Mitt der Dummheit Kaempfen Goetter Selbst vegebens, Schiller noted - With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain. The conversation last night turned as it so often does these days among my friends and associates to what seems the exponential growth of stupidity in the human race. Daily now, we hear examples of this, statements made by persons supposedly among the nations intelligentsia, statements nevertheless so incredibly ignorant, so illogical and unscientific as to be utterly vapid. This morning an example on Morning Joe, an economist discussing minimum wage and related law as though employers do no exist in the same economy as those who seek jobs. NO mathematician - not even an economist - would compute or reason otherwise on the basis this dummy did. Even in a world where money grew on trees what he said would be nonsense. Still, there is was - on nationwide television and signed as it were with a PhD. Jesus! And it goes on and on. The next conversation might have to do with global warming; and damned if it didnt. A new book, The Sixth Extinction. speaks of it all, and suggests to me that Ive been right all along about another matter, one I first began to consider while still in high school.: what does the mathematical law of exponents mean concerning human beings and their effect on the planet. After all these years, its a matter now uppermost in my mind. Together with the monumental, exponentially growing, stupidity of the human race, that is. One like me can only wonder what others think about, how they spend their time mentally, and how they manage to remain lifelong so oblivious to the real world and the reality in which they live. In that regard, I also wonder how it is that they have become so hating of anything that smacks of intellect or the intellectual. Its everywhere evident these days that its not a popular thing to be the Spock on the starship that is discourse - especially discourse as politicized and ideologically opinionated as it is - of today. The statistically demonstrable fact is that most people choose to discuss everything I consider trivia, preferring to avoid anything that smacks of forensics, evidence, proof, and certainty. Their illusions are tantamount to sacrosanct with them, and they hate the iconoclast, the skeptic concerning their pet creeds and mythology; they especially hate anyone who thinks and questions, and they avoid him. A visit to any discussion forum on the Internet, especially an experimental one scientifically seeking evidence, will confirm that incontrovertible fact (and - a microcosm of the nations discourse - the forum website managers invariably encourage the rude, vituperative, and vicious participation their rules forbid). We are - and there is absolutely no doubt - destined for a apocalyptic catastrophe like The Sixth Extinction, and the certainty of that is exacerbated even more by another - that of the intellect for which man named his species. Thinking Man DOESNT any more. theguardian/books/2014/feb/14/sixth-extinction-unnatural-history-kolbert-review
Posted on: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 14:28:45 +0000
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