I’ll get my Thursday Neuro-Linguistic Programming post done later today. Lots of chores. I did want to get something posted before it got much later though. I stumbled across yet another Cracked.com article on the MSN home page. This time making fun of historical over-reactions. Looking it over though, time has only proven half of the tidbits to be correct in my opinion.
This one is the most iffy one on my list. While it wouldn’t be too hard to make a psychological connection between social drinking of soda pop and it normalizing the behavior of socialized drinking of alcohol, let’s look at the bigger picture.
We now know that soda pop is extremely heavy in sugar and complex carbs. We also know that both sugar and caffeine are extremely addictive as well. I’d make the case that with Americans at least, (I can’t speak on other countries’ consumption) it’s a major contributor to the epidemics of diabetes and morbid obesity.
The one evangelical may have gone off the deep end overstating it’s “corrupting influence”, but can anybody deny that soft drinks are BAD news?
I remember those days. We’ve been conditioned now to think of automation as convenient, etc… If you think of it though, ATMs were the first large step in replacing human workers with machines. Robots and A.I. had their beginning with the ATM’s eventual success.
That was one of several reasons cars were hated at first. Ironically though, this one was correct. In my college history class, we discussed the automobile’s role in the sexual revolution and how it enabled younger people to much more easily find privacy to do the dirty deed. 😯😯😯
Anybody reading this NOT had sex in a car at least once?
On the surface, this WILL appear as blasphemy to my fellow writers. Hear me out though. MY argument is simply that the prediction was early. Publishing houses and other aspects of the book industry used to mean that books were fact checked to some degree at the very least. I am talking strictly about non-fiction by the way.
With the advent of social media and self-publishing via sites like Amazon, now anybody can claim anything with no regard to the truth. The better the spin, the more it will sell also.
So no, books themselves will not ruin civilization, but the effortless mass dissemination of misleading half truths and outright blatant misinformation very likely could be the end of civilization.
You have to get to the bottom of the picture to see the real issue: Candles. If you think this is blown out of proportion, first think about how many times you may have fallen asleep while reading.
Beyond that, unattended candles are a HUGE fire risk. Up until around 1980 when he retired, my grandfather had worked his way up a lifetime career as a firefighter to Chief of two different cities and eventually deputy state fire marshal (#2 firefighter in California), and he HATED candles with a burning (pun intended as always) passion due to all the fires he’s seen them start.
Even today, with new apartments having mandatory sprinkler systems, and other safety advances for homes, offices and apartments, candles still start 20 house fires in the U.S. every single day. They’re the 9th most common cause of house fires also.
Lesson for the day: Fire is like every other dangerous tool; it has to be respected and used carefully. 😉
And last but FAR from least…
Cracked actually makes it sound like this is a good thing. bankers profit off of human need, and allow big businesses to charge even higher prices for good and services due to banks giving people credit. Banks also fund big corporations and are partially responsible for their growth and eating of other businesses. Let’s not even get into the banking industry’s role in the housing bubble of 2008 OR how the big five banks had their lawyers write the Dodd-Frank Act’s “reforms” to give themselves a much greater share of the banking market.
I could argue that the creation of banks MAY have been the beginning of the end for society.
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