Life-long learning is the thing these days, yeah? Hmmm.

You know, there was a time when you could be considered to know everything, a true educated polymath, if you go back a couple hundred years.

Different today with a legion of whatever courses your provider can dream up.

If you’re not so inclined? Don’t fuss, the web will do things for you. Call up some posts on anything and you’re guaranteed a galaxy’s worth of further education.

Won’t be balanced, of course. Not with marketing algorithms, confirmation bias and info coming from one side of the equation. But that won’t influence you, too smart for that.

So, hey presto, you’re as sharp as any expert, scientist, activist or influencer you care to hitch a ride with. Or so you think.

Welcome to tomorrow today. Seriously, why think when someone else can do it for you? Just Uber it.

People’s intelligence is actually becoming artificial at speed.

BCI is the latest. Brain computer interface. Being developed as we speak for paralysed people to operate mobiles and computers by thought.

Thing is, once it gets here, where next? Logical step seems AI plumbing your neural data, reading your thoughts.

Unlikely to be all Hollywood’s What Men Want giggles. Even people who love sharing their lives on social media might take issue at their darkest secrets as tabloid fodder for Orwellian thought police.

So what did you learn this week from sources other than bias confirmation?

I learned, while in the kitchen researching mushrooms, that scientists have found an Amazon fungus, Pestalotiopsis microspore, that consumes plastic. Might save us from any looming PFAS catastrophe.

I learned Egypt’s pyramids might have been built with hydraulic engineering. Funny thing, I found a Frenchman at Saqqara’s step pyramid some years back, trying to rebuild it block by block. He’ll be excited.

I learned the Great Barrier Reef’s growing like Topsy, setting records authorities won’t acknowledge.

And that Argentina’s economy’s growing fast also; 7.6% last quarter, in the face of savage spending cuts. UNICEF concedes 1.7 million children have been lifted from poverty since Milei came to power.

And fake news move over, fake science is the thing.

A German anaesthesiologist holds the record with 220 of 400 published papers retracted by journals. Globally, 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023. Australia’s got its own no-hopers, too.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?  If the smart ones can’t learn, what hope is there for us dummies?

This article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser, 22 July 2025