This is a blog about hope. Inventions and innovations and scientific discoveries, yes. But also hope. A look at what the future could and should be. A guide to everything that has happened, is happening, and will be happening. An opportunity to sit back and marvel at everything that mankind has accomplished. A chance to be wowed on a daily basis.
It’s hard not be impressed. We’re unlocking the secrets of the cosmos while unearthing new questions to ask. Playing God while pushing the limits of human capability. Inventing the future at breakneck speeds one new app, gadget, and algorithm at a time. And yet at the same time I also find myself marveling at just how stupid we really are. How easily manipulated we can be. How foolish. It’s mind-boggling really. How can a species smart enough to walk on the Moon also be so close-minded as to still have prejudices and biases. To not understand basic concepts about how the world works.
Consider the following foolish acts that some people are guilty of:
- Not believing in Climate Change despite decades of warnings from scientists
- Thinking that Freedom of Speech means you can say whatever you want
- Not understanding that private companies de-platforming you isn’t censorship
- Learning nothing from two years of a pandemic and still going around in public without masks on
- Not wanting to adapt common sense gun laws
- Thinking that freedom means you get to own a gun when freedom is really being able to go somewhere without the fear of dying from a gun
- Thinking that its okay to tell a woman what they can do with their body
- Caring whether a fetus lives or dies but then not caring at all if children get gunned down
- Thinking its unfair to forgive student loan debt because you had to pay yours back not realizing that you’d stand to benefit from a stronger economy if others had more money to spend
- Trusting “driverless cars” to drive for you not understanding that driverless cars aren’t fully autonomous yet
- Thinking that gasoline has been altered with and doesn’t smell anymore; no you just have COVID and lost your sense of smell
- Not trusting vaccines (American made) and instead taking your chances with a virus that you believe was made in a (Chinese) lab
- Being scared of nuclear power despite it being a safer and cleaner source of energy than other alternatives
- Blaming President Biden for the rise in gas prices when the President doesn’t set gas prices
- Always being a cycle behind and blaming current conditions on the current administration when conditions are usually the result of policies from prior administrations such as blaming the baby formula shortage on Biden when that was from Trump’s policies
- Believing anything you hear from someone you support such as Elon Musk tweeting out that Democrats we’re going to come after him ahead of sexual harassment allegations and then people thinking the allegations were made up just like Musk had predicted not realizing that they got played
- Dismissing new technology that they don’t understand thinking its stupid and will never catch on just like people did with the Internet and are doing now with NFTs
- Reading too much into things and making widespread generalizations such as thinking that the Depp-Heard trial outcome was revenge for the Me Too Movement or proof that its hard for female accusers to come forward because they won’t be believed when the outcome of the trial was based on the facts of this particular case and the standards needed to arrive at an outcome
- Participating in social media challenges and trends not realizing that you’re really training AI and giving your image to facial recognition software programs
- Thinking that the political spectrum itself is moving (not you) when your views become more radical
- Not realizing that online spaces are Echo Chambers that reinforce your world views and radicalize you one way or the other
- Continuing to trust Fox News even though they have lied to you on multiple occasions
- Believing in conspiracy theories
- Not wanting to let immigrants into the country when everyone that’s here is the descendant of someone who immigrated here
- Misguiding your rage such as getting mad at the Roe v Wade leak and not the decision itself
- Getting mad about Cancel Culture then banning books
And it’s not just individuals that don’t get it. Consider the institutional mistakes we’re making:
- The rising cost of rent; if you make cities too expensive to live in then who is going to be around to work in them? What is the end game of rising costs?
- Overturning Roe v Wade
- Thinking that capitalism is the best financial system there is when it’s impossible to sustain growth forever
- Still requiring everyone to take their shoes off at the airport for something that one person did twenty years ago but not changing gun laws after hundreds of mass shootings
- Not wanting to tackle issues head on out of fear of politicizing them
- Not banning the filibuster
No wonder modern philosopher Nick Bostrom once wrote, “Far from being the smartest possible biological species we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilization.”
In other words, we stupid.
Can we get smarter? Probably.
Eventually.
But here’s the problem. We’re running out of time as we deal with pandemics, war, and an ever-changing climate. If we’re going to survive we need to collectively get a lot smarter and fast. Not just speeding up the pace of innovation but also radically changing how we think about society and act towards one another. Being close-minded and thinking short-sighted isn’t going to work anymore. We need to go from We Dumb to We Smart.
Greatest. Idea. Ever. 
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