The Problem of Too Much Knowledge

It all started with an earthquake. I watched as CNN showed massive three foot waves rocking about a swimming pool as the water rushed from side to side frantically looking for a way out. The probability of a larger quake within 24 hours was 63%. Minor quakes will continue for months. With our quake alarms, it’s possible to have a warning time of 45 seconds if you live 100 miles away. What if you live 50 feet away? You’re toast.

 

While that was riveting, what stopped me cold was this throw-away line from one of the quake experts- “Don’t forget, most of the earth is actually made up of raging hot lava.” I looked down at the floor as my feet reclined in a comfy carpet. Suddenly I felt uneasy about what lies beneath.

 

My mind wanders to an older story about hundreds of asteroids circling the sun. One of them will get us sooner or later. I am comforted by the thought that Bruce Willis will save us by rushing to the asteroid and blowing it up before it strikes us. Wait. Didn’t I see a small fragment of a meteor striking a remote part of Russia with lots of damage? Bruce might break that asteroid into hundreds of pieces which will reign down upon all of us.

 

Then again, maybe global warming will get us sooner. Science is tracking this problem and it predicts that most major cities on coastlines around the world- where incidentally most people live- will be under water in 30 years. Where are those few billion people going to move to? My town already has excessive traffic, human and otherwise. We don’t have room for a billion people.

 

Then, science marches on with automation roaring ahead. Already the clerks at Burger King have transformed into computer screens at the counter. These screens have no personality. I miss being able to say, “Now, did you get all that?” to a skinny pimply 15year old when I special order. At least a billion jobs will disappear in 30 years, ironically a lot of them in the tech industry itself.

 

I think I’ll just stay at home in bed and read Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. Surely he will provide guidance for us lost souls. Wait a second. I just read that species have an average lifespan of 4 million years. I checked and Lucy, the first human, is 3.18 million years old. Our time is about up. By the way, do we know when her birthday is? It should be celebrated somehow, but I digress.

 

I’ll skip along to page 382. Oh great, I have 1 trillion bacteria on my skin right now “grazing on flesh”. That’s a comforting thought. Quick, soap and water please. Wait. It gets worse. There are trillions more bacteria inside the body, including hanging around on the surface of my eye and up my nose. Please, that’s disgusting. What if these bacterial creatures decide they would like to get organized and assault us with a major airborne attack? We are helpless.

 

Maybe we were better off before there was not so much knowledge. In the good old days all you had to do was appease the various gods with bribes and all would be well. There were a lot of Gods though. The Gods of water, air, grass, fish, cows, sneakers, ice cream, etc. I know, they didn’t have sneakers and ice cream back then, but they may have had prophets and Gods are not far behind. Anyway, all that appeasing, aka bribing, sounds like a lot of work.

 

I give up. I think I’ll have a beer. Don’t even think about what’s in it.