Really that ignorant?

[Bavarianbrit]

We were at General Motors in Detroit as a bunch of Brits working on the big flat drafting tables as this was well before CAD and the GM management did a regular walkaround to oversee the progress on the body development, one of the Brits said to the top manager "see this imaginary line here?" "yes" said he.

 

[Ratel]

Met a well known business man last year who was convinced that the big holes in his woodland were where Muntjac lived.

 

[User00035]

I was getting my haircut and the young lad cutting it asked what my plans were for the day, I explained that I had some work to do on my allotment. He started quizzing me first on what was an allotment and then on how long it took from sowing the seeds to eating the produce, I told him it would be about 3 months, depending on what it was. He looked at me incredulously and said he thought it would be a week.

And people like that have a vote. Re-wilding, net-zero fantasies anyone?

I remember when I was very young and many people didn't have a car or a TV, there still existed youngsters who'd grown up in cities who, for example, had never set foot in a forest or ever seen the sea. We had such a family visit us once. The kids were staggered when they saw those things for the first time. But they weren't stupid, they assumed nothing and asked pertinent questions.
Somehow today, lazy assumptions have replaced a sense of enquiry. I blame over-simplification from information technology. People are becoming divorced from reality. And they're very easy to ,manipulate. It's quite alarming really.

 

[User00035]

Met a well known business man last year who was convinced that the big holes in his woodland were where Muntjac lived.

Underground munties are very hard to shoot. Murder if you get a colony of them living under your lawn.

 

[del.gue]

Sometimes its ignorance, sometimes just lack of education.
Many people only get what they know about nature from tv or the internet, and if your teachers are packham and his ilk then sadly they will remain uniformed.
IT should be taught from early years were food comes from and nature in general. Sadly with the state of teaching and forcing stupid narratives on kids i cant see it getting any better.

 

[camodog]

Ask youngsters under twenty to light a fire.

Done that.....knotted newspapers, kindling, then slightly more substantial wood on top, then coal...(shock horror), rubbing two pieces of wood together....err, I mean striking a match. The look of utter amazement when I spread newspaper across the fire-place to 'draw it' and the ensuing roar as 'it took' !

 

[Ratel]

A classic when we were kids about twelve years old and a town lad came to stay locally for a while. We convinced him squirrels laid eggs and he could hatch one for a pet, we even got him to climb to a drey. His hand came out of the drey with squirrel attached which was an immediate target for our cattys. The poor lad nearly fell out of the tree. Fair play to him he saw the funny side and when he went home he knew a lot about the countryside and came to stay many times.

 

[VSS]

It's all very well us joking over city folks ignorance of the countryside and the natural world, but I'd be equally ignorant if placed in the centre of a big city and expected to cope.

 

[trickie]

About 6 years ago when we lived in Chippenham, a Saturday morning strolling in to town for a cooked breakfast, we caught up with a man who looked to be late 20’s early 30’s taking to a boy of about 8/9 his son possibly, there were talking about the boys “5 a day”, we clearly heard the man saying, you now know why we only allow you one bar of chow day, as it’s one of your 5 a day. We just walked past speechless.

 

[Len the dog]

It's all very well us joking over city folks ignorance of the countryside and the natural world, but I'd be equally ignorant if placed in the centre of a big city and expected to cope.

Some years ago I had to go down to the Big Smoke and the Brazilian Consulate for a work visa, the day was a Friday, the last Friday before Christmas. I pulled into King’s Cross and was immediately swept along by a tide of people, the same happened on the tube and again when I got off at Oxford Circus. Again walking along Oxford St it was just a mass of humanity and I had very little control over my direction. I managed to duck into a side street and stood for a couple of minutes before phoning my wife to tell her that I really wasn’t enjoying my experience so far.
Why anyone would prefer that is beyond me.

 

[long_range_rob]

Sadly, yes they are. A few years ago, I brought a fallow home to butcher. Next door neighbour brought his then 9 year old son to have a look, and asked "is it dead?" Yes was the reply, then he said "can't you press reset like you do on my computer game?". The worrying thing is that generation will be running what's left of the country in 20 years time.

This is the standard thought process for teenage drivers too unfortunately. Just press the reset button after you’ve wrapped it round a tree