There are people in society doing incredible things. Right now, in Geneva, there is a physics experiment going on (the LHC at CERN) that is so incredible that physicists all around the world will stop whatever they are doing at the merest hint of a rumour from the scientists involved. At the LHC they are literally looking for completely new types of matter. And not just types of matter that aren't here to play with on Earth, or the solar system, but types of matter that are not present as stable particles anywhere in the observable universe. Also, at the moment, in an orbit around Earth, there is a satellite that is measuring the light that lingers in the universe from the end of the big bang. This light has existed, travelling freely, for 14 billion years and it is not a stretch of the truth to say that it really is a photograph of the big bang. This is incredible and it is, right now, being done by humanity.
A huge proportion of society, will, on the occasional, dark, starry, night look at the stars and feel a sense of wonder – so they do care. However, most people don't feel any sense of participation in this incredible stuff humanity is doing. They might know of the LHC and CERN, but they feel so infinitely detached from it that they certainly won't relate to it. But, ultimately, these experiments are an undertaking by all of Europe. The scientists might be doing the hard labour, but the capital was provided by the European taxpayer. These are the public's experiments as much as they are the scientists' experiments.
The people rioting in London are no exception. They will care too. But all they can see is a society where the purpose is to accumulate wealth. What a crappy society that looks like. Until you start a family, where's the point, the purpose, the thing in life worth caring about? Why not riot? At least it gets you in the news.
While it isn't true that if everyone in London knew about the LHC that the riots wouldn't have occurred I do believe that if people cared about the goals of their society and saw them as something to fight for that the probability of stuff like this happening would diminish, whatever the other circumstances.
So, I see this blog as a small scale skirmish in that fight. That is, the fight that first aims to make society fully aware of how incredible it actually is, and secondly aims to make society want to contribute to doing more of this incredible stuff.
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