For the most part, I don't know a lot about how human society works. The closest I get to real knowledge on the subject involves a telephone call — I have a friend who earned his master's degree in urban planning, and if I have questions regarding why groups of people act the way they do, I call him. Because urban planning is not sociology or philosophy, he is mostly incapable of answering my questions, and instead spends his time bitching about how his hometown refuses to do anything intelligent with its light-rail infrastructure. Usually, when the conversation ends, I've forgotten what my original question even was. It makes me feel better. Sort of.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have to think that most people operate this way. This world holds some pretty big questions, and if you're not careful, you can spend an awful lot of time thinking about them. This is fine if you're a philosopher, less fine if you can't get to sleep at three in the morning and are convinced that society is growing too dumb and you have to do something about it. So we stop. We put things off. If we don't like it, we don't think about it. And life goes on.
b33g33 made an interesting point in Ben's post on the traffic-straddling Chinese bus. I don't know if it's a real point, and it is kind of pedantic and ridiculous, but it's interesting. And it's worth thinking about, even if you choose to stop thinking about it shortly after:
OK, sometimes life goes on with an aerial, mountain-climbing bus. Which, you know, is fine, too.