Have Computers Helped to Dumb Down the Population?

Way back in the 1950s there were predictions that computers would turn kids into geniuses.   The idea was that ‘home computers’  would put all the information in the world at the finger tips made many reconsider the necessity of schools and the possible curriculum.   Teachers would have to be super geniuses to keep up with their brilliant students.

So many ideas were bubbling, computing seemed so very positive and then…

I was visiting a friend whose son had these video games.  They were so boring  I couldn’t even look at them.  You know, the mindless crap found in the game of ‘Doom’ and it’s phylum.

As I was standing there, this kid from down the block walked in.  He said nothing to us.  I looked at my friend, for I’d never seen this kids before and he looked so mentally challenged  I couldn’t understand how he got out without a nurse.

She made one of those resigned faces and I watched as he walked into her living room and quickly put on this video game, and with drool running down the left side of his mouth, began playing one of these games.

Before I could comment, a young man, one of those computer geniuses came in, greeted us, then went into the living room.  He began playing this game with the kid.

The kid was winning by thousands of points.

I moved to be behind the monitor. Looking into the face of the computer genius (who would soon be abducted by a large American firm and forced to live and work in the United States for money per month than he made per year here) I understood, instantly, why the kid was winning.

The kid couldn’t think.  His eyes were glassy, he was hitting buttons without thought. The genius, who could think, was considering his actions.

It is one of those things I always seem to notice.  Something that occurred to me way back in the revolutionary days of the 60s/70s.

In those days young people knew so much, they had opinions and could back them up with facts.   These were the kids who went to school during the ‘Cold War’ where education and intelligence were important, were schools pushed as hard as they could.

The ‘Establishment’ had created a brilliant cadre of young people.  People who challenged them and their principles and protocols and proved the failings of the ‘system’.

Racism, Sexism, the Vietnam War,  the exploitation of the poorer classes, the various invasions and ‘colonisation’.

In the 1970s once could have conversations in which everyone knew how the United States had invaded the Phillipines,  underthrew Allende in Chile, how after World War II the population of Vietnam would have elected Ho Chi Minh if allowed, on and on, University under grads who had no limits on their minds.

To thwart this, to prevent the next generation from being even more brilliant and radical, the ‘dumbing down’ process began.

From ending ‘streaming’ at schools, to slowing down the curriculum,  and to the twisted use of computers.

Computers, instead of elevating intellects, has brought them into the toilet. Computers and related technology has so captured and controlled the brains of those connected to them, that those born in the 70s and 80s were far less intelligent than their parents, and their kids are even dumber.

Ten year olds in the 50s/60s/70s even into the early 80s, lived.  They were outside, running up and down, riding bikes, seeing and hearing and experiencing, learning the world first hand.

They would be taken places where they would be exposed to art and science and animals and new environments, first hand.

Kids were curious and parents had to watch them to prevent disaster.

That was then.

Now the ten year old is locked to his computer, playing a mindless game.  He can do this all day, every day.    He’s not interested in anything but the game.   The game doesn’t teach him anything, he doesn’t develop any skills, he just reacts without thinking.

The emphasis is ‘without thinking’ because nothing is more dangerous to the Established order than people who can think.

The kid born in the late 80s  has a limited ability to engage in the ‘real world’.  He texts rather than talks.  He communicates on the cell phone or computer other than in person.   He has no social skills.

Thoughts are in short bytes, he is unable to think in any depth.

Tossing a sound byte at him gets the ‘standard’ response and that’s as far as one needs to go.  This is not a person one can engage in intellectual discussion.  Nothing that takes time and thought and logic has any use.

To prove this; on another site I posted the ‘Five Houses Logic Puzzle’.   Those born before the 80s worked this puzzle using logic.   Whether they had University degrees or High School diplomas, they used logic.  They spent time trying to solve it.

Those born in the late 80s and 90s got a computer to solve the problem for them.

The point of my exercise was to prove the inability of people born at a particular time to think for themselves.

If you play Scrabble online you will meet those who use ‘cheats’.  Some might simply be those which will form the letters into words.  Others will screen capture the game and play for the user.

What is the pleasure of having a computer play the game for you?

This truncation of thought, this proclivity to learn nothing but get the ‘right answer’ is producing a generation of mindless drones who can not connect facts and marvel at those who can.   That is, if they can look up from their keyboard long enough.