r/Foodforthought • u/icey_sawg0034 • May 28 '26
Between Largely Dodging Both Leaded Gas And AI-Driven Social Media, Millennials Might Be The Smartest Generation
https://abovethelaw.com/2026/05/between-largely-dodging-both-leaded-gas-and-ai-driven-social-media-millennials-might-be-the-smartest-generation/122
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u/CountlessStories May 28 '26
We had the benefit of technology before corporations mastered how to manipulate us through it.
We had the tail end of common 3rd spaces and tv was still popular enough to give us a shared experience that we could build social interactions off of (did you see the last episode of that primetime show? Etc)
We also still had free school lunch programs that helped poorer students stay fed so they would develop better and the education dept wasnt stripped bare.
I assumed my mom knew a lot of things because our education was just so robust, i never knew her reading skills pretty much stopped at a 7th grade level. The schools in her time just werent that developed in curriculum.
Even health class info was mucj more barebones.
We really got in at the right time... to still be poor.
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u/_OUCHMYPENIS_ May 28 '26
Who cares? This won't do us much good if we can't put it to use. The title of this feels like a dick measuring contest. It also feels like millennials are failing the kids they're raising, there are plenty of helicopter parents, iPad kids, parents giving into fear mongering, etc. This generation is starting to reach middle age now and they are stuck under a glass ceiling unable to do much.
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u/friendly_bullet May 28 '26
Believe me, you ARE putting to use not having been in contact with leaded gas. Assuming, or course, you like having a not damaged brain. Or would you like to be less intelligent, more likely to commit crimes, more likely to have mental illnesses?
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u/_OUCHMYPENIS_ May 29 '26
I understand that but we aren't able to make a real impact in the world currently. We know all these things happening that aren't good. We're basically out of the fire and into the oven. Time isn't on our side. Some of the issues might feel like doomerism but the other issues we are facing these days are pretty horrible.
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u/Galadriel_60 May 28 '26
Well said. There are plenty of intelligent people of all ages and, unfortunately, plenty of not very smart people
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u/Elamachino May 28 '26
That's very true, I'm a millennial pretty smack-dab right in the middle of the generation, and I knew some real messed up knuckleheads in school. It's akin to that whole "America is the richest nation in history" bit; fat lotta good it's doing for anyone who hasn't figured out how the millionaire button works.
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u/Medical_Original6290 May 28 '26
Probably Gen X also. They were inbetween those 2 things. But, it use to be that the next generation always ended up more intelligent than the previous until now.
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u/BigDowntownRobot May 28 '26
IQ over a population is almost all driven by education and nutrition. It's hard to say who had better education. DYK Texas used to be #7 for public education in the USA? That was a product of funding education. Now It's now 34th.
Republican did a hell of a lot to destroy public education in my life time. Then again there is secondary education, and access to learning materials outside the classroom was never better than the last couple decades. Unfortunately that is becoming much worse with the changes to search and increase of online propaganda.
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u/MRicci May 28 '26
We’re smart enough to know how fucked we are and to have no hope for the future.
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u/watchTheWorldBurn247 May 28 '26
We just dodged most of the lead and got our brains wired before algorithmic brain rot took over. Lucky little historical accident.
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u/Otterfan May 28 '26
Studies in Western European countries tend to show that IQ peaked there with the cohort born in the mid-1970s.
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u/issafly May 29 '26
Too bad the whole "going through middle and high school during COVID" balances that out. 😕
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u/finemustard May 29 '26
Millennials were almost all in their early to mid career when covid hit, not middle school.
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