I_Like_Plants wrote:Yeah I just figured it out, hey I never pretended to be very smart....
Haha, well if you're here you're doing alright. I suspect you're joking a little anyway. And I don't think anyone should say they look dumb because of a computer problem. Computers are not like the real world in any way. You don't even "touch" the buttons on the screen. But hey that's my opinion, I've helped math majors with putting in their disk the right way. And I've even taken time to explain to computer programmers how the hardware works...
Here comes a long rant...
It would probably make a good discussion in the psychology forum. I think too much of the world today is like magic to people and perhaps this encourages magical thinking. "If I wish hard enough, a technology will come and save the day..." Where as in the old days, wishes didn't feed chickens and water came from the well. And if the well pump was broken, you put in a new seal and it's fixed.
Today water is piped to people from who knows where and who knows how... I know where my water comes from, but to most people they now live in a magical world where everything is taken care of and they don't need to know how to fix the well pump or anything else. Gas comes from a pipe, water comes from a pipe, electricity from wires, chicken from the store. Cake from the bakery. It makes people crazy like the time old kings and queens. "How can people be starving, let them eat cake!"
When I think about these things I think of gas wells jutting from the earth. I think of water reservoirs and the hellish pile of burning coal somewhere firing the generators lighting my lamp. I think of chickens packed and piled loaded up with all the best antibiotics... But to people today, it's magic.
Sometimes I wonder how it affects people. I think it must make them less rational and more childlike. It's like how Americans seem to have the attitude that "it's undecided", like with global warming. Sure part of that problem is from our style of news, the news puts up two "experts", one is a scientist who says the earth is round and the other is a quack with a spinning bow tie saying the earth is flat. To often the news "balances" facts with falsehoods and people don't know what to think.
But I think the reason people fall for it, the meme that everything is "undecided" and "you can't know for sure", is because people don't understand the world around them. They don't know anything for sure. If you tell someone the screen is "the computer" and the "box" is just for working the keyboard, they will believe you. If they see on the news the dollar is strong and the stock market has never been higher, most people have no way to evaluate that. They must believe or not believe. I guess that's why news channels say things like "news you can
trust". Because people have trouble telling what's true anymore.
And the worst part about people not understanding their world is they think they cannot understand it so they don't ask questions anymore. So hey, you you're at least smart enough to ask questions! And that puts you way ahead of the curve!
Anyway, a very long rant but that's just a couple things I was thinking about... I hope you enjoyed