I buy rather than grow food. I buy clothes and shoes rather than make or repair them. The same principle applies to drinking. I use the heating rather than stoke a fire in my fireplace. My recent attempt to use the fireplace (with auxiliaries) failed. I know that I do not know how to survive without a nearby supermarket. Hence, this blog’s title: the decline in Common Knowledge.
Education, job specialisation, technology, and urbanisation are some of the ingredients that seem accountable and/or responsible for the decline in Common Knowledge. A recent article (only) blames technology for the IQ decline in Europeans. EuroNews: “Take 14-year-olds in Britain. What 25% could do back in 1994, now only 5% can do.”
The above situation was different for the Neanderthal who lived in small though viable populations for some 700,000 years while surviving 8 Ice Ages (eg, my blog, Quanta). Recent temperatures in Canada of -40 Celsius give an indication how a glacial period within an Ice Age would feel (eg, ABC, CTV). It’s hard to imagine how Homo sapiens could survive this.
The current Ice Age “began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist” (Wiki). Nowadays, people forget that we live in an interglacial period of the current Ice Age. Wiki: “An interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age.”
A new glacial period within the current Ice Age has been delayed – at least – twice (eg, Bloomberg-2016, NYT-2003). Today, we know that greenhouse gases have the capacity to create global warming and delay global cooling. Until the 1970’s, climate experts warned for global cooling rather than warming (Wiki). In my view, it’s easier for humans and other species to survive global warming than global cooling. Energy distribution, food growth, technology, and water distribution do not work well at extreme cold temperatures.
The decline in Common Knowledge resulted in an increasing dependence on Technology (eg, Google, Wikipedia). Both are causing an increase in human vulnerability. This dilemma might well be the same for each and every advanced species within the Universe (eg, Futurism, my blog). The only permanent solution is an escape from one’s planet. Else, the planet’s ongoing climate change – or an asteroid impact – would (ultimately) wipe out all advanced species.
It’s possible that the decline in Common Knowledge, and the increase in human vulnerability, stimulate Doubt and Fear inside human minds – at the expense of Hope and Love.
This may also explain the rise in extreme beliefs within the 7 Belief systems (ie, Love, Money, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, and the Truth). Extreme beliefs may oppose Doubt and Fear.
We don’t make the wind blow (2015) by the Common Linnets
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