posted on July 18, 2012 byTad Cronn
The Pyramids, the President and the De-Evolution of Intelligence





I’ve long since come to realize that I ask too many questions. That seems to be the consensus. Too many questions for the comfort of other people. Too many questions probably for my own good.

Of late, I’ve been thinking about evolution theory. It’s far from proven in my reckoning. The gist of course is that humans have developed — evolved — from lesser life forms to become the intelligent species that we are today. With that idea comes the notion that we should be getting smarter by Darwinian rules.

But it seems more likely that the opposite is true. Instead of becoming smarter, I think we’re becoming stupider — we’re de-evolving. The way of the world seems to be that things wind down and fall apart. Why should it be any different with human intelligence?

Come back with me now in your mind to a time when children played outside, television was called “books,” and hamburgers tasted like meat.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that long ago. And since the aforementioned changes occurred just within my own lifetime, I can’t help but marvel at what must be a vast and ever-widening gulf between our current generation and those in the far past.

I can recall when I was a child still in elementary school and, purely for the sake of some mental stimulation, I would ransack my father’s library and inevitably find myself curling up on the living room couch with a book by some author like Chaucer, Doyle, Poe or even the occasional Greek such as Homer.

Sometimes, inspired by books we had read on the subject, my friends and I would go hunting for “dinosaur bones,” which invariably involved what today would be unthinkable amounts of digging in the sunshine. Such activities were encouraged by our parents (except for the time we threatened to undermine the corner of my house) — and we actually dug out most of what eventually became a koi fish pond with the help of some additions from the adult “management.”

The insides of our various clubhouses (designated Bases Alpha, Beta and Gamma and used to fend off many foreign invasions) were decorated with pictures of airplanes, cars, monsters, scientists both mad and sane, and some mysterious equations generated from our many discussions of space, time travel and high-energy physics as we understood them at the ripe ages of 5 to 10.

I even recall having intense debates over whether Lancelot du Lac or Gawaine was the better knight and whether either of them could have bested the Viking Sigurd.

The point of all this isn’t merely to reminisce, nor to assert that we were any sort of geniuses. We were just normal kids for the time who liked to read, ask questions and indulge our curiosity, and it’s stood all of us from the old ‘hood in good stead throughout our lives.

Flash forward to a couple of years ago, when I was teaching comic book drawing to a group of homeschooled kids, who are invariably brighter than average. Just to demonstrate that the skills they were learning needn’t be limited to comic books, I showed them various pieces of artwork, including one book cover for an old fantasy roleplaying game about Robin Hood.

To my surprise, the children did a double take. They were confused that what I was holding in my hand was a game. Did it have a disk inside? they asked. I replied no. One of the kids nodded knowingly, “Oh, you mean it’s a computer manual.”

Again I replied no, and I explained that it was a book with information about the legend of Robin Hood and some rules about how to portray one of the Merry Men in a Nottingham adventure. I added that to play, you didn’t use a computer, just the book, some dice and your imagination.

You could have knocked the kids over with a feather at that point. The idea of using a book and imagination as a game had never occurred to them, as they were so used to video games as their primary form of play.

By that point, I was afraid to ask but just had to know how many of them even knew who Robin Hood was. Only one out of a dozen or so could give me an answer.

Then I took a leap and asked if anyone would be interested in learning how to play the game. The response was underwhelming to say the least. Near-zero curiosity.

Cut to today. In the current political season, we have a president who is manufacturing the most blatant lies about his opponent, and whose own past meanwhile is shrouded in secrecy.

Yet, the media and liberal voters are so completely incurious about this man that they can’t be bothered to ask the most basic questions about where he comes from or whether his allegations against Mitt Romney are fabricated.

Instead, there is a broad segment of society that will swallow anything President Obama or his lackeys say without hesitation, like fish gulping flakes of food showered on their heads.

This attitude manifests itself not only as a lack of curiosity, but also as outright disdain for anything beyond the bounds of what is already believed by these people. Just try challenging a liberal and time how long it is before they’re calling you Hitler.

The odd thing is, I’m not certain this love of ignorance is confined to our own country. In fact, it seems to be manifesting itself on a global scale.

Take the current example of Egypt. With the help of Obama, the Muslim Brotherhood has successfully elected one of their own to the presidency — another matter Obama’s followers won’t ask questions about.

Barely in power, the Brotherhood is already entertaining suggestions that it should destroy the pyramids.

Everyone knows the pyramids, symbols of the most ancient of times. Although they’ve been studied for centuries, they and other Egyptian monuments still have their secrets, and they have much to teach us.

The ancient Egyptians at the very least knew techniques of construction that are lost to us modern “geniuses,” so full of ourselves. Their medical knowledge was advanced, and their culture was intricate, highly artistic and sophisticated. And though disputed by “mainstream” scholars, there is evidence that suggests the ancient Egyptians may have even known something of science such as about aerodynamics and electricity.

Compared to the ancients, the modern Egyptians are little more than yammering barbarians, who thoughtlessly burned museums and plundered or smashed countless artifacts at the drop of a hat.

To destroy the pyramids would be the crowning achievement of such ignorant savages. And it’s all been encouraged up to this point by the man currently residing in the White House.

I don’t know how Obama’s followers can not question their leader, his skills, his worthiness, even his sanity in allying us with the Muslim Brotherhood, because it all raises many questions in my mind.

Something seems to have gone horribly wrong in our ability to think clearly.

I can’t determine whether this sort of willful ignorance is something new, a sign of human decay, or whether it’s always been there under the surface of civilization throughout history.

But I do know that those of us who respect learning and rational thought need to demand answers to the many questions surrounding the man seeking to be president for four more years lest we, like the pyramids, find ourselves targeted for obliteration.

Read more: The Pyramids, the President and the De-Evolution of Intelligence : Political Outcast




The Pyramids, the President and the De-Evolution of Intelligence : Political Outcast