, humanity's knowledge base becomes exponentially larger.

Re:IMHO....

[whathappenedtomonday]

we (humans as a whole)

have become a lot more numerous, too! so, in average, no matter how clever some of us are, there's always overpopulation to even that out statistically.

Re:IMHO....

[Dhalka226]

No, it's because our knowledge builds on top of the last generation's knowledge, and along with writing those ideas down, humanity's knowledge base becomes exponentially larger.

Fair enough, but it seems to me that there is a difference between knowledge and intelligence. Knowledge is stuff we know, whereas intelligence is an aptitude to be able to apply it. Sure, the human race as a collective can now build devices that fly to space or build atomic bombs, but I can't. Not smart enough. Even if you laid all that knowledge out in front of me I'm not sure I could make it happen.

Re:IMHO....

[chocotofferts]

The world IQ is stable, the population is growing.

Re:IMHO....

[Oligonicella]

"The only difference between Einstein and Pythagoras is that Einstein talked to more people?"

Arguably, the only difference between E and P is their place in time, not their intelligences.

Re:IMHO....

[i_am_not_a_bomba]

"No, it's because our knowledge builds on top of the last generation's knowledge, and along with writing those ideas down, humanity's knowledge base becomes exponentially larger."

Or in other words, people are no more intelligent now than 100 years ago, they just have a greater amount of knowledge to tap...

Hang on a minute, thats *exactly* what the OP said, so why the sarcasm?

I wonder if 100 years ago people were so quick to show off how 'witty' they are that they misinterpreted other peoples words as much as people do now?

Look it up

[nucal]

Never memorize anything you can look up. Einstein, Albert

which you can look up here

Re:Look it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these. The Microsoft brain.

Re:Look it up

[No Salvation]

So according to Einstein, in the future we will all be a bunch of dumb terminals with access to a central server, sort of like the Borg. Hmmm...

Re:Look it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Combined with Google that sentiment can be a bit scary: pi*(2^2) sin(pi/2) 1+1

Re:Look it up

[Anonymous Coward]

In the words of Dr Henry Jones:

"I wrote it down in my diary so I wouldn't *have* to remember it."

Interesting question

[Guysmiley777]

Let me look up the answer on Wikipedia and get back to you.

...or not?

[Thijs van As]

011110010110111101110101
011000010111001001100101
01100100011101010110110101100010

Re:...or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110010 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101001 01100101 01101110 01100100 00101110 00100000 01010100 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110101 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01110000 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 00111011 00101001

Double Edge Sword

[karvind]

I can give one examples for each side:

(a) Not long ago (10 yrs), I had to go to library to look up for technical papers. It used to be a pain to brush the dust in library to find your paper, xerox on the old photocopy machine. Often I would be coming out with thick stacks of bound journals. Thanks to good searching capabilities and online publications, I don't have to leave my desk and can access papers dating back to 1930s. Also with keyword search I can look at more papers in the same time. Just because someone forgot (may be intentionally) to reference some paper, I can still find it. Clearly I have saved lot of commute time. Also I can read the articles online and no need to print (save some trees).

(b) Second story is of my becoming more and more dumb because of calculators/computers. I never used calculators till highschool and could estimate things (atleast order of magnitude) easily. Recently I have been crunching numbers so often that I lost that practice. Fortunately I still try to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations before I fire the simulation. Simulations can give you any result you want (if you are not aware/careful).

I remember few years ago I did some simulations and showed it to my adviser. I was new and thought that tool can do anything. My adviser looked at the result and said: "Congratulations, you managed to do something phenomenal. You can quit your phd and can become a billionaire." In short, there are things which technology wouldn't teach. The fundamentals still need to be learnt before you can trust computers/technology.

Is technology evil ? No.

Yes. Wait, no. Let me check my calculator

[Red Flayer]

FTA: "Intelligence, as it impacts the economist Valderrama, is our capacity to adapt and thrive in our own environment."

If you do not change your intelligence-measuring criteria, then yes, we is more dumber.

If you use this definition of intelligence, and you change your measuring criteria to fit the current environment, then no, we have not lost any measure of intelligence.

Am I less smart because I can no longer do 14-digit long division in my head, like I did when I was young? No.
Am I smarter because I approximate it and don't waste my time figuring it out? Maybe.
Am I smarter because I use the calculator because there is less risk of error? Almost definitely.

We use technology because it makes us smarter. Maybe not as smart with traditional measuring sticks, but more capable of completing today's real-world tasks.

Hard work often pays off with time. . .

[Tachikoma]

but lazyness always pays off now

Hmm

[mathgodleo]

Working with the Treo handheld computing device he helped create, Jeff Hawkins can easily recount exactly what he did three years ago on Sept. 8, factor 9,982 and Pi, or describe a weather system over the Pacific Ocean.

How exactly does one go about factoring Pi?

Dibs!

[Havokmon]

If anything happens that all our technology is destroyed to the point where we're living like Gilligan, make note that I have dibs on being the village sandwich maker.

Re:Dibs!

[rhfrommn]

Was that an incredibly awesome reference to "Mostly Harmless", or just lucky?

Re:Dibs!

[Havokmon]

Was that an incredibly awesome reference to "Mostly Harmless", or just lucky?

It fits PERFECTLY doesn't it? Too bad nobody else got it :)

Not seeing the downside.

[Godeke]

Intelligence is *not* remembering phone numbers. Intelligence is the application of ideas to solve problems. Having a strong memory can be helpful in some tasks (and certainly an amount of working store is a minimum requirement) but memorizing long chains of random data is pointless. Seeing patterns in *seemingly* random data, perhaps that requires a larger working store, but it also seems like a great place to apply computation.

I don't see the downside of the Internet, instant communication, computational power etc as far as intelligence goes. The example they give of a financial analysis: the modern analyst uses computers to build models and compute massive numbers of "what if" possibilities. The old analyst would be force to spend an immense amount of time and effort to compute one of these.

Likewise, I have on tap an immense number of resources on administrative tips and such. I could keep it all in my head, but why when I can search for solutions, bookmark them and document the least amount to be able to do it all again in the future?

Re:Not seeing the downside.

[bdcrazy]

One downside is information overload. What info is relevant? What info is useful? What info doesn't matter? What info is wrong? etc. Trying to gather the useful kernal from the dizying array of data coming at you is becoming a necessity.

You could say that determining what to do with the data in the best way is what the intelligent person would do to finish their daily work.

Re:Not seeing the downside.

[Henry V .009]

The ability to remember to repeat back long strings of digits is actually highly correlated with measures of general intelligence. What is even more correlated with general intelligence, however, is the ability to repeat them backwards.

Re:Not seeing the downside.

[lgw]

The ability to solve hard problems seems to be limited by the ability to hold a lot of state in one's head. Remembering factiods may be useless, but large detailed mental abstract models are important. Such ability comes only with practice. Certain technologies may reduce the frequency with with we mentally model large and difficult problem spaces without reducing the value of this skill, to our detriment - at least, until we can invent strong AI and all become pets.

Re:Not seeing the downside.

[Dink Paisy]

Actually, memory is very important to intelligence. Being able to know what you can reasonably look up and not focusing on details that you don't need is important, but memory is very useful, too.

As an easy to understand example, consider an intelligent programmer. He may not remember the exact syntax for creating a connection to a PostgreSQL database in Python, but he knows that he can look it up, and he understands (in a general sense) how the programming language and the database operate, and how the network works. Understanding those details shows his memory at work.

Consider how it would be if he didn't remember those things. He would not be able to anticipate correctness and performance problems, and would be much more likely to produce bad code.

If his memory was much worse, he wouldn't even realize that he could connect to a PostgreSQL database using Python! Someone with such a poor memory would seem to have little intelligence. They would probably not be considered a programmer worth hiring.

