I find it interesting that in today's world of electronic communication and up-to-the-millisecond news and information, we as a people seem to be losing sight of what really matters.
The major stories of the day tend to focus energy on the dramatic, the negative, the sensationalized events that make people nervous, depressed, or angry about our global conditions.
The major TV events tend to be commercials about the next must-have gadget, shows about washed up celebrities dancing the cha-cha, or one of what seems like a bazillion crime dramas.
And in all this, NASA finds WATER ON THE FREAKIN' MOON (and a bunch of extra-solar planets in recent years), yet no one--except for NASA and nerds like myself--seem to give a hoot.
"Water on the moon? Oh...hey, have you seen the new Droid phone?"
What is happening?
Are we as a species simply overwhelmed with information that we no longer see new and truly amazing stories as important or relevant to our individual micro-worlds of jamming from place to place, task to task, in a mad rush to achieve our goals?
Am I just a science geek, and have most people never really cared about discovering what makes our universe tick?
I don't know the answers, but I feel puzzled that we are not celebrating these amazing discoveries with more vigor, while relegating the garbage stories to the back page.
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1 comment:
I find it pretty amazing and exciting that we found water on Mars. The Moon doesn't really surprise me too much, given its origins.
As for distraction, there's a ton of reasons why people are so distracted that they don't see the beauty or the truth in the world around them. Mostly, people just don't have time or interest. You have twins, so you should know what this is all about.
Secondly, our information media (namely news) is all about sensationalizing events in order to drum up viewership leading to advertising dollars. The news isn't about informing people of current events, its about entertaining folks. Increasingly, it seems to be more about manipulating people.
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