Mike's Law: People Are Idiots

Take a look around; what do you see? It's likely that you see a small room with few windows and one door. Look outside; you see cars whizzing by, some grass if you're lucky, your neighbors. Those people in the cars, what are they doing? Talking on their cell phones, smoking a cigarette, driving to their local mini-mall in order to fit in.

People are idiots. This little saying, cynical as it is, explains most of life's mysteries. This is the explanation behind religious followings, drug-taking, the need to fit it, the need to not fit in, etc.

Religion

I know that I'm not supposed to discuss religion because it is something that one never wins in an argument, but I feel no need to win, so I'll commit one of the two cardinal sins of speaking and discuss religion (politics are also discussed later — I'm living on the edge, eh?).

Organized religion is a collection of beliefs for one to follow unquestionably. These beliefs usually revolve around what one should consider to be morally right and wrong, and what one should do when encountering situations that require moral judgments. That's all nice and dandy, and some of the ideas are actually good ones, but this is a dangerous way to live and believe.

An organized religion was intended to act as a naming scheme for your beliefs, so that when someone asks your feeling on topics, you can just respond, "I follow Kurt Cobainism" or the like and the asker would get the point. This would work if the follower followed a static religion to which he or she agreed with before hand. If this doesn't exist in a well-known form, the person could just follow a self-created religion and explain his opinions in a more verbose manner.

In practice, people believe what they are told they want to believe. If someone at a young age is told that he or she wants to believe that time flows backwards but there is a perception-handler in everybody's head to handle forward-sequencing, the person will believe this. Similarly, if the child is told to believe that David Koresh is the brother of Jesus Christ, who is the son of God, who is the object in charge of creating life; if the young-in-mind person were told this, she or he would believe it. No questions asked, no nagging doubts; pure belief that this even is true. This is how religion is passed down between generations.

Following one religion stubbornly creates a static person and personality. Most people change as they experience new events and are touched by new emotions; however, if a person decides that they are to follow one set of rules for life forever on, it would take a major event to make that person change any of her or his beliefs no matter what experience tries to teach this person.

So, in conclusion, religion can be explained by people's idiocity because it causes people to not think of their actions and morals but instead to follow someone else's, which may or may not be the greatest morals in the world. Plus, much of religion is based on fiction (or lies), which people eventually take as truth. Minds games of this simplistic of nature show that people are easily manipulated, and, thus, idiots.

Retrospective,

I used to be a hardcore militant atheist. Then I grew up into a nuanced, understanding atheist. It takes all types.

That said, the idea I raise here has some merit: religious teachings do lag behind progressive society and require some sort of governing body to move it forward. On the other hand, people are pretty OK at making their own choices regardless.

I have no idea who David Koresh was.

Drugs

I'll start this section off with the most obvious: cigarettes. Cigarettes offer absolutely zero incentive to start using them; they cause addiction, cancer, and coughing, to name a few. As for pros, you get to be a demographic. Really, there is no pro for smoking cigarettes. The fact that so many people smoke ciggarettes worldwide is proof by itself that people are idiots.

Medical Drugs

Advances in medicine are obstructions to nature. People are living longer and the world is overpopulated with human beings. Humans are savage animals that, in general, care not for their surrounding world and the peace in it and instead are hell-bent on destroying every part of nature. Medical benefits are disadvantages for nature.

Non-medical Drugs

Alcohol

When people talk of drugs, alcohol is excluded. Why? Beacause people like it.

Alcohol is the I don't want to remember that party drug. It's an addictive depressant that could cause death for yourself and pain for others. The upside: it lets you relax.

We need a possibly lethal drug in order to relax?! Welcome to civilization!

Everything Else

Most other drugs have some other nasty side effects: death is popular, as is hospilization; most cause addiction; job and social lives are always at risc.

Conclusion

Drugs often have little to no benefit and many down-sides. The fact that they are so popular worldwide can only be explained by saying People are idiots.

Retrospective,

I'm still anti-smoker.

