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In reply to the discussion: We live in a society exquisitely dependent ... [View all]ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)Was he suggesting something ominous by that? Or was he just being a bit glib, introducing irony where there really isn't any simply because not everyone has the facility for or love of knowing things like he does?
I'll do you one better. It isn't that we don't know how our world works that's the problem with this country, it's the deification of inexperience and contempt for education that I will agree that is a problem. It's not that people don't know, it's that they think there is something WRONG with knowing. We glorify ignorance in this country. And that is a problem begging a solution.
But the fact that people don't know the ins and outs of how their iPhones work does not represent any road to subjugation, although the people who OWN the iPhone might be guilty of a little elitism from what I've seen.
The nice thing about science and technology is that it isn't elitist, facts are facts, and if you have the talent you can contribute. If you don't, you can't. If that's an elitist point of view, well so be it, but I doubt even Carl Sagan would like to have to give a paper submitted by some backyard stargazer with a pair of binoculars theorizing that dark matter is made of old socks the same weight as one of his much more learned peers. I mean, I get the point he's trying to make ("want to know things, people, really, it's pretty cool" , but I really didn't read much ominous into that. Many did. YMMV and all that.