I was reading an opinion piece that was complaining about "gross old famous men" and how they must be stopped from having children. The position of the author was that it was unfair on the child, because they wouldn't have a father to play ball with and some such. And at first though, it sounds valid, but then, this is a person who is outspoken against body shaming and the like too.
From the article:
Maybe I’m asking too much but I think if you have a child you need to be young enough to realistically be alive long enough to parent them.
Yes. Yes, you are asking for too much. What are you going to say to all of those children who lost their father because of war, defending their country? Or, what about people like my wife's brother in law who dies at thirty from cancer? How about those killed on work sites, or in traffic accidents. Are the lives of the children fundamentally and irretrievably destroyed? My daughter came very close to not having a father a few years ago when I had a stroke and as much as I want to be in her life, I have very little control over whether I live or die myself, even if I do eat healthily.
Sure, there are the "playing the odds" argument and statistically, the people she is talking about aren't likely to live that long, but statistics don't matter much these days and at least these people, are able to pay for their own medical bills. Unlike the majority of people who don't look after their bodies and will suffer from lung cancer, heart failure, knee and ankle problems, stomach problems and the epidemic that is depression.
Who knows, I might live until I am 100.
But the statistics aren't in my favor.
Like all people, I go through various phases in my life and at the moment, I am pretty negative on the outlook for the future. It is not that I don't believe it can be better, it is that I don't believe that the average person is going to do what it takes to make it better. Instead, they are going to jump on "public discourse" like this ridiculous article I linked and pick a side - thoughtlessly. Because, they don't actually have time to think much about the topic at hand, because they are too busy moving to the next one, or taking a picture of their lunch to share with strangers.
People are idiots.
All people.
I'm an idiot too.
Rather than spending time doing something useful - I read that fucking article.
I am a firm believer that we are what we eat and we are fast becoming for stupider as a population. Not only that, I also believe that the more we consume, the less creative we become, as we start to replicate, rather than innovate. Our brains shut down their imaginative side and instead take the easy path, amplifying the information of others.
Just share.
But, when everyone is sharing the same inane content split down the middle on polarized sides, it means that there isn't thought diversity and we are becoming homogenous in ideas - unlikely to break free from the shackles of a downward spiraling middle. The outliers of society used to be on the edges of an argument, but the normal distribution is being inverted, with the middle average being squeezed so that it fills up the sides instead. The average person is becoming more extreme, the person who is balanced in the middle, is a minority.
You see, those "gross old men" having babies in their sixties and seventies, are outliers too - that isn't the norm in society, yet it is positioned as a "problem" - one that not only affects a tiny sliver of people, but those people are also in the tiny sliver of people who would be considered *extremely wealthy.
In 2020, an average of 44 people died each day from overdoses involving prescription opioids, totaling more than 16,000 deaths. Prescription opioids were involved in nearly 24% of all opioid overdose deaths in 2020, a 16% increase in prescription opioid-involved deaths from 2019 to 2020.
How many of these people had children? and the largest demographic for death from prescription opioids?
Think of all those kids who will not only have to live their life without a father, but have to come to terms with their parent dying from an overdose on prescription medication.
Gross old governments!
Gross old society.
*And all those body positive people who normalize being overweight as if it is something to be celebrated. Almost 20 percent of children aged six to eleven are obese in the US. And for those counting, that is a group of 24,500,000 kids - so that is
just in that age group.
It isn't Al Pacino's fault.
Don't worry though, it is just a phase....
We are of course!
Because we are the ones that would rather read about some celebrity, than do something active to improve the world in a meaningful way. We'd rather be outraged on Twitter about what its CEO said, than spend our time doing something that helps others - or ourselves.
We are fucking idiots.
And, it might just be a phase, where we are creating a new culture that will be accepted by all. One where we are kept cows, consuming until we can no longer consume more, before being put out to pasture - left to die.
But, it is articles like the one linked above that are part of the problem - clickbait content designed to draw people in, but not give them anything actually useful. It is all filler for clicks, so the author can get paid for doing a job that adds no value to society, but brings in advertising revenue. This is the ad model internet and the entire premise is to keep people clicking, keep them consuming, no matter how out of shape, how depressed, how ill, how lonely, or how poor parents they become.
Pretty gross.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
