As idiocracy spreads, more numbskulls are cutting their lives short
08 01 09 - 09:49 Humanity has made a serious and quite possibly fatal error of judgement. Idiots have been pampered, protected and produced to such vast numbers that now the leading cause of death is: getting stuff wrong. And for those lucky enough not to get something so badly wrong it kills them, there's bound to be an incompetent fool who will make the cockup on one's behalf.Now there are calls for the government to do something. At last, an attempt to make a correct decision to reverse this trend? Wouldn't you know it: the proposed solution is that the government must "save us from ourselves" by increasing the guidance they give, and throwing money at the problem. The argument is the same old story, the poor make more mistakes than the wealthy and ( it's so obvious !) it can only be their underprivileged conditions that cause that 20 fags a day habit and revulsion at all things green.
"Decision making" must also be taught at school - say the experts. Having already decided to replace science and maths in British primary schools with citizenship lessons on drugs and being nice to foreigners, it is no surprise that schools here, the US or anywhere else in the west would be forced to make way for other distractions from studying academic subjects. It helps to mask falling standards at the same time. And you can imagine the argument. Knowing who Stalin was never made any difference to someone's decision to reuse a perforated condom. Being able to do algebra couldn't prevent finding oneself ingesting 20 pints of lager and then trying to swim across a lake. What would happen if we didn't go out of our way to protect people? Well there might be fewer idiots around for one thing. And do attempts to make everything so much safer really make the danger disappear?
Not according to the well founded observation that the more safety features are put on cars, the more drivers compensate by driving with increased recklessness - a phenomenon called "risk compensation" that also applies to other attempts at making things less dangerous. If you wanted to make drivers more careful you would ditch seatbelts and put a very sharp pointy thing in the center of the steering wheel. It's doubtful people can be protected from themselves. There's a certain amount of danger that people have an instinct for - just like how there is this "bring it on!" attitude to the warnings of what humanity faces as a result of failure to care what it's blundering into.
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