Eloi

When I was a kid, I remember my dad showing me how to snake a wire through a wall to put in a new light fixture and switch. Though I've used this knowledge a couple of times in my adult life, I remember thinking at the time, "Why should I know this? You know how, and I know you."

Now the internet has made a society of intellectual dilettantes. (Odds are you won't be using a dictionary if you need to look that one up). With a few clicks we have immediate access to information it took experts years to acquire. My kids ask me a question I don't know, thirty seconds later I do know it. We've graduated from Cliff Notes to calculators to Google Searches. Why read, why study, why research? There is really no need to know anything anymore, as it is all on that magic screen. And sure enough, while there are some that know more and more about less and less (let's call them academics), there are many who know less and less about more and more.