Scanning what passes for news this fine Saturday morning, I was seized by a sudden, unwelcome thought. Which, since misery really does love company, I have to share with you:
What if the technology which has been built for us by very smart people is acting to amplify, popularize, and entrench idiocy? What if we are started on a cultural path that will allow public and institutional stupidity to drown out intelligent thought?
Think about it. Before the computer and internet technical revolutions, smart people had plenty of avenues to share their intelligence with each other, to build on that common ground, and advance. Universities, research institutes, scholarly magazines, and symposia were there to allow the meeting of the minds.
Conversely, there weren't as many ways for idiots to unite and encourage each other's dumbness. Sure, there were the social clubs - the Moose, the Shiners, the Kiwanises (Kiwanii?), but there was always the chance their membership would include a smattering of smarties. Most idiots just sat at home and watched sports, or drank a pint down the pub with their happily stupid mates.
But things are different now. We have Facebook. We have blogging (no IQ test needed). We have Tweeting for Twits. The most idiotic among us can instantly and repeatedly share their thoughts, either solo or in combination with dimwitted compatriots. Idiocy can be amplified until it drowns out everything else.
And then we get presidential candidates who think China is just now seeking nuclear weapons (they got them in the 1960's), who believe past indiscretions won't be brought up during campaigns, and who believe that denial of already discovered truth works as a strategy.
Which is too uncomfortably close to that movie I mentioned in opening this post. Dullards, it seems, are everywhere and in all strata of society. Smart people are still out there trying to say their piece, but are increasingly out-shouted by the technologically-amplified stupidity of the idiots.
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