Article

2017-04-30 Government

You aren't wrong: Our military officers actually seem to be getting stoopider

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Posted by Besoeker 2017-04-30 08:31|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 The dumber they are, the easier they are to control.

Posted by Iblis 2017-04-30 12:10|| 2017-04-30 12:10|| Front Page Top

#2 I wonder if people, in general, are dumber nowadays.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-04-30 12:40|| 2017-04-30 12:40|| Front Page Top

#3 No longer must one be of unusually high intelligence to graduate from college, nor does college graduation indicate high intelligence.

'Settled science' for certain.

Posted by Besoeker 2017-04-30 12:42|| 2017-04-30 12:42|| Front Page Top

#4 When you lowered the entrance and grade requirements, (i.e. 'affirmative action') what did you think the result would be?

Posted by ed in texas 2017-04-30 14:17|| 2017-04-30 14:17|| Front Page Top

#5 new Marine officers started a long-term downward trend in intellectual capability starting around 1980

Let's see...1980-1963=17

Yep, just about enlistment age

Posted by Skidmark 2017-04-30 14:58|| 2017-04-30 14:58|| Front Page Top

#6

Private Joker is silly and he's ignorant but he's got guts, and guts is enough.

Maybe not an intelligent contribution to the discussion but I couldn't help it. There are so many things in that movie that keep coming back to me.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2017-04-30 15:19|| 2017-04-30 15:19|| Front Page Top

#7 Skidmark's comment may get closer to the mark. IMHO there were a whole bunch of things that started going wrong in this country in 1963. Maybe it started earlier but '63 was bad.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2017-04-30 15:23|| 2017-04-30 15:23|| Front Page Top

#8 I used to teach at a Community College. The problems most assuredly begin before HS graduation, and they are systemic.

Posted by Blossom Unains5562 2017-04-30 16:16|| 2017-04-30 16:16|| Front Page Top

#9 I've been told no person graduates from Harvard with a C average. They claim to have the best qualified for anything after graduation. Someone here may know know truth of this. So all graduate with highest marks. In my opinion that is why Obama went there most likely to get his right of passage.

Posted by Dale 2017-04-30 16:51|| 2017-04-30 16:51|| Front Page Top

#10 No longer must one be of unusually high intelligence to graduate from college, nor does college graduation indicate high intelligence.

It never did. In the old days college attendance and graduation went to those whose parents had money and whose environment encouraged the skills and knowledge acquisition necessary to enjoy a four year visit in the academic environment. The occasional scholarship student generally had the environment without parental money. But in the old days it was understood that there were plenty of intelligent people who had neither the means nor the interest in a college education -- the Yankee inventor being only one example -- and many jobs that require an expensive college degree were considered skills best learnt on the job, like bookkeeping.

Nowadays it is assumed that smart people go to college and dumb people don't, which means a lot of reasonably intelligent people borrow and spend a great deal of money to learn how to do things that do not interest them, and often will not earn them enough money to make the work of learning worthwhile. Mr. Daughter #2, who is quite bright, good-hearted, and hard working, ended up with an accounting degree that way, and since he has no idea what he really wants to be -- other than gainfully employed by an appreciative employer and married to trailing daughter #2 -- he works very hard and progresses in a career that brings him no pleasure other than knowing he gave more than fair value for his paycheck.

Posted by trailing wife 2017-04-30 17:13|| 2017-04-30 17:13|| Front Page Top

#11 So wrt paragraphs 5 and 6: If you were inclined to serve your country, but weren't convinced that the nation's leadership was going to use the armed forces in intelligent ways, you might be disinclined to risk your life for no purpose. There are, as the article says, many other ways for a person with elite intelligence to contribute.

If that were a factor, you'd expect to see a little blip up after 9/11, in among the declines. Do the statistics allow such an observation?

Posted by james 2017-04-30 17:56|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com 2017-04-30 17:56|| Front Page Top

#12 Well, I went from a steel mill laborer to a professional student in about 3 months. I worked two minimum wage jobs ($2.25/hr) 6 days/wk and slept 4 hrs/night in 1 stall of a garage I rented for 4 yrs to get my 3.65 CS degree, with no loan or scholarship. I scraped pizza plates at night for eats.
It wasn't Harvard, it was amazing.

If you wanted it, you could get it.

Posted by Skidmark 2017-04-30 18:16|| 2017-04-30 18:16|| Front Page Top

#13 Ah, the (non-existent) golden years/good old days. I remember ROTC and the order of merit list, circa 1972. Racked up my knee in summer camp. Sent me home to repeat the next year. Got the camp average for my OML comp which was 50 percent of the total score. A quarter was one's grade in ROTC and the other quarter was one's academic grades. Ended up 10th in a class of over 70 cadets. That tell you something about the 'recent' decline?

Not to mention 'intelligence' scores have since been fiddled with and altered to remove 'bias'* which throws the whole computation and comparison game out.

*remember they dumbed down the SATs as well.

Posted by P2Kontheroad 2017-04-30 21:32|| 2017-04-30 21:32|| Front Page Top

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