The rise of the machines
In a video clip I saw on Facebook the other day, an American reporter chose some random young people (they appeared to be in their early twenties) and asked them some basic general knowledge questions.
1. Who won the Civil War?
2. From whom did the USA win their Independence?
Only one person knew the answer to the first question. Several said: the Confederacy. Many didn’t know that the Confederacy was the South. Some didn’t even know there was a Civil War. No one got the second question right. I watched the clip, shaking my head in despair. I knew this stuff back when I was in Primary School (Grade School), and I’m an Australian. Admittedly, reading “Gone with the Wind” when I was 11, helped fill in some of the Civil War details.
Then the reporter asked who —- was (Fill in a name. I can’t remember what it was but it sounded a bit like “Snoopy”), Every single person answered, “Jersey Shore” (a reality TV show). They could also name Brad Pitt’s two wives. Obviously, this is the sort of stuff that is essential to know.
It’s an ironic paradox that in this era of technology and the internet, where a world of knowledge is literally at a person’s fingertips, people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. I blame this in part on the media with its constant stream of so-called reality TV shows. I know why they do it: it’s much cheaper to run these things because you don’t have to pay the contestants, like you would if they were proper actors. But, oh my lord, they seem to continually scrape their ideas out of the bottom of the barrel: Married at First Sight; First Dates; Love Island; Dating Naked… I mean, is this really all that people are interested in now? Gossip and sleaze? Do we always have to pander to the lowest common denominator?
We’ve got to get the young off their phones and back into the real world. I’m beginning to think the ancient cultures had a point when they were afraid cameras and other technical gadgets could steal their souls. We’re seeing it happen, right in front of us!
We’ve got to get reading again, folks, and preferably real books; proper books, with grown-up words and an intriguing plot, which instruct, entertain and tantalise. We’ve got to relearn how to communicate with people in a civilized manner, preferably face-to-face. It’s another ironic paradox that the more PC we become, not wanting to offend anyone with anything, the more abusive and dismissive we become in our interactions with others.
We’ve got to put our phones down and play with our kids or pets or both. We’ve got to remember what it really means to be human, before the machines take total control. So, stop reading this and go outside and look for butterflies.
I totally agree. BUT the reality show called “Footy” is on tonight so I have to watch that, so I can make intelligent comments afterwards!! Seriously, it is a good blog, Wendy. xxx
Thanks, Pamela. Nothing wrong with watching some footy. 🙂
Yes ,Wendy i agree with all you say. I remember life in the 1950s before the advent of cars, tvs, and telephones. We read books, played in the streets and walked to school. Life worked without technology.
Ah, the good old days. I suppose this blog is an “old lady’s rant” but so what? I’m not against all technology. I like my television and movies and computer as much as anyone. I appreciate all the technological advances in medicine. I even concede that the mobile phone is handy. I just hate the way the phones seem to be turning the young into zombies.
Who won the Civil War? Easy. It was the Roundheads.
Knowledge is a complex thing. We first gain knowledge of things by encountering them and later by remembering them. My wife taught senior students history. She discovered that some of the students had never heard of Marilyn Monroe or John Wayne. That makes sense because things we remember from the past may not have been present during the students brief lifetime. I was doing a large crossword where there were pictures of people along the top of the page. I did not recognise any of them, but my children did. So when I meet people who don’t know what I know I always ask myself, what do they know that I don’t know.
I discovered our local pharmacist did not know what a galah was. This seemed odd because they were everywhere around the place. We looked outside and I pointed out a bunch of galahs. The pharmacist has a Middle Eastern background although she grew up in Australia. I asked her how she could not know what a galah was. She answered, “I’m not from here”.
We live in a complex world where the here-and-now dominates for any individual. We no longer have any shared body of knowledge we can rely on.
You make some valid points, Ken, and I appreciate everything you’ve said. Of course, none of us knows everything. Hopefully we are all still learning and discovering. However, the American Civil War was such an important part of their history, which determined what sort of place this new country was going to be; in particular, a State that no longer validated slavery. There are all sorts of problems in America, especially in the Southern States, because there are some who still don’t know that the South lost; that black Americans have the same civil rights as whites; that African-Americans no longer have to “know their place”. Ignorance can sometimes be deadly.