Posted on 03/25/2014 6:57:48 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
So how could we for days lose track of a 250-ton Malaysian jetliner that recently disappeared from radar screens as if it were some lost clipper ship of the 1840s?
The answer is easy: The oceans are still big and the night remains dark. Jets, in comparison, are quite small. The seas are rough, the skies often stormy.
For all our computerized sophistication, we really can lose a jet in a big and still wild world inhabited by millions who have not quite mastered technology, or who use technology to thwart technology.
The problem is not just that high technology is human-produced, and thus often crashes in the same way imperfect humans often fail. Sophisticated electronics also often disguise the brutal pre-modern world with a thin veneer of postmodern egotism.
Just because we post on Facebook, sell stuff on Craigslist or charge things on a Target card does not ensure that old-fashion Boston Stranglers or contemporary Bernie Madoffs are not lurking in the cyberspace alleyway to harm us.
The ancient Greek poet Hesiod reminded us roughly 2,700 years ago that sometimes intellectual or material progress brings with it moral regress.
Our billionaire Lords of High Tech are not necessarily any different than entrepreneurs such as Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller or Leland Stanford of the late 19th century Gilded Age. A fortune made in social networking is hardly any more noble than one made from monopolizing the railroad business, gobbling up steel companies or setting up tax-avoiding trusts.
Billionaire tech wizard Steve Jobs gave away less of his fortune than did Andrew Carnegie. Google offshores profits with accounting gimmickry that would have made J.P. Morgan proud.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Most assuredly. Even with the world at the fingertips of the low information voter, look at who they elect.
Duh.
Having a better tractor won’t make you a better farmer, either. Just faster on the row.
From what I’ve seen, Technology simply fills in the down times that people once used to learn a hobby or practice an instrument.
Billionaire tech wizard Steve Jobs gave away less of his fortune than did Andrew Carnegie.
Gee, it was HIS money. HIS decision IMO. He gave away a lot in taxes btw.
i love this, and i concur!
no kidding that "Having Better Technology Does Not Make Us Smarter!" our Founding Fathers were of the most brilliant thinkers... many of them were well-read in the classics, and some of them well-versed in the classical languages... even the least educated of them were more educated than most of our college graduates today...
as a homeschool mom who also works away from home, this is what i want for my sons... today when i get home from work, i will be reading The Aeneid with my boys, giving them a test in Latin... mathematics with my younger son... and then i will be reading Cicero's The Republic and The Laws and Virgil's The Divine Comedy with my older son, who does Advance Mathematics and Material Logic on his own/online...
tomorrow i will do vocabulary and history with my younger son, along with Latin and The Aeneid with both...
Do you know your spouse’s or best friend’s cell number without looking it up?
Remember that in ancient Greece when more and more things were beginning to be written down instead of memorize, there were philosophers who feared that men would lose the ability to reason and debate well because they no longer trained their minds with memorization. After all, what was the point if it was all written down and they could reference it?
And even still, if they did write it down, no punctuation or spaces were used. Language devices, pauses, phrasing, were meant to be discovered by the reader, not spoon-fed to them with word spaces, commas, periods, capitals and the like. Such devices, when they were gradually added, were considered by some to be an unnecessary crutch whose use would cripple youths’ minds.
So you see, it’s actually quite natural that I shouldn’t be able to recall but a handful of phone numbers today (even though I still remember my own and my best friend’s phone numbers from the mid-80’s). Yes, my children’s minds will not work as well as mine in some ways, and will not work the same in many ways, but that is how progress works. It changes us as we invent it. Some of those changes are for the better (we all have the ability to be far more informed on politics worldwide than ever before, and we were able to crowdsource the search of satellite images for the Malasian jet), and some are harmful (increase in anti-social behavior, adhd, unable to memorize phone numbers, and loss of focus for studying long, difficult texts such as the Aenid). And there will always be philosophers who will bemoan the latter.
Reminds me of some post I've seen here over the years.
..but I get your point.
The only constant in life is change.
Well technology fails more often than we would like, but in this case Professors Ping and Doppler rose to the occasion.
I read last night that Detroit spends $32 to process a $30 parking ticket. Make sure you teach your boys how to analyze costs. That knowledge comes in handy when the budget is on the table.
they have life skills... and will attain more...
btw--they know how to cook, have doing their own laundry since they were six years old, know how to pitch a tent, build a fire, launch, drive and dock a boat... my older son knows how to do electrical work, they play piano, guitar, recite poetry...
their daddy and i both employ "teachable moments" on any situation or topic that presents iteselt... in fact, their daddy, who is highly intelligent and of the science-minded sort, is going to give them hands-on learning of the car engine...
ping to post 10...
Sounds like they are being raised by loving parents.
my theory
Smart phones drop IQ by 10 points.
I do both!!
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