21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022.
54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level.
21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022.
https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statisti...
You say it’s a “cost” but equal education obviously isn’t a priority in our country and I can’t help but wonder who benefits from such a high percentage of illiteracy (this is semi-rhetorical).
I genuinely don’t think we’re tracking the cost appropriately nor implementing solutions with enough urgency; 10-15 years down the road this empire of ours is going to be far out-classed intellectually by countries that actually implement policy for the equitable benefit of everyone.
If I’m off base I’d appreciate an education on this topic as it’s quite gross to think about our elite institutions being proponents of eugenics in the past[1] and how that likely spilled over into the world-building we did after WWII (Kissinger etc).
Or put another way, how do we map “AI is going to save everyone” rhetoric to how history has actually gone, and what incentive do existing power structures have to change?
P. 78
We do. Your observation likely reflects a data source selection error on your part.
What is the total damage to the economy of making such a colossal number of people less smart, for the entire duration of their life?
The cost must be colossal, in trillions. Imagine if 1% drop in IQ costs us 1% loss of GDP, in that case m, over the past decades, we have suffered more damage that the entire GDP of USA. Someone should be paying that!
And someone in this thread has rightly pointed out, will microplastics be the same?