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Bill Maher’s new rules hit the nail on the head. It is a serious message told amusingly, but one we should heed.
Bill Maher suggests falling in love with knowledge
America is on a dangerous, self-destructive sliding slope of ignorance. Bill Maher’s Valentine message is one many have been trying to tell.
“I did fall in love with books, and ideas, and knowledge,” Bill Maher said. “There is no doubt that it is a truly kind of love affair when you go off to a place where you have intellectual epiphanies because learning is so revered. And the celebrities are the smartest people. I may not have been able to get a blow job in college, but I got my mind blown on a regular basis. But you know, that was another country.
One of the saddest things about the one we live in now is that we don’t seem to want smart people in our lives anymore. Smart Presidents? We can’t have that. Scientists? What do they know? Newspaper editors? Liars. Fake news.
You know people use to get their news from newspapers. Because professional newsrooms to separating fact from fiction seriously. And employed people who had studied how to do that. But now people get their news on Facebook by sharing. Or as it used to be called, hearsay. Why waste money on a subscription to a newspaper when they would just blow it on war correspondents, on the Ben Bradleys of the world who brought a president to his knees way before Monica Lewinsky did.
A student in a social media focus group once said ‘If the news is important, it will find me,’ except it doesn’t. And that is how we ended up with President Bannon and his dummy Donnie. It’s not surprising that it can’t find you since on social media news competes with videos of Russian car crashes, creepy clowns, and a Rabbi doing a mannequin challenge. And you know how they say you can’t make this shit up. It turns out you can.
By election day last year, the top fake news on Facebook was getting more shares, clicks, and comments than the real news. Millions of people believed some straight up bullshit that the Pope had endorsed Trump when in fact after Trump won what the Pope said was ‘I am praying for his enlightenment.’ To which God said, ‘I’ve done a lot of miracles, but give me a fucking break.’ We used to respect scientists. That’s why every stoner in the seventies had a poster of Einstein on the wall. But now only thirty-six percent of Americans say they have a lot of trusts that information from scientists is reliable.
While ninety-eight percent of scientists say humans evolved over the millennia. But that view is shared by not nearly as many real Americans. Trump supporters don’t think species can change over time. But they do think Trump used to be all about himself but now he is working for us. This Valentines Day can we please fall in love with knowledge again?
You know under President Obama the Secretary of Energy was first a Nobel prize winner, and then a nuclear physicist. Not that Trump’s pick for the job does not have impressive credentials. [Rick Perry on Dancing with the Stars displayed] How did it happen? We went from being led by the smartest person in the world to the biggest jackass on Twitter.”
Let’s encourage all to fall in love with knowledge again.
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