I am not one to take the theory of evolution as the final word on how we ended up walking upright on this planet. But the man had it right when he said natural selection could determine the outcome of a species.
Unless said species develops the intelligence to circumvent the natural selection process. That along with an out of control litigation system and we have no shot at culling the stupid and inept from the herd.
So much about the origins of life is still up in the air. There is plenty of fossil evidence to give Darwin’s theory merit. But not everything about life and its origins is explained, at least not yet. There is even fossil evidence showing some mutations leading to a completely new species. But still the Darwinists ask us to believe that in the early days of evolution, groups of cells with no ability to reason decided to form a co-op.
What was their motivation?
How did they communicate?
Was there a vote on who got the role as asshole?
That’s my two cents; I am not a creationist by any means. One has to believe in the stories of the bible to be one. I think they are great stories that send a great message, but they are just stories.
No matter what you believe, there is solid evidence in the world around us, that there is a natural selection process that keeps a species strong and healthy. Within our species, the dominant male is labeled a bully and ridiculed. In the animal kingdom, this male gets the chicks because it ensures the strongest and fiercest males reproduce. If a panther cannot catch a gazelle because he has self-esteem issues, he will starve and never reproduce.
Goodbye self-esteem issue until the next mutation.
We have overcome so many things as a species, including natural selection. Warfare is a terrible and brutal thing that no generation should ever endure. But most every generation does. In the oldest of wars, it was an extension of natural selection. The strongest and most cunning survive the battles and go home to their wives.
Now, it is a meat grinder that takes the best and brightest and spits them out the other side. One may argue that those who can avoid war are the brightest, but a lot of fine young men volunteer because they feel it’s their duty. Other countries conscript their military, no volunteering for the meat grinder in their case.
The technology in warfare doesn’t pick its victims based on size and strength; it’s all about creating mass casualties with little effort. Most of the technology involved in warfare doesn’t even require you to look your enemy in the eye. As we use to say when I was in the Army, reach out and touch someone.
Plagues and pandemics used to weed out the weaker of the species. For a big part of my life now, the news media has been doing their very best to wish a worldwide pandemic upon us. In recent years, there was SARS, West Nile Virus, the Bird Flu, and now Ebola. Ebola is creating havoc in parts of Africa, and that’s too bad, but the rest of the world is handling it.
Its technology that is protecting the weak and feeble. The plague of old days didn’t kill everyone, just those that did not have the strength to fight off the infection. Don’t get me wrong, I would be devastated if one of my children fell victim to any of the aforementioned illnesses. But it was part of Darwin’s natural selection. Populations became too dense, there wasn’t enough resources to handle the density, and disease swept through the population. In its wake, it left those physically strong enough to withstand the infection. They would then go on to breed generations with those same hearty qualities.
But, fortunately for our families, we have tamed the epidemic and its big brother the pandemic, and most of us go to bed at night with little concern about contracting Ebola.
Technology has not fixed stupid though. One of my flight instructors in the Army said, “The Army learned long ago, no matter how much technology you put into an aircraft, you cannot make it idiot proof.” The Army’s answer was education and training.
Our answer is lawsuits and warning labels. Every warning label you read has a lawsuit behind it. Well, maybe not so much anymore, but in the early days of the warning label, oh yeah, there was a story behind that label.
I find the warning label to be an affront to my intelligence.
I also find anyone who argues in favor of the lawsuit or in the plaintiffs favor, is a bigger idiot than the plaintiffs are themselves. The plaintiff was an idiot for trimming his hedges with a lawnmower. The guy saying there should have been a warning label on the lawnmower stating that it was a bad idea is a moron!
I have given the concept of trimming hedges with a push mower some thought. I like the concept. Lift the mower over the hedge and it cuts a perfectly flat and even hedge, nice! But, as I just said. I have given it some thought. If you are going to pick the mower up, it might be best to avoid the blades. If I were going to pick up a running lawnmower, it would be by the protrusions that the manufacture mounted the wheels on. But, there is still the issue of discharging debris. Most mowers these days discharge out the side, unless there is a bagger attachment, and then it’s out the back. If you have it setup for mulching, well then it doesn’t discharge, you are just going to have a lot of skin piercing slivers coming out the bottom.
All in all, not a good idea. If you want to pick it up by the wheel protrusions, then you best remove the wheels. They are round and don’t make good handles. They are also on axles, which makes them susceptible to spinning. That means they will probably twist out of your grip and you will cut something off you were not ready to part with. If you remove the wheels, well then it won’t be a very good lawnmower.
