The Great Divide in America

by Jack Lee

When you think about the divide between the haves and have nots, you think of money, right? Well, there’s another growing divide. . . in brain power!

I recently posted an article about a study showing a decline in our brain power, starting thousands of years ago and that’s kinda startling considering we’re supposed to be evolving upwards, not backwards. I suppose anyone can look back over our long human history and compare that with where we are now and see a growing divide between rich and poor. And coincidentally, the growing divide between smart and dumb or maybe that is no coincidence?

Before you start yelling at me, this isn’t meant to be a discussion about an IQ test for the right to breed or that the rich are necessarily smarter than the rest of us. My only purpose is to pose and probe some interesting questions about our future: Smart vs dumb and what can we do to reverse the decline?

The first two questions that come to mind are, if we’re getting dumber how would we know and why aren’t smart people breeding more? It should be apparent to most of us with an IQ above 90, that idiotic behavior is more rampant than ever, and this is despite our best efforts to protect everyone from everything. Seems like the idiots are always one step ahead. We read almost daily, “High speed accident claims life of driver who was not wearing seat belts.” Unfortunately, the dolts that engage in all sorts of reckless behaviors also tend to over breed. Boing! (Light goes on) Hmmmmm…I think I see a nexus here!

In this modern age we have an unprecedented amount of useful information available to us thanks to computers and the internet. Arguably, it might be more than some people can handle, but on the whole you might think this would be raising brain power. However, rather than to be profiting from this information bonanza thousands of hours are spent playing video games…even the bright fall into this trap. They are dumbed down because they spend too much of their most productive years on hold, going nowhere and on the other end of that scale we have terrorists coordinating via email and learning how to build better IED’s. A free Stanford online class in advanced mathematics is hardly used, but a free porn site gets millions of hits. And you wonder how Obama was ever elected? Ha!

Going back in time, the smart people didn’t always stand out that much because without proper education or access to information it was hard to shine beyond your job. For example, the guy who invented the first marine chronograph for navigation was a humble unknown, yet he created what better educated men failed to do! Fortunately for us, he was motivated by a large cash reward, but without that, his brilliance might have slipped by completely unnoticed.

Compare that to village idiot…back in day we had no problem knowing who that was. Now the village idiot might sell drugs and earn more than you do. He also breeds with other village idiots that you wind up supporting with your tax dollars. If access to information is what makes a society great then I want to know what $#%^ happened?

At the same time as idiots are making headlines, we have smart people doing greater things than ever, however they’re just not having that many babies. What’s the problem here? Maybe smart people just can’t tolerate being with really dumb partners, even if they are super hot? Of course, it also doesn’t help that smart people tend to be somewhat quirky. They also tend to be socially awkward with the opposite sex. But, on balance, it’s hard not to be awkward when socially acceptable behavior appears to be a drunken menage a trois and you don’t know any of the participants. (Welcome to Washington D.C. Mr. Smith)

That brings up of another area of our society that has cost us dearly in terms of research time, money and productivity. That being, indiscriminate high risk sex leading to the spread of deadly diseases. Despite the fact that the perils of AIDS is well published even the most remote parts of the world, dumb people still choose to engage in high risk behaviors that places a heavy burden on others. I think we went the wrong way on AIDS, we should have increased it’s leathality by 10,000% and it would have burned itself out years ago with a fraction of the mortality losses, but I digress.

I’ve always believed that the choices we make is the best gauge of our societies general intelligence. Uh, soooo looking back at that Nov. 6th election it looks like… we’re a lost cause? Perhaps. Okay, I still can’t get over that one. The choices were so clear and the risks were so great, yet we stupidly elected the guy pushing us over the fiscal cliff?

What I learned from my research here can be summed up thusly: The village idiot has been busy breeding like a rabbit, the geeks haven’t – there’s your [great divide]. This can’t be solved by anything Occupy Wall Street has to offer. That’s why I say it’s high time we consider removing all those warning lables and make seat belts an extra cost option. (I’m joking…sort of)

Maybe an IQ test isn’t such a bad idea before having babies? It might help to lower all that highway carnage and probably your insurance premiums for accident death or dismemberment too!

(Disclaimer – this article is not intended in any way to offend those persons born with serious mental disabilities or their caregivers. They deserve our respect and support. Some demeaning of liberal democrats was unavoidable, sorry.)