cannedtunaAs companies destroy the world in pursuit of profits that will never come, I welcome our Butlerian Jihad
No Child Left Behind destroyed this country far more effectively than I ever would have suspected.
The culture was fucked long before no child left behind to be fair. Anti intellectualism was rampant, since before most of us were born, gangster culture and drug prohibition and The Fear made a solid percent of the population criminals and authorized a police state.
City schools are better now than they were in the 80s and 90s, things got real bad in the crime waves.
Since we’re talking sci-fi, this is Asimove in 1980:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
It’s even still a rhetoric I hear by other leftist. I get that the cost of a higher education is a scam. But the education is not.
I also genuinely believe that humans have a lot of intellectual potential but that most never get to reach that.
Early life obstacles. Lack of opportunities. Lack of motivation.
These keep the people stupid and docile.
I rarely meet people who like to just learn things for the sake of learning.
I have 3 nieces and a nephew. Only the nephew is interested in many things.
The nieces couldn’t care less and spend their time on their phones watching 5 second videos about nothing.
No attention span. No motivation to do anything.
It’s quite sad. My nephew is the youngest. And I hope I don’t see him shift to the same patterns.