Soapbox moment? - the road we're headed down.

As with my last post, I want to talk about an article i read recently.  This article discussed the case of a professor being the victim of "content without context" where he was videoed saying some very one sided things, without being shown the entire conversation

My mind went for some reason to this video from 2007:

This shortened version of the incident doesn't show the part where he refuses to give up the mike and becomes difficult to deal with.  We're approaching at a break neck speed a decision as a society.  We can either welcome this infusion of technology, or we can use it to further the paranoid "Everyone's out to get me" mentality so many people have.

Or we can stand up and face the issue head on.

The world can be a scary place.  Sometimes facts get messed up and people get it wrong.  So here are some facts.

Fact 1.
These exist

bulletproof backpacks.  My heart goes out to everyone who's been affected by the high amount of school based shootings and I can't imagine how it must feel.  However, this is going too far.  Sending your son or daughter to school with this instantly puts them on guard.  Sure, maybe you want them to be, but instead of investing $300+ on this backpack, why not teach your kids how to make friends and to keep an eye on those who need help?

Do we really want this kind of teacher?

Fact 2.

Schools are ramping up their preparedness.  I recently had a conversation with my aunt (Who is an elementary school teacher) she was telling me all about how they were basically giving the teachers S.W.A.T. training and subjecting them all Columbine shooting re-enactments.  

With schools stepping it up to be ready in the case something bad happens.  How can we let ourselves be blinded by only getting half the picture?  Cases like the one in the original article show that in order to understand something for what it really is you have to know exactly what's going on.  Everyone mentions how so many of the people in these shootings are mentally I'll however, i don't hear about any new legislation designed to look at this issue.  Instead we are all subjected to the dead horse that is gun control.

Fact 3.

This article here honestly shocked me, so instead of talking about it too much, I recommend you read it.  Or at least skip down the list towards the bottom.

We can't allow ourselves to get blinded by the sensational comments and actions of those are trying to make us feel scared.  the initial article brings up an issue that I think is an underlying cause of a lot of the issues we face today and will continue to face tomorrow.  If we can't take it upon ourselves to get the full picture, we're going to be blind sided by something so terrible we can't recover from it.  It's a problem we can't ignore,  things are only going to get worse, we need as close to perfect information as we can get so that we can figure out how to act.  hiding behind a bulletproof backpack isn't going to do us much good if we can't identify and combat the true cause.

'

Stepping off my soapbox now,

Cam.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

  I recently read This article which questions whether or not Google is hindering our minds as a society.  I have to respond by saying that this is just simply wrong.  different sure, but not in a bad way.

Back in the days of Socrates and Plato, when Humanity began to transition from an oral culture a written one the argument was held. "Writing will ruin man, because humans will no longer have to memorize anything." He was right, no longer do people memorize anything lengthy.  However, instead writing things down allowed us to look at longer strings of information objectively.

 Imagine having to remember all of this and still be able to work it out!

I actually heard this debate being discussed on NPR recently.  It was very interesting to hear both sides.  There was even a special guest who's family lives like it's the 1980's without internet or cell phones.  Blair McMillan spoke about having a closer connection with his family and enjoying the time they spend together more.  However, Blair also speaks at length about being disconnected from his extended family and friends when it comes to current events that he may find online.  

Back to the initial question though, is the internet making us stupid?  I have to say that it's highly unlikely, The article talks about readers skimming literature instead of reading the whole thing word for word.  While this may seem an unfortunate turn of events, i have to argue that i got the main idea of the article by skimming it.  In order to test this, I read it on paper and read it all after i had skimmed it online.

I skimmed it in about 5 or 7 minutes.  when i took the time to focus on reading it word for word it took me about 12-15 minutes.  while i had missed some key elements, I did have the main idea down.  and After the temptation of surfing the internet for stuff i found myself here  watching this:

I was able to watch the entire video (Something I found much easier to do than the sit down to read the whole article) and was able to spend that time learning many facts about different times in human history.  Instead of spending 15 minutes focused on one piece of writing where i had enough of the information from skimming it in 5.  I was able to skim the idea from the article in 5 then spend 10 minutes watching and learning other facts.  

However! because there were so many other videos on the channel covering so many different topics.  I lost myself in them and spend hours learning facts and seeing things I would have never seen without the internet.  That being said, in order to be completely honest I must say, I worked on this post while i was watching them and remember much more of the article off the top of my head than I do of the facts and opinions expressed on Vsauce.  

The debate regarding the effects the internet has on the human mind are still a long way away.  In the mean time, having access to resources like Vsauce and the wealth of knowledge they can hold put me firmly in the "the internet is making us smarter" column.

Camron,  

signing off.