• partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        The percentage of the population that’s illiterate is way higher than it has any business being.

        Like “can’t read at an elementary school level”.

        “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” - Mark Twain

        Not in your link, but I found the same statistics as your link in another with a critical piece of information:

        “According to researchers, 4 out of 5 Americans 18 and over possess medium to high proficiency in English reading and writing.” source

        These statistics, both your link and mine, may only be measuring literacy in English.

        So looking to get a clue how many may have literacy in another language:

        “Today, 13.8 percent of the nation’s residents are foreign-born” source

        So at least a percentage of those being counted as USA illiterate may indeed be literate in another language that isn’t English.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            Of course it is a low confidence answer for that non-English but literate population. I’m not saying that 100% of those called illiterate are actually literate in another language. I’m saying that the statement that the illiteracy rate is as high as posted is likely wrong because it only accounts for English.

            The “may” statement you’re taking issue with is a quick attempt to find out possibly how big that non-English but literate population might be. Its not a definitive answer. You’re welcome to spend your time chasing a more precise number. I’d exhausted my interested when I got my number.

            • atro_city@fedia.io
              0·
              5 months ago

              I’m not going to say it was your intention, but it reads like “immigrants are lowering the literacy rate”. It’s something I’ve seen too often.

              Regardles, from the page you linked:

              54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level

              That would not be explained by a 13.8 percent of foreign-born residents.

              According to researchers, 4 out of 5 Americans 18 and over possess medium to high proficiency in English reading and writing.

              The emphasis is because “American” is not the same as “foreign-born resident”.

      • Synapse@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        Wow, those figures are shocking. US of A, 1st economy in the world, 1st military power in the world and our space, 36th in literacy rate. I am sad for fellow Americans :(

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          The US ranks 36th in literacy.

          This is a deceptive statistic. It merely indicates that many countries like Uzbekistan and North Korea falsely report 100% literacy rates. Look here. The USA literacy rate is actually about the same as that of other wealthy Western democracies.

        • TunaCowboy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          The US should be doing much better in all categories based on its wealth alone, but this is kind of an important factor.

          34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            With the two high stats being on the North East, and the low stats being in the south west near the border with Mexico.

            So that makes me wonder what percentage of the 34% that were not born here are literate in another language

            Because I know I have met a number of people who have moved here and haven’t learned English yet, but if you pass a translation app between each other, they can read it in their native language.

      • kamenLady.@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        From the sound of it, the skateboarding guy must have never watched Forrest Gump. He would have known it would take more than 2 weeks, just by seeing Gump’s beard grow.

        • madjo@feddit.nlEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          Nuhuh. that movie took only 2 hours and 22 minutes, and that walking sequence took up about 10~20 minutes, he just has really strong beard growth when he walks. If Forrest can do it in 20 minutes, I should be able to do it in 2 weeks! /jk

  • demonmittenhands@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Two weeks, huh? The US is around 3,000 miles from coast to coast, so that puts him over 200 miles skateboarding every single day… I’m not sure, but the person who didn’t know mountains exist might be dumb.

    • parody@lemmings.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      If he’s illiterate we don’t need to call him dumb

      Also allegedly the Rockies, not all mountains… we hope

      • MNByChoice@midwest.social
        0·
        5 months ago

        I doubt he is being labelled “dumb” due to being illiterate.

        Doing no research prior to setting out is a great reason to call him dumb.

        • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          Though lack of research because you can’t read is a bit of a speed bump in the whole “doing research” process

          • MNByChoice@midwest.socialEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            Yes, but people 40 years ago managed. Youtube and a friend that can read. Hell asking random strangers their opinions on what the challenges of skateboarding across the country are.

            • parody@lemmings.worldEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              You’re not wrong!

              I will say, I learned stuff like that to be a good idea through a productive education system which also helped me learn to read

            • TachyonTele@lemm.eeEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              People 200 years ago managed.
              It’s extremely dumb to just go out cross country with zero knowledge though.

          • med@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            Maybe this is explained somewhere if I could be bothered to research it, but how can he be actually illiterate?

            He has an instagram account. How is he reading anything to do with it if he’s illiterate? Sub numbers, password resets, comments? How would he even know people are watching if he can’t read numbers?

    • Zron@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      200miles/8hours of skating straight means an average speed of 25 miles an hour.

      Ambitious, considering the average speed of a skateboarder is closer to 10 miles an hour, but it could be possible if he was extremely fit, had unbreakable bones, and the US was a flat plane for 3000 miles like this guy thought.

    • CafecitoHippo@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      No need to board shame him. He’s just rocking with what he’s got. It’s not the size of the board, it’s the motion on the pavement.

    • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
      0·
      5 months ago

      If the longboard is the length of the US and he mounts it, does that count? Does he have to walk the length on the longboard? I have so many (very stupid) questions!

    • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      If someone thought it would take two weeks there would be no concern about wheels wearing out. They also wouldn’t have the planning skills for a way home, becsuse how far could that be?

      I’m assuming it is a parody account.

  • vormadikter@startrek.websiteEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Cant seem to find this dude on ig, there are just too many that tried to cross the usa with a board.

    Does someone have a link to this specific persons ig? That would be great, thanks.

  • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Almost certain they were playing it up and this is satire, sorry to spoil everyone’s fun. https://www.instagram.com/jaayfilms They started again on September 30 this year and are now in Missouri. If these content creators are good at one thing it’s creating a compelling narrative and this guy did it by getting himself called illiterate.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Idunno anything about this guy, but for some folks they just weren’t taught early enough. You can learn to read at any age, but no amount of motivation can match an early education

    • fern@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Illiterate refers to both being able to read basic words all the way up to reading comprehenson. Equally possible he simply cannot understand what he reads and is anti-intellectual as that seems to be on the rise in the US.

      • ZeffSyde@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        As a victim of the US public School system, every class had one or more kids that simply couldn’t read aloud in class for one reason or another. The teachers learned to not call on them in the future to keep things moving.

        Some of them got moved to special education classes over the years, but in my experience they were just free periods to keep them from slowing the other kids down.

        It’s sad, I knew a guy that was smart as a whip, but we went to a restaurant he wasn’t used to and he sheepishly asked me what was on the menu since there weren’t any pictures.

        • fern@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          It’s called functional literacy, which is what’s being talked to here. Also, your anecdote fails to address other possibilities. I have a friend that, under stress of a new location, may lose the ability to read menus, and their literacy matches other academics in their field. I am a reader that cannot read aloud because that is an entirely different skill than reading.

    • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      It is easy to have motivation to skateboard across america when you don’t have enough education to understand what doing that means.

    • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Spelling (in non phonetic languages) has nothing to do with intelligence levels - it is all to do with memory and exposure. Perhaps he never went to school, or the level of education was pathetic… or he is incredibly dyslexic. Sorry if this answer sounds harsh but I’m pissed-off at what you wrote. I know of at least one illiterate person who stands head and shoulders above the “college kids” around them. They were such an integral part of our team that were bought them speech-to-text / text-to-speech software to keep their job.

      • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        That’s why I didn’t say he was stupid. I asked if he had a learning disability which is not a taboo thing and it doesn’t mean you’re stupid. If anything I complimented him on his motivation and determination. You were just out to find something to get mad and offended over so you interjected that into my comment, even though I didn’t say that. I see that happening a lot lately with Americans. They all wanna be offended so they can moralize

      • sparkle@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        or he is incredibly dyslexic

        Dyslexia is a learning disability

    • abbotsbury@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Most likely functionally illiterate and not 100% “I can’t read,” but I’ve overestimated instagrammers before

      • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        Most people are illiterate. Literacy is a skill with levels and most people don’t actually ever reach the level required to be a fully functional person.

        This meme is a great example. Most people don’t actually reach Ogre’s level of literacy. Yeah, it’s played for laughs in the fact that Ogre is smarter than the average human, but Ogre is also completely correct about the level of literacy we should expect of people, in a perfect world.

        • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          A lot about this is, in my opinion, misleading.

          I don’t need to be able to read Ulysses and understand all the themes and the deeper meanings, to be literate. As to actually understand all the meanings, I would have to be familiar with the culture in which it was written and the personal perspective of the author on that culture.

          I don’t think the perfect world entails that everyone (or, at least most people) is overly familiar with ancient cultures and authors.

          Unfamiliarity with the context of what was written is usually why people don’t catch on themes. A person with german cultural background will not read a passage about bringing honor to your bloodline, in the same way a chinese person will. A lot of Germans are deeply suspicious of the idea of honor. I learned that after decades with Germans and their culture.

          How many Cultures are you familiar enough with to be able to correctly understand a text written in it?

          E.g. the “remorse of conscience” is a cultural theme. A person who reads a lot of books and seek out these themes, has a different culture than a person who only scrolls on TikTok. And if the person reading books isn’t on TikTok, they are probably unable to properly understand the themes in a TikTok.

          And yes, you said that there are different levels of literacy, so you didn’t say that I was illiterate if I wouldn’t catch on the “remorse”. But you present literacy as a 1 dimensional scale. 1 level, 2, 3, etc… When it is not, your ability to correctly parse a text is not 1 dimensional. You will probably fail to correctly understand a story written in ancient china, and if you understand it, you will probably fail to understand a story written in the 1950s in Germany.

