Go spend time in the comment section of basically anywhere online. I promise you’ll change your mind.

That’s proof that people are dumb, not that they didn’t used to be even dumber.

It's more likely to be proof that dumb people have more time and inclination to spew their comments online.

And with that bit of self-realization, I think it's time to sign off for a bit.

Being self-aware is the best defense against becoming a self-awarewolf[0].

[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/SelfAwarewolves/

This is a side effect of the internet becoming more accessible to everyone.

Keep in mind that the number of children on the internet is higher than it has ever been, and children typically also have more free time to comment than adults have.

And realize that if you were born just a few centuries earlier, you would have probably been illiterate - and if you were literate, you probably couldn't read anything beyond religious texts.

But on the other hand, you wouldn't have been able to broadcast the holes in your knowledge as far, either. And everyone has them - the holes in their knowledge. One of yours seems to be reading communication. If most folks can barely speak coherently - to you - I'd wager that you just aren't putting in the work to better understand colloquial speech.

The cultural context of colloquial speech is incredibly difficult to pick up online. It is literally never communicated, you have to scrape Culture Shock and reaction videos for weeks to piece it together. Or study full time, or live there.

I don't generally agree with the masses being dumber than ever, but I do think people have a pretty warped view of nature these days. We heavily censor real violence; its partially why people (in US at least) have such a high tolerance for "violent" shows -- they are so far detached from real violence it doesn't even register as something actually bad.

I have mixed feelings. Being exposed to actual violence doesn't seem to make people better, IME. But being so detached from it doesn't seem healthy either.