Speech Transcript - 275th annual 'Stay the Course' gala 2/3

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If you were to chart a graph of human progress over time, starting several millennia ago and continuing up until present day, it would show a long slow climb up a difficult hill. The line starts flat. Cavemen banging rocks together, making tools. Fighting other cavemen, crafting weapons. Fire. The line slowly angles upwards. The wheel. The ancient industrial age. The line gets a little steeper. Flight. The computer. The information age. The line's really climbing now. A nice steady slope.

Then a sharp uptick: the Little Bump. Literally a bump in our graph line, a huge upward swell of increased collective human intelligence, bursting with progress. Bosonics, information theory, tentative steps taken to our neighbor planets. Our schools filled with eager young minds. I've seen the data. IQ scores on the Modified Kaufman were the highest since the test was invented. And then? Can anyone tell me what's next?

[Handwritten:] ( Wait for some fool to raise hand and say 'stability' or 'peace' or 'plateau'. Then PULL OUT CHALK and draw a horizontal line on nearest available surface. Use front of the podium, if you have to.)

This, you think? A plateau? A leveling off? The final long victory lap after millennia of achievement, yes? Human intelligence, finally reaching its zenith?

Incorrect. This is what it looks like.

[Handwritten:] ( Cross out the line and draw descending curve. Do it with some flair. Maybe break the chalk in half? Ad lib!!)

A descending curve. We are getting stupider. And I have the proof. Here in my hand is a set of current test scores for the Modified Kauffman IQ test, given to ten thousand schoolchildren of all ages. The same test our ancestors gave their children.

Do you know what this test shows? We are dullards. A thirty percent drop below Little Bump scores, and at least fifteen percent below ancient times. That's right: our children are officially dumber than their ancestors. If you plucked a child from an ancient schoolhouse, with no screens, no bosonic instructors, no indoor plumbing; that child would possess a more vibrant mind and a more curious intellect than children in the finest schools we have today. Don't believe me? Test it yourself. We are on the downward curve, and we are accelerating.

I wonder what my father would say, if he were alive now. Would he stare, slackjawed, as many of you are doing right now? Would he puff up indignantly, and deny the results? Would he still want to maintain an even keel?

I think he would question. He loved this society and the people in it, but he had what passes for a sharp mind nowadays, and this evidence would bother him terribly. I think he would ask why. Why have we stagnated?

I'll tell you why, in one simple word: stability.

[Handwritten:] ( If they still haven't pulled you off the stage: remember to look up from notes at this point and dodge any thrown objects. For next section: go slow and BRING THE PASSION!)

Our ancestors knew no stability. They lived in a world of conflict and conquest. It was brutal. It demanded strong bodies and strong minds. We had to weigh options and calculate, and if we failed we died. The sharpest lived long enough to breed, and the mediocre were trampled in the dust.

Our ancestors lived in a world of adventure. They had far horizons and unfound lands to stimulate their imaginations. They conquered the land, and then the sea, and then the air, and then the solar system. They had opposing viewpoints and different languages. They fought over ideology. They competed to see who could build the highest structure, the fastest engine, the most efficient system.

They fought and clawed their way to stability through an unstable world. Then they finally achieved it: true stability. And what did it bring?

Us: their race of idiot great-great-grandchildren.