Are we outsourcing our Brain?

More and more man is devising gadgets intending to speed up certain activities and make life easier but in fact are making us less dependent on our brain.I come into contact everyday with people who cannot do simple operations without recourse to the calculator.I am one who supports totally the use of technology in everyday life. Not only does it make life easier and more effective but it leaves time to indulge in leisure.I firmly believe that man was not made so that he can work but that he can enjoy leisure and pleasure.(be fruitful and multiply and have dominion) is the only admonitions we were given. But look what technology is doing to us. Not only are we sedentary but we have become 'impersonal and unsocial' Please note that being sedentary is not leisure.Forget about the dog being man's best friend... the electronic gadget is.I recall in my ststistics classes we had to not only remember the formulae but know how they are arrived at These days studying the formula or the times tables in math and committing them to memory is considered corporal punishmnet.I wish I was in grade school these days I would have saved myself a lot of sleepless nights and 'my hide from the tanning'.Name any game and we can sit in our bedroom and play it without even seeing a court, gym or outside.

Modern man cannot find his way around any more without a GPS. True that society has become more complicated than it was back in the day when men followed the elements or looked at a map. Columbus and them would have been very impressed or very lost. We have become so dependent on this technology the we follow it blindly and dont even know when we are lost until the end.

I am afraid that we are developing a less sociable, totally withdrawn species who would not know to live in a group,lack teamwork dynamics and know nothing about how to get along with his neighbor. We are becoming less and less gregarious. This specie will see the demise of what is understood by the word 'society' Is this the individualist, mechanical, animated,robotical, virtual, antisocial civilization we want to construct? No wonder we are trying to destroy each other. Life means nothing if we ar virtual beings. There is no feeling ,love thy neighbor mentality any more.
We no longer have to know our 'times tables' or how to work out our 'areas', 'percentages' etc we have the calculator. We used to figure out how to get from 'here to there'.. we have the GPS even if we get lost periodically. We do not have to know how to cook: no longer we just have the food delivered to our homes.Cars are becoming smart to drive themselves, park themselves because drivers are becoming dumber. Actually it is not smart cars we need but smart drivers. machines are being invented to do every household chore imaginable. We can even have virtual sex.

Our brain is being required to do less and less and we are becoming more dependent on machines. Even going to work is becoming outdated. We can sit in our living room and teach classes of studente hundreds of miles away and acomplish complex tasks which would take less time than if we had to travel to work.

In addition our technologies are being developed abroad and are repaired by technicians in India,Pakistan etc.

Whats up with dat

There were two reports which caught my attention this past week or so. Individually I might not have been shocked but, coming one after the other like they did, I was stunned---I was for two reasons: a) the minor attention given by the press and b) the insult levelled to concerned New Yorkers on the whole when the one was followed by the other.
The first was the report by Forbes Magazine on 9/20/2011 identifying the 400 richest people in America, among them were also the richest new Yorkers.The report claims the NY mayor is the second richest New yorker with $19.5 billion behind David Koch with $25 Billion. Bloomberg the report stated made $1.5 Billion last year I do not pity or envy the rich- this is the nature of capitalism.
When the second report came out my jaw dropped at the headline of 9/23/201:
"New york city poverty rate rose to an alarming 20.1% in 2010, latest census Bureau figures show."
The report states that food pantry and soup lines are getting longer and Agencies are running out of supplies, people have used up all their emergency savings on food and rent;"if this problem goes untreated you are endandering the entire economic engine that is New York city' ... the report concludes.

Changing nature

In the 1980's Charles Handy offered that very soon the monster of changing nature of work will encompass us. Indeed the world and certainly the US has seen it happen before we realise it.The idea of working for an employer for twenty, thirty and forty years is quickly disappearing.The technological age has redefined 'work' as we know it. People are 'working' away from the 'office' more than ever,Many offices have less and less people on few machines. Some of the most critical decisions are no longer made in the boardrooms or even the bedrooms. Electronic machines have made it possible not only to create/design jobs but to control jobs.What used to take an eight hour day is now taking an eighteen hour week with prolonged leisure time. It is possible to 'work' for many employers from your front porch without having to leave your home. Street sellers/vendors have access to high tech machines where they can check on, order, pay and track the delivery of their products. Multi-billion mergers, acquisitions, trades and contracts are made on the golf course or from a touch screen.
By now everyone knows the dilemma of large companies who give you an '800 number' and you are connected to someone in Pakistan or India and we learn about the joys and pains 'outsourcing'.
So why are we so shocked and angry that 'American' goods and services are made overseas.Certainly the products are made cheaper and in larger quantities elsewhere. The companies become the villain, the foreign countries become the villain and we continue to cry out about the lack of jobs and the mortgaging of the economy in the process. Did I say mortgage.. I hope no one forecloses on us. All kinds of products from sneakers/sports wear, to clothing, spare parts, cars,electronics toys are in America but not made in America the list is endless. We keep oscillating from one economic color to the other... is this is the gray economy.
We are indeed in a dilemma these days. Either let our 'stuff' be made by the Chinese or the Taiwanese or let them be made at home by the Mexicans. You see it?

Do it for all

It seems that every time the city is in a mess three groups of workers are targetted to help bail them out. Policemen, firemen and teachers. The latter have been the butt of jokes, pressures and every imaginary criticism available. The entire City and State seem to depend on teachers for their existence. If the students dont do their home work blame the teachers, if the students come to school late or not at all blame it on the teachers, if the meals are not nutritious it is the teachers fault, if the child is not getting enough sleep.... and on and on. Dont even talk about the learning environment.The teacher is the classroom wizzard. He has to see everything that is happening in the class and be able to effect control.
I say put these decision makers to teach for one week in schools in the projects not the so called 'show schools'. Put them in a District 75 junior and High school and see how long they would survive. Maybe then they would have a greater appreciation of what some teachers face on a daily basis.