“This photographic thing has changed the entire vision of the world. It will go through every activity of humanity — science, medicine, space, ESP, for peace, against peace, entertainment, television, movies, all of them — you will not find one without photography.” -Lisette Model
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Clickbait lists are especially good at spreading pseudo-science and fear mongering. Lists such as “10 Foods You Shouldn’t Eat” and “5 Big Companies You Can’t Trust” do more harm than good, destroying any trust we have in our fellow man. Personally, I tend to defer a number of issues to those smarter than me; a lot smarter than me. I’m not talking about the “four out of five” ratio, but more like 99 of 100, and only the really intelligent thinkers among those. They tend to be unanimous on a number of issues the rest of us still waste time arguing about. Here are a few such examples.
Humans Cause Climate Change
For the smartest people in the world, this is a no-brainer. They stopped arguing about it 40 years ago and have been focusing their attention where it belongs: finding a solution. Is this a convenient fact? No. Does a solution likely involve a dramatic shift in the way some industries do business? Yes. Is there any reason is should be limited by political belly-aching? No. The argument has been over a long time. Move forward.
You’re Only As Good As The People Around You
Smart people surround themselves with smart people and make every effort to bring those people up to their level. Very little is achieved working alone and doing great things that change the world requires everyone on the team be at the top of their game. Really smart people know that and manage their teams by teaching them and encouraging to learn more and develop their skills. Is there any reason we all shouldn’t take that approach? No, there isn’t.
Don’t Just Focus On One Thing
Just as you were likely taught to not put all your eggs in one basket, focusing on only one thing at a time is rarely a good idea, either. Really smart people know that our brains are designed to multi-task and need stimulus from a number of different directions in order to operate most efficiently. Science and music work remarkably well, for example, as do business and sports. Even within a general industry, focusing on multiple projects, having more than one ball in the air, keeps our minds more alert and creative.
Evolution Happens
The smartest people in the world just assume the rest of us know this and laugh and scoff when encountering someone who’s not on board. They understand the amount of evidence accumulated at this point is too high for there to be any alternative. They’ve known this for well over a hundred years now. That anyone is still arguing the point is rather like saying one would rather believe in magic than science. Governments that promote magic rather than real education are ultimately enslaving their people.[/one_half]
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Artificial Intelligence Is Scary
Really smart people do have fears and the one that bothers the smartest, from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, is Artificial Intelligence (AI). We’re talking about something much more advanced than your smart phone, though. What bothers them is giving a device the ability to make changes and adjustments based upon its input without direct human interference. While it’s nice to have devices doing the thinking for us, eventually they figure out they don’t need us. We need to proceed carefully.
Vaccinations Are Important
Want to entice a really smart person to smack you? Tell them you don’t believe in vaccinations. Really smart people know that vaccinations save lives. How many lives we can’t know because the people who were vaccinated never became ill in the first place! What we do know is that in parts of the world where vaccinations don’t happen disease is far more rampant and much more difficult to control. The whole anti-vaccination movement is based on something proven to be a lie. Get your immunizations now.
Most GMOs Are Safe … And Necessary
Again, pseudo-science and outright lies spread across the Internet have done a great disservice is causing us to distrust our food sources. Don’t like Genetically Modified Organisms? Put down that strawberry; they wouldn’t exist without genetic modification. Stop eating asparagus; its current form is almost unrecognizable from the little annoying weed it once was. Same is true for a number of foods one now laughably sees marketed as organic. Really smart people know that to feed the seven billion plus people in the world, we need food that can adapt to being grown in a variety of climates and soils. Without GMOs, we’re all going to starve.
Just Because It Hasn’t Been Proven Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t True
Really smart people understand there are some things we will never know (because we can’t go back in time) and some things we don’t yet have the ability to know. They’re okay with that because the preponderance of evidence points to a single solution. Really smart people are also okay with Truth not being an absolute. Truth once said that the universe revolved around the Earth. As our ability to understand and observe the universe changed, so did Truth. This is why they use the word theory; it is the Truth as we are able to understand it at this moment.