It's harder to show how great memory leads to intelligence in general, but I claim that it does. If you're talking about a particular technical discipline, it's easy to see how a great memory translates into intelligence. Remembering details of how computers work, various algorithms and libraries that can be called on to solve problems, details of changelogs, and other things have an obvious link to programming ability. People who memorize those things seem to also memorize details of many other things, too. If you look at Reach For The Top, Jeopardy!, or even Trivial Pursuit, the people who do well in these tests of random memorization are typically the same people who show intelligence in many other areas.

There is a lot of value in knowing what you can look up and how, but it is obvious that memory is still a very important part of intelligence.

I don't think it nessesarily makes people dumber,

[NeuroManson]

But instead, because anyone who can tie their shoes can get net access, the apparent signal to noise ratio is considerably skewed.

30+ years ago, most people of nominal to below average intelligence generally kept low paying jobs, stayed in their locales (often for their entire lives), and stuck with jobs that suited them, and of course, were not on the internet. Like the middle class' dirty little secret (much like how the autistic were treated), you didn't hear very much about them.

Of course, since many of them can get on the net and demonstrate that lack of intelligence outside of their respective towns or workplaces, there has been an explosion in perception, not in their population.

Nowadays, with both handy spreadsheet apps that take 5 minutes to learn, calculators, and spell checkers, most of those people can hold higher paying jobs, without having to demonstrate the literacy or number crunching skills that those jobs would require.

Hell, we don't even let kids learn math without a calculator. So really, it's the laissez faire attitude regarding education that is cutting into the perceived lack of intelligence overall.

The Internet alone

[markass530]

The internet should be increasing overall intelligence. You can more or less, find the answer to any question on the internet in a matter of minutes. Then of course, only those inclined to want more knowledge will do so. So maybe the smart get smarter, and the dumb stay the same?

sometimes

[kevin.fowler]

Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting smarter, or I'm just able to remember more answers from last week's Jeopardy. Maybe the way we store "data" inside us is becoming more and more like the copmputers we rely on. Or maybe I'm insane from working all day in front of a pretty bright screen.

An example of the trade-off in the article

[Hussman32]

A rather brilliant, older, chemist once complained to me that the Ph. D students of today don't know what it's like to work hard because computers made the math, graphing, plotting, etc. much easier. My reply was that today's students do more work...especially for numeric modeling. Instead of working 10 days on a single graph and a single regression, we'll spend one day making 10 graphs, doing varying sensitivity analyses, and working the results into other models.

Some do ...

[RealAlaskan]

Some don't.

I'd guess that writing did. After all, now you could learn from dead white males (or dead Chinese|et cetera males). That lets you develop more of your natural abilities than you would if you never talked to anyone but the dolts in your village. When you read, you can use you brain.

I'd guess that TV didn't increase intelligence. You can't use your brain while you watch. You have all those pictures flooding your mind, and they come much too fast to sort, consider and file away. You might have facts driven into your head (e.g., Sesame street), but you haven't had a conversation with another mind, and you haven't learned to reason.

I think that the sliderule added a bit to intelligence, for those who mastered it. It requires that you keep track of the decimal point in your head, and gives you an answer to three (or four) significant digits. It encourages estimation and back-of-the-envelope thinking. It really requires that you use your brain.

I think that the graphing calculator has reduced intelligence, for those who have been mastered by it. I've watched students whose TI-83 had aced AP calculus in high school flunk university calculus. They'd wasted years learning which buttons to push, and had never learned problem solving or basic principles. They were not only missing basic principles of calculus, but also basic principles of arithmatic, like 1/2=0.5 (yes, I really saw a student turn on a calculator to solve that!).

Bush beat Gore so intelligence...

[BrentRJones]

...is obviously very over-rated.

Gore who invented the Internet certainly should be president. Bush only got the "un-popular" vote of the Supreme Court.

Bush has to have Laura turn on his toothbrush each morning. And photos of cabinet meetings show him with a mouse hooked to an Etch-a-Sketch.

Cause or Effect

[Orne]

I have long maintained that the mother of invention is not necessity, but in fact laziness.

Why do we have remote controls for our televisions and garage doors? We could very well get out of our chairs and cars, walk the 5 feet, and do it ourselves... but no, we have a machine to do it for us. I could drive down to the library and look up some information, but now I have the internet on a PC in my den to answer my inane questions.

I don't bother driving out sunday morning to buy a paper, or even getting one delivered. Too much work, when I already have the computer to serve it up. Or if I'm real lazy, I could get digital cable, where I just push the "Guide" on the remote control, and it tells me what's playing in the next X hours.

Are these really things we "need" (ala necessity) ? Perhaps, perhaps not. But they are all labor saving devices. I'd draw a conclusion here, but I think I'm just too lazy to finish.

Re:Cause or Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Please then also explain the invention of the treadmill and weight machine.

Re:Cause or Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

People are too lazy to find a route to jog or learn how to exercise properly.

Re:Cause or Effect

[markass530]

It's not a matter of lazy. It's a matter of efficency. It's like saying using a computer to type something up, and make 50 copies on a machine is being lazy, when you could just as easily write it 50 times, and have a buff hand to boot. Simply not true.

Re:Cause or Effect

[Jim_Callahan]

Nah, the remote control was invented when the family structure started breaking down and a bunch of engineers lost their children, who had formerly filled the function.

I don't know...

[Spy der Mann]

Is technology making us smarter?

I don't know, lemme google for it.

Precisely

[Bogtha]

Science itself is the perfect example. The only difference here is that, instead of "standing on the shoulders of giants", we can also "stand on the shoulders of things giants have built".

Way dumber.

[BigZaphod]

Oh yes. Certainly dumber.

Of course I have no actual evidence for this. But that's cuz I'm dumber now than I was yesterday when I'm sure I had the proof bookmarked someplace. It keeps getting worse, too. By this time next week I'll probably forget how to form sentences and have to google each word in order to build up my thoughts. That'll probably suck. Of course since I'll be dumber I won't notice anyway.

Also, as someone else noted

[Sycraft-fu]

Lazy doesn't mean dumb. Smart people often apply their intelligence to try and automate something so they don't have to do it. Our UNIX admin here at work reworked our new account system. Previously students had to come to the computer room, show their ID, get added, go long in to telnet, run a shitty script that often didn't work, have someone manually create the Windows side of the account,. Now they go to a webpage, enter their university ID, it checks their affiliation, makes and synchs all the accounts, and does so in about 5 seconds.

Now his motivation for this was laziness, basically. He was sick of dealing with a massive rush of students the first week and having to have the whole computing staff bust their ass on meanial shit. So he found an intelligent solution to the problem. This year, the first day was hardly any different from any other.

Lazy, perhaps, not dumb.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[Psiren]

Reminds me of the old saying, "If you want the job done quickly, find the laziest man."

I've done a similar thing with registering MAC addresses for our students. Like you've observed, a little laziness and some clever thinking can make everyones life easier.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[MikeFM]

I'm lazy as to the amount of energy I'll expend on a single task but not lazy in general. I just cram more tasks in than non-lazy people.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[Vellmont]

That reminds me of two of the great virtues of a programmer. Laziness, and hubris. If your unix admin was missing either one of these he never would have created the current system you now enjoy.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[Anonymous Coward]

That in turn reminds me of the old saying, "If you want the job done quickly, fine the busiest man."

Note the difference: the busiest man has no time to waste, so he gets it done; meanwhile, the laziest man sits around contemplating how to do it with the least amount of work.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[TeknoHog]

Laziness is one thing that drives new inventions, but there's also the sheer joy of hacking. People like us enjoy solving problems.

