Unified Theory of American Reality

The average American is as literate as a 5th to 6th grader.

https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics

5th to 6th graders are 10 to 12 years old, normally.

So uh... yep, mhm, the average American is about as stupid as a 12 year old, that's a bit on the optimistic side though.

Dude's theory isn't really wrong, Americans are dumb and immature as fuck, and yes the statistics exist to back that up.

Honestly it terrifies me when I think about this.
I'm too stupid to be smarter than this many people.
- Sadly, nope, if you can read at a high school level, there's roughly a 75% chance you are smarter than any rando you meet.
  For the last 5 or 10 years, more and more kids graduate highschool with middleschool or worse reading / writing abilities.
  People even make tiktoks about going off to college and admitting they literally cannot understand the words in their assigned texts, start going through some kind of literacy crash course...
  Some people even make videos like that explaining that even after a Bachelor's or Associates degree, nope, still can barely read.
  I am starting to notice this in the slop youtube throws at me that I am sometimes dumb enough to click on.
  Somebody reading some article to give commentary on it, and you can just tell they are reading one word at a time, misunderstanding what 15% of them mean, have to actually stop on 5% of the words because those ones they've never read before, and then they start complaining that the author must have just been using a thesaurus... because a few of the vocab words in the article are 8th grade or above.
  ... I picked up reading quickly, so quickly that when I was in 2nd grade, I was assigned to go out into the hall when I was done with my classwork (I always finished rapidly) and then go help a 4th or 5th grader who was behind in reading skills, go sit with them and have them or me read aloud, help them with words they didn't know, etc.
  Everyday, even on the net, I encounter more people who... are beyond graduating high school age, who barely read better than 5th graders with dyslexia.
Yet 54% of U.S. adults read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level
So US was a 3rd-world country all along?
- 3rd world country with a knock off gucci belt.
  Middle eastern terrorism?
  Nah, we got ya'll qaeda right here at home, no need to travel, proud boys all joined ICE, gonna be 4th of July every damn day for the forseeable future.
Ya, that struck me as real truth. It's a nice summary, gets quickly to the root of the problem. If you are facing yet another moron, this elucidates what's going on. People do not aspire to mature beyond 5th grade anymore. Adjust your strategies accordingly.
- I honestly would take a fifth grader over most seventh graders most of the time.
  Middle school was just a series of brutal fights where I grew up. Physically for the boys and psychology for the girls.
  I’m just saying we should be careful what we wish for, though we really do need much better reading programs in schools.
As an American, this is accurate. I had a conversation with my wife not too long ago about how until I met her, I felt like I was always surrounded by idiots. I don’t mean that in a hyperbolic way. I did not know one person who continued any sort of self education in adulthood. Once they were out of school, that was it. It blew my mind. Life should be a daily striving to learn more. They seriously would not pick up a book, or research any topic outside of headlines.
12 year olds are on average a lot smarter than your usual GOP congresscritter. In fact howler monkeys are smarter than your average GOP congresscritter.

The worst part is: yes! Tons of studies come to that conclusion. Be it reading comprehension, lead poisoning, or the active dismantling of the US education system for the last eight decades, it's all part of the same picture. But what can you do about it if the group of preteens is self governing and won't see the problem?

This is very accurate. In my twenties, I worked on myself relentlessly to try to become "grown up". Eventually I looked around and realized that hardly anyone else was doing that, and people twice my age were still acting like children. Then they elected a man-boy King in their image.

I too passed the self-imposed ritual. It has not made me happy, but it helped me understand why I wasn't.
- damn. well said
- For me when I realized I was more grown up than the adults around me, I realized I could relax a bit and not hold myself to such an unsustainable standard. On the other hand I still have lofty goals for myself that I still strive to reach so I'll pick up a ton of cool experiences along the way and maybe I'll achieve those pipedreams or maybe I won't but either way it beats just stagnating and aging in place
Try drugs.
- The drugs just made me even more aware I'm surrounded by crazy children. Maybe I did the wrong drugs.
Yep.
Trump is the manifestation of America's id, or shadow.
He is the pampered, racist, proudly anti-intellectual, rapist, narcissist, serial conman, lawless fucking thug that every idiot in America identifies with, idolizes, worships, assumes is correct, gives every single benefit of every former doubt to.
All because a lot of Americans want to be able to shoot someone on 5th avenue and get away with it, grab em by the pussy and be praised for it.
Ultimately, imo, he is a symptom of problems that those in power during previous years and decades knowingly allowed to fester, or just directly caused...
... but goddamn, the realization or actualization of the collective unconsciousness of angry and obstinate fucking morons is truly awful to behold.

