Thoughts on Dumb Genes (and the People that Have Them)

Today is Veteran's Day, which I think is a very important holiday to celebrate. If you are wondering what prompted this assertion, I would direct you back to a post I made last month about holidays I don't think are really worth celebrating, like Columbus Day. Veteran's Day, on the other hand, is a very good holiday and I'm glad that we take the time to recognize the sacrifices made by those who have fought on our collective behalf.

Anyway, that's not what I'm really here to talk about tonight, but I thought it was something that was worth saying, because I don't think it's something that gets said often enough. The sad truth is, for all of the good holidays that are out there, how many of us are cognizant of their meaning? Well, when I say us, I don't me us, like you and me, because readers of ALKM (my blog title's acronym) are all thoughtful, learned folk who think about these things on a regular basis. But I think we can all agree that we're probably not really representative of the larger community, because let's face it: there are a lot, and I mean a lot of dumb people in the world.

I attribute the rise in dumb people to two things. First of all, natural selection has been weakened, meaning that less dumb people die off from doing dumb things, and survive the pass along dumb genes to dumb offspring. Thankfully, the truly dumb among us still manage to harm themselves in spectacular ways, thus provided at least some measure of genetic protection. If you disagree, you've never really taken a good, hard look at a lot of the videos on YouTube. That might be a good thing, actually; it means that your mind is still uncorrupted, still pure. I'd try to hold on to that for as long as possible, if I were you.

But now that I've said that, you'll probably be curious, probably start wondering just how dumb people really are. And then you'll go off and look and learn, and then that innocence will be shattered, and it will be all my fault for bringing it up in the first place. Way to go, thanks a fucking lot.

The other observation I'd like to make is not that there are more dumb people in the world, or that the average dumb person is getting dumber (both are true, though) but that we're more aware of them now thanks to the advent of media. I mean, previously, you had the village idiot, and maybe the drunken sots who passed out in the stable, and that was about all the dumb anybody had to put up with.

Now, though, you have videos and the Internet and... well, pretty much videos, the Internet, and videos on the Internet.

On the other hand, people who were considered smart thought that it made sense that sick people just had too much fucking blood, which sounds pretty dumb to me, and I'm not even a doctor. So maybe there's hope for us, after all.

At the very least, it gives the rest of us a reason to be sarcastic, secure in the knowledge that many of the people we belittle, despite their superior strength, lack the awareness to perceive our mockery. So, really, it's more of a predator/prey relationship, than anything. Just not one that ends will the prey being devoured.

Well, it doesn't usually end like that, anyway.