Collective Stupidity, a rant

As I was watching TV last night, it dawned on me not just that we have evolved into a species that cannot fold a road map but is fearless about going unfamiliar places because of a slavish faith in Waze or some equivalent. We cannot think but we can know a lot more by virtue of the cloud.

The weather alerts (because, hey, it's gonna rain, and the people need to know) struck me as concerning. The weather folk (and a proud people they are) hype up a weather "event" and turning it into a weather "crisis." More rain! Run for your lives. You've seen rain, but not like this. Film at eleven. They bring in experts who show us amorphous but colorful blobs so we can tell if it is raining outside because looking would be too much trouble. And I'd be disappointed if I looked outside and didn't see red and orange hovering everywhere like the doppler readout on TV.

Meanwhile, the talking heads who have a lot of experience not getting in out of the rain tell me things like "Don't put your head under water and try to breathe" and "you know the joke about the flood and the guy on the roof who prays to be saved et cetera and then at the end, God says that he sent 3 boats?  Well that's crap. There will be no divinely inspired boats. Leave now." The underlying message is "prove to the world that every quasi- human on the evolutionary train that led to you didn't die in vain -- use your brain and don't be stupid."

Expected and usual weather patterns (heck, we have a hurricane season so we know they're coming and we can stop shhoting ducks and aliens and start shooting hurricanes) should be something we are used to by now. In the same way that the traffic report doesn't include all the places at which there is always traffic, so noting it is unnecessary, the idea that after a humid day, there will be torrential down pours should not surprise anyone. And we have all lived through it, so all we need is a weather person saying "expect the usual heavy rains from this time to that time and act accordingly." Period. Done.

But we are a nation of shouting because shouting (especially shouting first) is what makes the green flow so we send fools into the storm to tell you to be inside, and we remind you that surfing during a hurricane, brave and awesome looking as it might be, should be discouraged except among the most hard core and awesome people, so that's not you, right? Wink wink. See you on the beach. And I have become a member of the "cull the herd" school of curmudgeonliness so you kids go and have fun. We have to tell drivers, "Don't drive into standing water if you can't judge the depth and can't see the other side, and don't drive into flowing water at all. You can get donuts tomorrow." The expectation of idiocy (and the reliance on it to provide for quality news reports) creates an intellectual elite. Not only do they understand this pandering to the lower intellectual classes, but they are acutely aware of themselves at the top of the smarts-food chain because the mass of people haven't a clue.

This leads, of course, to bilateral resentment (how dare you be so smart! vs. how dare you be so stupid!) and, probably, helter skelter.