I feel like the world has lost 30 IQ points over the last two years. I can’t think of a better way to describe it, the dumbing down of everything is palpable and accelerating.

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dredmorbius 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And it had already lost about 30 points through mobile devices and touchscreens, as I've commented before:

See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37521911>, also <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42787831> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38659367>

For the past several years (since at least 2020, if not a few years earlier), I've commented/posted to HN exclusively from desktop systems.

The bad news is that this is as good as it gets ;-)

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mmarian 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

IQ levels are same as before, it's just easier to spot differences.

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dr_dshiv 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Oddly, getting spotted for being dumb might be intelligent.

As I click another AI generated ad to tell which company could possibly have so little integrity…

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Barrin92 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

IQ levels have decreased in the 21st century, it's known as the reverse Flynn effect, Norway did a large scale study on almost a million people because they have a lot of military data and accounting for genetics IQ peaked for people roughly born in the late 70s and has been declining since. We've actually wiped out a fair amount of 20th century gains in intelligence.

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dredmorbius 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Oddly: this coincides with the period in which leaded petrol has largely been phased out on most countries. The use of lead in motor-vehicle fuel is though to have shaved a few points off IQ by itself.

Much as with some other widespread phenomena that come to mind, it's an observed trend the reverse of what might otherwise be expected.

	▲	iamnothere 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Lead exposure can damage the reproductive system, so perhaps it’s to be expected if a whole generation of parents were exposed to leaded gasoline. Theoretically this effect would wear off with the next generation, unless there was durable damage to genetics that gets passed on. A cursory search suggests this may be possible, but I’m not a biologist or geneticist.