I think I may be getting stupid. What’s more is that I think this is a pretty common type of stupidity, unfortunately. You see, yesterday, I was getting a pepper ready to cook, and I needed to remove the stem and seeds. At that point, I realized I had what I needed to grow peppers — duhhhhh. I need to read more about how to best grow a pepper seed into a real, live pepper, but I have the essential pieces.
When I was a child — at numerous times — adults taught me about growing plants, photosynthesis, etc. However, that knowledge has become sclerotic and unused. Indeed, apps on my phone market things like food delivery to me. However, I can get what I need to grow food from other food — and no app has ever reminded me of that, though it seems like a pretty big deal!
For all of the ostensible benefits of computer tech, I have never been reminded of what I can already do. Advertisers simply remind me of some newly important deficiency. If you ask me, it’s stupid and extremely short-sighted. Back in the 90s, computers were advertised as general purpose solution machines. Now, ~30 years later, marketers use them to spread worry about new [ersatz] deficiencies. To say this phenomenon deviates from the earlier stated functions is an extreme understatement.
Personally, I don’t see the benefit of deliberately making people stupid. I imagine I understand a potential impetus, but I get the impression that impetus is rooted in amassing an underclass, and I am fundamentally opposed to spreading darkness. My mental model for civilization is “The Sword and the Stone” — the Disney cartoon, which I looked ip on Wikipedia recently and learned that story is about King Arthur, who is a legend — literally. Anyway, I have never seen that cartoon, but in my mind, the compelling notion is that some regular nobody comes along and majorly changes civilization. Right now, technocrats and monied financiers and politicians seem to want to manage the arc of history, but I am unconvinced that would even be desirable for them, never mind for humans writ large. Making people stupid across generations only postpones that which is inevitable. Don’t wven waste time on that, I say.
Anyway, I should stop talking about it and go be about it: gotta learn about growing peppers.