If there's a job that would take the same time either by brute force, or by writing a program that does the actual work quickly, I'd choose the latter. I'd probably choose it even if it took slightly longer than the grunt route, because of the fun and the experience/education gained. There's also this weird sense of inherent wrongness/evil in doing grunt work, if a clever alternative is available.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[Anonymous Coward]

"Note the difference: the busiest man has no time to waste, so he gets it done; meanwhile, the laziest man sits around contemplating how to do it with the least amount of work."

It's obvious:

The busier man is a programmer/analyst
The lazier man is an analyst/programmer

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[edunbar93]

There's also a point of diminishing returns. If you will never have to do the job again, it's probably worth it to just do it the grunt way once. On the other hand, if you're doing the same damn thing every day, it's best to find a way to make it go away.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[adamgolding]

there's a big difference between making time to do other, more important work, and making time to vegetate. the first is the hallmark of an over-achiever, the second is the hallmark of an under-achiever.

Re:Also, as someone else noted

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite. I had a personal tutor at University who once told me, "The best engineers work extremely hard to be lazy."

Good Quote

[mandrake649]

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something." -- Robert Heinlein

Re:Good Quote

[Usquebaugh]

Once again Heinlein demonstrates what a stupid muppet he was.

Not with.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you use Linux not....

I'm certainly getting dumber.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The issue brings to mind my Japanese teacher lamenting that nobody knows how to write Kanji (Sino-Japanese characters) anymore. She claimed that with modern computers, you only need to be able to recognize the correct character from a list of (typically many) homophones. This has led to an entire generation that knows how to read and pick out kanji, but can't handwrite half their own language without electronic assistance.

In an example closer to home, I can't spell (in English) nearly as well as I could in high school. The red squiggly spellcheck line has spoiled me terribly. And viewing too many message boards has dulled my "sense" for correct spellings. See "rediculous" written out enough times, and it starts to look less... well... ridiculous.

The more this type of technology is at our fingertips, the less we are forced to memorize.

the article needed more information

[ChocoBean]

anyone could have told you all those things it said. So Boo on the article.

what I would've liked are perhaps some numbers such as :
--average attention span of 10 year olds in the 70's versus today
--contrast of average ability to grasp basic math skills in children growing up with computers -vs- no computers
--ability of children to write or verbalize well-reasoned out/logical arguments
--etc...

while those may not actually be criteria for "intelligence", those sound a lot more helpful and concrete, and more able to focus our resources in improving things than a REALLY outdated word like "intelligence".

For the lazy...

[Spy der Mann]

the google query is:
"are we more stupider than we used to was?"

Re:For the lazy...

[gibbo2]

Jeez if you're going to make it for the lazy at least have the courtesy to link it :)

are we more stupider than we used to was?

Intelligence is still in demand

[Buck2]

I remember reading the original Hodgkin-Huxley paper and wondering why their plots stopped in "the middle". Well, it's because they wrote a differential equation and hand-cranked every little dot on their plots. That was tedious and, within the plot, once the point was made they just stopped.

Nowadays a researcher is expected to be able to generate data from a differential equation using computers. How to do so is taught in undergraduate engineering.

IMO, computers have not made us more intelligent, or dumber, but they have made what was once difficult, tractable, and, to be honest, expected. Yes, you can test your equation out right away, but you should also be responsible for the eight-billion related articles that are easily accessible if you want to talk about it. Typically, the previously published research is a few mouse clicks away, and "why didn't you read that first?"

This article also reminds me of something else I read about how "back in the day" researchers could focus on research and not mess around with making the actual plots and/or typing things up and formatting them properly. The same goes for business executives. One always had a professional assistant to do the menial layout tasks and whatnot while the "intelligent" person went on and did the skilled stuff. Nowadays, though, everyone is expected to be able to do their own desktop publishing, so extremely capable people are pissing time away trying to get the right font. Dictating is a thing of the past. Throwing data at someone and expecting them to be an expert at how to format and present it is also a thing of the past.

cavemen

[ShentarZ31]

Thats just dumb. A computer is only as smart as the person using it. They are a tool that does what you program it to do. If you are stupid, you will get stupid results. They are there to speed things up so we can get more done in less time. Thats what the first computers were for, speed things up such as missle trajectories in war. Are we dumber because we didn't break out the slide rule and figure out where to place the bomb? And you have to wonder, when the caveman made the first wheel, did his buddies look at him and say, " Ugh, you use that stone circle, you get stupid."

Re:cavemen

[Anonymous Coward]

A computer is only as smart as the person using it.

My computer is smarter than yours.

argh

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you NOTICE that the OVERUSE of CAPITALIZATION is ANNOYING?

Re:argh

[ChocoBean]

*smiles* yes, yes I did.

Re:argh

[Anonymous Coward]

It would appear that intelligence cannot increase with those that are dyslexic or have some other affliction of the brain who pick at others writing style as the best form of reply they have possible with the limitations of their skillsets and iq.

Flynn Effect

[davidwr]

I didn't know it had a name, but yes, that's the effect.

For simplicity I assumed if you scored 100 25 years ago, you'd have the same score if you took the same test and had it scaled using the 1980 normalization.

Of course, we all know IQ tests are not a 100% precise measure of IQ. Scores change due to factors such as training/experience for a given test, fatigue, distractions, etc. etc. Furthermore, IQ measures one type or dimension of intelligence, some scholars argue that there are multiple types or dimensions of intelligence, some of which are not measured by standard IQ tests.

My trig teacher

[prisoner]

would allow us to use programmable calculators providing that we wrote the programs for them. This was in 1983 so pulling code off the net really wasn't an option so it was pretty legit.

Technology is a tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology is merely a tool.

When I studied engineering, I had to use a slide rule and a book of tables. Now I use a calculator and a computer.

The skills I use as an engineer haven't changed. The tools I use have changed. They allow me to get the work done faster and more accurately.

n00b

[Xarius]

u 4got 2 puut "looooool" at da end, roflz kthx

Mod parent up! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

The grandparent post said:
"youaredumb"

The parent post replied:
"You're one fry short of a happy meal my friend. Try using spaces. ;)"

Translated here.

For example

[Mark of THE CITY]

The speed of light, say.

Intelligence versus knowledge and skill

[tod_miller]

And 'uneducated' farmer 200 years ago was perhaps one of the more educated general folk, knowing much about the land. He used technology of his time.

Today modern farmers know more or less? They certainly know different things. The article is redundant because it doesnt define intelligence.

Certainly people are more free thinking today, and have been educated in how to learn things (I would hope, judging by teh intarwebnet masses this isn't so). So peoples intelligence (natural free thinking, ability to push their minds) is up, so is knowledge, such as random facts from wikipedia.

Why? 200 years ago there were only 112 music, documentary cultural and shopping channels available on cable, not there are more. You get it.

Information is flowing like quick silver (most of it is like shit, like engaydget blogs), we are at a time where for the FIRST TIME in history free, mass communication is available to all (potentially) unrestricted and secure, globalized and revolutionary.

First thing that happens? it all starts getting locked back down again... anyway... people don't truly appreciate the internet until their own mum buys something from china, without realising.

No, I don't mean made in china, I mean a chinese company, selling internationally.

Each day I speak to almost 30 nationalities, and I try and get something from each of them. Who did that 200 years ago?

The fact that there is a hetrogenous level of education now is great, and I see that when this moves globally, and EVERY child on earth gets a good, competative education, we will realise we are no longer breeding hatred into generations but understanding.

Or some crap.

To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: kidnaps

random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org

Like Open Source

[biraneto2]

Not relying in computers is something my grandpa would probably say... I think the opposite. Computers do make us smarter. Being able to search for answers is being smart. I remember the hard work I had while studying when younger. No internet, had to read it in books. Today we would do the same homework in half the time... or even faster.
The point is, by having computers to lookup the basics for you you get yourself free for more important deeds. It's like open source, where you can re-use the works of others to achieve higher goals. If every single generation would need to reinvent the wheel we probably would not have gone to space yet. Home computers and internet will play (and already are) a major role in the technology progress of this century.

