Is it time to give the cockroaches and rats a chance.

[TheMadMonk]

Just watching an Air Crash Investigation show. Problem is a pressurisation switch set to manual. And from the get go I am seeing lack of oxygen problems (with no more info than the flight crew or those on the ground had) (ie everyone is fucking unconcsious) and the show is being played as if there were a huge mystery. Unfortunately it would appear so did the fucking flight crew. (O.K. I can accept, barely, that 3 people trained in operating in a low pressure environment failed to recognise the symptoms. (esp when their brains are not functioning fully.) But to have 2 fighter pilots flanking a plane in which there is no visible movement, and still not consider whether there there might be a presurisation/air supply problem. And not one of the 200 odd other people on board recognised the symptoms of a progressivly diminishing oxygen supply.

It seems to me that the basic human condition is either abject stupidity or criminal/homicidal greed. And with only a soupcon of suicidal (in the face of the basics) altruism to season the mix.

Stupidity, and/or greed taking advantage of that stupidity nicely explains the vast majority of problems we (and this world) are facing today. 200,000+ years of evolution have not eliminated the former, and for most of those years the latter (so long as it doesn't get out of hand) has been a survival trait. (my hypothesis is that the two worked together, sheep and wolf as it were, for most of human history.) Today the combination is a ticket to planetary ruin.

[et in Arcadia ego]

1. hrmm..

I haven't logged in here in over a year, but I had to do so in order to ask:

:wtf:

[anniebelle]

2. The planet will recover once humans are gone.

And I don't think it's going to be very long. We have taken something absolutely beautiful and turned it into a garbage dump. Unfortunately, if it goes in a nuclear event, it will take much longer to recover than just dying of hunger and thirst.

[Prophet 451]

3. I've often thought the same

Humans are a blight on this planet and I happen to rather likes rats...

[hobbit709]

4. Anoxia is very insidious

By the time you realize it, your mind is too fogged to react. Especially if you don't know about the low oxygen. I've seen videos where they tested people in low pressure chambers and they knew what what was going to happen and most of the time they still couldn't react to it.

We don't have sabertooths to weed out the slow and dumb anymore, so we have to invent new ways of doing so.
"Stupidity is the only universal capital crime,and sentence is carried out with no hope of appeal."R.A.H.

[TheMadMonk]

8. In a sample of 200 odd people...

...including several trained to recognise the symptoms of hypoxia, not one managed to do so?

As a matter of fact one person (a flight attendant) on that plane did retain consciousness for approximately 1 hour after everyone else was unconscious. He was a diver, (again trained to recognise hypoxia), ex special forces IIRC. AND FOR SOME FUCKING REASON, (WHILST FULLY OXYGENATED) HE PLAYED IT BY THE BOOK AND WAITED FOR THE CAPTAIN (or at least a member of the flight crew) TO GIVE SOME INSTRUCTIONS.

And time and time again, in TV shows, one major dramatic "hook" is ostensibly smart people acting in remarkably stupid (get the audience howling "look behind you" stupid) ways.


Exactly on the sabretooths. Instead we have a lot of extremely stupid people voting, lobbying for the world to be remade in order to allow them to give their willful stupidity and ignorance full rein.

I wish that David Lamb really did have the right of it. Unfortunately the stupid outnumber the smart by a huge margin, and that gives them the vote that allows them tho remake a technological world to protect them from themselves. Individual idiots take themselves out of the equation, but enough of them survive to keep the breed alive.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

11. Miltary personnel are trained to follow orders..

Acting on their own initiative, not so much.

[TheMadMonk]

17. The boy stood on the burning deck sort of BS?

I would have thought being surrounded by nearly 200 unconscious people would be a pretty fair indicator that 'The Book' was not going to be enough and that some imitative might be expected.

However, this incident just happened to be what set me off. It's been building for a while. I find myself channel surfing away from, or muting, an increasing number of TV programs because writers seem to be increasingly falling back on either idiocy, Machiavellian evil or both as the basic ingredient around which to build the rest of the show.

Maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety, but I'd like to think I had a few more years yet before I start wearing my pants with the waistband up around my ribs.

[bryant69]

5. I wish we were all dead right now

What's taking Bush so long?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DavidDvorkin]

6. No!

If we withdraw, there will be an horrendous civil war between the rats and the cockroaches! The consequences would be unimaginable!

[seriousstan]

7. the basic human condition is either abject stupidity or criminal/homicidal greed

Well, you have made a good arguement for one of your conditions.

[TheMadMonk]

9. Slight problem with that argument mate.

If I am, your comment is superfluous, and if not then it is incorrect.

Unless you want to make of it a personal attack (I'm used to it so go ahead if you must) you're either flippantly agreeing with me or you're wrong even if you do get a chuckle.

[bryant69]

10. Kick. n/t

[Bongo Prophet]

12. An ironic fact: Roach and rat population would decrease without humans

They would retreat to warmer climes, as they require our heating and waste.

At least according to "The World Without Us," by Alan Weisman...

[TheMadMonk]

13. Yes I know.

kick btw

[bryant69]

14. It's interesting that so few people seem inclined to disagree with you

I guess when you consider your message of radical despair it does put the rest of our countries problems in a more realistic light.

Bryant

[Bongo Prophet]

15. I think a good case can be made for the continuance of the human race.

I just don't think DU would have a good signal/noise ratio for that type of discussion.
Flame wars would be a pretty persuasive object lesson in the negative, so the worse it got, the more one side could claim to be winning. :)

It seems the OP just wanted to vent, and not a serious case of despair.
If some examples of stupidity (never in short supply)are all it takes for one to give up on a species that produced Leonardo, Bach, Fuller, et al - then it is either a dark joke or a gross lack of perspective.

I give OP benefit of doubt on this.
He is a Mad MOnk after all. :)

Since the OP was phrased as a question -- I vote NO.

[TheMadMonk]

18. What I see in too many people is the author ot your country's woes.

I don't know that people are agreeing with me that the rats ans cockroaches should be given their turn, but I do think they're agreeing that those two conditions, stupidity and greed are the reason we're in such bad shape today. Laziness too. However, laziness does have at least one redeeming feature, when you gotta, it does encourages one to find the easiest way to perform the required task. It certainly worked in my last job. So well in fact that I managed to cut my hours (and wages LOL) by the best part of forty percent.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Sorry, I misread the first line. In answer to your question, "No". nt