The easy way out
Wired has a nice little rant about how the handheld calculator is basically the cause of a lot of problems. The closing statement is an interesting comparison:
Speaking of things people don’t deserve, it’s pretty clear that the real fault for all this dumbing-down lies with Prometheus, the Titan from Greek mythology who gave fire to humanity. Nice going, Prometheus. Just hand fire over to a bunch of imbeciles who can’t even figure out how to rub a couple sticks together real fast. With this one selfishly altruistic act, he set humanity up for 10,000 years of looking for the easy way out.
There are so many things people can take for granted these days. Cars, refrigerators, electricity, wireless communications (not just shouting), the internet, etc. How many people actually try to understand how these things work. There are numerous other examples. Like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy with the cargo ship of such “skilled labor” as hairstylists and pool cleaners crashing on a new Earth. With no civilization and no People Magazine, can these people really understand the fundamentals of all the technology we have built to re-create our society?
I was watching “Assume the Position” with Richard Wuhl. A B-rate comic actor at best, he put together a very nice semi-educational show on HBO. Electricity was demonstrated at the World’s Faire in 1893. That’s about 115 years ago. There are still people alive from that point in time. (As an aside, I really liked the show because it also reference Heady Lamarr, an actress who developed frequency hopping.)
Kind of shows how pointless brands like BMW, Mercedes, Nike, Apple really are in the grand scheme of things. But it shouldn’t deter an aspiring engineer from making the next great consumer thing. Just make sure you know who’s shoulders you are standing on.