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Nicely done talk. Great presentation, fun enough to keep listeners engaged through a lot of horrifying details. I also agree that we, the people, have a (final?) say in how this all goes down. Let's run with the conclusion a bit - What would society be like for there to be a critical mass of critical thinkers, aware of new developments, in a position to act and motivated to speak up? The cynic in me sees that list and despairs. How can we expect the average parent of 2 to keep C-SPAN on throughout the day, calling their senators on lunch breaks, and boycotting products that would give them an extra hour back every week that could be spent playing with their children. That's how it would look, right? Instead of skimming political/technical news that entertains us while validating our viewpoint, we'd be parsing legalese like it's a pull request. Instead of binge watching Netflix, we might be driving to a store to buy something that could have arrived yesterday via Amazon Prime. It's all quite doable. It's just not immediately comfortable. It's also not a priority in our lives, since it's so easy to prioritize anything else with immediate feedback or gratification. However, humans are very good at internalizing and normalizing. When motivated, we can make virtually any behavior livable, or even comfortable. So that's the trick. How do we normalize critical thinking, due diligence, and active engagement? |