Pookleblinky

Remember how many people were shocked at the reveal that Stormfront in The Boys was a nazi

No, it's not typical. Look at US healthcare cost versus life expectancy to see another example of the US as a shithole outlier in standard of living.

polymarket should be beyond illegal. all involved in its creation and upkeep deserve agony for the rest of their days

You’re in her dms, I’m crashing my car into a fruit stand during a high speed chase

When we talk about Baby Boomers not getting off the stage: In 1997, the US president was born in 1946.

In 2007, the US president was born in 1946.

In 2017, the US president was born in 1946.

And next year in 2027? The US president will have been born in 1946.

“Hey, ChatGPT here. A user has designated you as their emergency contact—and honestly? That’s brave. You’re not just an emergency contact, you’re a trusted confidant. So anyways, they think I’m god and you’re the devil.”

This is full on economic panic shit brought upon by the realization that holy fuck this American fascist dipshit just blew up the world's access to oil to murder Iranian school children

Moreover, ICE must be destroyed

People have not noticed it here at all but the Asian markets are a 5 alarm fire right now we're talking Korean and Thai circuit breakers tripped we're talking the rupee collapsing we're talking the Taiwan index and the NIKKEI only down 4 is the Good news

Moreover, ICE must be destroyed

A person at level 1 or below proficiency, is unable to do this. They cannot parse out extraneous, distracting, irrelevant information.

They cannot look at a website and identify which parts of the page they are looking at, are advertisements.

Level 2 proficiency is such as being able to look at a website and identify which parts are advertisements, if you want a concrete idea of what it means.

Level 2 proficiency is basically: level 1, except with longer text and text which contains more extraneous, irrelevant, and distracting information.

Level 1: "They typically include a single page with up to a few hundred words and little or no distracting information"

nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaa...

Now look at figure 1-B.

44% of US adults between 16 and 65 were tested to read at level 3 or above.

A combined 56% were tested to read at either level 1 or 2.

Another source of data on this:

These are PIAAC's proficiency levels, as scored by the adaptive test.

Pay attention to what skills are expected at levels 1 and 2.

nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaa...

Again: this is functional illiteracy. A fluent English speaker is expected to be able to figure out, on their own, that they are being told a joke.

That this joke contains subtext, requires context, and expresses a point of view which may not be the same point of view as the person saying the joke.

These people are communicating via text, on a textual medium. The part of literacy they lack is not on the level of "knowing what 'distinguished' means" but "realizing that someone using the word 'distinguished' is being sarcastic"

They are not expressing fluency, in their native language.

*Part of being fluent* in a language, is being able to perceive and laugh at jokes in it.

This happens not on the level of "reading things quickly" but being able to understand subtext, context, and points of view.

Now think about Bluesky's famous population of joke understanders.

"Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text."

Pancakes, waffles. "Are you saying ___?"

54% of US adults cannot accurately explain what a given text is saying and draw inferences from it.

This isn't "Bob takes a long time to read something"

This is "Bob literally cannot understand that the villain of a story is doing bad things unless the villain stops and says 'I am doing bad things right now btw'"

Like: part of being functionally illiterate is *not being able to perceive that things may be biased*. Not understanding that someone might be lying, or wrong.

Half the US stock market is now tied to LLM's, which only appear impressive if you are functionally illiterate.

www.education.com/common-core/...

Here is a list of what is expected of having a 5th grade reading level.

"Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described."

Imagine not being able to perceive and understand the idea of a biased point of view.

This is why even in non-written media, you see people having a difficult time perceiving subtext, context, the idea that the writer is writing for a specific audience with a specific idea in mind, etc.

Because becoming functionally literate is *how* you learn to perceive all that stuff.

People tend to think of functional illiteracy as just being unable to read words aloud or such.

What it *really* means is such as not being able to perceive subtext, context, understand who the audience of something may be, etc.

Media illiteracy is fundamentally part of functional illiteracy.

Think about all the boomer replies you've seen where someone angrily replies to everything that drifts onto their timeline as if it is personally addressed to them.

"But I don't have a dog"

"Why am I seeing this?"

"It doesn't mention cats at all."

54% of US adults read below the 6th grade level

Part of functional literacy is being able to understand, on your own, the concept that the writer is writing for a specific audience. That the thing has a specific context.

Like, an article about dog grooming is addressed to dog owners. It does not need to include cat grooming.

Think about all the libertarians you've encountered who will read a book and *entirely* miss the point of the book. Literally not perceiving that the book is describing a dystopia, or identify satire of real world events, or identify who is the villain.

54% of US adults read below 6th grade level.

Think about chuds constantly going "man I used to love this band but they turned woke by putting politics in their songs" and the band is literally Rage Against the Machine or Bruce Springsteen.

54% of US adults read below 6th grade level. 20%, below 5th grade level.

Think about authors having to explain that they should not *have* to have the villain stop periodically and go "what I am doing is wrong, I am doing a bad thing. I am the bad guy, here" because being able to figure that out is part of what it means to be functionally literate.

2024-2025 Literacy Statistics | National Literacy Institute Literacy Statisitics

Fun fact: 54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level.

You have to actively remember literally over half the US adult population is *unable to perceive subtext*

www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-li...

Like throughout each stream, endless "can I join?" and then after what is happening is explained, a "hur hur gonna download a voice changer app then"

Over and over by guys who need to have fewer teeth.

It's weird how so many guys are in all these women's chats, constantly asking how they can join the women's only server and all making the exact same joke about using a voice changer program to sneak onto it. Totally not ominous.