Is society growing stupider? The clues are simple and repeated

pseudolus 11 points 9 comments October 09, 2026
www.washingtonpost.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (5 comments)

pseudolus

https://archive.ph/fyKbg

BeratnaGas

The "simple/simplified" theme here is repeated numerous times without much insight or exploration. Tragically beyond ironic.

bootlegbourdain

Neon yellow journalism and book promo! I bet this guy has a newsletter.

Terr_

> Take the Netflix film “Irish Wish,” So I went and checked, and it really is a ~90-minute thing, but I wonder if the excessive-exposition could partly be explained by habits (or cancelled plans) involving multi-part TV shows, where it's less-weird to remind viewers of details that might be--in their own timeline--a week in the past. > According to actor Matt Damon, filmmakers are told: “It wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue, because people are on their phones while they’re watching.” OK, well, that's just depressing... or at least, the idea that someone is being distracted playing on their phone while watching the movie on a larger screen is depressing. In contrast, if it means people are watching on their phones while riding the bus or whatever, and distracted by external events... That's not so bad, because it's a story of where people watch rather than their (in)ability to focus.

1vuio0pswjnm7

1791464413 | Is society growing stupider? The clues are simple and repeated | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/10/07/culture-i... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50005319 | 0 comments

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