The dumbing down of society.
The best and most important film I've seen this century is a vastly overlooked film, ironically from the creator of Beavis and Butthead, called Idiocracy. It's about an average Joe who gets frozen as part of a military experiment, is accidentally forgotten about, and wakes up 500 years in the future to find a society so impossibly dumbed down that he's easily the smartest person alive.

It cemented a lot of random thoughts I had, and I honestly think this is the direction that society is going in. In no particular order, here are the symptoms.

1. Homeopathic remedies. Scientists and doctors sacrifice their entire working lives finding genuine cures for stuff, but the public would rather buy magic beans. And they know they're magic beans too, it has to say so on the label.

2. Eco-spin. We all know very well that buying a slightly more energy efficient fridge is going to do f-u-c-k a-l-l in the grand scheme of climate change. Given that China opens a new coal-fired power plant every two weeks, it's not going to make a lot of global difference, but of course China are important trading partners so let's not say anything impolite to them.

3. Dumb news. The Sun, Mail and Express reach six million homes every day. Enough said. Let me remind you that The Sun trains its journalists not to write above a reading age of seven.

I think we're already at the stage where society is too dumb to solve its problems. For example; world peace is not difficult; just get the people who make and sell arms for a living out of Congress.
(CerberaSpeedTwelve, Fri 2 May 2008, 14:42, 2 replies)

I thought that as well
until I started looking at newspapers from the 1700a and 1800s and saw just as much idiocy there as I do today.

Don't worry, there will always be the few bright ones to lead the sheep.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 2 May 2008, 14:48, closed)

China
erm...China builds a new power station every two weeks because we in the West buy things from them that need power to make them.

The rest of what you says makes a lot of sense though
(Outtheresomewhere, Fri 2 May 2008, 18:41, closed)