This article was originally published by Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper.
The point remains that once upon a time, being stupid got you killed. And no one got sued. The person who couldn’t figure out that some ill-conceived idea was a bad one faced the consequences. If the consequences didn’t kill them, they learned not to do the stupid thing again, making them just a teeny bit smarter and more equipped to deal with the world.
Sometimes, warning labels concern me.
I mean, who inspired the label on blow dryers that points out the device should not be used in the shower? And what would even be the point, barring electrocution? Why would you dry your hair while the water is spraying you?
And are there actually people who need to be cautioned not to light a candle until they remove it from the package?
Also, you know those plastic bags that hold clothing when you order it online? Who needs to be offered the sage advice that it’s not a good idea to put said bag over their head?
Maybe, with all of these warning labels, we’re rendering Darwin’s principle of natural selection invalid.
Darwin’s hypothesis states that living organisms evolve by differential survival in a world with “Malthusian” overpopulation, in which only the fittest spread their genes into future generations. By fittest we mean best adapted to the prevailing environment, and by environment we mean both the living and the nonliving environment. (source)
Before the emails roll in telling me that I “don’t science,” I’m well aware that the theory of natural selection was about genetic changes that occur over a series of generations. However, the point remains that once upon a time, being stupid got you killed. And no one got sued. The person who couldn’t figure out that some ill-conceived idea was a bad one faced the consequences. If the consequences didn’t kill them, they learned not to do the stupid thing again, making them just a teeny bit smarter and more equipped to deal with the world. Some who believe our planet is overpopulated might even argue that the obsolescence of natural selection is the root cause of the people boom.
But now, we are coddled, cautioned, and warned out of needing to think for ourselves. Another evolutionary theory says that when some trait or characteristic goes unused, it disappears after a few generations. Sort of like those cave fish that don’t have any eyes, After multiple generations deep underground in the pitch black, their eye sockets are now empty. Perhaps after multiple generations without the need for critical thought and common sense, those in “civilized societies” are going to evolve into creatures with their own empty spots where something useful was previously.
Well, here’s a warning for this article:
“WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MIGHT MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE. Since common sense is rare to the point of almost being completely extinct, the sudden appearance of it might be a little shocking. Should shock occur, please sit down and put your head between your knees, inhale through your nose and out of your mouth slowly until heart rate returns to normal. Some exclusions apply, see store for details.” ~ Melissa Melton
Now, on to some warning labels that just shouldn’t need to be…
Here are some warning labels from actual products
- Do not ingest. ~ Lava lamp
- This formula may cause drowsiness, if affected do not operate heavy machinery or drive a vehicle. ~ Infant pain relief liquid
- Do not attempt to stop chain with hands. ~ Chainsaw
- Peel fruit from cellophane backing before eating. ~ Fruit By the Foot
- Product will be hot after heating. ~ Mark and Spencer’s Bread Pudding
- “Do not use orally.” ~ Toilet brush
- This is not a lifesaving device. ~ Beachball
- Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly. ~ Superhero cape from a Halloween costume
Good grief. So, when the SHTF, in the midst of a warning label-free disaster, what’s going to happen to all of the people who required these labels to survive?
I’ll tell you what’s going to happen to them. You’ll have people trying to open a can of peaches with a giant butcher knife, in the process nearly removing a digit. People who are accustomed to being nannied through every step of their days will be stymied by basic survival skills like sanitation, navigation (sans GPS), and the acquisition of safe drinking water.
When I was in Bosnia recently with Selco, I was in awe of the fact that they don’t have warning labels, guard rails, or any other protective things keeping stupid people alive. He got a good laugh from my shock over the fact that a scenic lookout had no railing to keep people from plunging to their deaths.
And then there’s technology, making folks dumber…
Dumbing us down, even more, is the dependence on technology.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a chronic Googler. If I don’t know some random bit of trivia, I’m that gal typing it into a search bar at the first opportunity. “Who was the first person to…Holy cow, Google. Why would you even…Just NO.” Anyhow, back to technology. As wonderful as it is to have a world of information in a handheld device, you still have to be able to think things through for yourself.
People have become so dependent on their navigation systems that reading a physical, honest-to-goodness-piece-of-paper map has become a lost art. Not only that, but some folks rely more on their GPS than their common sense, sort of like these tourists who drove right into the Pacific Ocean because the nav system told them to.
And what about situational awareness?
That’s another skill that seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Have you ever seen a person walking down the street so engrossed in texting that they don’t even see an obstacle in their path? Sort of like this woman and the giant fountain?
What if the situation was more dangerous than falling into a giant fountain? What if you were busy texting and there was an armed robbery and you walked right into the middle of it? What if your eyes were glued to the screen and there was some unexpected wild animal, like, I dunno, a bear?
Because…that actually happened.
Self-reliance is being bred out of society
It’s fun to laugh at these examples of life in today’s America, but there’s an underlying note of impending tragedy.
