1. We always fight the last war is something which has become a simple enough idea to understand…with regard to the military. Does this idea hold similar value in the rest of our society?
If you consider how many things have changed, and how rapidly the rate of societal change in increasing (if only regarding the last 20 years, and looking forward 20 more…), how could we not be fighting the last war in many part so of our society?
2. Considering the fact that if you are reading this, most likely you have access to the internet, and are comfortable using a computer, the statistical likelihood that you may be math phobic is still quite large. Why?
Why are so many people afraid of, or detest or hate math in any form that that you can think of… Is this something innate (begging the question) or is it because we teach it so horribly?
If you consider that the primary and most salient defining characteristic of our current culture is its reliance upon ever higher levels of technology, isn’t this a pretty unsupportable irony? One could make a reasonable argument that this may be one of the most important structural problems with our education industry.
3. If we were to be subjected to some sort of global cataclysm, where our culture was knocked to its knees…where and how would we rebuild it? Where would we get the resources with which to develop a new technology?
I think that the notion that all of the ‘low hanging fruit’ has been plucked may be too true. Digging through landfills results in some very low grade ‘ore’.
Is there something to be said for the idea that there is an unstated level which is so technologically low such that a culture would not capable of regenerating itself?
This would be because the level of technology and the investment needed to replicate this is so high and so obscure (with regard to most people’s knowledge) that it would be practically impossible to recreate. Of course, if we were to end up a situation like this, why would there be a real need to replicate what got us there in the first place?
