They watched the exchange on Facebook and asked “is he just a jerk or is he stupid”
“He really is that dumb, always has been. It is why he refused to answer the question. Take him out of his comfort zone and he can’t do much. Heck, even within his area of expertise he is quite limited.
It is why the other guys wrote me and said to leave him alone because he can’t handle it.”
We went back and forth a few more times and I laughed.
“Been a hell of a day, if not a hell of a few weeks. I am surprised I picked up the phone when you called.”
We spent another five minutes catching up on life and confirming the families were ok and hung up.
It is a question a bunch of folks have asked and every time I have answered “no.”
I am solid on my position that people are no smarter or dumber than before. I think our intelligence and capacity to learn has probably been stable for 10,000 years.
That is an arbitrary number not based upon research.
Anyhoo, I think the question is are we willing to learn?
Are we willing to come out of our echo chambers and silos to try and get some education and to that I say, “not so much.”
Might be the time. Might be because we’re in a period of tribalism and nationalism or it might be something else.
Whatever the reason for the refusal I think the frustration lies in the unwillingness to take advantage of a time when access to information and education is greater than ever before.
We, the collective We, can interface and learn from the finest minds out there. We have access to real experts but instead of using them far too many settle for Joe Dirt’s 30 minute YouTube video or 500 word Facebook post.
Neither of which is populated by information from scholarly articles that have been peer reviewed and vetted.
Instead they’re “my brother had a bad experience once which proves that XYZ always happens.”
That is not useful and as Einstein says, Information is not knowledge.
My big issue right now is too many people mistake information for knowledge and too many fail to use fact to support their positions.
Too many will tell you they don’t trust the media because they think it is fake or opinion based and follow up with their own fake or opinion based take.
It is an issue.
Somethings don’t change just because you like or dislike it.
Gravity isn’t going away because you don’t trust science.
Covid19 isn’t any less serious because some people don’t die from it or suffer serious consequences from catching it.
One of the saddest realities to me of the current time is the number of people who would rather put other lives at risk than inconvenience themselves.
If two of the Skittles in that bag of 100 will kill you the smart person avoids eating the bag or giving it to others.
But today people give you the bag and if you die, well they don’t care because things happen and you were going to die anyway.
It is true you are going to die because we all will but there is no reason why we ought to just be so blase about you dying sooner than you would have.
Maybe you would have had an hour or maybe you would have had 500,000 hours which roughly translates to about 50 years.
Seems awfully selfish to not care about such things.