With all of this constant nannying, we have a society of giant toddlers. It isn’t really their fault. They’ve become accustomed to a society in which people never have to think. They don’t have to produce food, deal with injuries, or even work for a living. Heat is the turn of a dial, entertainment doesn’t require reading skills, and products get thrown away instead of repaired. People don’t learn to predict impending danger by thinking the scenario through, and when danger does occur, they wait for heroes instead of rescuing themselves. They don’t even have to hear unpleasant things, because they can just say the magical incantation, “I’m offended” and the offensive unpleasantness is summarily banned and made illegal.
The coddling makes it even more difficult for the overprotected to accept it when something bad happens. Acceptance is the first step of surviving any disaster. I have written about the 3 steps of survival, and those steps are completely foreign to many of today’s general public.
To me, the pinnacle of preparedness is a way of thinking about pretty much everything you encounter. It’s a unique way of looking at a situation, assessing the options, and acting that defines the prepper mindset. Think about any stressful situation that has ever happened to you. Once you accepted the fact that it had happened you were able to set a course of action. Once you had definitive steps to take, you probably felt much calmer. You took control of the things you could, and you executed your plan. Only by taking that first step – accepting that this mishap had indeed occurred – could you take the next two.
Of course, a bunch of dependent dumb people are a whole lot easier to control than the critical thinkers who rely on themselves instead of Papa Government.
The difference here is pretty clear. Some of us are deliberate in our day-to-day actions, mindful of our surroundings, and possess a sensible, problem-solution mindset. But we’re in the minority. We have to face it: a survival mentality is now an anomaly. It’s all but obsolete.
We, the sturdy, practical, self-reliant folks are the mutant minority.
Daisy Luther is the author of The Prepper’s Canning Guide: Affordably Stockpile a Lifesaving Supply of Nutritious, Delicious, Shelf-Stable Foods.
As the disaster drags on for days, weeks, months or even years, food scarcity and starvation will fuel people’s desperation. Even preppers like you will need more than dried beans and rice to survive. With The Prepper’s Canning Guide, you’ll learn the lifesaving techniques to take your food storage to the next level.
I believe the best one was left out…Do Not use this snow blower on your roof…duh!
You’ve never had to shovel your roof, have you?
“You’ll have people trying to open a can of peaches with a giant butcher knife, in the process nearly removing a digit.”
This would be a “win” situation for me: as soon as the hapless fool maims himself, he will be so hysterical over the injury that I will easily be able to grab his can of peaches and scoot.
If he actually DOES cut off the finger, then I’ll also grab that so that I can have meat to go along with my peaches.
You miss the point.
There are too many lawyers, and when something bad happens, it is “fitness” to try to find someone to sue and collect millions of dollars from anyone involved, and with our system, even if you are 0.01% liable for something, you or your insurance must pay 100% if the others can’t or even if the person injures was 99.99% liable.
Kids drowned? Oh, I suddenly didn’t realize beach balls weren’t personal floatation devices.
That sort of thing. So to avoid liability or even to get liability insturance, they need to put the labels in. Survival of the lawyers.
War is when your government tells you who the enemy is. Revolution is when you figure it out yourself.
And the ultimate classic is “Caution, hot when in use” on a wood stove…
The only good news from this is we”ll have fewer enemies to fight when shtf as these morons won’t know very many tactics and most won’t have significant firepower to cause us harm. There will be enough enemies that will possess these things anyway. Plan on burying bodies as a part-time job.
the enemy isnt the idiots. Those are simply the early casualties.
you’re focusing on your fellow cattle as the enemy. you’re ignoring the rancher and drivers, the real enemy.
You should have taken more than a moment to comprehend my comment before proving you misunderstood.
“they learned”
No.
“making them just a teeny bit smarter and more equipped to deal with the world.”
That didn’t happen.
“Some of us are deliberate in our day-to-day actions, mindful of our surroundings, and possess a sensible, problem-solution mindset.”
You complained, so don’t deserve it.
reddit.com/r/brainlet/
So, long as they’re good civic nationalists, a participation trophy.
You believe that they have civil rights and are capable of earning their keep in a social setting.
If we just took the warning labels off everything the natural selection, or survival of the fittest will take care of everything.
People controlled by propaganda are completely brainwashed to believe reality, but never consider that their reality doesn’t exist in reality.
Extreme Right Wing was just normal prior to 1960; but how much caution and cautionary tales have we heard about domestic violence being our number one threat, specifically perpetrated by white supremacists.
The facts are, and this is truly a case of truth being stranger than fiction, more people died taking selfies than died by the terrorist attacks of white supremacists/right extremists.
White people are nice. They hardly ever harm others. To think otherwise is insane. But you’ve been warned, and cautioned, and reminded to be wary of them. There are organizations to protect you from them.
Watch out for right wing extremist ideas on the internet. Censorship required. Caution, the following content may be offensive or dangerous, so put your hands over your ears and close your eyes, as well as your mind.
.
