The Dumbing Down of Humanity

Apparently, people will sink to the lowest level available to them. They will not strive to be better, only sufficient. They do not wonder about the world around them, and only expect the world to fit into their way of thinking. As creatures of habit, they always expect things to remain the same and are shocked when they do not. Sometimes they seem to glory in their ignorance, and feel threatened by and are hostile to, anything scientific, even though it is that very scientific understanding that has allowed them to survive and flourish in today's society.

I come from a challenging world, where building things that did not previously exist, was an exciting way to look at the world, where thinking was not something to be embarrassed about.

Looking at the "users" in the current world order, they can use their little black boxes (iphones, ipods, ipads, laptops, etc.) and all their simplified software or Apps and have absolutely no concept of how these things work, what these are actually doing, and how these things are performing their functions. The understanding of the majority of people becomes whether these things are "good" or "bad" for what they want to use them for. I understand that these things have become higher level tools, but when the underpinning of functional understanding evaporates for the bulk of humanity, how long will it be until a crisis arises and we are plunged into another Dark Ages, with most of our former knowledge lost.

I once had a boss who was so proud of his expensive piece of automated equipment, he said, "even a monkey could run this." Well, maybe he was right, but should that be the goal of our societies, to produce people with mentalities no greater than a monkey (not to insult monkeys). If we do not challenge people, one psychological study showed, they will not strive to be better. They will be no better than what people expect them to be. Advertisers always target people as if they have a forth grade mentality, and it seems to work for them. Is that what we all will become?