Well that's basically the premise of populism. Your policy is doing whatever most of your audience would first think of doing (with no subtlety at all so as not to seem too smart or distant to them) then you just ignore the consequences when they come to bite you in the ass and most people won't think all those bad things are a result of your own stupid policy, because they believe it was perfectly logical and flawless to begin with.

Can we try populism+? We just get one guy, like a really smart good dude. Like a heavenly super person. We get them to look at all the ideas we have for stuff and tell us if there will be any consequences. If he says it's good, we do it. If it turns out bad, we kill him and try again.
We would need a name for this person. Something powerful right? Maybe "EMPEROR"
Unfortunately, nowadays populism is used almost exclusively about progressive ideas that are popular as a way to dismiss them because they’re not profitable or some shit.
- Yep, even though trump is maybe the most populist president the country has seen

When I was 12 I wanted to send the worst criminals to live in prisons in Somalia so that Somolies could have jobs and we would never have to see criminals…

And now there is a literal version of that idea from a 12 year old

Now that I think about it, the situation in the US really does play out like an unconscionable large version of Lord of the Flies.

This is pretty spot on.
Ralph was just trying to help organize and make everyone's lives better. He was ignored and his life was threatened.
Simon, the insightful one, was trying to get people to see reason to quell their mania. He was murdered.
Piggy, the intelligent and compassionate one, was murdered.
- Intelligent, compassionate, and a vessel for the author's racist worldview.
  Don't mind me. I hate that book, and I hate that it's taught in every school as if it has anything important to say. We've run the Lord of the Flies experiment, both accidentally and very intentionally. Every time, we've demonstrated that humans are better than that, and the author's beliefs about human nature were both very incorrect and very racist.
  I still resent being forced to debate my classmates about whether human nature was intrinsically "good" or "evil," directly after reading that book, even though it was 25 years ago. I was the lone voice on the side of "good," for lack of a "good and evil are subjective terms, but nonetheless humans are empathetic and this book is horseshit" team. I got dogpiled by 20 some other students for about 45 minutes. Fuck you Ms. Brown, and fuck you William Golding. That book has nothing important to say other than exposing its author's racist insecurities.

Although Hanlon's razor says "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", I'd argue never misjudge malicious intent for stupidity. The first makes you just look a bit dumb, the second makes you a victim.

i'm introducing Marx' Flaming Laser Sickle, which says that i don't give a fuck about the underlying cause if the effect is fascism.
What if the stupidity is caused by decades of malicious dismantling of the education system?
- then ur fukt. and so am i.
After a certain tipping point, stupidity en masse becomes indistinguishable from malice. The result is more important than the intent.
I think there does come a point where stupidity and malice are basically the same thing.
Reddit's razor? Harambe's razor?

I think you're underestimating 12-year olds here.

The group I play D&D with has three 12-year olds in it and I would put any of those kids in charge of this country over any of the current administration and those kids are morons.
- i mean, i would put the liz truss cabbage in charge of the american government at this point
Yeah I was thinking this sound alike my 4 year old

This concept could be an entire Lemmy community.

I mean i just want to note for a second that the aging retardant properties of humanity are one of the great miracles that puts us above other species.

Most other mammal species, including dogs, cats, camels, zebras, horses, cattle, sheep, whatever farm animal/pet you can think of typically lives no longer than 20 years, while for humans it's routinely 80 years, about 4x as long.

That, it turns out, is one of humanity's great strengths. We age significantly slower, and that includes a significantly longer childhood. Most feral animals grow up and reach puberty within 1-3 years, while for humans it takes at least 12 years (even longer if you wait to be socially accepted as an "adult"). This gives us more time to play, figure things out, learn, and develop. It is for this reason that we're able to pull off more amazing things than other species, because our long lifes warrant that getting a long, proper education is worth it. Because if we only lived for 20 years, it would hardly be worth it to study till you're 25 years old.

So, aging slower, and staying childish for longer, is actually one of humanity's great strengths. It is unfortunate, i believe, that we're trying to remove that human specialty in these days and trying to make people grow up faster.

that puts us above other species.
What, why? Axolotls can regrow limbs and a jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii) is biologically immortal. Try that as a mere human.
And btw, please stop with that "we are above animals" thinking. That's what makes us think the world is ours alone and leads to destruction and shrinking bio diversity. And we are animals too anyway.
- I like your perspective.
With that reasoning, turtles, parrots, should be put above humans?
Look, that all sounds very nice for civilized people. But childhood itself is a creation of civilization. Childhood didn't exist until we had the leisure to allow it. And now civilization has progressed to the point where children don't really ever have to grow up or assume care of themselves and others. Ya see em sleeping in tents on the corner. Still 12. No bills, no cares. Can you spare a dollar?
- Sociologists love making that claim, but it's not true.
  A long childhood followed by extremely experimental puberty is indeed a biological feature of our species.
  There have been societies that suppressed childhood due to labor needs, but that came after many more had thrived respecting it.
  Modern childhood is indeed new... Compared to western European tradition, not to our species as a whole.
- childhood is something all complex animals have, playing is how we learn to do things needed to survive.

