Is humanity stupid?
Yes.
Is it because of Youtube?
No.
Youtube is just a byproduct of humanity's stupidity.
Mankind is just stupid. Always has been, always will be.
Blame God, blame evolution, hell blame Oprah, I don't care.

But you want to know the truth?
It was me.
I'm the one who accidentally took a whiz in the primordial soup in Earth's ancient history all those aeons ago. I'm the one who dropped pre-human man on his head as he slowly took the evolutionary plunge into bipedalism and intellect. Hell, I'm even the one who was responsible for eighties television. That's right, I did it all, so blame me.

Me and Oprah made you dumb.
We did it for the lols, we did it for the lols.

Vakanai
lols

Fail.

Yes, just read Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason Oh wait more than half of all Americans don't read books... (same stats go for the rest of the First World so those of you outside the USA don't give me any "we don't do that" lip. Just because you have a secular society and kids actually learn stuff in school you think you're so much better than Americans... wait scratch that. lol! You probably are smarter on the average than the Youtube/Myspace/videogame/what the hell is a book? American who have no idea what the Constitution says or where Iraq is or whether Rhode Island is a state... and don't understand how to link cause and effect. People have shorter attention spans now than before they fluridated water, therefore fluridating water causes short attention spans. Yeah, I saw Dr. Strangelove too.

The internet is also making us elitist and judgmental apparently.

Atom Apple
The internet is also making us elitist and judgmental apparently.

Ooh, wicked burn!

bravo1102
and don't understand how to link cause and effect. People have shorter attention spans now than before they fluridated water, therefore fluridating water causes short attention spans. Yeah, I saw Dr. Strangelove too.

HA! That's what came to my mind in that thread about how sex ruins people's creativity. Some of what people said was almost word for word from that major or captain or whatever he was who was barricaded in his office with Peter Sellers and a machine-gun.

In response to the original post of this thread.

It will, only if we let it.

I believe too much of anything can be a bad thing. I think that YouTube has changed the way that people look at entertainment. At the same time that it has opened up new possiblities, it has also made it possible for anyone to garner an audience for 15 minutes of fame.

I actually ended up learning to play the mandolin better because of YouTube. :)

Inkmonkey

Atom Apple
The internet is also making us elitist and judgmental apparently.

Ooh, wicked burn!

As if this is something new? It goes back to ancient Greece. I don't recall there being an Internet back then making anyone judgmental and elitist. ;) Tacitus wasn't elitist and judgemental because of the internet, he just saw a slide in the quality of culture and intelligence.

And now we can quote tons of statistics (specific enough to break that whole predjudice against statistics) that proves the case that First World people are less aware and more ignorant than they were 30 years ago, or 20 years ago.

It's so easy to dismiss the truth as "judgmental and elitist" as opposed to accepting that it may be correct, investigating it and learning something. You see that's called cognitive dissonance. "I don't accept a supposition that disagrees with my world view even if all evidence proves it." (and will dismiss it out of hand for superficial reasons and never bother to look into it)

Now that you are a burning mass of ruins resembling nothing so much as Dresden or Tokyo after the bombing induced firestorm... (look it up WWII, the fire bombings were worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

One caveat abut every comment I make: my tongue is always in my cheek since I don't take anything seriously, except that nothing is to be taken seriously. Elitist? Only if you consider Will Rodgers, Mark Twain and the Marx brothers elitist. ;)
"Whatever it is I'm against it!/No matter who commenced it, I'm against it!"

I take EVERYTHING seriously!

Including humour...
Seriously.

I'm funny that way :)

Bdum-tish

I find it funny that they have brought youtube into our homes on TV. Certain day-time shows and stations play youtube videos to be more 'hip/cool/friendly' towards the public.

I would say 'this brings down the quality of television', but it really doesn't...

Oh, and youtube has been mentioned in latest movies and actual television shows (like House). So, even you hate the idea of how youtube is now part of our pop-culture, we honestly can't do anything about it. The ball has been rolling for a while now with this site, and I doubt it'll stop any time soon.

I think it just depends on the content being viewed on Youtube...There are alot of really stupid videos that loads of people would enjoy watching over and over again. However, I do think that the internet has slowed down the capacity of the human brain by a long shot. I don't think we're gonna need to search for much proof to back up this assumption. Just look around... :p

ozoneocean
I take EVERYTHING seriously!

Including humour...
Seriously.

I'm funny that way :)

Bdum-tish

lol! So that's what one hand clapping sounds like. lol!

BTW, the name of the General from Dr. Strangelove was Jack T. Ripper.

*looks at the average YouTube commenter*

Yes. Good God almighty, yes it does.

Youtube is just a place for people to go in order to veg/be retards and not care. It's not making us stupid, it's a place to act stupid.

Basically...it's /b/ for the mass populace.

There's times when I'll bring up random Internet things/memes to people who are quite younger than me and they have no idea what I'm talking about (So...I hear you like mudkips!, for instance). Just because you have a large clique hanging around something doesn't mean it's the majority.

It's just like when these moron reporters go around asking people questions like "Is Rhode Island a state?" and they show ten people going "What's Rhode Island?" You really think they're going to show you all the people who answered correctly?

