I swear Technology is making us dumber!!! This is the second such story I have ready this week! We DO have a GPS but not for Driving. I only use it when in the woods mountainbiking. Should I get lost I can retrace my "foot" steps. For Driving somewhere new? I'll look it up on a map before hand and know where I'm going thanks! YIKES!
Starbuck
Watch the movie Idiocracy. It's not based on "devolving" per say, but on what will happen if only stupid people keep breeding lol. Which I personally think it more of the problem.
Technology can be whatever you want it to be. Some people definitely seem tethered to it nowadays. EG, I have a smartphone but it's not surgically attached to me like most people I see.
Technology can be whatever you want it to be. Some people definitely seem tethered to it nowadays. EG, I have a smartphone but it's not surgically attached to me like most people I see.
That lady was stupid before the GPS, she just thought the GPS couldn't fail her. I'm sure it was nagging "Find the nearest road." for a long time before she put the car in the drink.
Last time I was in the GTA I was very glad I had it on. Even though I knew exactly where i was going, traffic and inexperience with the 401 made me miss my exit. Ms. GPS had me on a detour from the next exit that worked perfectly.
Last time I was in the GTA I was very glad I had it on. Even though I knew exactly where i was going, traffic and inexperience with the 401 made me miss my exit. Ms. GPS had me on a detour from the next exit that worked perfectly.
Stupidity was around long before GPS. I use one all the time. When used ALONG with a brain it increases safety and reduces the stress of driving.
I recall hearing stories of people who thought cruise control would steer the car and went into the kitchen of their motor home while the thing drove itself off the road.
You can't blame "dumb" on technology.
I recall hearing stories of people who thought cruise control would steer the car and went into the kitchen of their motor home while the thing drove itself off the road.
You can't blame "dumb" on technology.
Actually, you CAN blame loss of skills on technology. A short list of things people felt compelled to be able to do before technology reduced their motivation and opportunity to do so.
Calculators - do mental arithmetic of any kind, including making change
Cellphones - know how to be patient
e-mail - know how to be patient
digital watches/clocks - know how to plan things out over time
word-processing - know how to write, spell, and convey ideas
presentation graphics - know how to explain
printing press - remember things for oral transmission
locks - be trustworthy
credit cards - know how to save and budget
Calculators - do mental arithmetic of any kind, including making change
Cellphones - know how to be patient
e-mail - know how to be patient
digital watches/clocks - know how to plan things out over time
word-processing - know how to write, spell, and convey ideas
presentation graphics - know how to explain
printing press - remember things for oral transmission
locks - be trustworthy
credit cards - know how to save and budget
Half the time I do math with a pen an paper. So I'm good there. Yes I still use maps, but google is my source. I still use it in the same way I would a Perly's.
As far as devolving goes, that depends on what part of the world you live in. It started in Britain in the 50s. It started in the US in 70s with the advent of disco and hit an irreverable peak between 2000-2008.
I think Frank Zappa said something like the only thing more plentiful than hydrogen in the universe is stupidity.
As far as devolving goes, that depends on what part of the world you live in. It started in Britain in the 50s. It started in the US in 70s with the advent of disco and hit an irreverable peak between 2000-2008.
I think Frank Zappa said something like the only thing more plentiful than hydrogen in the universe is stupidity.
I like the idea of GPS, but I know a few people who rely solely on GPS to get them from A to B and have no clue how to do it themselves. I much prefer a good ol' map for going places I've never been before, and for getting around the city, I've got this little trick called memory. Y'know, it helps me go to places I've been before, or to go to places I haven't by, like, remembering main intersections and stuff.
Honestly, I can't begin to imagine what it feels like to be a native of Toronto and need a GPS to get about.
Ditto with word processors. Kids don't learn how to spell, rely on a machine to do it for them which doesn't always do the job properly because it can't determine contextual usage and people end up looking like idiots because they can't spell to save their lives and don't bother to edit their work (which would be pointless anyway, since they wouldn't recognize their mistakes in the first place).
So yeah, Starbuck, it does exist. Too many skills are being lost irrevocably because it's more convenient to use or allow machines to do them for us.
Honestly, I can't begin to imagine what it feels like to be a native of Toronto and need a GPS to get about.
I've got a big beef with the calculators and word processors because it scares the crap out of me when I see students pulling out their calculators to do simple arithmetic. I'm no math whiz myself, but I know my freakin' times tables. Kids these days are allowed and even encouraged to have and use calculators in the classroom as early as grade school. I don't remember being allowed to use a calculator for anything short of trigonometric equations!