Singularity

[Viper Daimao]

The singularity is near...

How about smarter?

[gQuigs]

Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?
I consider it dumb to do 892 * 1094 without taking advantage of technology.
I consider it smart to estimate 892 * 1094 using 900 * 1000.
Based on this example, laziness is the smarter choice.

Re:How about smarter?

[lgw]

Because I didn't grow up with a calculator in math class, I could tell that

892 * 1094 = 990000 - 8800 - 5400 + 48 = 975848

without reaching for a calculator, though I'm no longer fast at it. How many young slashdot readers could even describe the technique I used (why is this so much easier to solve in your head than 842*1044)? Or tell at a glance that 47^2 = 2209?

You learn useful things about numbers and about mathematics by working with them constantly in your head that you'd have no reason to learn otherwise. If you need to work with numbers regularly it's important to be friendly with them - it will help you greatly in spotting patterns that a computer can't. If you don't then the technology isn't helping you much in the first place, but there's certainly no harm in it.

Ah, the 'more leisure time' myth

[BeanThere]

The Khoi-San bushmen live in a near desert and yet compared to modern Western societies, once you've factored out all the activities required for survival, they literally have more leisure time than we do. It is a myth (propagated by who?) that "primitive" societies have to "work their butts off just to survive". We are the ones working our butts off, just to survive and "keep up with the Joneses".

OK, granted, more primitive societies do not produce the kind of 'excess wealth' and R&D environments that allow us to create and afford things like hospital care, roads, modern medicine and cool gadgets. But nonetheless this still seems like a counter-intuitive result, and it should very well make you wonder why, for all our technology, we are working as hard or harder than ever before, and why our stress levels are higher than agrarian or hunter/gatherer societies.

This is not a technology problem, it's a cultural problem - somehow we are willingly enslaved by the "modern work ethic" ('wave slaves'), driven perhaps by the ruling class, who implement systems that result in massively uneven distribution of wealth. It is possible to create enough "stuff" to allow us all to work fewer hours, but something else is wrong with the system that prevents this from actually ever happening. We've been conditioned to think eight hours a day is normal and is not much, but really, think about it, who came up with this "eight hours" concept anyway? Eight hours a day is nearly your whole life, as most of the little remaining time goes to sleep or "administrative" tasks like grooming, eating, buying groceries, etc. What do you have left, maybe an hour or two a day on average?

Re:Ah, the 'more leisure time' myth

[lgw]

That's only half the story, however: I could achieve the same standard of living as a stone-age tribesman with very little work indeed. The simple fact is, technology improves our expectations as fast as it improves our efficiency, so it will always take more-or-less the same amount of work to achieve a standard of living that "the average person" in a given society would find acceptable. The technology available just determines what the work ethic in your culture will provide for you.

C'mon

[PaladinAlpha]

This seems, well, inane to me. An example cited in the story is a guy with a handheld that using it can recall what he was doing x years ago, the weather, etc., but without it "couldn't remember his daughter's telephone number."

Surely this is a sign of worse memories? Horse crap.

People who remembered phone numbers twenty years ago remembered only because they needed to. Easier for some, harder for others, the only reason that number would stick around was through repetition and the hassle of having to look it up. The space that memory occupied has been replaced with basic knowledge of how to operate a cellphone or PDA, and that's a good thing.

I say as we move away from the compile-time lookup table model as a species and towards the live database backend model we improve. We are -not- the best devices yet for strict storage and recollection of facts under easy search criteria. We -are-, however, the best pattern recognition and data assosiation and intuition devices this planet has yet seen, and we should take advantage of that by clearing out the lookup tables and replacing them with dynamic interface routines.

I blame Microsoft for my stupidity

[Mark4ST]

As with most problems in my life, I blame Microsoft.

Listen: Many years ago, when I was in grade school, the calculator was totally verboten. This led me and my age-mates to learn all sorts of things, like long division and multiplication tables, by heart. Imagine that!

Almost 2 decades later, it seems that whenever I need to do a calculation, there's always a silly Windows computer in front of me with a hotkey assigned to the built-in calculator applet. It's quick, easy, accurate, and completely precludes my need to do simple math in my head. My math skills have slowly withered away like a plant I forgot to water. So it goes.

Do you think I can bring suit against calculator.exe?

Re:Yes. Wait, no. Let me check my calculator

[Eric604]

Am I smarter because I use the calculator because there is less risk of error? Almost definitely.

Nah, usage of calculators are just an excuse to make us look smart. If I were so fucking smart that I wouldn't need a calculator to do calculations (without extra practicing ofcourse).. then I would be smarter than I am now. Some of you might say "that's only computing capacity", but that's what comes with smartness. Smartness is the sum of everything, including short/long term memory and raw computing power. Sure there are idiots that memorize pi to 100 digits but we're not talking about freaks that know one trick. If next year everyone is able to do 14 digit long divison in their head then .. yes I would say we're smarter unless we've given up something for that.

We don't need to be smarter

[Ensign Regis]

Einstein once said "never memorize what you can look up." As the number of things we can look up via Google and other technologies goes up, the number of things that need to be committed to rote memory decreases.

You see this in history too: Before writing was invented, people had much longer memory spans. Greek bards could recite the entirety of Homer's The Illiad aloud. With the invention of paper, people no longer had to memorize the whole thing, and so they didn't, and instead used that time and brainpower for other things.

If you want to call that becoming dumber, so be it.

Editor Mistake

[Saiyaman]

"Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?'"

I believe that it was meant to say, "Or are we being more lazier and reliant on computers, and, more dumber than we used to be?"

Let me run that through my grammar and speel chcker first though...

Many aspects of humans intelligece is obselete

[blahplusplus]

"That said--there is a core of information that people should learn well enough to not need to consult Google, lest one spend one's time looking things up rather than doing something worthwhile. The question is, what is that core?"

I think human intelligence is going to go obselete sooner or later once we know and understand how the human mind works computers, advanced measuring sensors and AI's will do the heavy lifting because lets face it, humans have horribly slow processing and memory systems compared to systems designed specifically for that.

Think about how much you can actually manage to memorize multiplied by the time it takes you to memorize it and then factor in decay, and human beings individually dont learn that much at all.

Yay for genetic engineering, or enhancements, but I think a time will come where human beings are superflous to their own creations who manage everything for them and can have absolute control over their time, humans if they 'exist' as we know them today will end up being being more akin to rational robots then animals, having transcendended their animalism (emotions, fatigue, etc) that gets in the way of their functioning.

Re:Many aspects of humans intelligece is obselete

[HuguesT]

My own personal opinion on this is that as soon as the tech to make humans really obsolete becomes available, we'll have a world revolution, war, and a return to the middle ages. Maybe because I'm an optimist ;-)

Anyway it's SF at this point. There hasn't been much breakthrough in AI for ages (incremental and constant improvements, to be sure, but along the same lines, none of which give much of a handle on "intelligence")

I guess, evolutionary seen, this is a fact...

[Hurricane78]

You often hear poeple say "The amount of intelligence stays the same. It's just the amount of poeple that is growing!"

And guess what? This is a nearly correct simplification of this theorem:

If there are more poeple, there simply is no *need* for the human race to stay that intelligent. If if one *billion* would die by a new predator ("overlord"? ;) every 20 years we could live on without a danger for the human race as a whole. So in the actual situation why should there a need for us to become more intelligend as a whole?

