Neil Degrasse Tyson is one of my favorite scientists mainly due to his way of explaining things.
For Science!
- Thread starter Printimus
- Start date
I agree with the concerns in the video. The culture we have developed here in the states is nothing short of frightening. It is so incredibly ignorant and just keeps getting worse. You can't really single out any specific cause either. There are so many bad decisions and social fallacies that contribute to the situation that it feels like we are surrounded by dysfunction. Every system that you look at is fundamentally broken at it's core and there is no solution in sight. Its not about to change either because nobody will even admit that it is broken, let alone begin to find a cure.
Schools: the education system is laughable at best. Kids get a chance to correct wrong answers on tests. When the fuck did that start?! The quality of education has been lowered to the lowest denominator and when they say "no kid left behind", it means that every kid is held back to the level of the least educated child. Then, because they want every kid to feel successful, they lower the requirements so that every child passes whether they try or not. We are graduating uneducated morons by the thousand every year.
This leads to people thinking that truth is inherently applied to any thought or belief they have, as long as it makes sense to them. If you don't understand something, it must not exist. We create safe spaces, campaign against opposing opinions, and kill any words that might possibly offend someone. Heaven forbid that we tell someone that they're stupid and their ideas are dumb, even if they are actually an idiot. That might make them feel bad about their self image and trigger their insecurities if you call them mentally handicapped for legitimately believing the FICKING WORLD IS FLAT...
People are so unbelievably confident in their ignorance. If they can't understand it, it doesn't exist. If their uneducated mind vomits some theory about how every scientist in history is wrong, they will defend that belief to their dying breath. It's the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" and it has run rampant across America. Science can't progress if basic education is abandoned. Progression will come to a complete stop if we continue to allow people to think that truth and belief are interchangeable. If we continue to empower stupidity, it won't be long before we go back to living in caves and rubbing two sticks together for fire.
Schools: the education system is laughable at best. Kids get a chance to correct wrong answers on tests. When the fuck did that start?! The quality of education has been lowered to the lowest denominator and when they say "no kid left behind", it means that every kid is held back to the level of the least educated child. Then, because they want every kid to feel successful, they lower the requirements so that every child passes whether they try or not. We are graduating uneducated morons by the thousand every year.
This leads to people thinking that truth is inherently applied to any thought or belief they have, as long as it makes sense to them. If you don't understand something, it must not exist. We create safe spaces, campaign against opposing opinions, and kill any words that might possibly offend someone. Heaven forbid that we tell someone that they're stupid and their ideas are dumb, even if they are actually an idiot. That might make them feel bad about their self image and trigger their insecurities if you call them mentally handicapped for legitimately believing the FICKING WORLD IS FLAT...
People are so unbelievably confident in their ignorance. If they can't understand it, it doesn't exist. If their uneducated mind vomits some theory about how every scientist in history is wrong, they will defend that belief to their dying breath. It's the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" and it has run rampant across America. Science can't progress if basic education is abandoned. Progression will come to a complete stop if we continue to allow people to think that truth and belief are interchangeable. If we continue to empower stupidity, it won't be long before we go back to living in caves and rubbing two sticks together for fire.
So like, you got a lot on your mind regarding this topic?
I just miss the days where education was supposed to spark curiosity and allow students to yearn for answers regarding these questions that curiosity aroused. Currently, the college I am attending does just that, arouses my curiousity in certain areas of knowledge. It's absolutely delightful.
Lol, maaaybe...So like, you got a lot on your mind regarding this topic?
The other day, I had a coworker complain that their office was cold and had been for several days. They couldn't believe the company was so cheap that they were cutting costs by not heating the place all the way. So I walked over to the wall in their office, two feet from where they sat, and turned the thermostat up.... Somehow they had gotten into their late 20's without ever knowing what a thermostat was or what it did.
