My Anti-Simpleton Crusade

[scheherazade_79]

Is it my imagination, or is the world getting generally more stupid? Centuries ago, civilisation progressed through the Survival of the Fittest. These days we seem to spend so much time rewarding and compensating stupidity that it almost feels like we’re moving backwards.

Consider the following warning labels on consumer products:

On Nytol Nighttime Sleep-Aid:
Warning: May cause drowsiness.

On Sainsbury's peanuts:
Warning: Contains nuts.

On Marks & Spencer bread pudding
Product will be hot after heating.

Baby stroller warning:
Remove child before folding.

Warning on a Conair Pro Style 1600 hair dryer:
Do not use in shower. Never use while sleeping.

Warning on underarm deodorant:
Do not spray in eyes.

Toilet bowl cleaning brush warns:
Do not use orally.

Stamped on the barrel of a .22 calibre rifle:
Warning: Misuse may cause injury or death.

Instructions for an electric thermometer:
Do not use orally after using rectally.


They might seem crazy, but in our compensation-driven culture they’re totally necessary. Without warning like this, thousands of good companies would be driven into bankruptcy by stupid people’s lawsuits each year.

I have a better solution. If there really are people out there who are dumb enough to expect peanuts to be nut-free, a hairdryer to be safe to use in the shower, and a toilet brush to be a suitable implement for brushing their teeth, then let them.

I know there are some politically correct souls out there who’ll accuse me of being intolerant and having beliefs bordering on Nazism. Go ahead. I don’t care. I think of it as natural selection, and without it we’d probably still be living in caves and communicating through grunts. If someone’s that stupid, is it really in society’s interests to protect them so that they can breed in safety?

I think not.

 

[logophile]

That's why I like the Darwin Awards. There's not much that I find quite as amusing on a dark day as sitting and perusing the stories at www.darwinawards.com.

 

[rgraham666]

There's only one capital crime. The Sentence is death and it is carried out immediately and without mercy.

Robert A. Heinlein

Unfortunately, it often doesn't get them until after they've bred.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

I think this just came up somewhere the other day...

The most frightening part of those warning labels of that they are all there because there was some person dumb enough to actually do that.

But I agree, it's just natural selection at work.

 

[R. Richard]

Of course, the warning labels are totally stupid. However, they are there for a purpose. In the American society anyone who injures him/herself by misusing a product in some incredibly stupid fashion can sue (and often win). The warning labels are a self defense measure by manufacturors against the predation of trail lawyers.

As Shakespeare said: "First, let's kill all the lawyers!"

 

[BlackShanglan]

I have a better solution. If there really are people out there who are dumb enough to expect peanuts to be nut-free, a hairdryer to be safe to use in the shower, and a toilet brush to be a suitable implement for brushing their teeth, then let them.

This is why, despite my preference for the more modern rail cars in England (better for those with luggage), I have an abiding affection for the old slam-door style carriages. It was so refreshing to see a carriage design that clearly said, "Why, yes, if you really are a complete and total imbecile, you CAN open this door while the train is moving and try to get yourself killed. Go right ahead." Beautiful.

To cheer us all - a British judge did recently rule against a man who was suing a local nature park for his paralyzing injuries sustained when he dove into a lake on their premises. His lawyer allowed that the lake was indeed posting with "no swimming" signs, which his client saw, and that the nature park had in fact taken the extra step of encouraging the growth of reed beds that would make an approach the lake more awkward and unappealing. But because those reed beds were not yet complete, the lake, he argued, was a "siren's call" (I wish I was making that up; I am not) that lured his client to his unfortunate injury. The judge, God bless him, very sensibly refused to let the case go to court, stating that it would not be in the public interest to dull down every public and private place and event to a dull gray sameness in the misguided pursuit of a risk-free life.

Let us clone him and import several thousand.

