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| Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator! [Cropped], br7tt, 2007 |
in which the stars are fixed, a burning ball of coal revolves around Earth and the Moon only comes out at night as everyone knows, whilst smugly proclaiming that simpletons in the middle ages thought the world was flat. Safe in their own delusions they watch reality television where they indulge in more delusions about their superiority over the trash who appear on screen. There is something seriously wrong in a world that turned Orwell's warning of totalitarianism into a yearly wet t-shirt contest.
It used to be you could laugh at those silly colonials on the other side of the Atlantic, with their god and guns and poor understanding of world geography. But then I noticed stupidity was a universal not tied to a specific state. I can lambaste an American for calling me English or confusing Slovakia and Slovenia, only because I know the difference between Washington state and Washington DC. I have done the research - I have the high ground. I've bothered to read about the latest models of quantum mechanics even though the mathematics is beyond me and I failed Higher Physics. Therefore I took exception when people were talking about the Large Hadron Collider going on-line and possibly creating a blackhole that could destroy us all, because they read it in a column in The Sun written by some celebrity who probably still thinks atoms are indivisible. Indeed, mass ignorance of the LHC's purpose was rammed home earlier this week when I realised I hadn't seen Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe in a while.
The 2009 review provided this gem/turd:
The Large Hadron Collider, it's in Texas or somewhere, where they're trying to create a blackhole in space.I was waiting for the old 'Einstein worked with his relatives' line. At least the peasants of the middle ages had an excuse for their own ignorance. Tied to the land and eking out enough calories to continue breathing, there was neither the time nor money to indulge in education (whether that be the mediaeval universities, the ancient academies, my own ideal - the enlightenment coffeehouse, or just reading the fucking printed word). With eight hours sleep and eight hours work, the modern peasant still has eight hours of leisure. But it seems Huxley was right.
-Peaches Geldof, "Fearne and... Peaches Geldof", ITV2
The thing that makes me want to cry/kill everyone is that there are people out there who think Isaac Newton discovered fire - granted they only asked children, but there are bound to be adults with similar misconceptions. One of the contestants on Big Brother® (Series 2, IIRC) didn't know who Neil Armstrong was. It's an expanding idiocracy with amoeba-like thoughts and amoeba-like interests who have as much right to sentience as amoeba (I procreate, therefore I am). You think Idiocracy was just a crazy comedy? Whilst it may be a gross exaggeration, the fall from intellect has happened before. Arabia was once the foremost intellectual society in the middle ages whilst Europe was still obsessed with turnips. Once the European Renaissance had gorged on the works of Arabian chemists and philosophers, Arabia decayed into a hyper-religious backwater that would make a neoconservative feel at home. You think that's the worst, but primate intelligence was a fluke - evolutionary pressure does not select for intelligence. Even if dysgenics is discredited, nurture will work where nature fails.
This is not to say I know everything - eg., I didn't take biology in school. I'll defer to a biologist, but I am always striving to fill in the blanks. That's the difference, I do not just sit in front of a tv letting adverts and celebritydom wash over me. Fucking magnets, how do they work? I pray for global catastrophe because only some will know how to rebuild.
[701]
That's certainly made me think. It's made me think I dunno if I want a television anymore.
-Charlie Brooker, Screenwipe 2009 Review
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