Lost

Next time I hear someone say Americans are stupid (a relatively common belief around the world), I wont point to our universities (Harvard, MIT, Yale, Chicago, Virginia Tech, etc) which educate their leaders, or the ingenuitive inventions from vehicles to the internet which got started in the states, or the obvious fact that we became the most powerful country in the world for a reason, but rather to Lost. I think it's telling that one of the most popular shows in the US is 'Lost' which even I, someone who has watched it since the beginning, have trouble following. The current season, which involves as many strange plot twists as ever, and include two parallel universes suggest that its viewers are highly capable of grasping difficult and complex themes and ideas.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I can justify watching hours of Lost when I should be studying: using cost benefit analysis, I can gain just as much intellectually from watching Lost as I would from reading about conditional cash transfers in Latin America. Sort of