Did the ancients know more than we do?

[cladking]

They just had a different way of thinking and talking that was more efficient than ours. Unlike us they knew they were stupid and ignorant which gave them great power far beyond what we have today. It gave them the ability to use all their knowledge all the time. It made maximum use not only of knowledge but intelligence as well.

I doubt there will ever be any interest in going back to the old way of thinking but perhaps some of it can be modified to fit in with current thought. I think at the very least we might see more interest in generalism if I'm right.

We have a larger body of knowledge (thinking of medical, technological, mathematical, scientific knowledge) today than the ancients. I'm not sure we can be generalists and still function as a society. Somebody has to know how operate/program/build/repair all of our technology. I can't even keep up with mobile device technology.

Our schools are based on the idea that citizens need a basic grasp of a lump of knowledge in order to function successfully in our culture. We can't even get our young to stay in free school long enough to get that basic knowledge (graduation rates are really around 50% if you start counting at elementary school levels, maybe lower). Are you saying we don't even need that much knowledge?

I would agree we have a lot to learn in the modern era, but we can't count on society to instill even the most basic ideas into their offspring. Many of our adults are too enthralled with sex, drink, and drugs to do what they are supposed to do. Many members of the newest generation aren't invested in our society, don't know the history, and are not concerned with general societal norms of behavior enough to be trusted to pass those traits on.

We are a nation without a strong culture. Too many slackers have learned to survive on other people's forced charity. The most basic idea among human cultures is to produce what you consume. When you are bred to produce nothing and consume whatever you can lay your hands on at the time, society as a whole suffers. That is where we are.

I believe the problem of the modern age goes back to August of 1899 when Freud thought it would be a good idea to do his very beautiful sister in law. He spend a career intellectualizing this event and part of his work was misinterpreted to mean that people have a subconscious mind that directs their actions. This silly belief has people thinking no one is responsible for his actions much less outcomes. If you let a whole city be destroyed by not paying attention then you can even be reelected mayor. This belief that we aren't responsible allowed some 50,000,000 murders in the last century and allows our schools to not teach. We spend vast sums of money to teach children who are eager to learn to hate learning.

Don't get me started on modern superstitions. We are probably the most superstitious people who have ever walked the earth and this is pretty bad since the bar is set very high. Humans are very prone to superstition naturally and it is our greatest plague and weakness. If we survive this age it will take a minor miracle. If we survive this age it will probably be only because we are not so powerful as we believe we are.

We'll have to have specialists until machine intelligence arises. Specialists are of critical importance in almost all fields. The problem isn't so much too many specialists so much as it is too few (as in no) generalists. No one knows how a factory/ business operates because everyone in the firm is a specialist and then they wonder why such munufactured shit as Frigidaire refrigerators get made. And they can't even spell it right since they have a Greek "delta" instead of an "A" in the name. This is somehow appropriate since delta is used to mean change in mathematics and they have successfully changed "frigid" to "ire" with their shit. It's unlikely to stay frigid for very long though. Hearsay is this crap lasts a few years then you buy new shit.

Since no one is trained in all the aspects of making and selling things one arm of a company is always working at cross purposes to the others.

Schools need to actually teach generalism on a college level. It will first need to be invented but its attributes and defining characteristics seem fairly apparent. A lot of individuals would thrive in such a structure and there is a critical need for it in society.