Poll of the Day > Do you agree with Mr. Feeny here?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vWqTOtkYPo

Absolutely. It's great that BMW is still relevant 30 years later. Remember that Corey / Shawn and Topanga are all millennials.

You've made this topic before.

adjl posted...

You've made this topic before.

Ok Im pretty sure youve made this exact post before, I was thinking about last night after we were arguing. I wasnt sure if was you or someone else though. If you dont like it leave, Im not arguing with you anymore.

Not going to watch that.

never seen boy meets world

he looks the guy who played the mailman on cheers

Sarcasthma posted...

Not going to watch that.

Its 2 minutes bro

Kinda crazy that people are so jaded for a sitcom that they likely grew up with.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Its 2 minutes bro

It's my bedtime.

Probably, Mr. Feeny was the only worthwhile thing about that show.

*watches clip*

Yes.



Damn_Underscore posted...

Ok Im pretty sure youve made this exact post before

So you're just proving him right then?



Damn_Underscore posted...

I wasnt sure if was you or someone else though.

It was probably me. I definitely point out when people on PotD post the exact same thing every few months and act like no one will notice.

I've also pointed out your strange and desperate compulsion to post a new Dragonball topic every few days, because it's kind of unhealthy.

Startling how relevant it still is today.

Also I already knew the answer was yes before I even knew specifically which moment it would be.

Mr. Feeny's reaction to Corey's comment about Krusty the Klown is subtle but it says so much. I know this is just a TV show but Mr. Feeny is a great teacher

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It was probably me. I definitely point out when people on PotD post the exact same thing every few months and act like no one will notice.

Sometimes I wonder why you and the other stable people on here continue to post for decades on end. I have to take breaks every few months because of certain posters and their "obsessions".

Damn_Underscore posted...

Mr. Feeny's reaction to Corey's comment about Krusty the Klown is subtle but it says so much. I know this is just a TV show but Mr. Feeny is a great teacher

You do understand that part was not the point of his monologue right? It is all about how we're wasting the potential of modern technology by indulging in very surface level stuff like "saving the princess". This is an actual thought provoking way of expressing yourself that is completely lost to the vast majority of people these days and the closest modern equivalent would be saying "bing bing wahoo" in reaction to an adult being overly obsessive about video games or any other hobby for that matter.

I have absolutely no shame whatsoever about my apparent "obsession" with DBZ

rexcrk posted...

Also I already knew the answer was yes before I even knew specifically which moment it would be.

That is kind of a given. Feeny's a clever lad.

Voted yes before looking at the video.
Would vote yes again after watching the video.

Feeny was great

Voted yes after watching video, having never watched the show before. That said, I don't think I can blame anyone there for their shortcomings, society as a whole is sick. More accurately it's been a breeding ground for all kinds of brain rotting maladies for as long as I've known it and doubtlessly long before. The present state of the world doesn't surprise me in the least; it's a foregone conclusion that compound illnesses untreated can ultimately be fatal.

summary

Judgmenl posted...

Sometimes I wonder why you and the other stable people on here continue to post for decades on end. I have to take breaks every few months because of certain posters and their "obsessions".

Habit, mostly. And social inertia.



Damn_Underscore posted...

I have absolutely no shame whatsoever about my apparent "obsession" with DBZ

Yes, and that's the root of the problem.

adjl posted...

That is kind of a given. Feeny's a clever lad.

https://youtu.be/dANY3uk7lxc?t=184

Sarcasthma posted...

It's my bedtime.

Gotta say, TC, he's got you on that one.

I agree that knowledge/education is undervalued and should be available to everyone, but I very strongly disagree with the rest of it and that bit about shaming them over videogames kind of pisses me off.

I mean... people born from 86-88 are demonstrably the smartest people currently on the planet. It was on an incline before then, and you can clearly see a decline in measured intelligence after.

It quite is literally where we peaked.

Its surely relevant today, but was less so when it was made since, if I am not mistaken, these kids are part of the most intelligent age group in the history of our species.

Realthuddydrumz posted...

I mean... people born from 86-88 are demonstrably the smartest people currently on the planet. It was on an incline before then, and you can clearly see a decline in measured intelligence after.

It quite is literally where we peaked.

I don't know about this, I'm guessing you were born in those years lol. You need some actual evidence to support this

Damn_Underscore posted...

I don't know about this, I'm guessing you were born in those years lol. You need some actual evidence to support this

I'm a little older, but k.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156

if youd prefer something a little more palatable for the layman

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-iq-scores-decline-reverse-flynn-effect/

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/bc654910.png

Well I never heard of that before but it sounds like Mr. Feeny was right

How is the rest of the world looking?

Realthuddydrumz posted...

I mean... people born from 86-88 are demonstrably the smartest people currently on the planet. It was on an incline before then, and you can clearly see a decline in measured intelligence after.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!









Oh wait, were you being serious?

ok boomer, calm down

Disagree. The kids generation may have been the ones consuming that media, but it was the generation before them who made that media. "Your generation sucks for enjoying the things my generation makes for you."

Damn_Underscore posted...

Well I never heard of that before but it sounds like Mr. Feeny was right

How is the rest of the world looking?

Europe and Australia are similar.

If you trust results from China or Russia or really most of Asia you are a fool. I cant imagine its going well.

I have no idea about Central/South America, Africa, and Indonesia. They might be on the rise while we are on the decline which would at least be encouraging.

VincentVega posted...

Disagree. The kids generation may have been the ones consuming that media, but it was the generation before them who made that media. "Your generation sucks for enjoying the things my generation makes for you."

