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“I KNOW that I know everything, therefore I am insufferable”; with due apologies to Socrates and René Descartes for rephrasing, arguably, their most popular quotes. However, this merged and modified quote appropriately describes almost everyone living in the information age today; the popular notion being that a smartphone and Google search is all that you need to be wise. And I suppose I cannot claim to be any different.
Curiously, a recent review in The Economist of an apparently interesting book, The Knowledge Illusion: Why we Never Think Alone by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach, confirmed this hypothesis. The write up began with asking, “Do you know how a toilet works? What about a bicycle, or a zipper?”; Google was able to answer all these questions in fractions of second, and even bragged, rightly so, about the time taken, which was a few seconds, and number of results found. Ultimately, obviously, the book is not about testing Google’s prowess, but tries to tackle the paradox of the powerful, yet at the same time shallow, human mind; and shallow it is.
After reading the review, the book is now on my ‘to read list’, and strongly recommended as a must read for all the wise men of the land of the pure. Especially for the many whose first reaction to the above paragraph was that, knowing how the toilet, or bicycle or zipper for that matter, works is not wisdom. On a lighter note, if anyone wants to know how shoe laces become undone, there is a scientific explanation to that “knotty problem” published in another issue of the same weekly.
The book should be read by all the wise men in the land of the pure.
Again I don’t claim to be different; why cramp my memory banks with frivolous knowledge when I know all about the more important things in life.
Without ever having studied politics, or remotely been in politics, I am an expert on all political developments in the country and on democracy to boot. I know better than the party leaders what their party strategy should be, how should they contests elections and I can even predict what will happen in the forthcoming elections. My keen uncanny political sense allows me to even know everything about politics in every other country on the globe, which makes me best suited to comment upon foreign policy. And I know for a fact that history never repeats itself.
Without ever having studied economics, or having related experience, I am an economic genius and know the economy like the back of my hand. I know that free market economy and globalisation is the way forward for Pakistan. I don’t even have to know what GDP is to discuss it endlessly. I know that we can never pay back all this national debt hence the party will continue forever. In fact I know so much about the economy that I can easily advise the government on taxation policy, debt management, trade policy and monetary policy, which for me is a walk in the park. And forget economics, I know that I can even discuss rocket science without batting an eye lid.
Without ever having studied law, I am an expert on legislation and best suited to analyse the Panama verdict. If not for the risk of being held in contempt, I know I could easily analyse and criticise the intricate aspects of the case. In fact, I know everything about offshore companies without ever reading about it. And that is not all, I am an expert on national security and international intrigue all of which is child’s play for me.
Without ever having played the game, I know all about cricket and what Pakistan needs to do to be world champions. I know more about balling, batting and field placement than our cricket team and its captain, and in fact can advise the selection committee on who should be in the team in the first place. In fact, I know everything about most all sports including hockey, football, squash and snooker.
And for those who don’t know about humour and sarcasm, this is it!
The conclusion for today is taken from The Economist with necessary modification: ‘It is hard to reason with someone under the illusion that their beliefs are thought through, and simply presenting facts is unlikely to change beliefs when those beliefs are based on Google and rooted in groupthink on Facebook and Twitter. Making people confront this illusion of understanding will temper their opinions, but this could have the opposite effect — people respond badly to feeling foolish’.
Unfortunately even Messrs Sloman and Frenbach remained clueless on how to fix the tendency of the human mind to evolve into a ‘know it all’. Ironically, I already knew that there is no solution to I know!
The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2017
