h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would like to make some of my thoughts known about the way standards are sliping to a point where we will no longer be useing our brains. In training circles it is generaly accepted that a student will only absorb about 50% of what he/she is taught.(I am being generous)As he/she passes down the long road of life they become experienced in the subject they trained for, by the end of their long and fruitful lives they are as experienced as a person could get. BUT they never achieve the the amount of knowledge as their tutor had. Let us take a small example.

Try this. If my grandfather was a carpenter, he took om my father when he was young to train him to also be a carpenter. Lets say my father was very gifted in the brains department and he absorbed 60% of what he was taught. As the years went by he gained a further 35% through experience, this still leaves 5% of the original knowledge which has been lost. If my father then took me onto train me in the family business and I was also brainy but the same thing happened. If we take a time scale of thirty years between each generation, it would take approx 150 years before all the original knowlege was totaly lost. Its not very long is it?

Technology will replace it I hear you shout. Will it? Machines will only do what we tell them to do. How many of todays children know how to light or clean a fire, or to cook a meal useing raw materials? They have been brought up on quick foods and microwave ovens. Because of the depression in the 1970/80s there is a shortage of skilled people. There is an even bigger shortage of people to train the next generation. Our fathers and grandfathers are passing into history there is a massive amount of knowledge and experience disappearing and no-one has thought of trying to save it, old gardening tips which have not been used because of all the sprays that are available, (they were also environmentaly friendly).

When are we going to wake up to the fact that our bank of knowledge has got a hole in the bottom and we are losing our future inheritance.