Have you noticed the dummying down of our society or the lack of intelligence? Well, it appears to not only be in the United States, but also in a number of modern societies. There are definitely some issues, which need to be addressed. What sort of issues? Well humans in modern societies and civilizations do not think or reason much, only a few do. Most simply recite their purported knowledge and opinions most of which is merely what they read in the paper or saw on TV. Occasionally it includes conversations with their hairdressers, which is a nice touch indeed.

Can we put together think tanks to get the ball rolling again and teach people to think, by actually practicing the art of problem solving in groups? Isn't that the purpose of the think tank? I suppose for some this might be the idea of a think tank, but people sitting around trying to impress each other with knowledge or memorization of facts they were Told in school or from an electronic medium of entertainment are not thinking of course.

Do you mean that people's opinions are directly influenced by their background and thus unless they change their intake of mass media that this problem will not be solved; I mean the average household in the United States watches TV 8-hour per day? If you call background, the background noise of Television or mass media hysteria, yes, if that were changed there could be a positive effect. If more people watched the Discovery Channel or History Channel and more often instead of the repetitious nightly news in 6 minute snippets or segments, then you could see a change.

If you mean background as one's over all experiences, observations, trials and errors and accomplishments, I would say that is not the norm, although that would be a place one should draw upon when reasoning. And to that point perspective based background is not a negative issue in my observation, different views do help enlighten the perspective of a group to get up and look outside the cave and think outside their pre-defined dimensional boxes, yet can you really name 5 individuals you know who can do this consistently, without reverting back to faithful servant side thinking filled with hokum and/or the sound and theory of mass media fury of more than a day gone by?

Would you say that by one who choices to only have liberal based input and accepts this as the total possible of their background knowledge base is a balanced person? A Lib-Dem might deny the innate human characteristics of the species to "want to do as little as possible and get the most for it." What do those Christians say, with that cute little antidote; "Give a man a fish?" Would the background or belief system allowing one to forgo this observational aspect of mankind be a worthy perspective in a think tank to solve the problems of the human race or any problem at all for that matter? If re-training people to think in Think Tanks in the liberal laced world of academia is one’s potential solution to this dilemma in our society; well then, I would say that is no solution at all. In fact that may also be part of the problem.

In other words if you think like us, then you are thinking properly and thus OK. But in fact that is not thinking but rather simply following a certain pre-conceived line of reasoning, which is the same a watching TV and accepting that as Gospel? In fact wouldn’t that merely enable the group, like other human groupings who are in charge of various decision making endeavors to continue the non-ending loop and be doomed in the repetition of follies known throughout our many civilizations brief written recorded history? Think on this issue.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

• Human Life is Sacred


• Each Drop of Rain Counts to Drench My Heart


• Why Should Man Believe in God - An Optimistic Explanation


• A Philosophical Dissertation on Consciousness


• Preference and Culture


• A Story of a Rose, an Artist, and History


• Blackboards


• Industrial Labor Versus Domestic Labor


• Logic


• Up in Smoke