Have you noticed the ridiculous warning on shows these days? Remember when we were kids and it was called being human and actively participating in life? You didn't have warnings on every stupid thing you looked at, bought or played with! Granted, some warnings are merited while others are ridiculousness.
Safety, Schmafety! We had metal slides that burned a layer of skin off the backs of your legs every time you went down that stupid thing because the genius who designed it thought of the most evil material to make a slide out of. It baked in the sun for 14 hours a day and we didn't complain about the second degree burns on the backs of our legs, we got up and went down that sucker again. Now the slides are not nearly as tall as they once were and are made out of weather-pleasing plastic and come with warnings on them about safety and not jumping off the top step. I remember watching a girl fall off The BIG Twirly Slide, careening off the multiple twirls, landing with a deafening thud on the ground. She broke her arm but no one tried to cut in line on that thing again! She lived and now probably has arthritis but we all behaved after that incident. Lesson learned!
I remember the first time I saw a viewer discretion warning on TV, it was on the TV show 'Cops' and it was because there were hookers, drug dealers and serious displays of violence against humans. It was real life and the first reality TV show known to man. Ironically, it's still on TV because as human beings we like to look at other's misfortunes in shock and awe and think, 'I am so glad that we are semi-normal!'
I was just watching PBS, of all things, and saw for an episode on Giant Squid that there was a viewer discretion warning because it contained images that may be too graphic for some people because it involved dissection of the giant squid. ..... When did dissecting a dead animal for science become too violent and graphic for viewers? I don't know if this is because I come from a hunting and fishing family but it seems absurd to me that someone would find that offensive and graphic. This is a part of human life and without killing and eating things, our race would not have survived to it's current state of 90 billion people.
Before you go all PETA on me, I understand treating animals ethically but this was a scientific television show trying to unlock the mysteries of this mystical and quite frankly, cool creature. TV shows can say 'masturbate' on prime time television, but we can no longer look at something scientifically without a warning? Of course, my monster won't be watching prime time TV with the foul or slightly embarrassing language, but PBS... COME ON! This is getting ridiculous.
How as a society have we become dependent on warning labels to tell us how to think rationally? Soon, we are just going to start ignoring the warning labels altogether and then complain that someone didn't verbally tell us that there was a risk of some sort. Where do we draw the line? When will the Darwin Theory come back into play?
I was reading a friends status update a month or so ago about how he came to the epiphany that the theory of 'survival of the fittest' no longer existed because of modern medicine and it's quite true. People are living much longer, there are life saving surgeries to help people get through things that would have killed someone 50 years ago and medicines that have just been released to help people with illnesses that weren't manageable just a few years ago. It's quite an exciting time in medicine in the same stroke of genius, it's a very scary time in the world. People are no longer dying from stupidity or bad genetics, they are actually living longer!
I know what you're thinking, 'She's going to go there.... I just know it! She's going to call us all stupid and morons and it's going to be funny!' The sad thing is, we are all idiots but medicine is preserving the idiots for longer. There is no longer a consolation of stupidity reaping the all the idiots at some point in time because some doctor has a hero complex and wants to be published in the American Journal of Medicine. Don't get me wrong, my life has been spared because of this research and ego centrism, but sometimes I wonder if the world would have been better off without my snarkiness!
I just want to see how the world would go on if we removed all the safety labels and warnings that electricity and water will kill you and if you didn't pay attention in 3rd grade science class, well you're screwed!
Just something to ponder,
-Suzs
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| Yeah, this! |
Safety, Schmafety! We had metal slides that burned a layer of skin off the backs of your legs every time you went down that stupid thing because the genius who designed it thought of the most evil material to make a slide out of. It baked in the sun for 14 hours a day and we didn't complain about the second degree burns on the backs of our legs, we got up and went down that sucker again. Now the slides are not nearly as tall as they once were and are made out of weather-pleasing plastic and come with warnings on them about safety and not jumping off the top step. I remember watching a girl fall off The BIG Twirly Slide, careening off the multiple twirls, landing with a deafening thud on the ground. She broke her arm but no one tried to cut in line on that thing again! She lived and now probably has arthritis but we all behaved after that incident. Lesson learned!
I remember the first time I saw a viewer discretion warning on TV, it was on the TV show 'Cops' and it was because there were hookers, drug dealers and serious displays of violence against humans. It was real life and the first reality TV show known to man. Ironically, it's still on TV because as human beings we like to look at other's misfortunes in shock and awe and think, 'I am so glad that we are semi-normal!'
I was just watching PBS, of all things, and saw for an episode on Giant Squid that there was a viewer discretion warning because it contained images that may be too graphic for some people because it involved dissection of the giant squid. ..... When did dissecting a dead animal for science become too violent and graphic for viewers? I don't know if this is because I come from a hunting and fishing family but it seems absurd to me that someone would find that offensive and graphic. This is a part of human life and without killing and eating things, our race would not have survived to it's current state of 90 billion people.
Before you go all PETA on me, I understand treating animals ethically but this was a scientific television show trying to unlock the mysteries of this mystical and quite frankly, cool creature. TV shows can say 'masturbate' on prime time television, but we can no longer look at something scientifically without a warning? Of course, my monster won't be watching prime time TV with the foul or slightly embarrassing language, but PBS... COME ON! This is getting ridiculous.
How as a society have we become dependent on warning labels to tell us how to think rationally? Soon, we are just going to start ignoring the warning labels altogether and then complain that someone didn't verbally tell us that there was a risk of some sort. Where do we draw the line? When will the Darwin Theory come back into play?
I was reading a friends status update a month or so ago about how he came to the epiphany that the theory of 'survival of the fittest' no longer existed because of modern medicine and it's quite true. People are living much longer, there are life saving surgeries to help people get through things that would have killed someone 50 years ago and medicines that have just been released to help people with illnesses that weren't manageable just a few years ago. It's quite an exciting time in medicine in the same stroke of genius, it's a very scary time in the world. People are no longer dying from stupidity or bad genetics, they are actually living longer!
I know what you're thinking, 'She's going to go there.... I just know it! She's going to call us all stupid and morons and it's going to be funny!' The sad thing is, we are all idiots but medicine is preserving the idiots for longer. There is no longer a consolation of stupidity reaping the all the idiots at some point in time because some doctor has a hero complex and wants to be published in the American Journal of Medicine. Don't get me wrong, my life has been spared because of this research and ego centrism, but sometimes I wonder if the world would have been better off without my snarkiness!
I just want to see how the world would go on if we removed all the safety labels and warnings that electricity and water will kill you and if you didn't pay attention in 3rd grade science class, well you're screwed!
Just something to ponder,
-Suzs
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