Monday Musings: America as Idiocracy?

In this post I wrote about how most Americans cannot correctly answer a question having to do with an interest-bearing bank account. Reader David Banner sent this link to a zerohedge.com article with even more frightening information, such as:

 

-One recent survey found that 74 percent of Americans don’t even know how many amendments are in the Bill of Rights.

-During the 2016 election, more than 40 percent of Americans did not know who was running for vice-president from either of the major parties.

–Less than half of all Americans know which country used atomic bombs at the end of World War II.

 

The article concludes with this assessment: “…our system of education today is a total joke.  Most of our students have never learned how to communicate effectively, they are fed an endless stream of “tests” that consist of multiple choice, true/false and fill-in-the-blank questions, and when they get out of school most of them have absolutely no idea how to succeed in the real world.

Perhaps that helps to explain why our kids are in the bottom half of all industrialized nations when it comes to math and science literacy.

If we do not educate our children well, we will continue to fall behind the rest of the world, and it will be just a matter of time before we lose our status as a global power.

Of course that assumes that we actually have enough time left to turn things around.  At the rate that we are currently degenerating, we might not.”

 

Ignorance is not bliss and the real world is not in your phone. As I have written before I believe bad parenting is a major cause of the dumbing-down of America. I am totally serious.

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From Steve Magnante’s 1001 Corvette Facts (fact #889, if you must know):

“Ah, the Internet. The C4 was the last Corvette developed before the intrusion of the World Wide Web into everyday life. In those days, Chevrolet held regular consumer focus groups that exposed members of the public to pre-production Corvettes and their features. During development of the C5 and C6, however, the rapid growth of the Internet triggered security leak issues. Despite signing confidentiality agreements, focus-group attendees revealed new features online, long before their official announcements, due to the anonymous nature of the Internet. As Corvette (and Camaro) exterior design manager Kirk Bennion said in a 2017 Motor Trend interview, ‘The Internet has become too powerful.’ The C7 was the first Corvette designed without the input of external focus groups.”

Yes, if you are reading this you are doing so on the Internet. [Irony Acknowledged] Also, I am reminded of Mark Twain’s famous remark, “The only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.” I think part of what Magnante complains about is more about the ease of disseminating information via the Internet with impunity than about any real change in human nature. Still, I must once again write that NOTHING is all good or all bad. People who blindly worship “progress” seem to forget that human beings are not perfect so none of their endeavors or creations are perfect.

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This picture from a Bring A Trailer listing caught my eye:

 

 

This is a 1973 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000. I think that is just a beautiful car. Today I will refrain from “breaking the butterfly upon a wheel” and not write about the specs of the car.

This type of design is, of course, far more common from Italian automakers than from those anywhere else in the world. What a gorgeous car!

 

#automotiveart

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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