Really smart people agree on a lot of things. Maybe we should listen.[/one_half_last]
5 Reasons We Can’t Have Nice Things
The Worry of Bills (2010)
“If I were to teach, I wouldn’t teach a course in photography. I’d teach a course called ‘What Matters.'” -Ralph Steiner
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I used to watch the animated television show, The Jetson’s when I was a kid. Set somewhere in this century, they lived in condos balancing in the sky on giant pedestals, wore unitards with unexplained but uncomfortable looking collars and cuffs, had robot maids, and most importantly, cars that flew. We were supposed to have flying cars by now!
While the practicality of many of the predictions launched in the cartoon are far-fetched, one can scarcely deny that we are not as far along the developmental scale as possible. Had we realized a bit more of our potential, it’s quite likely that we would be off fossil fuels, have more efficient means of transportation, and perhaps even solved problems that put our natural resources in danger. So, what happened?
I don’t have all the answers, but here are a few reasons we don’t have nice things.
Jailing The Wrong People
We have developed a bad habit over the years of jailing people for little things and letting those who commit more egregious crimes walk away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. A failed war on drugs has saddled way too many young men, especially young black men, with criminal records from which they can’t escape, making education and employment difficult. Meanwhile, the bankers, brokers, and politicians responsible for the 2008 recession received … nothing. The institutions for which they worked received fines, but none of the individuals were held responsible. Even worse, politicians pushed us into a totally unnecessary war, committed acts in gross violation of the Geneva Convention, were responsible for the deaths of thousands, and yet are allowed to continue living lives of luxury as though nothing happened. If we are going to move forward as a society we need to fix this issue promptly and find ways to keep young, non-violent offenders out of jail.
Religion
Every time society begins to take a step forward, such as with birth control to help stop over population, or gay marriage so those who love can legally be with those they love, or allowing women to make their own decisions and run their own lives and dress how they please, there is always one religion or another claiming that such a move defies their mythology and therefore, no one should be able to progress. While one has the right to believe whatever they wish to believe, they do not have the right to impose that belief system upon anyone else or use that belief system to prevent others, or society as a whole from progressing. Religion is great at bringing comfort and peace to people who can’t find it elsewhere. Society seeks out religion when there is none. However, that is not to say that religion should be allowed to dominate society or determine its progressive direction. There is no place for religious authority outside the religion itself.[/one_half]
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We’re Rude
How we treat other people is a significant factor in how society progresses and we seem to be doing a great job of blocking ourselves simply in the way we treat others. Not only are we, as a society, still dealing with issues such as homophobia, racism, bigotry, and class warfare, we can’t even drive to work without being disrespectful and rude to each other. We fight for the best parking space at the gym. We bully people for dressing different or having body shapes we don’t find attractive. We make fun of people behind their backs and there’s no way we’re letting that co-worker get that promotion. A progressive society has to figure out how to be supportive, considerate, and caring of each other. Otherwise, we’re dooming ourselves.
Big Everything
We know monopolies are bad. We know oligarchies are oppressive. Yet, we’ve not done anything to stop either. Big banking. Big pharma. Big tobacco. Big media. Big Internet. Big Oil. By allowing certain industries to become, “too big to fail,” we’ve put them, rather than us, in the position of deciding when, where, and how society progresses. If they don’t like an invention, they squash it. If they do like it, they try to buy it and control it for themselves. There is no “trickle down” to the economics here. What big industry captures, it keeps. Forever. If we are to move forward, we must do more to prevent progressive development and innovation from being squashed and swallowed before it gets off the ground and break up the monopolies and oppressive industries that hold us back.
Politicians
I’m still not sure how we’ve gotten here, but politicians and governments, especially at the state level, have done more to hold back progressive development and social change than anything or anyone else. They’re purposefully and maliciously imposing themselves over things in which they have absolutely no business being; things such as who can marry whom, restrictive business regulation, and even who can or cannot be consulted on important matters. Scientists have been banned from discussions on the climate and space. Experts are not allowed to be consulted on matters ranging from education to public transportation. We could easily be light years ahead of where we are if the politicians of the world would simply get out of the way!
We could and should be much further progressed as a society than we are. Yet, much like a parent disciplining a child, the universe will not let us have the nice things such as flying cars until we learn to be more responsible. We control our destiny, and we can blow it.
Don’t blow it.[/one_half_last]
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