I think 12 may be too high. Most kids I've knew who acted like that were like 6.

Getting Yelled at By Dumbasses - The defining experience of fascism.

fun read

This lines up with what I've been shouting into the void whenever I read a news article. "Where are the fucking adults?!"

You just made me remember that book that came out in his first term reassuring everyone that there were “adults in the room” protecting us from certain doom.
What a crock of shit that turned out to be.
- Eh, I think that his 2nd term kind of helps validate that view of his 1st. Because he was a political newbie, he allowed those around him to help make staffing decisions, so you got mostly run of the mill Republicans. Terrible, certainly, but not sycophants. That's all out the window this time. Key positions are filled based solely on either fealty to the mad king or ✨campaign contributions✨ (bribes). Anyone who dares speak out gets the axe, and at least for now it's a metaphorical one.
when you reach the milestone of adulthood and take a peek behind the veil of responsibility....
... maybe Larry Niven was right in Ringworld, Humanity's only defining trait is not our intelligence, our compassion, or our strength of will, but simply the luck of the few.

It's a nation filled to the brim with children trapped in adult bodies.

This is not an opinion because I'm perpetually online. I go outside and they're there too. Literally everywhere.

It's actually worse outside, which is why I am terminally online.
I was a shut-in before the 2024 Election. I figured social spaces there were somewhat immature because the mature people would have jobs and real life involvement. Then I started going outside, and I lost all hope. I'm too stupid for people to be this dumb. (Though I'll admit, social media, algorithmic content, and the AI products probably made people dumber.)

Twelve year-old attitude, 2 year-old selfishness.

Already a term for it... maybe they weren't aware of it on account of being twelve.

https://theconversation.com/the-infantilization-of-western-culture-99556

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantilization

Smacks of condescension, elitism, and historical naivety while being a short step away from bemoaning "degenerated modernity" to me.

Smacks of condescension, elitism, and historical naivety
Sorry, socially engineered infantilization is just an explanation, not a justification
It is not as though the tools to become a well rounded adult have been denied. In fact it's arguable that with the internet those tools are more accessible than ever. It's a personal choice to give in to the easy solutions and not seek out broader knowledge and understanding
https://theconversation.com/the-infantilization-of-western-culture-99556
This reads a lot to me like Sokrates' speech that the children are all spoiled today. I.e. it has always been that way but people continuously assume that they have it especially bad in that regard.

Makes too much sense. Is this guy CIA?

Since 2012 twelve year olds controlled the memes, also when an explosion of boomers joined social media. We've been letting the kids parents the adults for 13 years now.
- the worst kind of 12yo is the one who want to change the world for the better but they're fucking stupid so their well intensions end up serving the bad guys and screwing everybody else. the story of ukrainian NGOs - literally did the dirty job for oligarch and stayed in denial until the stink became biohazard.

https://bsky.app/profile/veryimportant.lawyer/post/3lybxlwzjuc2h

We already have a word for that phenomena, it's called fascism

I don't think I've ever read a description or definition of fascism where the population being immature is a thing.
What do you mean?
- The elements of fascism could be construed as a childish/immature perception of reality, where the performance/aesthetics of maturity (particularly as perceived by chauvinistic men) is paramount. The examples listed in this post speak to uniformed (i.e childish) views on power, masculinity, and justice. These topics, among others, are sticking points of every flavor of fascism.
  I'm not necessarily saying that this means the american population is immature, but our current fascist regime utilizes these tropes (among other elements of american culture) in their rhetoric, propaganda, and policy decisions to influence the population in pursuit of fascist ends. Seeing fascism as immature/childish certainly has validity, but I think the OP fails to fully capture our current political context with this lens. It would be better to see the state of american politics through the perspective of a failing proto-fascist empire metastasizing into a full fledged fascist regime, informed and shaped by its own reactionary propaganda, of which a large amount appears childish upon first glance.
- Everything I don't like is fascism, the more I don't like it the more fascism-er it is

I think humanity is really slowly being replaced by LLMs.

Presentation and simple, but stupid and wrong ideas, are preferred over actually researching and understanding situations, isolating the underlying issues and working on ways to resolve or at least lessen them.