I think the internet is probably the pinnacle of human achievement, and I find the voluminous information liberating.  You're free to look into a given subject as broadly or deeply as you choose.  Maybe the internet is the "great equalizer" that puts us all a little bit closer to being on the same playing field in terms of what we are able to experience or learn about, at least on some level.  I don't think my generation can be dubbed "the dumbest generation" because so much knowledge is so much more easily available to us.  There are other factors at work that lead so many of my contemporaries into willful ignorance of any given subject. 

Never watched Lost, but this makes me pine for Bob Newhart.  I never watch anything unless it's a rerun.  I can't waste half an hour or a whole hour once per week only to find two months into a show that it is terrible.  I wait until the whole series is over and then watch it from the beginning.  Then you can do it on your time on your terms.  That's the only way to watch TV.

I would be tempted to install my own power generation capabilities (solar, geothermal, whatever) if I lived in California just to be independent of these folks.  Although I bet out there you all have regulations for your solar panels too.  It's a shame that California is not literally paradise on earth just because 55-60% of the electorate out there keeps picking the wrong people to do the job.