Counting minutes
Jul. 24th, 2001 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batskeets137 minutes until I can go home.
You'd think that after 21 years of hearing about all the stupid crap people do, I'd stop being so surprised by it, but you know, I just can't help it. People are phenomenally stupid, and it never ceases to amaze me.
The thing that really grabs me in that article is their statement that they may change the laws in order "to protect people too stupid to protect themselves." Does that seem wrong to anyone else? Yes, it's one thing if a small child were to go prancing around on top of a dead whale, because that small child probably doesn't know any better. But an fully-grown, completely sober, and (we assume) fully-mentally-developed adult? That's just stupid. I've never been near a dead whale being eaten by great white sharks, but I can already tell you that if I ever came upon such a situation, the *last* thing I'd be doing is trying to PET the damned sharks from the top of an animal carcass.
Is there a reason why we should be trying to protect those who seem to completely lack common sense? If we were in caveman days, then the cavepeople who did the stupid crap would suffer the consequences, and the smarter ones would be left to carry on the bloodline. How do you think our species evolved into its current state in the first place?
It seems like whenever I think about a situation like this, I remember an article I pulled up in the high school library a few years ago, when I was in 10th grade. I find it as amusing now as I did then, so here you go:
Fatal Accidents: The Bright Side
The following letter to the editor by Lawrence A. Bullis, originally published in the Arizona Republic, appeared in issue number 49 of View from the Ledge, a 'zine published by Chuck Shepherd in St. Petersburg, Florida. Bullis lives in Phoenix.
Every day some new do-gooder is trying to save us from ourselves. We have so many laws and safety commissions to ensure our safety that it seems nearly impossible to have an accident. The problem is that we need accidents, and lots of them.
Danger is nature's way of eliminating stupid people. Without safety, stupid people die in accidents. Since the dead people don't reproduce, our species becomes progressively more intelligent (or at least less stupid).
With safety, however well-intentioned it may be, we are devolving into half-witted mutants, because idiots, who by all rights should be dead, are spared from their rightful early graves and are free to breed even more imbeciles.
Let's do away with safety and improve our species. Take up smoking. Jaywalk. Play with blasting caps. Swim right after a big meal. Stick something small in your ear. Take your choice of dangerous activity and do it with gusto. Future generations will thank you.
----
Cool, I just killed 12 minutes with that. :D
You'd think that after 21 years of hearing about all the stupid crap people do, I'd stop being so surprised by it, but you know, I just can't help it. People are phenomenally stupid, and it never ceases to amaze me.
The thing that really grabs me in that article is their statement that they may change the laws in order "to protect people too stupid to protect themselves." Does that seem wrong to anyone else? Yes, it's one thing if a small child were to go prancing around on top of a dead whale, because that small child probably doesn't know any better. But an fully-grown, completely sober, and (we assume) fully-mentally-developed adult? That's just stupid. I've never been near a dead whale being eaten by great white sharks, but I can already tell you that if I ever came upon such a situation, the *last* thing I'd be doing is trying to PET the damned sharks from the top of an animal carcass.
Is there a reason why we should be trying to protect those who seem to completely lack common sense? If we were in caveman days, then the cavepeople who did the stupid crap would suffer the consequences, and the smarter ones would be left to carry on the bloodline. How do you think our species evolved into its current state in the first place?
It seems like whenever I think about a situation like this, I remember an article I pulled up in the high school library a few years ago, when I was in 10th grade. I find it as amusing now as I did then, so here you go:
Fatal Accidents: The Bright Side
The following letter to the editor by Lawrence A. Bullis, originally published in the Arizona Republic, appeared in issue number 49 of View from the Ledge, a 'zine published by Chuck Shepherd in St. Petersburg, Florida. Bullis lives in Phoenix.
Every day some new do-gooder is trying to save us from ourselves. We have so many laws and safety commissions to ensure our safety that it seems nearly impossible to have an accident. The problem is that we need accidents, and lots of them.
Danger is nature's way of eliminating stupid people. Without safety, stupid people die in accidents. Since the dead people don't reproduce, our species becomes progressively more intelligent (or at least less stupid).
With safety, however well-intentioned it may be, we are devolving into half-witted mutants, because idiots, who by all rights should be dead, are spared from their rightful early graves and are free to breed even more imbeciles.
Let's do away with safety and improve our species. Take up smoking. Jaywalk. Play with blasting caps. Swim right after a big meal. Stick something small in your ear. Take your choice of dangerous activity and do it with gusto. Future generations will thank you.
----
Cool, I just killed 12 minutes with that. :D
