Last Friday night found me at a (truly epic, supremely awesome) party, but I'm not going to blog about how many drinks I had/ numbers I got/ fights I fought. What I'm going to blog about is ignorance.
I'm not sure how the topic came up, but I made some offhand comment about what's happening in Egypt... and I truly hope that by now all of the people reading this blog know what I'm talking about, because no-one I was chatting with at the time did. Inconceivable!
So, throughout the course of the evening, I accosted various groups of people at the party and asked them what they thought of the situation in Egypt (yes, I'm that weird guy at the party that you try to avoid eye contact with). The final result? I found two people who knew what was happening (both already friends of mine. Naturally.)
It blew my mind... here was a group of my supposed peers who had absolutely no idea. Sure: we were at Bohemians and a large proportion of the crowd were students starting a heavy weekend and so may not technically be peers of mine anymore, but they're STUDENTS, their entire purpose is supposed to be the accumulation of information (if not knowledge).
I don't understand how, in the modern era of the syndication, communication and community of information, people around me could be so unaware of the world around them.
Colour me shocked... It was still an awesome party though ^^;
-Odd
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice." - Albert Einstein
I would like you to blog about how many numbers you got... ;)
ReplyDeleteWow. But it has been said that ignorance is bliss. Ergo you were at a party full of ignorant people, thus blissful people. I was speaking to someone the other day who said they NEVER watch or listen to the news. Thus I was rendered speechless. Which for me is akin to a miracle. Great post Odd, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteHey, I saw some photo's of the party you were at, and it really did look awesome. Great to hear it was.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit now, that I am also very ignorant on general world news.
ReplyDeleteMy problem is that I do not follow any news sources. I do not own a TV, I do not own a radio (not even in my car), and I don't read any normal news blogs. If I read a blog it will be about tech, and if I buy a newspaper it will be the Daily Sun.
I can only blame myself for this, and maybe I should subscribe to News24 or something to try and make up for that. The problem I have is that I find most news boring. The problem is that when you cut out everything you miss the important as well.
I also don't know where I would "put" more information sources.
I use Google Reader as a platform to manage the websites I read.
I do "spring cleaning" every month or so, or if I stop reading something I remove it, but every morning when I log in I can easily have 200+ unread items. A lot of them I scan through quickly reading what I am interested in, and some I scan though slowly.
but it is ironic that in a world where we can get so much information so quickly and almost organised for us, if we are not careful we miss out on a lot.
ah... haha.... *gulp*
ReplyDeleteThat is disappointing... If you're not up to date, then I have little hope for the rest of humanity...
ReplyDeleteI find that having EWN (eye witness news) as an RSS feed on my iGoogle home page keeps me mostly updated on the serious news stuff... and I listen to 702....
... There is a danger of info-saturation in the modern world, but it's up to the individual to attribute meaning to all the information that gets thrown at us. We have to be selective or have our minds explode... but we should be careful when doing said selection.
Shot dude.
ReplyDeleteEWN has now been added to my reader.
ReplyDelete