I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about the ridiculous things that people believe. You know, crazy shit like vackseens aren’t killing people, personal pronouns are a good idea and that racist white cops are trying to exterminate black men. I wondered how so many smart people could be convinced to believe such dumb stuff.
He said that the problem isn’t that people have been conditioned to blindly believe something. The problem is that people have been conditioned to be conditioned.
He’s absolutely right.
We used to have smart people. Now we have smart phones.
We have at our fingertips nearly the entire accumulated knowledge of mankind. People know a lot of things, but they understand very little.
And therein lies the problem.
Smart phones are creating ignorant people.
People have been conditioned to believe everything their phones tell them. Well, obviously not everything. Because if that were the case, then the world would be filled with level-headed people considering both sides of any particular argument. They’ve been conditioned to be conditioned to believe certain things their phone tells them.
These people have been trained to believe that “news” sources such as CNN, MSNBC or any other type of Liberal Big Media are to be trusted, while smaller, independent news organizations are only for “right-wing conspiracy theorists”.
So, they only see one side of any argument because they’ve been conditioned to avoid and ignore anything that might cause them to question what they’re being conditioned to believe.
The result is that a large portion of the people in this country have lost the ability to think for themselves. Oh sure, they can spout facts like a geyser but ask them to explain what those facts mean and they draw a blank. They might be able to repeat what someone else says on the topic, but they can’t tell you what they themselves think. Because they don’t.
There’s no depth to their conviction. Because, although they may know things, they don’t understand anything.
Knowledge requires facts, understanding requires knowledge and wisdom requires understanding.
Many people been conditioned to believe that whatever Big Media tells them, or whatever they find on the first page of a Google search result. These people have been trained to accept as gospel whatever their smart phone tells them, and unquestioningly believe it.
There’s only one problem with that. Garbage in, garbage out.
If the “fact” they’re being told by their phones is some Black Lives Matter bullshit, COVID horseshit, or some other Liberal feculent, then whatever knowledge, understanding and wisdom that comes from it is also a load of crap.