Shanglan

 

[Bridget69]

Makes me think of the warnings about fast food making you fat and people suing the restaurants because of just that.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I have another good example of simpletons at work. A woman in the UK wanted to teach English to 11-18 year olds. She suffered from such severe dyslexia that she could barely write a coherent sentence, let alone spot mistakes in kids' work and correct them. The government ruled that she had to be accepted onto the teacher training course as a matter of equal opportunities. Of course, she flunked the course in style - and then won a payout from the university, who she argued shouldn't have let her onto the course in the first place...

 

[dreampilot79]

It seems to me that there are two seperate but equal problems.

The first is the people stupid enough to try to brush their teeth with a toilet brush.

The second are the lawyers who sue for them.

Seems to me if we eliminated the lawyers... we could then let the simpletons eliminate themselves without fear of reprisal for allowing it to happen.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... Seems to me if we eliminated the lawyers... we could then let the simpletons eliminate themselves without fear of reprisal for allowing it to happen.

That would also be the most fun.

Eliminating a lawyer should be reserved as a reward, like some well-deserved treat.

Sitting back and watching the morons eliminate themselves, we can all enjoy. (See comments, re: Darwin Awards)

BTW: This is not a blanket indictment of all lawyers.

Lawyers who bring lawsuits against companies which manufacture cars which explode when hit from behind while their left blinker is on, are no blight on our society.

On the other hand, those responsible manufacturers deserve a worse fate than being forced to disgorge a large quantity of cash.

Those manufacturers responsible should be provided a model of their faulty cars – with the left signal locked on – and challenged to guide it through a couple of rounds of a demolition derby.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

People may be getting stupider, they're also getting unhealthier and more expensive.

Fuck heart transplants, cures for cancer, vaccinations, warning labels and all that stuff. We're keeping people alive and protecting others from harm and its costing us all an arm and a leg.

 

[cantdog]

Whatever.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

People. . .also getting unhealthier and more expensive. . . We're keeping people alive and protecting others from harm and its costing us all an arm and a leg.

Actually, people are doing more to protect their health now, than ever before.

How many ordinary people jogged, or went to a gym in the fifties? In 1900, how many people were taking any kind of instruction in how to exercise to reduce the effects of a sedentary lifestyle? How many women studied to understand of what foodstuffs a well-balanced diet was composed? Other than the exigencies of their labors, outside those in a military regime, what men took even a minimum of exercise.

Which employers attempted to discover how to best arrange their work for their laborer’s health and comfort?

Now, we have a layer of food processing between the producer and the consumer, adding chemicals and preparing it in such a way as to be more appealing, have a greater shelf life, and look more attractive, with little or no concern for the nutritional value of their product. Even when they promise to improve the quality, offering more healthy choices, we quite often find – later – that those improvements were no improvement at all.

Finally, more industrial and human waste is pumped into our water, either through landfills that contaminate the water table, or straight into flowing rivers, or towed to sea and jettisoned overboard. We are being systematically poisoned by both polluted water, and the flesh of animals which depend upon that polluted water to exist.

We are not getting sicker because we are babying sick people, we are getting sicker because we are babying polluters who are making us sicker.

 

[English Lady]

VB way back when most folk didn't have a sedantry lifestyle.

And I think it is only a teeny-tiny fraction of folk who do the gym/jogging/excercise thing now.


the government over here is spending money on trying to educate folk into healthy eating and excercise regimes because it is hoped they can save themselves lots of money doing it!

we are unhealthy but also VB you have a point...processed food doesn't help matters at all!

 

[impressive]

Most will voluntarily eat rat poison if asked to sign a statement saying that they know & understand it will kill them -- especially if you promise to put their names on a plaque commemorating their stupidity.

 

[cantdog]

Hoofprints in the sands of time.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... most folk didn't have a sedantry lifestyle... only a teeny-tiny fraction of folk who do the gym/jogging/excercise thing now...