My argument against medicine is that humans are destroying the Earth? What a reach.

Anyway, I feel much more nuanced about things now. Do drugs if you want, don't do drugs if you don't want.

(But no cigarettes.)

Lawsuits and Other Abuses of the Law

I'm sure many have heard the story of the person who was attempting to rob somebody's house, fell on top of a knife in the kitchen, and sued the family responsible. Well, this type of situation occurs everyday.

People have been suing over everything lately, and winning! People used to laugh at the story of the woman who sued McDonalds for spilling herhis hot coffee on herself, but now we think That could be me!. You didn't like the food you ate? Sue the restaurant! You didn't like the way someone looked at you? Sue them! You didn't get into the college you wanted to go to? It's surely because you're a member of a minority — it has nothing to do with the fact that you are an idiot, does it?

Technology, such as the World Wide Web (WWW or Web), has opened up many new lawsuits and abuses of the legal system. MySQL AB attempts to sue NuSphere for their domain name; Amazon patents One-Click shopping then sues Barnes And Noble over it; Adobe arrests Dmitry for breaking the DMCA; the list goes on.

Have humans lost their ability to reason with each other? Have we just lost the will to do so? These are strong possibilities, since we are dealing with the civilized world. Money really doesn't make everything okay. So how's this for an idea: we stop suing each other and just talk things over.

Retrospective,

Some updates:

Liebeck v. McDonald's
Valid.
You didn't like the food you ate? Sue the restaurant!
Not a real thing.
You didn't like the way someone looked at you? Sue them!
Not a real thing.
You didn't get into the college you wanted to go to? It's surely because you're a member of a minority
What world was I living in where minorities won lawsuits? The only case I know of where such a suit was even brought to trial was from a white woman.

I recently re-read about Adobe going after Dmitry. All the while it sounded unfamiliar to me, but I guess I had cared deeply about it once!

Anyway, we need healthcare.

Government

People enjoy being told what to do — at least, once they become accustomed to it. Once a law is created, people will become accustomed to blindly following it (once they are violently forced into it and the whole society revolves around it, of course). No longer will a person ponder if something is the right thing to do or not; it instead ponders whether or not a law has been made with regards to the action.

We live in a world of zombies (also known as the civilized world); walking on most highways is illegal, not dangerous or suicidal. You will be arrested or charged for doing such, not put under watch or care for other suicidal activities. Who cares why it is illegal; you just have to know that it is.

Society needs formal rules to follow, otherwise chaos would result. Bullshit. If people were taught to be nice and caring to others and to do the right thing, instead of being taught to follow the laws, niceness and peace would result. Serial murdering isn't the wrong thing to do, according to society; it's just illegal.

Retrospective,

Portrait of a young anarchist. I don't disagree today, but getting there seems much more daunting.

Money

I have two identical pieces of paper; however, one of them is worth 100 times the other. They're made from the same tree; they feel the same; they both have the same weight; in fact, were you to close your eyes you would not be able to tell the difference. But believe me, one of the pieces of paper is worth 100 times the other.

What a idiotic idea.

Retrospective,

That's my complaint with money? C'mon.

Winning

You are either a one or a zeroAntitrust

Winning is everything, you know. Loosing is the ultimate worse thing to do. Of course, no person can be both, or neither; that just wouldn't fit.

Why would you want to do something that didn't involve winning? That is the point of doing anything; simply so that you can win. If I were to do something that had no outcome, neither positive nor negative, that would be an awful event; it would be considered pointless and a waste of time. In fact, that would be worse than losing.

Retrospective,

I'm still not very competitive.

Todo

Retrospective,

I own a cell phone now. Took me a while but I got there. Sometimes I have conversations that go like this, though:

them
What phone is that?
me
It's a Google Pixel.
them
Do you like it?
me
I don't like phones.
them
Oh.

For some reason, when I copied this rant forward it ended up as a different rant.

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Mike Burns <mike@mike-burns.com>