I've been to many countries outside the US and while obviously there is a lot of ignorance in the world the US does not have a corner on the market. We have plenty, sure, but theres just a lot out there.

Why do you say that? OP was asking a good question. Instead of trying to answer him, you just called him a retard. Why insult him when instead you could do some of your own research to see if he's right or wrong?

By the way you may want to read this : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1707968.html

Furthermore, he's dead-right. You don't need to look very far to see that lots of American adults do now know the basics. This is especially true of certain political figures.


There definitely geniuses all over the world, but I have to say that America has lost its way... too many smart people are ruled by too many dumb people.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

What's your definition of dumb? Does it mean inventing all the cool (and some not-so cool)planet-changing shit in the last 100 years?

I think the US is the dumbest country on the planet, when you take into consideration the opportunities afforded to its' citizens and the amount spent on education (and yes, that includes spending, but not necessarily WISELY, on education).

Couple that with the utter lack of ambition displayed by so many, I would bet big money that there are no longer 50 States in the US 25 years from now. You think it's "us" and "them" now. . . just wait until the money runs out.

Yeah its a bunch of unmotivated slackers who put a man on the moon, invented the automobile, computers, the internet, Amazon, Google, Breaking Bad.

I'll match your German and raise you 2 grandparents from Austria. Call. :1orglaugh

I'm not talking about politicians being the ones running the show. Never mind the man behind the curtain.

I already know that you are not as bright as you think you are based upon previous religious conversations on this board between you and I.

I'm not gonna get into it with you again. Never argue with a crazy person, they drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. :321GFY

I personally think you are not as smart as you think you are also. But on top of that you appear to be religious/delusional and pretty much a board troll.

I am wondering why i still pop into gfy anymore, there is not much adult business going on here. Just people like you taking up space.

Say whatever you want you will get no response from me, i don't want to waste my time.

When you have 300 million people even 1% of bright people is more than enough to invent all of that. The thread is about average folk, not about countries achievements.

In the context you're using it, it's you and me, not you and I. Smart people know that.

So comparatively, if another country had even a few percent more smart people than America, they would be flying around in spaceships and colonizing new worlds.

"If America are not the dumbest nation, who are the dumbest."

I call bullshit. Prove it.

American's did not invent the automobile OR computers. The first automobile was invented by Karl Benz, in Germany, in 1886. The first programmable computer was invented by Charles Babbage, in England in 1883. The first modern computer was invented, depending on who you speak to, by a German military team led by Konrad Zuse (the Z2) or a machine invented by a British military team led by Alan Turing. Turing was definitely the first to plan and discuss one.

Doh !

:1orglaugh

Try living in Thailand and you'll never ask that question again.

Thanks to the nazi's.
Thanks to England

You can have point 3.. Congratulations America on the creation of gfy. :winkwink:

Then by that reasoning explain India or China lol, fucking China destroyed their environment and burned up all their resources for our fucking fake money lol and probably have given all their people cancer, I used to think they were smart years ago. India is definitely not much brighter. And the UK you want to talk about dumb White people lol, other than their top 2% the rest are inbred chav scum drunk fuck ups lol.

Ok you can have the moon, google, amazon.

But the car, computors, and the internet were not invented in Merica or by Mericans.

:1orglaugh

i love america - they are cool...

well, there you go. Proven.

I went to an American private school when I was abroad and followed their "education plan", it was like I was put 3-4 years backwards to say elementary school level...

the "tests" are usually multiple choice answers and if you are not a complete moron you can pass US middle school with no studying at all...

I actually had trouble when I returned back to normal non-american schools because I had missed so much in math and physics that I had to start reading books again :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I do not think americans are stupid nor that they have low IQ...we are all homo sapiens and its a bullshit argument...but the US education system is a joke...not commenting on yale or MIT or harvard , just your basic middle school in the USA...its like your health care, over priced and bullshit...

Just another hate thread about stereotypes... meh

no need to fight over this - both countries are on position 6 - reunited at last :1orglaugh :helpme

As far as IQ we are #19 but the way I read it we are tied for 10th place with Australia, Denmark, France, Mongolia and Norway. At least we're smarter than Canada.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/countr...st-average-iq/

This, to me, is the core of the argument. It all boils down to how you define dumb. If dumb mean under-educated then there are countries that are far ahead of us and there are many countries that are far worse than us.

If dumb is meant to be lacking a general awareness of the world outside our borders, we have some issues with that as well, but there are plenty of countries with that same problem.

If dumb just means born stupid without the ability to learn or grow intellectually, then I think we are right on par with most of the world. I think most humans have the capacity to learn when given the chance. It is cultural and environmental things that determine whether or not they seek out that education.

I can tell you this...my first awakening to reality was in 1984 when I toured down in Peru.
The country was dirt poor. No middle class at all. Either very rich or very, very poor.

And yet all the kids there spoke several different languages and knew everything about the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world (they kept up on world events in all countries on their news broadcasts)

I felt "dumb" next to them. I can only speak English. I knew next to nothing about anything outside the U.S.

And in my travels since then...I've seen the same thing over and over. Whether it be Mexico, South America, The Bahamas, Jamaica, or Europe. I feel like I was cheated in our education system by not being taught different languages from kindergarten forward.
And when you are traveling outside the U.S. you suddenly realize that most people take a "world view" and keep up with events everywhere.
While our news broadcasts report very minimally on foreign affairs.

