What is the Biggest Surprise from the Trump Era

[Ph64]

The national IQ isn't where I thought it was at all.

Genuinely surprised at you. Ever speak to an average person? Fucking terrifying. Even in L-School most of the students were dumb as dirt.

I've known that for a long time.
At my last job I'd get people coming to me thinking I'm "the guru" asking "how do I do 'X'?"
I ask "did you Google it?" and they'd say "yes, but I didn't find the answer"...
I'd go to Google and literally type in the search box "how do I do 'X'", exactly what they asked, and get 50,000 results, click on the first couple links and find the one I think explains it best and print it out for them.

...a few months later they'd be back with the exact same question.

I remember one guy coming to me with a question/problem, I literally walked him through what he needed to do from memory. He asks "how do you know all this?", I said I had the same problem 3 years earlier and it took me like 2 hours of digging to figure out how to do it.

He says back "how do you remember what you did 3 years ago? I can barely remember what I did last week."

Honestly, most people are not only clueless but I'm convinced the iPhone/social media thing has made people's memories and attention spans non-existent.

[Martin Hash]

Good story.

[Hastur]

The national IQ isn't where I thought it was at all.

Genuinely surprised at you. Ever speak to an average person? Fucking terrifying. Even in L-School most of the students were dumb as dirt.

I've known that for a long time.
At my last job I'd get people coming to me thinking I'm "the guru" asking "how do I do 'X'?"
I ask "did you Google it?" and they'd say "yes, but I didn't find the answer"...
I'd go to Google and literally type in the search box "how do I do 'X'", exactly what they asked, and get 50,000 results, click on the first couple links and find the one I think explains it best and print it out for them.

...a few months later they'd be back with the exact same question.

I remember one guy coming to me with a question/problem, I literally walked him through what he needed to do from memory. He asks "how do you know all this?", I said I had the same problem 3 years earlier and it took me like 2 hours of digging to figure out how to do it.

He says back "how do you remember what you did 3 years ago? I can barely remember what I did last week."

Honestly, most people are not only clueless but I'm convinced the iPhone/social media thing has made people's memories and attention spans non-existent.

Good story.

Yes, it was.

It got me thinking. A while back we talked about Julian Jaynes’s Theory of Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind.

https://www.julianjaynes.org/about/abou ... /overview/

What if we as a species are transitioning into a new form of consciousness due to the influence of constantly being connected to the internet, social media, endless scroll and constant distraction. We might be losing the metaphorical language that once awakened us.
The distractions might blend with our inner monologue, and we might become part of some kind of hive mind. NPCs for real.

This will of course not happen to everyone at once. The people who retain their independent thought process will have a huge advantage but only up to the point where the hive mind perceives them as a threat and goes after them.

I don't think it's too far-fetched to imagine. At minimum, it's a good plot for a book.