The only thing that could happen is that there could grow a next level of a liveform above the normal human that could supersede the "normal dumb humans" or force them to become more intelligent anymore. (best case: maye we geeks? worst case: politicians and big bosses?)

no, we just have more to remember

[Anonymous Coward]

We are not getting dumber, we just remember less. I can only remember so much. In the past I needed to know things by heart because it took to long to find things out. With technology I need to remeber far less information, but can interact with far more information. So I remember everything in less detail but can do more by using what I do know as a handle on the stuff I don't remember. I don't think that that makes be dumber?

Re:Yes. Wait, no. Let me check my calculator

[conJunk]

Am I less smart because I can no longer do 14-digit long division in my head, like I did when I was young? No. Am I smarter because I approximate it and don't waste my time figuring it out? Maybe. Am I smarter because I use the calculator because there is less risk of error? Almost definitely.

i really like this approach- a kind of societal or community intelligence, where if the individuals can not achieve the desire result because they don't know how, BUT, can use technology to get the answer, then we don't say we're less smart.

if we use results-oriented criteria as our measure of intelligence, then it doesn't matter if we use technology to get to that point or not. the fact is that at the end of the day, as a society we are demonstrating superior intelligence

I say it's getting better.

[TomorrowPlusX]

Quantifying intelligence is a fool's errand, at best. And over time, by god. Every generation believes the young folk are lazy idiots, and that civilization's going down the tubes.

And then you read example essay material from students today in universities and you think, "holy shit, they're right, these people are dumber than a sack of hammers".

But as far as I'm concerned, the *sum* is much higher today than ever before. More people are literate than ever before, more people have some basic math skills than ever before. More people get some basic schooling ( even if they don't want it, or use it ) than ever before.

Perhaps in the old days ( up until a couple centuries ago ) you might have had a situation where 95% of the population were illiterate in every way. No reading, no math, no geography. No knowledge except how to do their respective jobs. And the remaining 5% might have been, by our standards of thoroughness, quite well educated, with serious teachings in history, language, rhetoric, natural philosphy, etc.

Today education is better distributed, even if it means that we have some fairly dumb people coming out of our universities. The fact is, more people are getting an education, or at least the *means* for an education. If they should fail at it, it's their own damn fault, not society.

And the smart people today, by god, they're astonishing. Just pick up any book on some specialized field, say, physics, literature, GPU shader programming, biology, whatever. The work these people do blows my mind.

As far as I'm concerned, it's all A-O-K. At least the responsibility for success (or failure) lies progressively in our own hands. I'd say that's a step in the right direction.

Some speculations on Flynn effect

[davidwr]

Some speculate that improved health and nutrition, partucularly among children and pregnant women in industrialized areas of the world, have contrubuted to this effect.

Others have speculated that improved education in the early years, when the brain is forming, really DO increase intelligence. Maybe Sesame Street really is "royal jelly" for the brain.

If these turn out to be true, they will have all kinds of social implications. If money, when used to buy healthy food and later exposure to educational materials and schooling, really will make little Jonny smarter, what does that say about society's obligation to feed and educate the poor around the world and at home?

Re:Some speculations on Flynn effect

[Red Flayer]

"If these turn out to be true, they will have all kinds of social implications. If money, when used to buy healthy food and later exposure to educational materials and schooling, really will make little Jonny smarter, what does that say about society's obligation to feed and educate the poor around the world and at home? "

Well, does providing the resources to maximize intelligence increase the quality of life for the individual, and for society as a whole?

Quality of life is really what it's all about, IMO. If we can take care of basic needs, then happiness is next. And, as they say, ignorance is bliss.

So, my answer is, give us food and shelter, then make us as dumb as possible. /sarcasm off

Paper, Pencil & Practice

[jzarling]

We need to re-evaluate how we teach.

Our "old school" teachers are retiring and with them the Paper, Pencil & Practice method that worked so well for so long.

Teach kids how something is done before we give them the tools to do the work for them.

Re:Yes. Wait, no. Let me check my calculator

[Red Flayer]

"If next year everyone is able to do 14 digit long divison in their head then .. yes I would say we're smarter unless we've given up something for that."

What if it takes much longer to do the calculation? If I can do two 14-digit calculations in the time you can do one, doesn't that make me smarter?

"If I were so fucking smart that I wouldn't need a calculator to do calculations (without extra practicing ofcourse)"

Wouldn't it be smarter to use all that practice time to do something else? Like, to learn something that can't be done on a calculator?

Why linking to a commercial site

[jjMick]

What was the reason to use a commercial author link when posted, Mr. Peterson.

another hypothesis: language is evolving

[slew]

Although I don't have any evidence (not that is required on /.), my hypothesis for the Flynn effect has always been that language is in fact improving the human ability to abstract information better than it has done in the past and will continue this improvement over time.

The flimsy basis for this argument is that when babies are young and don't know any language, memory and intelligence seem very rudimentary, but as they learn language, they gain the ability to store, categorize, recall, and cross-link concepts and ideas to form intelligent behaviors. It stands to reason that it is quite possible that the more efficient the language, even if the symbolic processing capability is constant, the more apparently intelligent the resultant behaviors can be. Language (and the ability to process more complex information) is something that is constantly developing/evolving and can do so faster and independent of other forces like DNA evolution, possibly explaining how this effect has been going on in the past and also allowing for this effect to continue for the forseeable future.

One of the leaps of faith that has to be made to adopt this philosophy is that intelligent behavior is something that is the result of language (or more generically, symbolic processing), not any "magic" phenomena of the brain that requires evolution and genetics to change. This includes not only the behavior of test taking, but the more "real-world" behavior of surviving in an increasingly complex world.

As a cheap example, the invention of a language to express numbers has allowed humans to become more intelligent in mathematics than before that improvement has occured (e.g., "one" vs "many" vs a counting system). It allows us to organize our thought about math better and allows us to exhibit seemingly more intelligent behavior about math related things.

As a possibly future example, wouldn't it be great if we had a language to communicate musical queries better than "humming" to your friend to try to get them to remember the name of a tune? Seems to me that years from now when we look back we'll see how dumb we were that we had to use humming and grunts and groans to communicate and organize our thoughts about music. What morons we are ;^)

An analogous ideas is how "compression" has allowed a constant amount of digital bandwidth convey an increasing amount of information/per-unit-time, as improved compression techniques have evolved. Sometimes the improvement in compression has been low-level (oversampled uart vs binary manchester coding vs 8/10 coding vs PRML) medium level (MNP5, LZW) or high level (mpeg/jpeg video/picture compression). Even with a fixed capacity, the improvement in language has brought great increases in throughput (although improving throughput isn't the same as improving intelligence, it's still something to ponder).

This idea of evolution of language allowing improved representation of abstract ideas and resultant apparent increase in cognitive behavior has always intrigued me as I've pondered the difference between "chinese" ideographic style language vs "european" alphabetic style language. Is there any inherent advantage to either?

Re:another hypothesis: language is evolving

[Red Flayer]

I see a chicken and egg problem. What if our abstract intelligence is increasing, which allows for greater language utility?

Please, do mod parent up.

[cp.tar]

This deserves either a Funny or an Insightful mod - get a grip, people...

I mean, it's a Re: frist post
I find it an excellent comment on this topic.

If you can't see the joke here... OK, so it would be lame usually, but here and now I find it quite funny.

I wish I didn't spend my last point yesterday.

