OP-ED: Random thoughts about man’s stupidity
I am only 18 months away from turning 80, and truthfully, the way things are going, if seven more of my classmates pass away, I could end up being the valedictorian of my high school class.
One thing I’ve consistently observed in life is the ongoing display of consistency that humankind continuously exhibits – poor decision-making. It makes us the King of the Stupid Jungle. It is our forte. We have an almost supernatural ability at it.
The annual Darwin Awards are like a disconcerting highlight reel of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Like, the woman who tried to pet a tiger at a zoo. Goodbye arm. Or the people who try to microwave their phones to charge them faster. Or the drivers who wrap their ankles in aluminum foil to avoid the police radar. You can’t make this stuff up.
One of our most remarkable feats is our ability to ignore our history like “WET PAINT” signs where we touch that wall to test it. In my lifetime, we have chosen warfare over diplomacy at least five times. We ignore centuries of history that show us that violence rarely solves what it purports to fix. We spend billions on weapons while we cut health care, education, and infrastructure. It’s like watching someone pour oil on a grease fire to put it out.
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, we continue to do things that make it worse. It’s not unusual to see billionaires flying their jets to meetings on sustainability.
Religious and cultural prejudices? As a species, we developed thousands of belief systems based on some version of the Golden Rule that preaches love and tolerance. Then we use these same systems to justify hatred and violence against anyone who believes just slightly differently. It’s “My god is better than your god,” with many casualties. We form tribal allegiances around our most insignificant differences to find reasons to hate people who share 99.9% of our DNA.
We respond to mass shootings by making it tax-free to obtain silencers for our firearms. (because quieter tragedies are more acceptable?). We have politicians who cut education funding while saying their citizens seem uninformed. Oh, and we cut cancer research, too? The logic is so backwards, it’s an art form.
Social media has proven to be an amazing digital petri dish for displaying our worst impulses. People believe false news stories about miracle pills for curing baldness while ignoring verified scientific reports about cancer-causing additives and dyes.
The internet has become a 24/7 exhibition of human mental failures. We will believe any conspiracy theory online while dismissing peer-reviewed research from actual experts. It’s like preferring medical advice from a Magic 8 Ball over your doctor.
Our shopping behaviors are nuts, too. We buy exercise equipment in January that becomes a clothing rack by March. Or we buy six-month supplies of toilet paper during a weekend snowstorm. Then we complain about a $5 carton of eggs while convincing ourselves that a $7 cup of coffee is reasonable when we can’t pay our rent.
Don’t get me started on winter fashions. I particularly love seeing my fellow man wearing shorts and clogs when it’s 12 below and there is a blizzard outside. Or school kids who refuse to wear coats in the winter. When did hypothermia become cool? (That was redundant.)
Yet here’s what keeps me from complete despair: the same species that microwaves phones and ignores wet paint signs also built hospitals, wrote symphonies, and figured out how to send messages across the globe in milliseconds. We’re capable of breathtaking stupidity, yes, but we are also capable of breathtaking brilliance. Maybe the real human superpower is our ability to survive our stupidity and keep trying anyway.
All I’m asking is that we think just a little bit more, and maybe we’ll surprise ourselves.
Nick Jacobs is a resident of Windber.