Darwinian evolution and the process of natural selection, it’s how we came to be who and where we are today. Natural selection is the processes of selecting the fittest genetics for survival in an organism’s environment and ensuring that these genes are passed on to the next generation. For example, cheetahs evolved to be fast to enable them to catch their prey. Slower
cheetahs would be unable to catch prey as effectively as faster cheetahs, and so may die of starvation, hence the faster cheetahs breed and this trait of fast speed is passed on from generation to generation, and the species evolves.
The same process has worked for humans on many difference traits across millions of years. However one trait that seems to be persisting and, somewhat alarmingly, increasing is human stupidity. Stupidity is being propagated and nurtured by an increasing amount of ‘nanny-ing’ from regulators, government and professional warning-sign writers.
We all know the clichéd warnings of ‘caution: contains nuts’ written on a packet of peanuts and ‘do not use hair dryer in bath’ that have been around for years, but it seems that these inane and, frankly insulting, warnings are on the rise. In today’s society of anaphylaxis, food intolerances and people that like to think that they have a food tolerance (but are simply just annoying and/or fat), I acknowledge that labels declaring ingredients and warnings about nuts and dairy are necessary. However, if you’re allergic to nuts, buy a packet of peanuts (and don’t see the warning that the packet of nuts contains nuts), pop a peanut and then asphyxiate on your own self-induced stupidity, well, frankly, you’ve done society a favour by removing yourself from the gene pool!
Similarly, signs directing us how to do things for our own safety are now appearing in abundance. In a world of litigation, law suits and the inability of people to look where they are going because they are too busy reading on Facebook what Rhonda (who they met once, haven’t seen since but have in their ‘close circle’ of Facebook friends) just had for lunch, these signs, under the guise of ‘public safety’ are really just to protect against being sued. What’s really annoying me at the moment is the tendency to, when an escalator breaks down, put a barrier in front of it with a sign that says ‘out of service’. When escalators stop working, they become stairs. Many people have stairs in their house- they don’t just suddenly get to the edge of the stairs, scratch their head and call work telling the boss that they can’t come in today, as they can’t figure out how to get down the stairs. We have been successfully negotiating stairs for a good few hundred years. Why now, can we suddenly not walk down an unmoving escalator? Why do I need to walk out of my way because Cletus McBumble-dumb might wander along, misplace a step and fall down to his death? Should we not be fencing off all tiered descents to protect the innocent public from the innocuous temptress of death that we call stairs? I acknowledge that mobility impaired people may have difficulty if the escalator isn’t moving, however if they are unable to descend using a railing, there is usually a lift nearby. It is unlikely that someone, out of a sudden desire to create the worlds worst slip and slide, will have poured detergent on the unmoving escalator (stairs) and the person will suddenly slip to their untimely stair-induced death.
People need to think for themselves. It’s how we evolved to be the superior species that we are today. I fear what will happen if we continue to let other people think for us and we blindly follow the plethora of inane warning signs that bombard us everyday. The Darwin Awards exist for a reason. If you can’t negotiate the simplicities of life, perhaps you shouldn’t pass on your genes. Darwin would want you dead!
Ranter & Banter 