They Are Trying To Make Us Stupid, ...
... Don't let them.
Remember, when we were young, we were full of idealism, courage, curiosity and the desire to help others and make the world a better place.
Then, we went into the system. We were told a bunch of rules. We were made to conform. Before we knew it, we lived half of our lives, and become exactly like everybody else. We call the young people naive, inexperienced, overly optimistic now.
How did they do it? Here are some of the ways:
Blame: "The username/password you entered is incorrect." "Your session expired." "The application caused a severe problem, reboot your machine."
Scare: "Are you sure you want to make the change permanent?" "You get what you pay for with Free Software." "It takes a long time to change the specification."
Brain Wash: "The correct answer is A. I told you yesterday." "The correct answer is B, not A. I never said it was A." "The correct answer is A. If you heard me say B, you are out of your mind."
Trivialize: "With our framework, all you have to do is to fill in the blank." "Just follow the standard." "Our new <buzzword> technology will do everything for you."
Lie: "Computer virus is an inevitable fact of life." "Our product outperforms the competition. Just look at these independent benchmarks." "Windows is a user friendly environment." "2 inches in 3 weeks."
It is in the interest of big vendors, big media outlets, and big employers to keep us stupid. And we are virtually alone in the fight against them. Our best weapon is a healthy dose of skepticism, pragmatism, and self-confidence.
Don't believe everything you hear. Don't take any practice as the one true way. Don't blindly buy into the big solutions. Keep on using your brains. Pay attention to grassroot movements, ones not covered by the media.
And most important of all, don't let anyone convince you that you are stupid!