The Age of Stupidity

Originally I was pissed about a new development in my game, where all the puritans have won the right to put some shorts over the Statue of David's penis. Realize that's an analogy, not exactly the truth. What it basically comes down to is "I don't want to see it and I have successfully made things change in a massive inconvenience to suit me". GO SL!!!

So I was off to rant on the whole puritan movement in my game, right up until I thought of the world today. Then I was pissed about the puritan movement in my world, until I thought a bit longer and realized that there is no age of science any longer, we have entered the age of fanaticism. It's not about puritans or even religion, it's about throwing yourself whole heartedly into a belief of any kind, without using any sense whatsoever. Intelligence is faked. Big words and an understanding of quantum physics does not make you smart. Just means you can memorize shit.

Take the smoking issue (and I swear to fuckin' god I will lose it if someone makes this all about smoking, you know you are Anon the Coward). There's this believe system that NOTHING good comes from smoking, yet it does good things. Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, focuses thought, a natural thing to turn to for those in psychiatric care. Don't get caught up in the smoking point, understand that there is NOTHING in this world that is all bad. NOTHING. Yet people have thrown themselves into this crusade without thinking about it and making that connection. Just a blind fanaticism. No thought behind it whatsoever. Then you go into the blind acceptance, no serious thought. A commercial or politician or something tosses out some tidbit and they latch onto it like rabid dogs and parrot it about. They don't read up on it and get the full story. Hell, just think about it. Arsenic, belladonna, bleach..all poisonous, yet they also do good things. It's hard to believe ONE thing has bucked the system.

Then there's the whole chastity ring thing going. What's that all about? I'd have more respect if someone had sex and then did the chastity thing, because they tried it out and said "hey, I don't need this right now". Yet instead, without investigating their options, these idiots have crawled all over this. No thought, no investigation, no anything. Just someone said "hey, do this" and a bunch of sheep said "ok". Just like that. No reading up on it, no nothing, just "ok".

And of course, you can't ever mention fanaticism without religion. I don't have to explain that one, do I?

I understand fads, but have you noticed all the new fads require a cultish devotion to something? I'm so fuckin' sick of Relay for Life. Yet if I point out that the majority of the money these people donate ends up in some jetsetter's pocket as well as politics and I refuse to contribute, I'M the asshole. So sorry for my investigations, maybe I'm not quite the fanatic you are. I like some thought with my coffee.

Are we regressing, or have we become that selfish? Is it just too hard to think anymore? It's hard to tell. Perhaps this has always been a part of humanity and I'm the outsider for not being a nutjob?

It seems to me a matter of selfishness. Oh don't get confused, I do hear their little justifications. "I don't want other people to get poisoned", "I only want to save your soul", "don't you want to cure cancer for the world". But y'know what I've found, in the end, it's always about THEM. "Your poisoning MY air", "I've decided God is the right one, so you must do as I do", "I lost my mom to cancer and I want a cure there when I get it". So it would seem that the new religion is "ME!ME!ME!" And really, since when do we look into the reasons for our own behavior? Are they all afraid to face the fact that what someone else wants may not be the supreme evil they want to paint it? Or maybe if they paint it as the ultimate evil, they don't see the damage they do? It's easy to close your eyes to what good there is to something when you're so bent on getting your way. So just don't admit there IS good. Sex is painted as some horrible evil (regression much), yet sex does so much good physically (and I don't mean just how it feels, but how it affecs the human mind and body) that I'm surprised doctors dont' prescribe it. Did you know that sex is actually good for certain back problems? That sex releases natural hormones that improve the mind in various ways? Hell, look at how happy some folks are who get it good! LOL

The point is, we seem to have re-entered the age before the age of reason. No one wants to read the science, no one wants to hear the truth, no one cares about you really. Just DO it, this way on this day at this hour in exactly this fashion. Your inconvenience, your feelings, YOU do not matter. If they really cared, they'd ask you what YOU wanted, they wouldn't tell you what they want.

Then again you could make a really good case for apparently the whole world no longer wants to use their brains. Isn't it easier when you have a preacher telling you how to behave and what to do and what to say? Life is always easier if someone else makes all the decisions and holds all the responsiblity. Then you can always get out of trouble with "I'm just following orders". Is the new religon "Blank brain"? Your preacher/politican/mechanic engineer tells you what all the bibles/scientific papers say and you just don't have to bother your pretty little head about it. Forget the fact that teen pregnancy and sexual diseases have been shown to soar when abstinence is the message. YOU don't want them having sex, so you just shake some papers on national television and lie about the conclusions.

I don't think that bothers me near as much though as the fact that it works does.