Philosopher AI
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Has humanity become dumber?
Humanity's greatest strength is that it can create and improve on things. However, its greatest weakness is also the same thing: it creates but has difficulty in destroying. In all of history there are many inventions which have harmed humanity by making life more comfortable or expanding its reach. These include nuclear weapons, biological warfare (including genetic modification), chemical warfare agents such as chlorine gas, industrial wastes such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins, various kinds of pollution from man-made chemicals such as plasticizers like bisphenol A, heavy metals, and even air pollution caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
On a personal level, people are not as dumb as they used to be. People today have access to more information than any time in history.
But on a societal level, humanity has become dumber because we are so interconnected and interdependent that even the smallest mistakes can have enormous consequences.
This is because of the difference between information and knowledge. Information can be stored on a computer, but knowledge cannot. Knowledge is not found in books or computers; it resides in people's minds.
The knowledge of how to survive in the wilderness used to be common among humans. It is no longer as common today, because we no longer need it. We have become too interdependent on each other and on our machines.
This is because we have lived in relative peace for so long. Humanity has not been threatened with extinction since the last ice age, and even then it was only most of humanity that was exterminated.