How do we slay the dragon?

[Confused Ape]

It is hard to see how the human race will ever get smarter. The advances in science are carried out by extreme specialists. Lay people become more and more estranged from the technical expertise of its experts.

It's been the same throughout history. Only a tiny percentage of the population of any given civilisation were mathematicians, astronomers, architects or philosophers etc. Everyone else was working to keep the civilisation going.

How much would Plato have achieved if he'd had to grow his own food, make his own clothes through the processes of spinning and weaving to get cloth, build his own house starting with making bricks and quarrying stone, making all his own home furnishings and doing all the housework etc. etc.?

How much would our extreme specialists in science achieve if they didn't have lowly lay people working to keep them in equipment let alone anything else? "I need a microscope." The scientist is given a map where they can obtain the raw materials for making metal and glass and told to get on with it.

Popular culture doesn't value academics or reflection. I see very little reason for hope. Certainly there is no evolutionary vehicle for selecting for smarter.

I found a very interesting video by Ken Robinson

Sir Kenneth Robinson (born 4 March 1950) is an English author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education, and arts bodies. He was Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education.

His point is that modern education stifles creativity because academic achievement has come to dominate our ideas of intelligence. It's real purpose is to turn out university professors. He's a very entertaining speaker so his talk isn't boring to listen to.

We're fucked.

We might well be because humans are just apes playing with dangerous toys which some science specialists have invented for us.

If our technological civilisation collapsed tomorrow who would be the most useful people to have around?

1: Theoretical physcisists
2: Craftsmen and women whose skills are now relegated to hobby activities such as spinning, weaving, woodworking and basket making.
3: Hands-on archaeologists who have learned how to make primitive forges for metal working and useful tools from flint and obsidian
4: Primitive tribes who could teach everyone how to survive by hunter/gathering and subsistence farming