For decades, humanity appeared to be getting smarter. Then, inconveniently, it wasn’t. IQs are now sliding backwards, and instead of asking why, we’ve decided to pretend intelligence doesn't matter.
It is indeed like a muscle - the use it or lose it term never becomes obsolete.
A simple reflection of this issue can be found in changes that took place at the various levels of government and connectedly within the public service.
On a federal and state level Australia could once plan, organise, build and control housing. Hundreds of thousands of modest homes were built via knowledge and skill embedded within government departments themselves. Over the years all this was privatised and now, even if a government wanted to return to those post WWII days they couldn't - all those with the know how (and hence able to mentor new recruits) we're retired, fired or allowed to die off. Councils large and small used to directly employ waste collection and road repair gangs but they too we're privatised and embedded skills lost. At all levels of government we can find examples of where they were once knowledgeable and in control to being mere issuers of tender notices searching for the cheapest quote.
Sure, private enterprise now has those skills, but that has often shown us to be the least efficient and not value for money. Government would find it hard to attract skill sets back again even if it wanted to- apart from the very top where the public/private revolving door thing is an ongoing trough and the real value of those participating questionable to say the least
They above may all seem to be an oblique connection to the topic, but the fundamental thing is that once we allow knowledge and process to be lost we have a hard to almost impossible task ahead of us getting it back, and a quick look at these simple, historical examples shows that.
Perhaps intelligence is no longer in high demand. We're rapidly outsourcing thought to commercial entities, in part via an endless bombardment in social media, and abandoning intelligent thought for tall tales told via podcasts, etc. As AI creeps in, we may continue to dwindle. There's a relevant short story, Swarm, in Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus (1996), canvasing the notion that intelligence appears when required but not otherwise.
This sounds plausible to me. What, Steven, say you about the distribution of intelligence ? There still seem to be lots of very smart people doing very smart things.
The Australian education has generally gone backwards over the last 30 years or so, as pol[tpcal factors have driven the educatio m systerm, ather than a quest for knpwledge. (and I;m havong vision difficu;tirs which affects my posy._
It is indeed like a muscle - the use it or lose it term never becomes obsolete.
A simple reflection of this issue can be found in changes that took place at the various levels of government and connectedly within the public service.
On a federal and state level Australia could once plan, organise, build and control housing. Hundreds of thousands of modest homes were built via knowledge and skill embedded within government departments themselves. Over the years all this was privatised and now, even if a government wanted to return to those post WWII days they couldn't - all those with the know how (and hence able to mentor new recruits) we're retired, fired or allowed to die off. Councils large and small used to directly employ waste collection and road repair gangs but they too we're privatised and embedded skills lost. At all levels of government we can find examples of where they were once knowledgeable and in control to being mere issuers of tender notices searching for the cheapest quote.
Sure, private enterprise now has those skills, but that has often shown us to be the least efficient and not value for money. Government would find it hard to attract skill sets back again even if it wanted to- apart from the very top where the public/private revolving door thing is an ongoing trough and the real value of those participating questionable to say the least
They above may all seem to be an oblique connection to the topic, but the fundamental thing is that once we allow knowledge and process to be lost we have a hard to almost impossible task ahead of us getting it back, and a quick look at these simple, historical examples shows that.
Perhaps intelligence is no longer in high demand. We're rapidly outsourcing thought to commercial entities, in part via an endless bombardment in social media, and abandoning intelligent thought for tall tales told via podcasts, etc. As AI creeps in, we may continue to dwindle. There's a relevant short story, Swarm, in Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus (1996), canvasing the notion that intelligence appears when required but not otherwise.
Superb article
This sounds plausible to me. What, Steven, say you about the distribution of intelligence ? There still seem to be lots of very smart people doing very smart things.
Thank goodness for them.
The Australian education has generally gone backwards over the last 30 years or so, as pol[tpcal factors have driven the educatio m systerm, ather than a quest for knpwledge. (and I;m havong vision difficu;tirs which affects my posy._