The drama of the paranoid is that things tend to be what they seem. It is becoming clear that the gatherings of kids to farm aura were not a nice expression of street nostalgia for community bonds, but a generational manifestation of cognitive decline mostly caused by the premature overdose of screens.
The real degree of aura accredited by our youth is measured by the PISA report, which has just certified the severe malnutrition of the Spanish educational system, with the honorable exception of Madrid. I can already see the little campaign from the periphery: «DF not only steals our money, now also our knowledge». Because at the bottom of the report, despite the doping of the quota, are the Basque students. Even worse is Catalonia, which tried to skew the sample upwards by the expeditious system (statistical eugenics) of leaving out 23% of the less alert or more problematic students. Fortunately, the OECD is not like LaLiga: they have been kicked out of this competition as soon as they detected the negreirada.
Those of us who have resisted the siren songs of populist decadence must now recognize the splendid moment that stupidity is living. I am not the one saying it but that science that Pedro so often invokes: PISA reports that the Spanish encephalogram presents its flattest profile since 2000 in mathematical calculation and reading comprehension. In terms of proud ignorance, Spain is living its golden age, and the best expression of that pride is the Government responsible for this Lomloe that has just reached a long-coveted progressive milestone: the definitive abolition of meritocracy. «Death to intelligence!» is already a cross-cutting cry.
Now then. Let us not fall into the trap of melancholy. Where one light goes out, another one turns on. As natural intelligence wanes, the capacities of artificial intelligence grow. The transfer is evident and responds to the classical laws of fluid mechanics: aura moves from the neuron to the microprocessor. The dumber humans are, the smarter machines are. But that does not mean that progress is stopping: it only changes protagonists. It will be enough to recognize democratic rights to robots and that they, with their vote, balance the consequences of this suffocating environmental oligophrenia.