          Get off the horse. Stand next to us and enjoy your pleasure of reading with other people and learn different perspectives. They aren’t less literate than you, they are differently literate than you.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            Yeah, I’ve been really enjoying discussing the themes and deeper meanings in the stormlight archive, but a ton of its themes are deeply American or focused on mental illness or theology and those are areas I have background in. If I were to read the tale of genji or some Dostoyevsky I’d miss so much. I can’t imagine someone in China really getting Huckleberry Finn because it’s deeply American satire, hell I don’t expect a Brit to get it particularly well either.

          • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            Most people can’t understand the themes of works from their own culture. How many American conservatives think the Matrix supports their ideas, and brag about taking the “red pill”, not realising it’s an estrogen pill? How many people watch Rick and Morty, and proceed to idolise Rick? Or the same with Sherlock, or House? How many people think Thanos did nothing wrong?

            So much of our popular media criticises the flaws inherent in capitalism. Iron Man does it. Star Wars does it. Why don’t we live in a society of socialists? When Starship Troopers was first released, it bombed. Because most people couldn’t tell it was satire. It took years for people to catch on.

            Hell, most christians read the Bible and think Jesus was white! It is literally their religious identity, and they can’t be bothered to understand it.

            Drag doesn’t think literacy is one dimensional. But drag does think that most people don’t meet the standard for being a functional person in any culture. If most people were literate, then most of the kids who grew up watching Captain Planet would be vegan and carfree. But they aren’t, because they fundamentally don’t understand how to think about the entertainment media they consume.

            And by the way, it’s a high dragon, not a horse.

            • kwomp2@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              I agree with you about most people not understanding their social structural sorroundings sufficiently to lead their (collective) lives in a souvereign way.

              But this is not a primarily cognitive problem. Just as much it is rooted in the social structure itself. One must take into account: Which opportunities does a given act of thinking and understanding provide an individual?

              In an individualized and individualizing political, ecological, cultural landscape, understanding things critically often is fruitless. For example to ensure social affiliation or navigate through the market specifique concepts, notions and sorts of “truth” are productive. Analyzing your culture to find collective paths of historic development require different scopes.

              Praxeology might be a notion you could enjoy exploring.

              IMO this is important if you want both, get of the high horse and fly the mighty dragon of critique.

              • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzEnglish
                0·
                5 months ago

                Drag agrees, society is to blame for the way people are.

                But, people are also to blame for the way society is. It’s a vicious chicken.

                Therefore, we need to educate people, like by telling them there’s more to literacy than knowing to to read something literally.

        • abbotsbury@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          No, most people are not illiterate, you’re confusing literacy with media literacy because that’s what you want to talk about instead.

          There is a difference between “I don’t know what that sign says” and “I don’t know what this book means.”

          • fern@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            It’s called functional literacy, which is what’s being talked to here. Also, your anecdote fails to address other possibilities. I have a friend that, under stress of a new location, may lose the ability to read menus, and their literacy matches other academics in their field. I am a reader that cannot read aloud because that is an entirely different skill than reading.

            • abbotsbury@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              I know I’m talking about functional illiteracy, that’s why I said “Most likely functionally illiterate” in my comment.

              The person who replied to me brought up media literacy/illiteracy, which is a separate concept, and mistakenly referred to it as illiteracy, which I corrected.

        • ZeffSyde@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          I have ‘Agenbite Inwit’ tattooed on my person and feel as though this ogre meme has called me out.

        • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          to be a fully functional person

          I’m pretty sure people with sub-god-tier level reading abilities, as you say they should have, can function just fine in their day to day.

          • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            No, they can’t. The globe is warming and the human race is on its way to extinction. Humanity is failing as a species.

              • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzEnglish
                0·
                5 months ago

                And furthermore, Captain Planet told us all what to do in the 90s. Abolish the conditions of Capital which allow greedy billionaires to destroy the environment for personal enrichment. We didn’t pay enough attention to realise what we had to do, because we’re media illiterate. It’s not just Captain Planet, there’s thousands of books, movies, songs, and TV shows that tell us what the problems are in society, and we still don’t fix them!

  • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I met a guy like that in the 90’s except he was on a lot of LSD and was making his way around the world. IDK if that was true but my buddy picked him up one night and we had a party with him and he cut his dreads off and burned them so a witch wouldn’t get them. Good times!

  • make -j8@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Following an ignoramus, who can’t read and doesn’t know mountains exist (?) … Yeah, what a content, definitely worth the invention of Internet