My post is not about whether people want to think or desire thinking and there'll be fewer of those in the future. Rather, my post is that technologically speaking, thinking is about to become obsolete just like learning to bridle a horse has become obsolete, just like beating clothes against a washboard has become obsolete, just like typing will become obsolete through voice recognition word processing software.
Think back to the 1970s or early 1980s and the calculator. It made memorizing multiplication tables obsolete at the same time that I was memorizing them. Why on earth do I need to know them now? I don't. Same shit for algebra--and all the countless hours I spent trying to graph a parabola. Today, a computer program can do this for you.
Similarly, with 3-D printing, eventually machines will cut on us to take our ruptured appendix, or our inflamed tonsils. All that will be needed is some tech, minimally trained, to watch the machine.
Eventually, this post-cognitive age will lead to a breakdown in society as we all retreat to our enclaves. This is why the libertarians are a very vocal group today. They don't want to think, don't have to think, and they want their own home to be a sovereign nation unto itself.
I know my idea here isn't well developed yet, but I'm developing it, so this post and the previous ones are a work in progress. But essentially, tech makes various things in human society obsolete. I'm arguing that our smart technology and computing capabilities will render a future society in which thinking is obsolete. In many ways, that movie Idiocracy is coming true, but it wont' take 500 years to get there.
