The Most Advanced Stupid People

I was driving to work one day when I realized my cell phone wasn’t accessible to me.  It was behind my seat buried underneath purse stuff.  Two things happened, anxiety and relief.  Anxious because heaven forbid what if I can’t be reached, and relieved because in point of fact, I don’t want to be reached.  Pretty much ever. But by then my mind had engaged and I began to wonder about what all this immediate access has done for us.  How has the ability to find answers at the speed of your processor impacted us as a culture?  My nanny can now reach me anywhere at anytime, that, as I see it, is a good thing, but so can everyone else, which is not a good thing.  Trivial Pursuit, a great game,  is now obsolete because no one needs to remember trivia.  They’ve got the internet, literally at their finger tips.  Quick test, see how long it takes you to find out what the most expensive sport in the world is.  It took me a little under a minute.  And yet, 15 years ago it took my mother and her team-mate 10 minutes of conferring back and forth to come up with the right answer.  Skill and risk in games are  made null and void by search engine optimization.  But more than that, we as a society have willed it so.  We no longer accept that there is one chance to get something right, no, there are numerous chances, multiple choices, audience help, a lifeline, ESP, and the Bene Gesserit.  All of which serve to give you the contestant, every opportunity to demonstrate you’re an idiot.  Where did we get so off base that games shows are no longer competition, Jeopardy excluded, but a social gathering where everyone is a winner, even the loser?  There is no shame.    But what is disturbing to me is what appears to be the indirect relationship between advances in technology and the collective IQ.  We are more advanced than we’ve ever been in the history of people, and yet, we are more stupid as a whole, with the exception of a select few of me.  This gets into the whole question of does instant gratification ruin the soul?  I argue that man, by his very nature and Design, was never meant to, and should never instantly gratify anything.  Mainly because once he does, his will is fractured and it becomes that much harder to exercise discipline the next time around.  Just look at the astounding rate of obesity in this country. Yes, I know, it’s glandular.

I’m leaving you with this extremely appropriate and funny clip from CK Louis. (click the link Youtube gives you, it should work)