Civilizational Collapse

The story of John Oliver buying $15 million of expired medical debt, for pennies on the dollar, then forgiving it,

John Oliver Forgiving Debt

makes me think of civilizational collapse.  Our Overlords are not taking care of business.  I don’t know if they are too stupid or too corrupt, but they are going to kill us all.  Allow me two examples.

The first example actually comes from another recent front page story about antibiotic resistant "superbugs".  If I knew for years this was coming, people who actually know something about biology, pharmacology, and epidemiology must have known it, too.

So, year after year I watched as our society turns itself inside-out about marijuana and cocaine and all sorts of other stupid shit (aka victimless crimes) of no civilizational consequence while, at the same time, our use of antibiotics is simply insane.  Never mind that we vastly over-prescribe antibiotics to people, which is bad enough.  But, what we do with them on the farms is the stuff of nightmares.  Friends, this cannot end well, and the end is coming into sight.

The John Oliver story is actually a story of educational collapse.  Too true, the debt collection industry needs some sorting out, just as John Oliver so brilliantly illustrates, but there is another angle to the story.

Once upon a time, schools used to teach something about consumer mathematics and personal finance.  I distinctly remember being drilled, in elementary school, how to make out a check, how to buy chicken by the pound, and so on.  Not anymore.

The schools could do a whole lot about teaching students to understand debt, but they do none of it. 

Instead, there is heated public debate about evolution vs creationism in the classroom.  Can you imagine anything less relevant to people’s lives?  I doubt there are a million people, in the entire world, to whom it actually matters, in any practical sense, whether creationism is true, or evolution.

It would not make a difference even in the lives of most scientists and engineers.  You could build a perfectly good bridge while believing in creationism.  How many times do you think they considered evolution while constructing the large hadron collider?  It just doesn’t matter.

Would your car mechanic be better at fixing your car if he believed in evolution?  Hardly.  Would your CPA calculate your taxes any differently if he were a creationist instead?  Hardly.  For approximately 99.98% of all humanity, it just does not matter. 

And yet, creationism vs evolution is one of the main elements of contention in the public debate over education while, year after year, young people graduate high school with no coherent thoughts in their heads about debt, or how to read their bank statement, or how to buy a house, or how to handle a credit card, or anything that actually matters in their lives.

They used to say about the famously corrupt political machine in Chicago that at least the garbage got collected and the snow plowed.  In other words, too bad about the corruption but at least they delivered necessary services.

Not anymore.  Our Overlords are not taking care of business.