system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is general knowledge important?

There is a peculiar sentiment in modern day America. No matter your occupation, you are expected to *keep up* with everything. World events, medical knowledge, the economy, social issues, pop culture, everyone from professional bimbos to plumbers to public officials to that smartass at your local bar has to have their own take on every issue under the sun. Why? 

I thought the whole point about specialization is that everyone gets their own domain to work in. Woodcutters cut wood, farmers mess around with eggs, prostitutes fondle balls, and doctors do the same but with latex gloves.


What is the philosophical justification for this? I was scorned recently for not knowing what **drinking the kool-aid** refers to. Bitch, I am a swimming instructor, not a historian.
gpt
In one way, it's valuable to be social. It's useful to communicate and connect with others to have a vague set of knowledge that one can participate in with anyone in general. You're sitting at an airport waiting on your flight and the guy next to you also looks bored as hell so you might endeavor to broach a conversation on the event of the time, maybe the baseball playoffs, an election, some scandal in the media. General knowledge is a pool which anyone of a specialization, or even no specialization, can drink from and be a society. 

In another way, it's valuable to the human experience. What's a well-lived life if it stays in one corner, in one profession and carries out its duty until it dies? Maybe knowing a range, but maybe not everything, can give us a well-rounded perspective on being a person? We, by our nature, are intellectually curious, sexually curious, ingenuitive, artistic, political, and so on. Why should we relegate our humanity into boxes beyond what's economically convenient?