The hardest part of any project isn’t doing the work, or even getting started, it’s doing the thinking for it. That’s where most people stall out because they either don’t want to think (and the brain hates using up its resources unnecessarily) or they overthink and aren’t sure where to begin.

I’ll even be so bold as to say the biggest challenge of being human is to engage in critical thinking.

This is why the idea of outsourcing our brains is such a powerful one. Why bother keeping anything in there, or thinking through anything, when we can get something external to think for us? In fact, it might even do a much better job.

Isn’t this the promise of the technological utopia espoused to us by technologists? Once we achieve the singularity (a merging of human and machine), we will have elevated the human being to a new evolution of existence. 

Our existence will be solved.

We will all be better off.

Of course, this necessitates that somebody before us has done the proper thinking… and one that will set us on a good course… 

But how is that working out for us right now?

Much of our thinking is influenced by algorithms that feed us what we want to hear, mainly guided by marketing for companies to profit. Even our education system is designed in a way that follows the current thinking of the time without any regard for conversation or argument.

And with a cacophony of information being dumped upon us, it’s impossible to spend time filtering out what matters and what we should reflect upon. Our world is moving so fast it doesn’t want us to stop and think.

Just take it for what it is and move on.

Put the question in the AI Chatbot, get an answer and feel satisfied with what it gave.

Accept this particular news source as the reliable one because the others seem nonsensical.

Quick answers. Shortcuts. Done.

Anything to avoid putting the actual effort into thinking, which works out great for the people who want to manipulate that laziness. Which is what this is: manufactured laziness.

Just as a body falls into a state of disrepair when it’s not taken care of, as does the mind. Exercise the thinking muscle with the utmost strain and we may find ourselves in a society that thinks for itself once more.