I fear for the future of the human race...
came expcting racy internet memes
found Neil deGrasse Tyson
I am disappoint
found Neil deGrasse Tyson
I am disappoint
i mean, to be fair, a lot of offices and work places have an automated thermostat which is not usually accessible to the worker bees.
how can you possibly be dissappointed by Neil Degrasse Tyson?!
Radegast74
Space Marshal
I think Mark Twain said something like, "Don't let schooling interfere with your education..."So like, you got a lot on your mind regarding this topic?
I just miss the days where education was supposed to spark curiosity and allow students to yearn for answers regarding these questions that curiosity aroused. Currently, the college I am attending does just that, arouses my curiousity in certain areas of knowledge. It's absolutely delightful.
My impression was that making young children (especially boys) sit all day in an assigned seat in a classroom all day long was just early training in being a plebeian in a society where they were supposed to not think and just do what they were told...just like (insert your favorite dystopian sci-fi flick here).
DarthMatter
Space Marshal
Playing the devils advocate here...
My apartment doesn't have a thermostat and it's up to a central system how warm my radiators should be.
There is a chance that I wouldn't think about changing a thermostat due to not having to deal with one for a long time.
Doesn't mean that I don't know how to use one or what it does. Just that I might not think of that solution as quick as someone who routinely has to deal with one.
Radegast74
Space Marshal
DarthMatter
Space Marshal
Maybe not the book burning or fire-brigades starting fires.
But a lot of other things are.
The reason the fire-brigades burned houses was because everything but books in a house was flame-proof.
Everything IKEA makes nowadays is using materials that are self-putting-out if lit on fire.
Personalized TV/media was another point which can be said to be (or at least becoming) true.
In the book TV news had a pause in which computers added lip-movement and sound to the news anchors program to make it seem like it was directed at you personally.
We might not be there yet, but with social media you can personalize your media consumption to create a similar pseudo-personal bond.
And with the technology of machine-learning shown through Deep-Fakes and the likes, it's only a matter of time and cost before we can have the live news consumed as described in the book.
It's interesting times.
DarthMatter
Space Marshal
Radegast74
Space Marshal
Want me to link videos of book burnings?
Besides that, I just remember the main character (Guy) going to his house, and his wife is watching the full screen TV, and participating in the interactive program, pretty much anesthetized to what was going in in the world and ignoring him. And the main charactery, Guy, has problems because he is thinking and doesn't swallow what they are all being told.
Did a quick look at Wikipedia:
"Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. In later years, he described the book as a commentary on how mass media reduces interest in reading literature.[7]"
Looking at that article (which I can remember reading years ago!),
"Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature."
Another great quote:
"HE SAYS THE CULPRIT in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate. In the book, Bradbury refers to televisions as “walls” and its actors as “family,” a truth evident to anyone who has heard a recap of network shows in which a fan refers to the characters by first name, as if they were relatives or friends."
And:
"Bradbury imagined a democratic society whose diverse population turns against books: Whites reject Uncle Tom’s Cabin and blacks disapprove of Little Black Sambo. He imagined not just political correctness, but a society so diverse that all groups were “minorities.” He wrote that at first they condensed the books, stripping out more and more offending passages until ultimately all that remained were footnotes, which hardly anyone read. Only after people stopped reading did the state employ firemen to burn books."
See full article at:
https://www.laweekly.com/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted-2149125
DarthMatter
Space Marshal
That was my attempt to formulate my own experiences and others I have seen on Youtube.
I feel like I have a sort of personal bond to a lot of entertainers that I follow on Youtube, because I have seen countless hours of them in god knows how many situations.
I've seen people go through divorces, alcoholism, depression, moving to different countries, from just starting to date all the way to having kids and happily married. And that's just a single channel!
I am fully aware that this so far is very similar to following the lives of any celebrity, but there is not the "filter" that comes from a gossip magazine journalist.
But having that level of familiarity with someone makes a difference if they are telling you news stories.
Add to this the level of which you can customize what news you see, you can personalize the news you consume.
Not to the level in the books, but it's to a level that I think it can create interesting effects.