Why don't we, as a society, make sure we all know more about scientific and technological issues?

Well, "more" is pretty vague. For my grandpa, "more" could be something as simple as learning how to check his voice mail messages or seeing the point in learning himself when his grandkids are more than willing to check them for him if he asks. For others it's out of this world notions of living on other planets or UFOs controlling our brains through cell phones.

While I think that we as a culture should know more about how the science and technology that we use affects us and our world, I also think that there will always be more for us to know. And who is to say that we should spend more time learning more about science and technology issues when there are so many issues that we also need to know more about like religious problems, racism, ... there are a lot of issues that we need to know more about.

I think that often times we don't know more about the science and technology ones because we are too interested in the other issues or because these issues just don't interest some people. Or people don't like them because they don't understand them or see the point in discussing things that see like far-fetched fiction. Some people probably think that these issues will never apply to them, others just don't care. Or the only "more" that there is to know on an issue is speculation and guesswork that people don't feel like messing with. There are a million reasons why we don't know more about issues of science and technology...