Why Dumb is the New Smart

We live in a decade where “smart” is the word of choice to describe nearly every new product or idea: smart phone, smart car, smart growth, smart code, smart communities, to name a few. All of these “smarts” have become a permanent part of our vocabulary. In fact, the word “smart” has so inundated our advertising that we tend to dismiss any product not touted as having “smart” features.

Smart communities, smart growth, and smart code are, in reality, slightly different names for the same thing: Communities that ration land usage and drive up the cost of housing, resulting in tiny expensive apartments that can be accessed only through public transportation. The idea is not new, but it has never caught on. The one thing of which we are assured when being presented with these ideas, however, is that they are “smart”.

Likewise, smart cars have been around for about ten years. The tiny (2 ½ meter long) autos are uncomfortable, unsafe, unsightly, and unsuitable for anything but short trips in town. They resemble a hideous clown car that no little boy would want to play with and no adult would ever aspire to drive. Yet, we are assured that they are a “smart” consumer choice.

Smart phones, on the other hand, actually incorporate features that most of us want. They allow one to text, phone, send emails, take photos, access the internet, etc. On the surface, they appear to be a “smart” choice. The drawback is that we now know that the federal government is currently cataloging every email, text, phone call, photo, and website that we access using our smart phones. This information makes them seem less of a “smart choice”.

Technology can never be “smart” because machines are incapable of thought. They can perform whatever tasks they have been programmed to do, but they cannot think about problems that arise in the performance of their duties and come up with new creative ways to get the job done.  They can, on the other hand, go all wiggy on us and force us to shut them down and restart them so that they can perform those, and only those, tasks they were programmed to perform in the first place.

People, however, are smart. Even the dumbest person is smarter than the smartest machine because the human brain allows us to solve problems and create new innovative processes that make our lives better. The problem is that we are being conditioned to accept whatever our government tells us. If they say we are better off living in cramped, sweltering “smart housing”, then we are. If they say we are better off driving a “smart car” that cannot possibly meet the needs of our family, then we are. If they say we are better off allowing them to collect information from our “smart phones” so that they can protect us against terrorists, then we are.

It is time for smart Americans to push back the dumb ideas that our government is forcing on us to regulate every aspect of our lives. We have some really smart elected officials that are working to help us do just that—Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Darrel Issa, to name a few. But, if we are going to win the battle, we need many more smart people in government. Next year we will have a mid-term election that will help determine our futures. We must find smart people to run for office in those races. But we need to go far beyond Washington in looking for good candidates. We should be concerned with every elected official from the local school board all the way to the White House. If we don’t, dumb will permanently become the new smart.

Joyce Swann is co-author of The Chosen, a dystopian novel about the battle of one U.S. family to restore the Constitution and stop the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act.  For more information, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net