Aibu to think we're entering a new "dark age"?

[Sorrelle]

Over-reliance on social media, living in our little bubbles; economic nationalism rather than globalisation; growing inequality; growth of illiberal democracies... Anyone agree?

The teens from 1 are trained for the games, 12 are not trained, they have no time to train they are too busy trying to survive life. 1 tributes stand a better chance of survival in the games.

I agree. It's no good debating IQ because IQ tests measure different types of skills. It's subjective, everyone has different talents and skills but few people get chance to fulfil their potential or even discover what they are talented in.
We have 4 million children living in poverty in this country, not something to be proud of. Child obesity is caused by poor diet.

Childhood obesity isn't caused by one thing in every child. There are many reasons.

It could be argued people's general inability to understand different types of average when it comes to IQ ironically says something itself about IQ!

I guess my working class son didn't get the memo about not attending university then. He's quite prepared for the amount of debt he will acquire. It's something he considered very carefully. He's keeping his debt as low as possible by working part time.
He agrees about the negative impact of social media, but it is something that you can keep under control, or even opt out of. Or just use it for professional reasons.
As far as the future goes, personally I think it's bright.

Upon rereading the IQ portion of this thread, I was struck by the thought that the concept of half being above an average or mean point and half being below seems to be so offensive to the feelings and sensibilities of some posters that they refuse to accept the actual definition of a very straightforward term used in statistics -- which is pretty much set in stone and is very simple to understand. And a quick Google search would reveal pretty quickly the differences between the terms mean, median, and mode and examples of how they are used and what they reveal. This refusal to accept facts and accepted common terms because they don't match one's desired view of the world is becoming more and more prevalent, especially and unfortunately in academia. This doesn't bode well for the future.

In response to childhood obesity has many causes, yes I agree, genetics, medicines, medical conditions etc., but I should have been clearer and linked it to poverty. Someone said how can there be poverty if there is childhood obesity. Not everyone who is poor, is stick thin. Eating cheap, filling food and lack of activity can lead to obesity.

Well we were not poor and my children got fat in the latter part of childhood. At the time it wasn't linked to poverty. It was a combination of their on going health problems and mine, I could keep them exercised and home cooked meals as I had, when I was in better health. When my health declined, I couldn't take them to exe as I had previously and I became reliant on adding ready meals/takeaways into our diet. People were happy to receive my help when I was in better health, not so keen to help us though when we were in need, we then lived in a mc/Tory area. We are poor now though.

PFR, I didn't see anyone being offended at all! It was just a friendly discussion. What term do you think people are not accepting the definition of?!

Yes, and I also thought unweavingrainbow's point about applying critical thinking vs. facts was interesting.

Given that you (Ego), Jeanne and I have had various more heated debates over other topics, I think it was actually quite nice to have a friendly discussion about how IQ is worked out!

Yes, I love that too!

The world is rapidly changing to become like the one described in "The Handmaid's Tale"

Or maybe a combination of this and the Hunger Games.

I hope it will stop soon, but things look pretty bad.

I stated that the CONCEPT of blah, blah, blah seemed to be offensive to the blah, blah, blah of some posters. That is not the same thing as stating that I thought or observed that a poster was offended during or by the discussion. Not the same thing at all. (Perhaps I should have used the word troublesome or the like instead.) I feel pretty silly typing this word again -- but, yeah, the term in question is, of course, mean (or average). So sorry if that wasn't clear.

Sorry, I'm really not following.

It was a discussion about the meaning of the word average in relation to IQ scores. Various people were asking questions about it, because they were not familiar with how IQ scores worked.

I don't see anyone refusing to accept a definition based on their worldview or being troubled by a definition!

It is just a discussion where people pool knowledge so that we can understand how something works.

Oh, for God's sake.

PFR?! You seem very bothered about all of this.

I am sorry if that is the case.

Ego, someone was explaining that most people have an above average number of legs! Which I suppose is true, if we're not rounding up.

I think we have gone massively off the topic of the OP's post!