In the process of reviewing Edward Dutton's latest book, Breeding the Human Herd, I find the rapid decline of human intelligence to be one of his strongest arguments.
We are getting stupider. One of Dutton's better chapters discusses all the ways we know it is happening. Measured IQ is falling. The use of complex vocabulary is dropping. Our reaction times – for which accurate measurements have been available for 140 years – have risen steadily. The statistical correlation with falling intelligence is very strong.
Our cities are crumbling. In this book he points to Miami's Surfside building which collapsed because people didn't understand the significance of the structural engineer's report. California wildfires are caused by bad forestry practices. The disaster this week in Lahaina, Maui has caused all kinds of conspiracy theory speculation. However, the most convincing explanation is that the Hawaiian electric company ignored routine maintenance and brush clearing and had no effective policies in place for such emergencies. It had captured its regulators. Stupidity and cronyism.
Dutton's earlier book, "At Our Wits End," discussed why the Concorde stopped flying. His conclusion was that there were just not enough smart people to do the work on the ground and in the air. I spent a week in Haiti in 2003. Things just did not work. I had previously spent time in Nicaragua, Argentina and Brazil, where things worked better, although not as well as in Europe or the USA. It takes intelligent people to make a society tick.
Dutton makes the interesting claim that the correlation between personal income and individual intelligence is about .3, but the correlation between a country’s average IQ and per capita income is about .8. Explained variance is the square of the correlation. From that we conclude that the country in which a person lives is far more important than how smart he or she is. A corollary would be, if your country is getting dumber, you will get poorer. So it appears.
Turning back to my post about the elite failing to raise their children to survive the calamity that they themselves appear to be bringing on by the gene therapy injection regime, we can believe several alternative explanations. One is that the true elites do have a plan and they are covertly working to save their own kids. In the process they are willing to sacrifice the useful idiots who believe in them and take the jabs.
A second explanation is that they themselves just aren't that smart. There are geniuses like Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison. Many (Joe Dorsey, Pierre Omidyar, perhaps Mark Zuckerberg) just happened to get lucky. And many don't have kids in the first place. They have no stake in the future of mankind.
The extremely wealthy are a pampered bunch. They do not cook, iron, sew, garden, repair or any of that stuff. It is all done for them. They will be vulnerable if the staff is not there to fuel and fly their jets, maintain the roads to their houses and so forth. If they gave the matter any thought, they would have a plan in place to exempt a fair number of more common people from their democide. I don't see it.
More likely we are seeing the realization of the prediction made by HL Mencken in the Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920): “As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move towards a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Are we there yet?
As an aside, Dutton claims that increased belief in conspiracy theories is a sign of decreasing intelligence. With regard to Lahaina he may be right. However, I will mention in my review that a frighteningly large number of conspiracy theories do seem to be being validated.
Idiocracy wasn't just a movie. It is upon us now. Should anybody ask, I will be glad to send a few paragraphs of Dutton's book by email. I can't imagine that a book with absolutely no uplifting moral or prediction is destined to be a best-seller. He should be happy to have readers.
Perhaps we are becoming less intelligent because imagination is destroyed by formal education. This tweet caughyt my interest https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1692423475992957221 "This is NYC 90+ years ago. Every major city looked like this. What happened?" I noted we stopped reading. Many kids today can't use an analog clock and interpret the time.
But that meme of strong men build good times might be a generational factor. Obviously intelligence can't decline over time else we would have never had the progress we have seen. So perhaps culture is to blame.
"With regard to Lahaina he may be right However, I will mention in my review that a frighteningly large number of conspiracy theories do seem to be being validated."
With all due respect you can't have it both ways. Gotta get off the fence.
"One is that the true elites do have a plan and they are covertly working to save their own kids."
Genetic Warfare