There was a piece on "Science Friday" last Friday, suggesting that, as a whole, the human race, particularly "Westerners" are becoming dumber.

That's supported by the size of each generation's vocabulary, which is asymptotically approaching 1, i.e. in another few generations, there will only be one word in common usage, and how it's said will contain all the meaning ... <sigh> ... though our race may be so dumb there won't be much meaning to distribute over those, by then, hundreds of media.

RE