(Renew, renew!) Carousel Scene from Logan’s Run:
youtube.com/watch?v=4M2vx_RCwSs
Also, charging into a crossfire, until the enemy runs out of bullets, is not a literal battle strategy, is it.
I don’t know if you all watched the woman taking a dive in the fountain; but, funny as it was, more striking is how no one seemed to notice or react in any way. That alone is a testament to our society. Personally I feel, if the S does HTF, Darwin will no longer weep, for all his theories of survival of the fittest will play out like they were a play-book. And too, like the people in that mall….. each of us will be on our own. Any dizzy daydreams of the goodness or caring supposedly in existence in our world will be dispelled quickly.
H.G. Wells: The Time Machine.
This articles idea drawn to its logical conclusion in 30,000 years.
“The Eloi are herded, bred and maintained by the Morlocks as a food source, much like cows or pigs are today. ”
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”
Been a long time. But I thought it was 800,000 yrs.?
What is sad is that this even has to be pointed out.
They don’t know that they don’t have any common sense.
“What is sad is that this even has to be pointed out”
Exactly YS;
Common Sense just isn’t common anymore..
Just hop into the cattle car and make yourself comfy.
To be fair, though; it’s not that products “get thrown away” rather than repaired, it’s that products are MADE to be thrown away rather than repaired. My folks ran into this recently with a dishwasher; the cost to repair it would have been more than the cost of a replacement.
“People have become so dependent on their navigation systems that reading a physical, honest-to-goodness-piece-of-paper map has become a lost art.”
Paper maps were forever becoming out-of-date.
Also, why does the written word enlighten us, on paper, but cause brain damage, from the monitor. The saying, yellow journalism, is a reference to print media.
The roads I travel on the most are still in the same places they were 40 years ago. So I’m keeping my maps.
Lots of people don’t read news online either. If it’s not on a video, they don’t know what’s going on (whether honest or fake news). People don’t read; they don’t like to read. When they do read, it’s very short written material.
Reading takes a bit of imagination as well as comprehension. If you read instructions such as for building a table, you have to see in your mind how each step is to be carried out; even if there is a diagram, you must see how it to do it with your tools and your materials. If you read a story, you will imagine the characters and scenes where they play out their story.
Imagination and comprehension have been largely discouraged in current society. Everything has been broken down to small segmented bits of information, e.g., sound bites, often for shock value, but it’s seldom pulled together to present a comprehensive picture.
“Don’t feed the alligators” . I have seen more dumb Yankees do this only to have them run like hell when they run out of food and the gator is still hungry .
Y’all best watch out fur dem hogs too.
Same with the bears here SW..
People are told in person and signs are posted everywhere stating “DO NOT FEED THE BEARS” but every summer there’s always an idiot or four that come here on vacation and ignores the warnings and feed the bears.
The warning labels are an example of print media.
Don’t walk into traffic, while considering this.
OFF Topic
It’s Friday. I think Mac should run a contest to see who can guess the correct number of people shot in Shitcago this weekend. Bang-bang! More thinning of the heard.
OK, I’ll bite. I’m guessing…….32 hampsters shot this weekend.
The “Windy City” is now the ” Wounding City”.
Alec, I’ll take “how many shot and killed this weekend of 6-7 through 6/9 2019 in Chicago for $100!!!”: What is 18 shot and 5 killed?
Other Great Truths (not)
Is-lame is the religion of peace
Socialism will work THIS time, because AOC, Crazy Bernie and Barrack says it will. Heck, it’s only murdered 100 million and counting.
I read how many were shot in Chicago over the weekend and forgot already.
No worries, you’ll just get the front row bench on the cattle car.
52 last weekend
was it 52? or was that 52 reports of shots fired, and like 8 killed?
Some of you aren’t getting on the cattle car.
I’ll say it again: if you haven’t read Darwin, don’t mention Darwin.
Great article Daisy Luther. The Demonrat Party is full of potential “Darwin Award Winners.” So far those that are still standing just haven’t had the right opportunity to weed themselves out of the gene pool. If they keep undermining our REPUBLIC, they might get some help.
Lack of common sense or accepting that we live in a litigious society?
oops. just looked it up
52 shot, 10 killed
ht tps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/03/chicago-52-shot-10-killed-most-violent-weekend-2019/1334351001/
Legalize more drugs so that we can get everybody to the same level of stupid otherwise it is discrimination.
Warning labels and safety devices are attempts to idiot proof products to avoid lawsuits. There is one problem with this, idiots will defeat your attempts to stop them every time.
Quote” The Difference Between Stupidity and Genius Is That Genius Has Its Limits
It’s my theory that Democrats got tired of injuring themselves by doing stupid things, so they made these warnings mandatory. After all, who knew that standing on the top step of a 12′ ladder could be dangerous? And who knew that putting your hand into the grass exhaust chute of a running lawn mower could result in injury? Or that putting hot coffee between your legs while driving might get you burned? These are very mysterious risks for Democrats and other retarded people.