Speculation has taken over History

If I learned anything so far in life it is that stupidity is on the rise. Now that pot smoking is legal in many states more likely when a cop stops you in your car and you have been smoking pot asks you for your license, you tell him that it is right there on the car bumper. Stupidity is on the rise because people believe what they see and not what they learn. Trump supporters are stupid because they believe everything they see him say and not what they have learned.  There are people that believe that the earth is flat because that is all they see as far with their naked eye and not what scientists learned.

There was a time when smart people were respected and got paid well for their time to get educated. Now football coaches at colleges get paid more than professors. People trust You Tube videos that anyone can post more than proven theories written in books. When did it happen? When did knowledgeable educated folks who can even write simple sentences in good spelling and grammar become the ones to be attacked? Can we blame it all on Trump who consistently hires incompetent unskilled people to top positions in our government based on his own narcissist loyalty?

This way of thinking is something new. People have this idea now that if it is not part of their direct experience, that it didn’t occur or never happened. History is being tossed aside in favor of speculation. People have lost faith in experts. There is a reverse snobbery developing. If you have advanced degrees from respected institutions now you are branded as a liar. It has happened to Obama, Michelle, Hillary and scores of fired judges and experts at the CIA and FBI by ignorant pompous Trump. For those of you who care, there is a book   out called The Death of Expertise that explores the campaign against established knowledge and why it matters. The author is Tom Nichols who won Jeopardy five times and he is a National security expert who teaches at Harvard University at the Division of Continuing Education.

Often time’s young people will say that the internet is a giant library. That is wrong. The internet is a big dumpster of whatever crap anyone wants to share. There is no guarantee that anything you find on the internet is true.  Liars like Trump likes to call anything that is unflattering to him personally fake news. He likes to call any reporter who dares to point out his fallacies, the enemy of the people. He likes to banish reporters from the American people’s tax paid White House. When it comes to knowledge the democratic approach is not good. Facts are facts and they can’t be changed according to public opinion or as in Trump’s case. His opinion or nothing else.

We can’t decide on how things are happening in a vacuum by simply voting on it. Climate change is real and it must be taken seriously as storms and fires are consuming this country daily. This week Trump sadly said that leaves should be raked up in forests to prevent fires. His ignorance is astounding on so many subjects.