my friend's dad is a professor and he said, that the way how we learn and process things today is going backward.... what does he mean?
and something about how and why we are all stuck in this sink hole together... and only those smart people who seeks power with split intentions can or may only save us.

i asked him what he meant about what he just said... and he said, it's politics....


any thoughts?

Makes sense in some ways.

First thought, it's always politics.
Second, we are all in a sink hole. Those who are smart rise to the top, they can either stand on the dumb people at the bottom, or they can help the dumb people get out of the hole. There are people that are capable of minipulating lesser minds, they can either minipulate them in a way that betters all people or just really benefits the smart people.

I don't know that it's going backwards but it's definitely changing.

Think about it. Today, we have an enormous wealth of information at our fingertips. Because of this we don't have any need to memorize large amounts of information. A better, more practical skill to develop is how to FIND information and how to APPLY it in new ways. Twenty years ago when the internet was in its infancy, it was quite the opposite. People HAD to memorize information in order to be productive in their fields.

we're actually going forward duh, he tricked you

I believe he's stating that we as a specie's have stopped evolving.

Well we still have genetic drift that happens with any population, but we need something to actually select certain traits over others. As it stands, there's nothing to induce a species-wide change.

For example, one thing that could cause our species to evolve is a super virus that kills 99% of the population. The 1% that survives will have a natural immunity to that virus, and whatever change caused that immunity may have caused other changes as well (e.g. stronger immune systems in general). Something else is an end to our current industrial lifestyle. People not physically fit enough to survive in a land where everyone needs to grow or catch their own food will die out, and so humanity will weed out people who are genetically predisposed to obesity and poor physical fitness.

This post was edited by bentherdonethat on Jan 10 2012 11:35am