Managers are as dumb as before, maybe worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Time and again I've seen people --managers-- put into positions where they 'have the power' over some sort of technology or other. When something bad happens, they usually don't have access to the developers, the technology isn't quite as before, and there they are, utterly and completely lost. It seems their ability to 'reason' their way out of the situation crashed! Similarly, I've seen people who cannot imagine old film cameras being basically a base2 device, just like computers in many different ways (F-stop, shutter speed, film speed, etc. all base2 and the process of 'bracketing' is a binary search). Nor can they imagine ethernet (CSMA/CD) being like the endocrine system with the hormone being the packet sent, and the target organ being the recipient (actually it's more like token ring, but I digress). I remember talking to a communication manager who was trying to understand how microwave antennas worked, and I described them as like a mirror (reflector). He laughed until someone pointed out how exteremely similar they are, and how the formulas work in a similar fashion, and how light is an em wave (apparently he didn't know). I remember taking courses where gears, levers, transformers, etc. were given identical formulas (resistance through a transformer is like friction through a gear train, etc.). I remember too, how a whistle is used to describe a cavity magnetron (radar) tube. There are a million other examples where what you already know, can be re-applied to new things (water flowing through a pipe, similar to the skin effect of microwave waveguide, or a boat on the water rocking like an aircraft going through turbulence, or 50 ohm terminators on a computer network (ethernet-thicknet) being like 'bumpers' installed by plumbers to keep long runs of water lines from shaking the toilet and taps apart. You would be shoked how some people don't 'get it'. Sad really.

"User-friendly" technology makes people dumb

[Just-some-person]

http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/winstup id/winstupid1.php

Not Really...

[Bones3D_mac]

While it could be argued that computers are making this generation dumber than previous generations in terms of basic math and writing skills, it can also be argued that the benefits of offsetting these often tedious and repetative tasks to our computers is worth the tradeoff. We may not be as intelligent or as skilled in these tasks as previous generations, but, we are much better equiped tackle much more complex tasks with in a limited amount of time than we would be through convention methods.

The only major drawback to this is that making a mistake can have a far more devistating results, since they often aren't caught until well after it was made.

Really though, it's more about quality vs quantity than anything else. In a country as impulse driven as the U.S. the reduction in quality is an acceptable loss, so long as we get what we want when we want it.

The Computerized Academy

[reverseengineer]

There's an excellent article here that touches on many of the same points; called The Computerized Academy, it is about the changes information technology is having on academia. Examples include the impact of search engines on research (with phrases like, "armed to display an erudition that you know is superficial"), the way computer programming has become the major activity of many science students, and the ways that computer interaction such as email and the Web have altered the student/professor relationship.

As to my own thoughts on the issue of intelligence in the Internet Age, I think it's natural to expect that our conception of intellect, brightness, mental aptitude, whatever will change to one that champions those that can more effectively use the tools available to them. As someone great at fast recall of facts from my brain, it's unfortunate, but I understand that I can't be better than a machine at the task it was designed for- so I should try to be better at using that machine. And indeed, Google isn't a mindreader- knowing how to use it to get relevant answers is just as much a skill as memorizing and recalling those answers yourself. It's going from "how do I do x?" to "how does the thing that does x for me work?"

Re:right???

[Elias Pelterson]

We were not allowed to use calculators in school... A couple years ago I worked for a School District in British Columbia, Canada, and they now teach kids from Grade 1 to use calculators. They hardly have to think anymore it seems... and the number of kids graduating from High School with a Grade 3 or 4 reading level is growing. When will parents realize their childs education is THEIR responsibility not the schools? Rant ends....

who kares abot speling

[bxbaser]

i know i neva wory about speling now bicause of a conputer has spel chicking on it.

Re:who kares abot speling

[eskayp]

Good point.
Several of the other posters are proving it for you.

Re:Hmm (lazy leads to stupidity)

[gosand]

Lazy != Dumb

But laziness can sure lead to dumbness. People rely on their cellphones for everything, therefore, they don't think about and plan things out ahead of time. I have seen this time and time again - normally with just annoying results. I have friends who refuse to plan to meet at a particular place or time. I always get the "I'll call you". Then when something goes wrong (someone's phone dies, they forget it, etc) it is a total clusterF.

It leads to that instant gratification mentality. Like the old internet story about the woman who called a towtruck because she was locked out of her car. The towtruck driver gets there, and she explains how her thingy quit working and she couldn't get into her car. Her thingy was the keyless entry. So the towtruck driver took the key, unlocked the door, and drove off.

Urban legend, but it is where we are headed.

Re:Hmm (lazy leads to stupidity)

[ZakuSage]

Ah, but you're missing the point. Laziness can coexist with stupidity just as it can with intelligence. There are times where being lazy is stupid (such as not doing your work because you're lazy, and getting fired for it), but there are times where laziness can be intelligent as well (Slackware anyone?).

Its all back assward...

[3seas]

Whats really happening is:

The act of programming is inherently of incorporating the mindset of the programmers and then subjecting the users to it by forcing the users to have to think in the terms the programmer layed down in the users operation of the program.

Microsoft intentionally applies this fact and is why most users don't have a clue about the shell (and those who have used microsofts shell find it discouraging).

There are other places where the programming is not very intelligent but subject the users to its dumbness... Earthlink Webmail has been such a place, where not so long ago you had to individually select which mail you wanted to delete. But where 80% or better is spam and in the amount of at least 100 a day.

After communicating to them like a child, they finally put in a "select all" allowing you to then deselect the few you wanted to keep (the effects of that must have been enormus on the reduction of spam in general held on Earthlinks servers -- maybe thats where they got the additional 90 megs of email stirage space they now give me without my asking)

But the point is, when you have an industry that can only see as far forward as .... well, how to make the user upgrade... then you have to leave stuff out and promise some of it next release as you figure out what then to take away...

Does this make users dumb?

Probably doesn't help the intelligence level of the users to improve, but intentionally "makes users need ... MS"...

Users aren't stupid, the software industry is and what choice does the users have but to be subjected to such bullshit?

Things don't have to be this way, but are currently, just as the Catholic Church promoted the Roman Numeral system of math, even when they were presented with a simpler and more powerful system of the Hindu-Arabic Decimal system.

This just in from the "Mysterious Future"...

[Anonymous Coward]

During talk like a piiiiirrrate day in Soviet Russia, you arrrrrrrrr dumb.

Sorrrrrrrrrrrrrry! Couldn't be helped.

-John Titorrrrrrrr

Great tool

[nsaspook]

Computers, a great tool to do something dumb faster.
Like write this.

Re:right???

[j-cloth]

It's a trade-off and, unfortunately, I don't think anyone is bothering to look to hard at the options or consequences.
If the kids in grade 1 can figure out how to use a calculator well, then they are already able to do math at a minimum grade 6 level (+,-,*,/) That should (in theory) give them a few spare CPU cycles to learn calculus by Jr. High and linear regression before they're done high school. That's a huge advantage.
On the other hand, take the calculator (and the cell phone with its built in calculator and the laptop and....) away and the kid is in trouble.

Re:Mixed bag here too, DO Take a Read man... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

"It seems like your comment is a bit of a mixed-bag too." - by ChocoBean (890202)

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=162717 &cid=13599146

First see that - The reply below mine along with yours, critiquing my writing style.

That's just so you can see my point.

The one I lead into here in reply to you ChocoBean. So please see that url above FIRST, lol, & see why I am going to lead into what I do, next!

(Spelling & grammar checking + resorting to attacking writing style? My opinion of THAT?? Not a GOOD one!)

After all, it's lame really! I mean, E.G.-> If you cannot draw the meaning of a word via inference from the context wherein it is used? WELL, It's YOU with the problems, not I!

And my reply? Sure, anything depending on who's doing the judging/looking really IS! Reality truly is, just a matter of perception after all.

It is man, I admit it... Hmmmm, I guess, as far as "mixed bags"? Well, imo (& YES, experience)?? So is life... bigtime!

(I don't deal in "absolutes", or rather, TRY not too, because there is 'shades of gray' out here, situational data/scenarios).

"I agree with you if you're trying to say that sometimes in life there are things that count for more than intelligence, such as experience" - by ChocoBean (890202)

I dunno. On that, I really have to sort of agree, & sort of NOT agree: I think it's a combination of both, that, & keeping your "init. instinctive reactions" in check...