Fuck no. It's to give you a limited view and claim it as the majority in order to make you think a certain way. Headlines in news papers do the same thing. "Man beaten over muffin recipe!!!" sells better than "Man steals shit, resists arrest, police must use force to subdue fighting suspect".

The problem lies in the fact that the younger generation doesn't think for themselves or do any kind of research in order to form their own opinions.

Yeah...It kinda does make everyone a little tiny bit stupid but it makes people smarter too, If your a very stupid person however...Well... The internet isnt going to help you get smarter...

But then again, Everyone in the world is stupid of some sort, We were stupid enough to cause global warming and such. Thats human nature. We are often stupid and smart in the same time...Somehow...

Once again, xkcd provides an answer:

Lizard Bite... I love it.

That would be great!

Lizard Bite, scroll through so many of the comment threads and there's usually the several voices telling them that already.

But a virus that does it automatically? Genius. Could we link it to IMDB and Amazon.com reviews too? I'm sick of the "comic Book guy" reply "worst show/movie/book ever".

As said before mankind has always displayed a wonderful talent for being stupid. Youtube just provides a broader stage to prove it.

Remember, once you make something idiot proof, they'll invent a better idiot. ;)

youtube?

LIZARD_B1TE
Once again, xkcd provides an answer:

Wow!!

Brilliant!

LIZARD_B1TE
Once again, xkcd provides an answer:

My God that would be great. But why do I get the feeling people would continue to post idiotic dribble anyway?

I don't know if anyone has taken this stance (one of the problems of the internet is there is a lot of reading to do and so little time to do it...), but I am of the opinion the internet has not made our population stupider, just different.

One of the main contrasts is with the generation before the internet, which grew up primarily watching television. Now, I personally think the internet is a step up from television. TV is a one way medium, where a individual receives the information that is being presented. The internet is a two way medium where one give, receives and mediates. The internet is making people better at mediating the information we receive, and we live in a population that will find it hard to homogeneously swallow propaganda for instance.

Take this forum as an example of what the internet has done. Here we are, people from god knows where, chatting about mutual interest and creating a social group based on it. This an incredibly powerful sociological tool. We now are invested in each other, perhaps not to the degree of a physical friend, but to a much greater degree than a stranger.

Then look at the sharing of information. We have become curious people, I am shocked to find someone who will sit on something they don't know and not do a simple google search to educate themselves. Yes, we know a lot of useless facts, but we also have a greater breadth of interdisciplinary (<-- very important, this one) knowledge. I'm a visual arts graduate, for instance, but I also know the basic principles of quantum mechanics. Try finding a person, not to mention multiple, like that 20 years ago.

Entertainment is also changing. We demand more from what we spend our time on. There's a reason why movies are becoming more interesting, why television needs to push its boundaries and why we demand so much more from our comics than other generations before us.

I like the internet, and I think it has a profound impact on society that is beyond "good" and "bad".

bravo1102

Inkmonkey

Atom Apple
The internet is also making us elitist and judgmental apparently.

Ooh, wicked burn!

As if this is something new? It goes back to ancient Greece. I don't recall there being an Internet back then making anyone judgmental and elitist. ;) Tacitus wasn't elitist and judgemental because of the internet, he just saw a slide in the quality of culture and intelligence.

And now we can quote tons of statistics (specific enough to break that whole predjudice against statistics) that proves the case that First World people are less aware and more ignorant than they were 30 years ago, or 20 years ago.

It's so easy to dismiss the truth as "judgmental and elitist" as opposed to accepting that it may be correct, investigating it and learning something. You see that's called cognitive dissonance. "I don't accept a supposition that disagrees with my world view even if all evidence proves it." (and will dismiss it out of hand for superficial reasons and never bother to look into it)

Now that you are a burning mass of ruins resembling nothing so much as Dresden or Tokyo after the bombing induced firestorm... (look it up WWII, the fire bombings were worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

One caveat abut every comment I make: my tongue is always in my cheek since I don't take anything seriously, except that nothing is to be taken seriously. Elitist? Only if you consider Will Rodgers, Mark Twain and the Marx brothers elitist. ;)
"Whatever it is I'm against it!/No matter who commenced it, I'm against it!"

There's a huge difference between ignorance and stupidity. If anything the internet can only make us less ignorant because it's connecting us with most other cultures in the world. This is just a case of false cause and effect. Just because the internet's the biggest change in the last 30 years doesn't mean it's the only one that can affect society.

I think what youre all forgetting is that:

I'll take that and raise you this:

lefarce
I think what youre all forgetting is that:

bravo1102
Yes, just read Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason Oh wait more than half of all Americans don't read books... (same stats go for the rest of the First World so those of you outside the USA don't give me any "we don't do that" lip.

*face palm* Way to stick up for your country

And no one goes to theater any more either. So I guess they're all retarded.

Croi Dhubh

Well you must keep in mind that

Are you trying to deny that

hmmm, Only if we search boobs.
If we search for INTELECTUAL things we will be brighter(WOOT light taxes coming down!)