Who is stupider, Russian recruits or the rest of the world?

Who is stupider, Russian recruits or the rest of the world?

Excuse me but you don’t look Russian

Does this look like a Russian soldier fighting in the Ukraine? He is actually Kenyan. We know about the 12,000 or so North Koreans that are fighting alongside the Russians but Kenyans? Actually they are not alone.  Fighters from thirty six African countries including Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, and Uganda are adding a bit of color to the front lines in that brutal war. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that foreign troops from China, Cuba, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Nepal are also fighting for the Russians. Shades of the French Foreign Legion! However, there are foreigners fighting for the Ukraine as well – Brits, Canadians, Americans, Colombians and other westerners. The British rented Hessian soldiers during the Revolutionary War. I guess this may be a throwback to when countries like the Swiss leased out mercenaries to both sides of the same war. It’s highly likely to be the case here. Some reports say as many as 35,000 foreigners fighting in this war are from 50 different countries. The media seems to concentrate on saying that many of these fighters are duped into joining the Russian army. If that is true then the Ukraine is a test of Darwinism. It is hard to believe some of the accounts of how the media is portraying these recruits. Call they be that stupid?

The world is getting stupider

Maybe the Russian recruits are that stupid because it seems that everyone else is getting stupider. Literacy levels and math proficiency in this country are falling. Test scores show that almost each generation is less proficient in math and reading that the previous one. But we are not alone! In an OECD report of literacy levels in 31 countries it finds that literacy levels are declining in almost all of them.

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2024/12/do-adults-have-the-skills-they-need-to-thrive-in-a-changing-world_4396f1f1.html

The report says that in literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving proficiency, only Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden excelled in all three areas. Literacy proficiency has declined more strongly among men than women, but men continue to outperform women in numeracy and adaptive problem solving. Chile, Croatia, France, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Korea, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Spain consistently perform below the OECD average in all skills domains. I was shocked to see Israel and Korea listed here. Notably, the lowest-performing adults saw the biggest decline in literacy skills, and on average across only one in five adults is only able to understand simple texts or solve basic arithmetic. Duh. Also adults with college education consistently score higher than those who have no college. But all education is not the same across countries and higher levels of education do not always equate to better skills and knowledge. The study finds that Finnish high school graduates consistently outperform college-educated adults in several countries, including Chile, Israel and Lithuania. Again I am shocked to see Israel on this list of poor performers. In countries with a large influx of migrants, the migrants are typically poorer performers than native residents. I guess that should be expected of the first generation of migrants but I would like to know how subsequent generations fare. I am reminded that almost all high performers at the national spelling bee seem to be children of immigrants.

The study also notes that internet usage has grown to 93. percent of those surveyed. This confirms what I have always said that we are now substituting tik tok and X for knowledge. The world is made up of three types: the three percent who make things happen, the 7 percent who know what’s happening and the 90 percent who haven’t a clue what’s happening. I had hoped that the internet would shrink the 90 percent as they became better informed. The OECD report shows I was wrong. The 90 percent is staying constant but is getting dumber. I was once criticized by a student who didn’t care for my course requirements and said “Why do I have to know anything when I have the internet?” Later in life he probably said “I went to the doctor and got a vasectomy because I didn’t want kids. When I got home they were still there.”

Given the failure of the US education industrial complex to educate our children we are getting dumber as a nation and may be less capable to compete on a worldwide level. But is that really true as the rest of the world is getting dumber along with us in a race to the bottom. The OECD study has opened my eyes but I get little comfort in finding that we are not alone in the march to stupidity. Speaking of marches, when is the best time to have a parade? March 4^th. Someone once said “Life is hard. But it is harder if you are stupid.” It’s even more harder if you are stupider.