sci.research.careers

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007, Russell wrote:

> On Aug 28, 4:07 am, Beladi Nasralla wrote:
>> On Aug 28, 10:42 am, Old Pif wrote:
>>
>>> Everybody knows how Art likes Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears. Here
>>> is another potential candidate for admiration:
>>
>>> /watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww#GU5U2spHI_4
>>
>> She replied self-confidently and with charm, and this is all what
>> counts.
>>
>> Regarding the question: "Why cannot some Americans locate countries on
>> the map ?" My reply would be that the Americans would be able to
>> confidently locate the coutry on the map if they travelled there as
>> tourists. But the powers-to-be hold the country's wealth away from
>> those unfortunate Americans. It is their, government's, fault. As
>> simple as that.
>
> I don't think so, because such surveys (it seems like a new
> one is reported yearly) show that X% of Americans can't locate
> things like the state where they live on a map. So it isn't due
> to lack of actually ever being someplace that so many
> Americans can't point out the locations on a map.
>
> Cheers,
> Russell
>

And, I have a number of friends--complete with not one, but several cell
phones, and not one but several GPS units, and PDAs--and they need all
this stuff just to locate their front door of wherever they live, so they
can go out and do something. And, when I ask them "OK, how did you manage
to live BEFORE you got all this stuff?" they can't see the elephant in the
living room.

And, Alexander-the-Great, and his army of 40,000 marched, on foot, 2300
years ago, from northern Greece to western India and back (~5,000 miles),
without roads, vehicles, aircraft. Just like all the other armies over all
that time until mechanization came on the scene mostly in the last 100+
years.

And, educated people memorized 10,000-15,000 lines of poetry (Illiad,
Oddessey, etc) to remember, eg., the Trojan War over some 600 years before
it was first written down (by Homer).