Blame the parents, not the media creators

My theme of the year... Why not both? I play a new video game every 6 seconds because I am a master of gaming and must absorb all of it.

Lokarin posted...

My theme of the year... Why not both? I play a new video game every 6 seconds because I am a master of gaming and must absorb all of it.

I agree with you but he was an old man in the 90s what do you expect. And you could easily replace Mario with tiktok, youtube, facebook, instagram, etc.

Damn_Underscore posted...

I agree with you but he was an old man in the 90s what do you expect. And you could easily replace Mario with tiktok, youtube, facebook, instagram, etc.

Right, but there is a rare subset of people who don't just merely consume tiktok, but critically analyze it

You realize he's literally attacking Gamefaqs in that scene.

Justin2Krelian posted...

You realize he's literally attacking Gamefaqs in that scene.

To be fair a lot of gamefaqs users dont play video games that much

Damn_Underscore posted...

To be fair a lot of gamefaqs users dont play video games that much

Yeah, but in the late 90s sites like this and Sega Sages were mostly for that, I believe. I always found that funny

Justin2Krelian posted...

You realize he's literally attacking Gamefaqs in that scene.

That just makes him doubly correct.

Realthuddydrumz posted...

Its surely relevant today, but was less so when it was made since, if I am not mistaken, these kids are part of the most intelligent age group in the history of our species.

That's... exactly the point Feeny was making. At the time in question, people had access to amounts of information that would have been considered miraculous even 2-3 decades prior, let alone earlier in history, but they took it for granted and largely squandered that technology on entertainment instead of enrichment. He was observing exactly the trend that you're referencing, which is that the proliferation of increasingly advanced information technology has resulted in humanity relying on that technology to access knowledge instead of synthesizing it themselves or putting in any sort of genuine effort to learn meaningful information. The points he was making have only become more relevant, given that advances like Wikipedia, social media, and smartphones have made information even more accessible, and we're all even more likely to take that for granted by regarding the repository of all human knowledge in our pockets as trivial.

If we're going with "people turned dumb after the 90's" as a thesis (which is perhaps a bit of an oversimplification, but we can go with it), "you're all wasting this miraculous new technology on stupid nonsense" fits into that thesis pretty perfectly.

it's not our fault king koopa keeps capturing the princess, someone has to save her.

I thought it was going to be a clip from the Halloween episode. Loved the jingle from that -- "Here's a knife and here's a gun / There'll be fun for everyone / Death is on the menu tonight."

Realthuddydrumz posted...

I'm a little older, but k.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156

if youd prefer something a little more palatable for the layman

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-iq-scores-decline-reverse-flynn-effect/

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/bc654910.png

How much did you look into this?
Intelligence is extremely subjective. did you read the whole article you posted? It even has arguments against it.

what it tells me: IQ tests are dated and should have been updated.

What is intelligence? Are we, as a species, really more intelligent when the world seems to be repeating 100 years ago?
Maybe the tests gave the answers we wanted, instead of asking the right questions.

I think things like education and technology give you the tools to become more intelligent, meaning you are able to think more deeply about things.

But you can also argue what intelligence is because that still may not translate to higher IQ test scores

Damn_Underscore posted...

technology give you the tools to become more intelligent, meaning you are able to think more deeply about things.

True, but some technologies enable you to be more lazy when solving problems; for example, some students in college may likely search up the solutions for their homework on stackexchange, instead of using the resources they've been given to try to do it themselves.

The sad thing is the BMW boys aren't even sub 5:00

Damn_Underscore posted...

I think things like education and technology give you the tools to become more intelligent, meaning you are able to think more deeply about things.

But you can also argue what intelligence is because that still may not translate to higher IQ test scores

What's probably the most salient factor is that the easier it is to find information, the less you end up developing your ability to find harder information or synthesize it yourself. This video does a decent job of summarizing that point (the whole video's worth watching, but you really just need the first 3:30 or so for the purposes of this post):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJpZjg8GuA

The bottom line is that finding answers to questions is a skill. Figuring out where to look, extrapolating from partial new information, forming connections with existing knowledge... all of these can be said to fall under the umbrella of "intelligence." That intelligence is something some people are innately better at than others, but everyone can cultivate that skill with effort and practice. Conversely, though, if you don't cultivate that skill with effort and practice, you get worse at it.

Modern information technology heavily emphasizes algorithms and other tools that predict what you need so you don't have to look for it. On paper, that seems really convenient and awesome, and in some ways it definitely is, but in practice it means people are able to find answers to their questions without putting in the effort and practice that would develop their intelligence. That means they do less thinking to cultivate their intelligence, and those skills atrophy.

Now, arguably, figuring out how to leverage algorithms and AI and whatever to give you the results you want is itself a form of intelligence, in that it's a skill in its own right. That's a form of intelligence that most traditional measurements aren't going to pick up on, since it doesn't fit nicely into existing models that measure people's ability to find associations between data points and extrapolate from incomplete sets. There's merit to that argument, and there's merit against it. Defining "intelligence" is a debate that's been raging for as long as humanity has had any concept of what defining "intelligence" might mean, and throwing in something that's changing the landscape as rapidly as information technology in all its forms has only done more to muddy the issue.

The whole point of Feeneys argument is that these kids have gathered knowledge and gained no wisdom. They think just memorizing an answer means they understand and utilize it.

Im also going to assume Feeney helped them win whatever it was they got, and feels disappointed in them.

Also weird how he seems to hate videogames, but know King Koopa. That implies he actually read a manual years ago, since he was being called Bowser at that point iirc.

Im always for shaming kids