I've HAD to learn that one!

See, I have a rather nasty temper & have learned to "use it as reasoning fuel", rather than just shoot from my hip as I used to in my younger days...

It can be done, & it works!

I try to play debate, like Roger Federer plays tennis - As a REALLY "cool customer", one you can't rattle in his game. That guy's downright amazing, & wears others down. He never lets them see HIM, sweat.

And, on more than just fronts like technical debates out here unfortunately because of the place I have grown up in & am visiting again now...

Also, in street fights and sports for example, as well as (the worst of the lot) "office politicking"...

It's unfortunate, but this is life?

Those things sometimes can't be avoided, the opposition keeps attacking & doesn't understand or respect logic, only force.

So, you 'take it TO them' in terms they understand, hopefully, via facts & reverse psychology.

Put it this way, on my way to getting to wherever it is I am at now:

It's (literally & figureatively) gotten me KNOCKED THE HELL OUT, when I underestimated opponents on many fronts & started fights in my life (especially when I was younger & 'indestructible' which most youngsters? Think they are imo... I was one once you know?)

And, on fronts that are NOT just "intellectual ones", but others I note above.

BUT, this comes with experience, what I am trying to get across here on this point -

That skinned knees experiences & all, or busted up face (both examples of "the agony of defeat") & also, the rewards of "victory"...

In the end, you realize 1 thing (@ least I have):

NOBODY EVER "WINS" A FIGHT!

#1 RULE:

Don't go around starting them.

That is the MOST important lesson I have to give I suppose, again if this reply to me is coming from where I think it may be (a group of folks, not just you).

HOWEVER, if one's started with YOU/ME:

Fight like you MEAN it!

(AND, with everything you've got @ your disposal, & you better damn well win!)

By whatever that means in a fight (don't come out looking like the 'bad guy' though, & do it with facts when & IF possible).

It's how I am! It is also how I live with myself in fact, there is NO changing that.

It's odd, & VERY interesting you brought this up in fact & in

Please remember that just a couple hundred years..

[Wisgary]

...ago, high-level math was reserved for the most badass smartass dudes in the world. But now... high school and college kids the world over learn the stuff that took great mathematitians decades to learn, in a couple of years. Having information readily and easily accessible helps us understand concepts far faster and far more effectively than the past would allow us to learn, and thus, I believe we become smarter as information is more easily accessible.

That is how I write - and negatively affected...

[Anonymous Coward]

My short-term memory doesn't work for writing any longer, if it ever did. I now have to write just the part I was thinking about, move around, write other parts, then rearrange the jumble. I am sorry to say I had to do a whole thesis that way. Sad, but true. It came out well (OK), but it *was* extra work.

Looking back, I realize I never gained the skill, or a kind of ADD if there even is such a thing, and with introspection find it is truly difficult to focus any longer. So, I beleive that using technology *did* allow my brain to become lazy...

Am I my hat?

[AnotherBlackHat]

If I hit you with my hat, you wouldn't say my hat hit you, you'd blame me.

Even supposing that the human part of the human plus computer extended phenotype isn't as smart as the human part would be without the computer, you still need to consider how much "you" includes your computer.

-- Should you believe authority without question?

Revision control

[tepples]

'cause maintaining multiple document files is bothersome

That's why mankind invented CVS.

Dumb questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we also weaker, due to having cars and bicycles and levers and hydraulics and free delivery in 15 minutes or less?

Well, probably. But good luck getting any number of people to give up their cars for the sake of exercise. So it's a moot point.

(Never mind the fact that I rode in a car to run a marathon -- something which, living in a small town, I would not have otherwise been able to do.)

Knowledge, like anything else, can be used in different ways. You can use it like the 300-pound guy who drives his SUV to McDonald's to get half a dozen Big Macs, or you can use it like the guy who rides his carbon fiber-frame bicycle up the Alps for fun.

You can use the internet to be lazy, but it was also possible to be lazy a hundred years ago. But you can also use the internet to do great things not possible a hundred years ago.

Come to think of it, you can rephrase the question with *any* word you don't like. Does the internet let you be ... racist? Well, sure. Is that its primary use? Uh, no.

Intelligence is the difference....

[MrCreosote]

between knowing 1+1=2, and knowing why.

Re:Intelligence is the difference....

[the eric conspiracy]

This article was printed in my local paper. It took up the whole front page of Saturday's edition

The real question is why does (-1)*(-1) = 1.

Factoring Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else notice that the article says Jeff Hawkins can factor Pi?

Heh...

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot impatience :)

And giving Larry Wall his due, of course, given that these are the virtues of a *Perl* programmer in particular ;-)

Yes, Einstein was smart enough to realize...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...that if he gave out bad advice it would make him look better than the competition.

dumb

[bonezed]

and dumber

specialisation is leading to a dumbing down of the general populous, or is that just tv?

The article's title

[ScrewMaster]

is a really cool oxymoron.

Tech vs Intelligence.

[Boylandian]

I think it is safe to say that Technology hasn't made people less intelligent. Its simply made it a lot easier to see how generally stupid and common thought minded that the general population of the world is. Give them a peice of information, and if they like it enough, they'll keep taking it. Regardless of what the truth behind it.

Re:right???

[mrbcs]

That's why we home school. Our 6 year old can read already and is learning to write. He is also pretty good on a computer too. Now if I could just get him to stop fubaring the windoze boxes.. ;-).. Think I'll try Mac next.

Intelligence? What's that?

[ShakiirNvar]

hah, found it ... me googled it! ;)

hmmm, nothing about knowing how to google stuff in them definitions ... ah wells me mustn't be intelligent :D

Re:right???

[Quasadu]

When will parents realize their childs education is THEIR responsibility not the schools?

I don't entirely agree with this idea. Of course raising a child is the parents' responsibility, but good parents want their children to have opportunities they did not have themselves. Not every parent (or pair of parents) can effectively teach their children on their own, which is why we have schools in the first place.

What if a child shows interest or talent in a field a parent knows nothing about? I could do a fair job teaching my (hypothetical) children mathematics, I think, and I might be competent in some other areas as well. I know nothing about physics, however, and perhaps my (hypothetical) child would excel at physics if he had the right teachers.

Yes, parents should be actively involved in the education of their children. They should know what they are being taught and help their child to perform as best they can. But to say that the responsibility for education is not the schools' is somewhat ridiculous. If it isn't, then what is the purpose of a school at all?

Bunt

[Anonymous Coward]

It's making smart people more lazy, simple people more sophisticated, and dumb people more confused.

Deep Question - or pulling our legs?

[Hosiah]

C'mon, it's not *that* hard. I know that I'm smarter when I use technology than when I'm not, because I use it to extend my mind beyond it's natural limitations. But if computers are nothing to you but an entertainmnet device, like television, then they'll have no enhancing effects.

When I started to notice that the information age also facilitated the propagation of urban legends and glurge as well as physics papers and philisophical debates, I put it this way: Computers are just a magnifying glass applied to the intellect. If that intellect is rotten, then the computer magnifies the rottenness a thousand-fold. Ergo, Garbage in, Garbage out.

Break time...

Progress

[Advocadus Diaboli]

Progress (n.): The process through which the Internet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals.

Accelerando

[Kriticism]

I highly recommend reading this book (for free online, btw):

http://www.accelerando.org/book/

One of the ideas presented in there is that technology doesn't make us dumber...rather it expands our intellects beyond our physical bodies. If we stop defining intelligence as only what goes on in our biological brains, we can start considering our minds as the hub of a distributed network of computational apparatus.

Um. You could?

[greyjoy]

That's only half the story, however: I could achieve the same standard of living as a stone-age tribesman with very little work indeed.

