> But what you have to realize is, that 100 years ago most people couldn't even read or write.

You mean, globally? In the industrialised nations, people were quite literate in 1909. Especially in the USA with all the emphasis on bible reading.

The Internet used to be mostly filled with intellectuals and I thought people here were much smarter than the general population I encountered. Today the net is a cesspool.

That's an awfully broad statement, don't you think? The Internet used to be an area with a higher-than-normal density of intellectuals, and now you can only say that about some parts of the Internet. But please don't lump it all together as if there was some sort of equivalence between (say) Hacker News and 4chan and Christian Youth Forums and YouTube and the Energy from Thorium forum.

If the net is a cesspool, then so is the entire world.

Sure, but those bright stars like hacker news eventually burn out too. Hopefully it doesn't happen too quickly.

Oh hey, I didn't even know about the Energy from Thorium blog; there's a forum too? Is it good or bad?