Here’s a thought, use a hedge trimmer!
But that’s the difference between the idiot and me. I thought it thru, he won’t. Getting your fingers lobbed off by a running mower as you pick it up to trim the hedge won’t take you out of the gene pool, but before the lawyers got involved, it would make you think the next time.
The warning labels I get the biggest kick out of, and wonder if they themselves have resulted in a lawsuit are the airbag warning labels in your car. The first vehicle I purchased that had warning labels about the airbags printed on the sun visor made me go hmmm. Most of us will not see them for the first time until you are driving and we flip the visor down to block the sun. You will see the warning label, and you will have to know what it says. Reading and driving…bad idea? If you’re along in years like myself, and need cheaters to read.
One more distraction!
Things warning labels tell me that I already know.
- Coffee is hot!
- Plastic bags make horrible play toys, for both children and adults.
- Doing the same thing over, and over, and over, will result in some sort of pain if you don’t remedy the situation by stretching or doing some sort of exercise.
- Smoking is bad for your health. I knew it when I started at twelve, and I still know it after smoking half my life.
- Playing in a refrigerator is a bad idea, especially if you close the door.
- I know peanut butter has peanuts.
- Riding out the spin cycle in a washer is a bad idea!
- When the garage door is closing, don’t stand under it!
- But most importantly of all, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN UNATTENDED!
Let’s address the last two because they are tied together. For most of my childhood, I was a latch key kid before there was such a term. What was different about eight year old Billy being on his own and so many children of today is, I learned from my lessons. Not only did my grandparents and my mother let me hit my head once in a while. When I did do something stupid that didn’t cause immediate harm, they themselves let me have it.
For example, if I put a plastic bag over my head in an attempt to make my brothers laugh, MY MOM FREAKED! She didn’t say, “Oh Billy, you shouldn’t do that.” In a soothing, don’t hurt my feelings voice, she screamed it! Because of her tone and the terrified expression on her face, I knew I fucked up, and yanked the bag off my head. I was certain I did something stupid. Therefore, when I was home alone, or not being closely watched. The lessons I learned during those stupid moments in the company of an adult carried over.
Also, if I were in a hazardous environment, my parents would not leave me “unattended”. We did not have automatic garage doors back then. At least not the ones working folks could afford. But I guarantee you, if the garage door was closing and we were screwing around, a butt whooping was next.
Early garage doors did not have light beams that pissed you off every time you tried to close the garage door and it would reverse because a beam was out of line. They had this thing called “auto reverse”. If the garage door hit something before completely closing, it stopped and reversed. The instructions made it perfectly clear that you had to test this feature, and do so monthly.
Then some moron installed one, didn’t test it, and his child paid the price.
Let me reiterate, the death of a child is a horrible thing. They are always the innocent victim. With that being said, it was not my fault and neither Stanley nor I should pay the price for the negligence of that child’s parents.
But we do.
When a closing garage door crushed that child, the question was, “Why isn’t there a mechanism to protect a child in that situation?”
There was, but his stupid father didn’t do his job as a parent!
Because this person didn’t fulfill his basic duties as a parent and a do it yourselfer, the rest of us pay the price.
One price I paid was mastering the skill of jumping the beam while at the same time ducking the closing garage door. Tell me that this feat is not fraught with danger. It was simple enough in the old days to hit the close button on the garage door and boogie out the garage. Any child could accomplish this easy task with minimal athletic ability.
But after the introduction of the infrared beam, life became much more complicated. Now, once you hit that button you had to be weary of two things. The location of the beam that would save your life and the height of the descending garage door as you leaped the beam.
It created an athletic posture that was alien to children who knew how to crouch, and how to jump, but both at the same time.
I wish I had a metaphor, but nothing in this life comes to mind. Kids everywhere were learning how to duck and jump at the same time. If you failed, the garage door would reverse and you had to go back to the garage door button on the back wall and try again.
It was get to the ball park quickly hell if there ever was one.
Who knows, maybe the lawyers who sued the garage door makers in this case saw the future. Children with no desire to leave the house at all. Eventually an entire generation came along that didn’t give a shit if the house was locked up, because they never left the damn thing.
Either way, the Army was right. No matter how much technology you put into something, you will never make it idiot proof. My children know to stay the hell out of the way when the garage door is closing. They also know how to leap and duck at the same time.
But guess what? My six foot three son was pleasantly surprised to discover he didn’t need to duck and leap at the same time.
The people who installed my garage door did it right.