A rant - just for a change

I find that as time goes by, I am becoming more and more apathetic about the world in general and people in particular. I know that I can do nothing to change either and so therefore what is the point in getting worked up about it? I have become an observer and not a very interested one at that.
I do like to think that part of my brain still functions though, and that I do take time to think about things before rushing to conclusions. I leave that to the tabloid press and those who allow the newspapers to do their thinking for them.
I was sent a movie the other day- a campaign to petition President Obama in order to stop NASA from "Bombing" the moon. Now the author of the message clearly didn't understand the nature of the mission which was to collide a small projectile into the lunar surface in order to analyse the debris and to hopefully confirm the presence of usable quantities of water. The video gave the impression that the moon was about to be nuked, blown out of existence with all the obvious consequences. Protesters would like to see the new Hadron collider to be closed in case they create a black hole that swallows the world, and there are those who see genetic engineering of food crops as evil, despite the fact that farmers have been doing it since prehistory.
There are many people out there who see any attempt to drive forwards the quest for knowledge as a threat, and many more who love to jump onto ill conceived bandwagons carrying conspiracy after conspiracy. It seems that it is fashionable to be paranoid as well as stupid. To be a free thinker is becoming harder and harder with education systems driving all through the same machine, the media forever dumbing down to the lowest common denominator and an ever increasing dependence on electronic media for communication.
In March, all being well, I will become a grandfather, and though delighted, I do worry about the sort of world he/she will be coming into. I fear that they will be absorbed into a culture that lacks excellence, where to be average is good enough and to be stupid is even better, where the quest for knowledge is seen as antisocial and where scientists are burned at the stake. There is little that keeps me awake at night but having another generation in the world makes me fear for their future.