Yeah, with modern technology it wouldn't be too difficult to live in a cave, eat hunted animals and foraged vegetables, survive cold winters, etceteras etceteras. But I'd love to see you chase down your prey with a crude spear and bare feet. Survive those winters without Gore-tex or synthetic blankets. Hell, try to get by with "very little work indeed" while you're tracking animals across the frozen tundra.
But, yeah, I'm sure life was cozy as hell before annoying technology came along and screwed it all up.

A little off topic

[rm999]

The article mentions On Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins' book about intelligence. I read it this summer, and think it is a great book with a lot of insightful comments that will seem almost obvious after you finish the book. On Intelligence presents his theory of how the brain becomes intelligent and how that information can be applied to computers. Anyone interested in AI should look into it (although it's not exactly a light read).

Re:A little off topic

[cr0sh]

It should be mentioned that as far as books on AI are concerned, On Intelligence is a "light read". If you want a contrast, read GEB or Minsky's Society of Mind (and honestly, even these two books aren't ultra-heavy - there are some real brain smashers out there).

This is not to say that On Intelligence is not a good book, nor to say you shouldn't read it if you are interested in AI. It is an excellent book that introduces many interesting ideas and concepts, and it should be read if you have any interest in the subject at all...

Human intelligence is evolving

[Phist]

Does that mean he's not as bright as an economist from the 1950s? Is he smarter? The answer is probably "no" on both counts. He traded one skill for another. Computer skills make him far more efficient and allow him to present more accurate--more intelligent--information. And without them, he'd have a tough time doing his job. But drop him into the Federal Reserve 40 years ago, and a lack of skill with the slide rule could put an equal crimp on his career.

This should read:

Does that mean he's not as bright as an economist from the 1950s? Is he smarter? The answer is probably "no" and "yes" respectively. The modern intelligence worker has built his/her intelligence on top of the intelligence level of the pre-modern intelligence workers. Computer skills make him far more efficient and allow him to present more accurate--more intelligent--information. And without them, he'd just have to use his fundamental math skills with the less complicated tools, such as slide rulers, pencil and paper. Drop him into the Federal Reserve 40 years ago and it would be just like learning to ride a bicycle again. His career would only take him to the top as he would have even better skills to apply his knowledge of math

Furthermore, the pre-modern intelligence worker would use his current skills to learn computer skills and so would become more intelligent as he picked up more intelligent skills.

humans have evolved intelligence and it just keeps on evolving

Dumbing down to dependency

[eskayp]

Over time will mankind become so dependent on technology that we cannot survive without it?
As a species we reap many benefits from tech.
Sometimes there is a hidden cost or risk involved.
Consider an ailment that is inherited but can be controlled by the application of technology.
Just a few generations ago that ailment was fatal in childhood and self-limiting, since few individuals survived it long enough to have offspring to pass forward the genes.
Technology allows its beneficiaries to pass those traits to future generations.
Diabetes (in my own family) comes to mind.
We have a strange conundrum where tech provides us immediate relief at the cost of increased long term risk to our offspring.
A major loss of technology would be catastrophic or fatal to many individuals who depend on tech for basic survival.
Nature would do a massive winnowing of mankind since natural selection plays no favorites.
It remains to be seen whether man can 'evolve' technology fast enough to remedy the future problems that he creates in the present.

Re:right???

[C0llegeSTUDent]

Just wait till he discovers porn, then you won't be able to get him off the PC.

What's this "we" business, monkey brain?

[kjots]

I, for one, just seem to be getting smarter.

option #2

[Anonymous Coward]

dumber!

score on IQ tests increasing

[peter303]

Google the "Floyd effect" named after the psychologists that found IQ tests to soldiers have been increasing abotu 3 points per decade over the 20th century. Happening for both urban and rural and all races. Guesses include better education and the stimulation of mass media.
Note this doesn't mean all intelligence is increasing, but the kinds of things they test for.

Re:score on IQ tests increasing

[Phist]

Note this doesn't mean all intelligence is increasing, but the kinds of things they test for.

The kind of thing tested for is intelligence quotient (IQ).

intelligence quotient = The ratio of tested mental age to chronological age, usually expressed as a quotient multiplied by 100.

"floyd effect" - more evidence that human intelligence is evolving with each new generation. It's not the intelligence that one has that is tested. It's the rate at which one learns.

Re:Um. You could?

[lgw]

You seem to have missed my entire point. Modern technology would *be* the thing that gives me the standard of living of a stone-age tribesman with very little work. The only reason I have no more lesiure time than the caveman is that I want a higher standard of living - lesiure time by itself is an uninteresting comparison.

It's not a myth; try comparing today with the past

[Anonymous Coward]

The Khoi-San bushmen live in a near desert and yet compared to modern Western societies, once you've factored out all the activities required for survival, they literally have more leisure time than we do.

Really? Factor in survival rates, and explain how they accomplish ours with less work. I'm pretty sure they only have more leisure time by letting more people die younger. Plus, a "near desert" just means it's warm where they live, so they don't have to spend half the year storing food, building shelters, stockpiling fuel, and otherwise preparing for winter, like we do.

It is a myth (propagated by who?)that "primitive" societies have to "work their butts off just to survive". We are the ones working our butts off, just to survive and "keep up with the Joneses".

Nope. A more fair comparison is our forefather's lives versus ourselves (same environment, at least). Life back then was horrible. I remember my father and grandfather telling me what life was like without electricity; without gasoline; with just horses and axes and coal oil lanterns to survive in a remote corner north of Winnipeg.

People froze to death. Children died. People didn't have enough food. They needed huge families to offset the huge burden of work they had to do, but that also increased the demand for food. They also needed big families to help offset the infant mortality rate; two of my Dad's five siblings died before age two.

The work was bone tiring; much worse than the work I did on the farms where I grew up. They worked harder to get worse results, because they only had horses to pull wagons, and had to cut and fork sheaves of hay by hand. I had life better; I "only" had to stack 60 pound bales of hay onto wagons; not throw sheaves of hay higher and higher onto dangerous bundles that could collapse and fall on top of you at any moment. Technology makes life safer. It's changed since I was a boy, too. We used to need teams of three or four farmhands to bring in the hay, but now, a single farmer can do everything himself. He can now harvest probably a hundred times more hay, by himself, than my Dad's entire family could ever do.

I guarantee you that the farmers in my area worked more than eight hour days, every day. They were up at five in the morning, every morning, to start milking. They wouldn't quit until seven at night. I'd come back from working with them as a farmhand; my body would be aching from the sheer physical demands of it all. I hated life on the farm because it hurts to work that hard. You spend your life not just tired, but exhausted, and you do it every day until you die. It's a miserable life, and the mental stresses of city life pale before the physical stresses of life in my father's day.

When was the last time you tore the arm off a shirt in half because it froze when you put it out on the line to sublimate all the water out of it? Probably never. When did you last dump milk down the well, because it was the coldest place on the farm to keep it? Probably never. My aunt was lighting the school's coal-oil stove when she was just six years old; but my health and safety committe at work today mutters on about the "dangers" of leaving loose paper on the floor, because "someone might trip and hurt themselves".

Face it. We're pampered in a way that we've never been before.

We've been conditioned to think eight hours a day is normal and is not much, but really, think about it, who came up with this "eight hours" concept anyway?

Compared to the hours the people worked in my home town, a mere 8 hours is pretty lazy. It's also lazy compared the hours our grandparent's used to work at factory jobs. I once saw an old photo for an early union that read: "Join us in our struggle for a ten hour work day and a six hour work week". Kids today really do have it soft, compared to the lives our grandparents were forced to lead.

Eight hours a day is nearly your whole life, as most of the little remaining time goes to sleep or "administrativ