Time to Cook

My friend Josh Jones has recently written something similar to this. I don't want to detract from his point, but rather support something along the lines of the point he is making:

We have a problem. Even as I am typing this up, I am guilty of participating in that problem. Here it is: we overvalue our entertainment. We are far too invested in giving ourselves thrills. I started on this topic a few years ago. Here's the anecdote in a nutshell:

Me and a friend at my previous job were quoting lines from Caddyshack for yuks one day in the break room. He said, "Comedy is what makes the world go round." I responded, "No, comedy is what makes us forget that the world goes round."

He has since told me that he still quotes that line to people. Again, in the novel I've been working on (which, as a working title is now called "Outhouse Rat"), the main character, like me, was enrolled in an accelerated learning program as an elementary school student. He was branded a nerd and subsequently outcast.

It is more socially acceptable, the story goes, to be LD than LA.

Our problem is that we are so invested in our sources of entertainment, and so underinvested in the sorts of enquiry that we need to be taking much more seriously, that we are running an enormous risk.

Think about how much the sum of all the salaries of Major League Baseball players for one season is. It is absurd. Now consider a recent PEW Poll that found, among other things, that less than 25% (of American respondents) know who the Prime Minister of the UK is.

You often hear about people who work on alternative fuel sources for automobiles. The catch, they say, isn't getting the cars to work, but on having the infrastructure to make it economically viable to sell them. Well, all right, then why aren't we building the infrastructure that we desperately need?

People are far too invested in watching talking kittens on YouTube, is the answer.

We aren't just "dumbing down", we are cramming our lives with willful apathy. Furthermore, because we can't be bothered to invest ourselves in knowing more or thinking more, we are basing our vital decisions on less evidence and worse arguments. We are grounding ourselves in our emotional responses to things, rather than on rational argument or evidence. This means that we are more inclined to accept materially false claims, and more inclined to base our decisions on misinformation. When we base our decisions on misinformation we are more likely to make mistakes. And, obviously the bigger the decision, the more deadly the mistake can be.

Now, this is why: emotions are much more exciting than rational arguments. This is why this is a problem that is nearly impossible to resolve. Its only possibility of resolution has to come from decisions of individuals who decide to think more seriously about the information and claims that are given to them. Which means giving up some Facebook and Twitter time (which I evidently can't do) in favor of digging into the facts and considering what we are being told. But it's worth sacrificing a bit of wasted internet time to do this.

We have bigger fish to fry, and, to continue the metaphor, if we don't start cooking, we're going to be cooked.