Ditto with word processors. Kids don't learn how to spell, rely on a machine to do it for them which doesn't always do the job properly because it can't determine contextual usage and people end up looking like idiots because they can't spell to save their lives and don't bother to edit their work (which would be pointless anyway, since they wouldn't recognize their mistakes in the first place).
So yeah, Starbuck, it does exist. Too many skills are being lost irrevocably because it's more convenient to use or allow machines to do them for us.
I spent a couple of hours on the weekend reading through high school yearbooks of my father's. The 1930s and '40s were a very different time. The quality of the writing, poetry, art, and interest in theatre and sciences was amazing. Not that it's not now, but the writing was especially impressive. I'd be surprised if the writing today is anywhere near as good. (Perspective: Both my kids were/are university english students, as were my sisters who read the yearbooks with me.) If that's not devolved, I don't know what is.
As for me, I like just walking into the woods (metaphorically speaking) with my wits and my skills. Gadgetry isn't going to save the world. Peace, love and understanding will.
Peace, Mooh.
As for me, I like just walking into the woods (metaphorically speaking) with my wits and my skills. Gadgetry isn't going to save the world. Peace, love and understanding will.
Peace, Mooh.
I love this! You're right. So much emphasis has been placed on the ability to just DO things that it doesn't matter HOW they're done anymore. Too many people rely on their toys to do the things that they should be able to do for themselves.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some techno-phobe. I'm a lifelong computer geek, I've got an iPhone and more gizmos and whoozits at home than I know what to do with, but I can read a map, have a good sense of direction, can do fairly complex calculations in my head, write passages that read well, make sure I don't spell like a goofball, etc. etc. And I LIKE that I can do all that, especially because I know how hard I worked in the past to polish some of these skills.
These are things everyone should know how to do. It's part of being self-sufficient, not a pariah to electronics or society with the reassurance that someone or something will do it for you.
On the specific subject of GPS, I travel on business almost every week and the difference between trying to navigate to and through unfamiliar cities using maps or printed MapQuest documents and listening to audible directions on my Garmin is HUGE.
The safety factor alone is too significant to ignore. Consider driving in a snow storm, trying to read the highway signs and checking your map while still trying to watch other cars and the road. Unless you actually pull over to get your bearings the chances of taking a wrong turn or worse, rear ending the car in front of you are too high.
Or, using a GPS, all you do is watch the traffic and the road and listen for the next instruction.
Use your maps all you want. I'll take technology. The few times I have been without a GPS I was able to resort to the old ways easily enough.
The safety factor alone is too significant to ignore. Consider driving in a snow storm, trying to read the highway signs and checking your map while still trying to watch other cars and the road. Unless you actually pull over to get your bearings the chances of taking a wrong turn or worse, rear ending the car in front of you are too high.
Or, using a GPS, all you do is watch the traffic and the road and listen for the next instruction.
Use your maps all you want. I'll take technology. The few times I have been without a GPS I was able to resort to the old ways easily enough.
Yeah, but in your case, where you're actually travelling to places you haven't been, GPS is a definite advantage.
What I specifically dislike is that it is SO hard to see the surrounding areas on a GPS, so if you want to make a quick detour, it involves reprogramming or zooming out, etc.
fwiw - I HATE Mapquest/Googlemap documents because they employ the worst qualities of both systems. I'd rather go on a wing and a prayer than Mapquest. One time, my Mapquest printout got EVERY SINGLE TURN WRONG! All the lefts were supposed to be rights and vice versa. I still managed to make it where I was going, and I got a nice scenic tour of Peterborough while I was at it!
I use GPS even when I'm going someplace I've already been. It allows me to focus on driving and not navigation. It also allows me to track ETA as it does change over the course of a long drive. I also use it to find good restaurants, gas, and other services.
It's not a toy. It's a powerful and valuable tool.
For what they cost, it's a no brainer. Until someting better comes along, I'll be using mine.
It's not a toy. It's a powerful and valuable tool.
For what they cost, it's a no brainer. Until someting better comes along, I'll be using mine.
