Test scores across OECD countries peaked around 2012 and have declined since. IQ scores in many developed countries appear to be falling after rising throughout the twentieth century. Nataliya Kosmyna at MIT’s Media Lab began noticing changes around two years ago when strangers started emailing her to ask if using ChatGPT could alter their brains. She posted a study in June tracking brain activity in 54 students writing essays. Those using ChatGPT showed significantly less activity in networks tied to cognitive processing and attention compared to students who wrote without digital help or used only internet search engines. Almost none could recall what they had written immediately after submitting their work. She received more than 4,000 emails afterward. Many came from teachers who reported students producing passable assignments without understanding the material. A British survey found that 92% of university students now use AI and roughly 20% have used it to write all or part of an assignment. Independent research has found that more screen time in schools correlates with worse results. Technology companies have designed products to be frictionless, removing the cognitive challenges brains need to learn. AI now allows users to outsource thinking itself.
It feels like more and more people are taking pride in what they don’t do or what they aren’t, rather than in what they actually stand for. You see it in the people who brag about not using ChatGPT, not being on Twitter, not owning a car - or in those who define themselves by their hatred for others: the rich, meat eaters, republicans, whoever the current outgroup is.
It’s like their entire identity revolves around opposition. Their sense of belonging comes not from shared values, but from shared resentment. If the only thing that unites you with your tribe is who you hate, then you don’t really have much of a tribe - just a mob.
What’s most ironic is how many of these same people see themselves as independent thinkers, even though their views often are completely predictable once you know what they’re against. It’s as if they can’t even decide what they believe until they’ve first heard what “the enemy” thinks.
Yeah man, it’s normal to be proud of not participating in bad things. Are you going to argue that car-centric infrastructure, over-consumption of meat, and billionaires hoarding wealth aren’t bad things?
I’m not car-free or vegan. There’s not much these people could say to convince me to become one. I already agree with them, I just don’t have the fortitude to live the theory despite them being objectively correct. In their position I imagine it’s frustrating to interact with people like me. Even moreso people who don’t understand their views to the point that they’ll say that their whole identity revolves around opposition.
I don’t use a smartphone because I don’t want to contribute to the monopolistic social medias. People often take as a very noteworthy part of my character and want to talk about it. Many people probably even think of that as the “main thing” about me. However, that’s only because that’s the thing they tend to remember. They probably haven’t seen me out busking, making things out of leather, or doing programming projects. If they did, that’s not as unusual so they aren’t as interested. However, as soon as I put my phone on a table at the pub that’s what they remember and we start talking about because people are interested in things that are different.
Did you know Michael Phelps is an avid golfer? Most people don’t because most people only know a few things about most people. This is made even worse when people are judgemental and turn up their noses at people they claim are “virtue signaling” and refuse to ever get to the point where they know the person.
Your view that most people’s identities revolve around opposition is interesting because it seems that view mostly comes from the groups opposing the ones you mentioned to me. Car people have a weird hatred for cyclists, meat eaters for vegans, wealthy people tend to hate the poor, claiming them to be the authors of their own poverty because they’re not willing to admit they’re causing harm.
At some point you have to accept that many things you do harm other people and accept that. I eat meat despite it being immoral and admit that. It’s not healthy to lie to yourself.