Just saying...it makes you feel "dumb" comparatively speaking.

What about photographic film, the phonograph, the lightbulb, the airplane, the elevator, the skyscraper, the liquid-fuel rocket, the modern day electronic computer (nice one, claiming charles babbage, we'd all be pulling potatoes for Lord Blacksmere if you boneheads were in charge), laser, compact disc, on and on. And then there's this:

"So we arrive at the same conclusion: as the world military balance stands today, even in the unlikely case that the entire world aligns against them, the United States could not be conquered." Dylan Lehrke, IHS Jane's analyst hahaha! every last one of you could put aside your considerable differences and stop slaughtering, raping, and cheating each other and join in one big, smelly, some-part-of-the-goat-eating army and you still couldn't defeat the US! Ooooooh, that's got to burn!

I'll give you we have a lot of dummies here though. Robbie has a point. And even though we don't have a Mozart or an Alcubierre we do have, or had until recently, a culture of celebration of disruption and optimization.

In ten years, unless Hillary is elected, the answer might be different.

Government spending per student (adjusted for inflation) is up 300% in the last 25 yrs, yet test scores remain flat.....

1. Government should get out of the education business (really out of any business except for Federal defense and providing a decent judicial system)

2. The teachers Union should be eliminated, all it does is reward laziness and keep GOOD teachers from being properly compensated

and PLEASE, before anyone says "teachers are underpaid".....do your research so I don't have to do it for you.

:2 cents::2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

I'm in complete agreement.

To me there is a difference between dumb and ignorant/lack of education. Like you, I only speak one language (if you don't count knowing how to say 'please smother my balls in cheese' in Spanish :) ). Looking back on it I wish I would have taken some foreign languages in high school. For that matter I wish it would have been required. But not knowing something is not being dumb, it is simply not being educated on that matter.

To me dumb is the inability to learn or, perhaps even the unwillingness to learn. While there may be many countries where the people have a better overall education, I don't know that that makes me, or this country, dumber than them. It just means we need a better education system.

As for traveling and being blown away by other countries, I have seen both sides of it. When I went to Egypt in 2000 most of the Egyptian people I met were very nice. They would ask if I was American and I would tell them yes. They would ask where in America I was from and I would tell them Oregon and almost every single one of them would ask me if it was by Los Angeles, Chicago or New York. They knew those three cities, but nothing else about the geography of this country. I knew far more about Egypt then they knew about the United States. Were they dumber than me? Hell no. For starters they were speaking English and they just didn't have that piece of knowledge.

Countries With The Highest Average IQ

1- Hong Kong
Isn't it a former british colony with mostly European expats?
2-South Korea
I'm sure this happend after Guus Hiddink was coach of their national soccer-team?
3-Japan
Not convinced after fuckmeshema
4-Taiwan
I quess they have to think a lot about how to keep them chinese from their backs
5-Singapore
Say what?

A shared 6th place for:
The Netherlands
Germany
Austria
Italy

We should make bratwurst, schnitzel, ferrari, Johann Strauss, windmills, hookers and weed our common culture; bomb/nuke the first 5 on this list to dust and rule the fucking world once again! Would bring some sense back into this world.:pimp

I agree with this... Most iq tests i saw are bullshit. IQ is not about knowledge it's about the ability to gain knowledge

That's kinda what I meant in my first post....we are "dumbed down" not unintelligent.

We should be REQUIRED to learn Spanish, French, Russian, Dutch, German, etc. from the time we are in kindergarten or pre-school.

I know we all took a little French or Spanish as a high school elective, but it's not good enough.

We should be fluent in a few different languages by the time we are 10 years old.

But instead, we have politicians screaming "English Only". And trying to build a freakin' border "wall" (instead of just stopping the war on drugs entirely). And we are kept ignorant by our news media for damn sure.

I'm too damn old now to learn another language. It would have been easy to do it when I was young (kids have minds like sponges at the time of their life).

But at least I can now watch Al Jazeera America and get news events from around the world. :)

Seems that CNN only reports stupid shit from foreign countries (like the French sex scandal) that don't really mean anything.

I hope that in the near future we change our attitude and open our minds here in the U.S.

Otherwise, we are going to fall far behind the rest of the world.

When this country started, it was envisioned by learned men who were world-wise.
They all spoke several languages, knew what was going on in the world, and were men of science...NOT religion.

There isn't any reason that in the year 2014, the average American can only speak English. And has never traveled out of their own state....much less country. And we aren't given any pertinent information about what is going on in the world.

Just look at 9-11.
Most of us were shocked! We had no idea WHY anybody would hate our country.

I guess that's the way our govt. likes to keep us: Ignorant of the shit they are doing around the world.

These *facts* were supplied by the most unbiased or organisations....

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...elds/2103.html

Yes, American's a probably the most poorly educated of the so-called 1st world countries.

Sadly most American's are fine with it. Have no desire to know anything more than the price of a gallon of gas and what's for dinner that night.

IQ is not about Knowledge, it's about intelligence, not the ability to gain knowledge. It has nothing to do with Knowledge.

Mental age / Chronological age = Intelligence Quotient

The ability to gain knowledge would be aptitude or ability to learn

A priori... intelligence has nothing to do with anything...

A-posteriori... intelligence has everything to do with the ability to gain knowledge.
The ability to learn has everything to do with intelligence. Learning has everything to do with knowledge.