I've never used GPS, and have only been in a vehicle once where someone was using it. The difficulty with ANY mapping technology is always the recency of the information. If I'm trying to get from regional location X to location Y, a plain old city/provincial/national road map is usually sufficient. The difficulties generally come when attempting to get from this street to that one, particularly if the destination street is either in the downtown core or at the perimeter of the municipality. The edge-of-the-city tends to be incompletely mapped, and the downtown stuff doesn't tell you about one-way streets or construction. GPS telling you to turn here, when here is a buncha guys with jackhammers and a detour sign they just stuck up yesterday, is next to useless. I'd much rather take a moment and have a bird's-eye view that will let me invent alternate routes on the fly. "Do this, now do that, now do this, now do that", are the sort of instructions that Nick Burns, your company's computer guy came up with.
These technologies can either help people improve, or by used be people to be lazy though. I still believe people are at the root of the problem, not the technology.
EG I have a small web/print design business and I use an iPhone so clients can reach me when I am out of town for an extended period. That phone stays in my glovebox though, or if it's in my pocket, it's on mute. It does NOT:
- Get taken out in a restaurant, Dr.'s office, movie theatre or any other place where it should be considered innappropriate.
- Get talked on while I am in the movie store, grocery store, line-ups where it's annoying as hell
- Get talked on while I am driving
* and I won't even get into people's behaviour using blue tooth headsets.
I am 34 and I was raised to have manners and common sense. If I had tried to talk on a cell phone in a restaurant in front of my parents, they would have slapped me. People are either forgetting what manners and common sense are, or not being taught them when they are raised. That is not technologies fault, it's people abusing the technology.
Agree on all points.
Even something as "basic" as the printing press making books widely available did not deliberately or necessarily impair human memory. It was always the choice on the part of people to neglect committing to memory that which could simply be remembered by the book itself. hell, you can even do that with shopping lists on a slip of paper.
Similarly, from "guns-don't-kill-people, people kill people" to "calculators don't make you stupid, relying on a calculator makes you stupid", it is never the technology in and of itself which has the corrupting effect, but rather the tendency to rely on it or exploit it.
Personally, I find much of the presumably convenient technologies inconvenient. As I keep repeating, for me useful technology is something that makes a guy my age (58) say "Finally!", and not something that makes someone my kids' ages say "Coooool!!".
I wanted to be able to play my choice of music in the car. With tapes it was a breeze. You could stick anythng you wanted on a cassette and be done with it. Last night, attempting to play some music I obtained in WMA format from a USB stick in the car, I had to:
a) download a WMA to MP3 convertor
b) convert the files
c) import them into another piece of software
d) segment the entire file (a concert) into separate chunks
e) reprocess each chunk so that the volume level of the music could favourably compete with the hiss from the gadget I needed to use to "broadcast" the USB contents to the CD/radio unit in the car
f) export each chunk as a named MP3 file
g) save the resulting converted files to my USB stick
Yeah, there's a real step up from cassettes.
Even something as "basic" as the printing press making books widely available did not deliberately or necessarily impair human memory. It was always the choice on the part of people to neglect committing to memory that which could simply be remembered by the book itself. hell, you can even do that with shopping lists on a slip of paper.
Similarly, from "guns-don't-kill-people, people kill people" to "calculators don't make you stupid, relying on a calculator makes you stupid", it is never the technology in and of itself which has the corrupting effect, but rather the tendency to rely on it or exploit it.
Personally, I find much of the presumably convenient technologies inconvenient. As I keep repeating, for me useful technology is something that makes a guy my age (58) say "Finally!", and not something that makes someone my kids' ages say "Coooool!!".
I wanted to be able to play my choice of music in the car. With tapes it was a breeze. You could stick anythng you wanted on a cassette and be done with it. Last night, attempting to play some music I obtained in WMA format from a USB stick in the car, I had to:
a) download a WMA to MP3 convertor
b) convert the files
c) import them into another piece of software
d) segment the entire file (a concert) into separate chunks
e) reprocess each chunk so that the volume level of the music could favourably compete with the hiss from the gadget I needed to use to "broadcast" the USB contents to the CD/radio unit in the car
f) export each chunk as a named MP3 file
g) save the resulting converted files to my USB stick
Yeah, there's a real step up from cassettes.
Or you could buy an iPod and plug it into the aux input of your car stereo. There are easy ways to do most things and of course, there are tedious ways.
I bet this lady would have done something just as stupid in 1970 or 1950, just a different, that's all.
Regarding the car stereo: I go into WMP, go to burn list, select the albums I want (not songs, albums) and add them until I run out of space. Then I burn my CD. Takes 5 minutes 
So the problem isn't the NEW technology. It's the fact that you're trying to use it with old technology. People also faced similar problems when 8 tracks were replaced with cassettes. It happens. That doesn't mean the new stuff isn't better.
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