Country folk certainly did not have a sedentary lifestyle, but in the city of 1900, bankers, bookkeepers, clerks, drygoods salesmen, and a growing host of factory manufacturers arranged along the assembly line structure were spending long hours in either sedentary, or equally deleterious conditions, and worse.

In the present, most people pay some attention to the hazzards of a faulty lifestyle, even if it is only lip service.

impressive:

Now you are speaking of a (not so) bitty minority of applicants to Jackass and The Guinness Book of Records. THESE are the ones courting future fame in the annals of the Darwin Awards Archive.

 

[impressive]

Now you are speaking of a (not so) bitty minority of applicants to Jackass and The Guinness Book of Records. THESE are the ones courting future fame in the annals of the Darwin Awards Archive.

imitating rhinoguy:

You said annals. Tee hee.

 

[Guest]

As Shakespeare said: "First, let's kill all the lawyers!"

A clarification: Shakespeare's character, Dick the Butcher, says the line as the voice of an angry mob. Shakespeare's oft' times black humour underscores his distaste for mob rule. He knew lawyers (and other educated folk) were necessary for an ordered society. The lines spoken by the leader, Jack Cade, before the butcher's, promise the crowd cheap bread, big pots for their liquor, "small" beer, no money (all is free) and "one livery" (everyone will dress alike, i.e., no rich people). It's obvious Shakespeare would not have made a good communist; he is making fun of such unrealistic wants.

The mob ends up hanging a clerk of the court but it is symbolic, the author did not mean that all clerical types should be executed. (For those who want the source the play is Henry VI, part 2, scene IV.)

Perdita

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I'm just sayin'... if we're talking about getting rid of the stupid people, we might should be talkin' about getting rid of the mentally retarded, the chronically ill, the terminally ill, etc.

I knew a guy who was a little mentally challenged, Ernie, he had a nervous habit of reading every word on a package before he took anything out ever since he drank some cleaner as a kid. Heavy compulsive disorder. He had to know that if things were non-toxic and safe for consumption--even stuff you don't ingest normally.

He'd have to go right along with the stupid people... because he needs those kinds of labels.

 

[impressive]

He'd have to go right along with the stupid people... because he needs those kinds of labels.

I'd rather keep Ernie & lose the *bad* bigots.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Originally posted by impressive ... You said annals. Tee hee. [/B]

Oh, no! Don’t tell me.

You are not going to turn into another one of those who respond to a simple term meaning “A descriptive account, record. or history.”as though it were an analeptic?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Country folk certainly did not have a sedentary lifestyle, but in the city of 1900, bankers, bookkeepers, clerks, drygoods salesmen, and a growing host of factory manufacturers arranged along the assembly line structure were spending long hours in either sedentary, or equally deleterious conditions, and worse.

And walking to and from those positions. Granted, factories could be damned unhealthy places to be, but the average person, even at a desk job, got a great deal more incidental exercise daily than a person in an automobile-dominated culture like modern America. They didn't join gyms or do cross-training because they got physical exercise just living their daily lives. Even in the modern times, I got my 20-30 minutes of daily exercise when I lived in London; I got it walking back and forth to the Tube stop. Now, with the glorious convenience of suburbia, my car takes me door-to-door.

Shanglan

 

[English Lady]

And walking to and from those positions. Granted, factories could be damned unhealthy places to be, but the average person, even at a desk job, got a great deal more incidental exercise daily than a person in an automobile-dominated culture like modern America. They didn't join gyms or do cross-training because they got physical exercise just living their daily lives. Even in the modern times, I got my 20-30 minutes of daily exercise when I lived in London; I got it walking back and forth to the Tube stop. Now, with the glorious convenience of suburbia, my car takes me door-to-door.

Shanglan

Thanks -you said what I wanted to say for me.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... he had a nervous habit of reading every word on a package before he took anything out ever since he drank some cleaner as a kid. . .

Sounds like a good response to a bad learning experience.

Belittling this sort of reaction makes you sound like you're shilling for the Darwin Awards, Joe.