We're talking to children here. They don't have the wisdom age brings.

Bullshit. The idea that age brings wisdom is a myth. I'll link you studies if you request later but otherwise I'm sure you have the ability to look into it yourself. The reason we sometimes see wisdom in elder people more than we see it in younger people is because that wisdom has done them well and allowed them to get to old age. We see a selection bias because those who don't have wisdom die younger. Near the end of life, those who were wise in young age tend to live to old age, and those who were not wise die off. It's not that age brings wisdom - it's that those who are wise live to be old. Wisdom isn't something you gain with age, with age you gain experience and can use that experience in different situations. However, those expereinces don't always translate and aren't always helpful. Growing up and having bad experiences will make it so that you interpret things badly later. Especially in a world where the environment and culture changes so frequently. Experience actually ends up hindering you unless you're aware of it. The main idea is that wisdom is the ability in how to interpret things, and that is something that is independent of what things you have to manipulate.

There's also the new data out that shows the average IQ is 82. So slightly above retarded but definately below college ability. If the study was extended to the whole planet we'd lose another 5-6 points. It's also a 1000-1 ratio for people over 100 points. Above that it jumps to the millions to one. We are breeding stupid people so we don't even try to educate them.

Bullshit again. Link the study/studies please. One study doesn't make a fact. The Flynn effect is WELL established and it would take NUMEROUS studies to make us think this is true. Flynn effect is that the average IQ "goes up" by 2-3 points every decade. Also, byt definition the average IQ is 100..it's a deviation score compared to a comparison population. And this idea of us "breeding stupid people" is ridiculous. My generation has over 90% highschool completion rates, whereas previous generation had 50%. My generation has from 25-50% university and up to 75% with college rates, where as previous generations had much lower rates - which has more to do with the opportunity cost back then and now and what was required (not actual intelligence). However to say that we're less educated is beyond misleading. Even third world countries have much more aid to help build schools and what not compared to 20, 50 or 100 years ago. The entire world is more educated. Are there problems? Ya there is, but that doesn't mean we're somehow stupid.

I read Shakespeare in Grade 7. Now days they can't read it at all. They can't understand the words! Before the 50's people got most of there education at home and there was a lot less information out there.

Can't read at all....Literacy rates have gone up. I agree there was more education at home.

Now there's an information and knowledge explosion but only a fraction of the people are capable of understanding it. This is why we've developed the voting systems that we have. It was a long time in coming but a century ago it was obvious how that would turn out.

Yes, it's always been the case a fraction of the population can utilize the knowledge out there. That's why nobles could read and peasants could not. The majority of people now know and have the same ability as people back in medevil ages. Like I said, there's more new information content a day now a days in print than there was for the previous 1000 years.

Did you know that there is no evidence of war beyond 25,000 years ago? It has nothing to do with loin cloths. We have proof of a sophosticated trade route down the west coast during the ice age. They are finding more evidence to support the idea that it was well established long long before that.

Link the study/citation? I don't think one data point constitutes an entire belief that there was no war beyond 25,000 years ago. At the least, if you think violence was any less or society and civilization was any better then don't just state it - convice me of it.

Please don't think that your generation is much better than my generation. You raised my generation and we keep doing things that are better. We're advancing as a species. Does shit get messed up? Of course. Just like the market doesn't always go up, there are "corrections" in society, but it's not representative of where we're going and the overall trend nor is it indicative of intelligence and ability.

To put things in perspective, when you're 1 years old - 1 year represents 100% of your life. When you're 2, a year represents 50%, by 3 it's 33% and so on. By your 20's a year represnts 5%, whereas by the time you're 50, it represents 2% of your life. If you look at it in terms of the history of man, even though we're a small % of man - we've done a lot more things than the majority of history.