I Didn't Do It

Human Nature is the topic of the day. That, and observation. Both seem to be reoccurring themes in this blog. Let’s start with one of the basics.

It is in human nature to completely deny responsibility, and to pass the blame onto others, even when you aren’t even at fault in the first place. For example, someone passes by a precariously stacked group of papers. It’s been sitting there for weeks, just piling up hazardously, and that person happens to walk by just moments before the entire pile falls over. What’s their first reaction?

“It's not my fault!”

Of course it wasn’t their fault, but they’re already passing the blame. Everyone knows they had nothing to do with that and won’t blame that person for it’s collapse… Unless the pile of papers fell onto a lit candle and burned down the house, then someone might start pointing fingers.

Let’s say someone passes gas in a small room or car. Everyone knows who did it, but that person still refuses responsibility for their actions. It’s a simple matter, and the people only want confirmation, and maybe a polite warning in the future. Instead, the owner of the noxious vapor won’t even commit themselves to a simple smell, as if this bodily function is something to be ashamed of. Then again, if it’s strong enough, you tend to get a lot of people claiming them, even if they didn’t do it, just because they want something to be proud of. Otherwise, it’s the same story.

“Wasn’t me!”

One of the main items when discussing human nature is laziness. People are very lazy. Most people would say they’ve gotten lazier, but laziness has always been a problem. There’s just more ways of noticing it and spreading the word now. There are also fewer excuses.

Back when the wife was forced to cook and take care of the kids, the man would sit on the sofa and watch TV or listen to the radio or read the paper. Why? All of the work had been assigned to the wife. Now husbands are doing the same thing, but the wife isn’t doing all the work. No more excuse. The husband must now do half of the work or more, especially if the wife is also working, or working instead. No woman would put up with going to work to support the family AND coming home to do the housework.

It’s not just men, though. Women are being lazy too. The only difference is in the way they are lazy. Men have perfected laziness over thousands of years. Women are only now getting into the habit and are still working at being lazy, and getting away with it. Does equal rights ring a bell? There have been so many laws passed for women now that they don’t have to get ahead in life, a lot of them can get what they want on a gold platter. Did you know that when a man and a woman divorce each other, the woman gets just about everything? It’s not a law, but it is a fact. And everyone knows it. Even the people giving the orders to do so know it. You could be sitting in a courtroom with a male judge that HATES women, and he’ll STILL give the woman whatever she wants from the marriage. It’s just life. That’s how women get to be lazy. They found their excuse.

Did you know that people would let something fall to pieces before they would volunteer to fix it? It’s even worse if there is someone they know that WILL fix it, and they’re just waiting for that person to show up! That’s why no one is doing anything about this global warming we’re hearing so much about. Everyone is waiting for someone to fix it, without bothering them. Humans will wait all the way through the destruction of the sun before they would even consider making a plan of action to prevent extinction. ESPECIALLY if they find even the tiniest bit of evidence that they might be saved at the last minute by God or a group of extra terrestrials that would just happen to be passing by at that exact instant before the explosion from our own personal star reaches our tiny dust ball of a planet, where they would then beam the entire planet’s civilizations to another planet, thousands of light years away, along with all of our stuff, finding us to be a very fascinating race of people for some reason, just because we were too lazy to pack up all of our stuff and move.

So, that’s my bit of wisdom for the day. Since I know nobody reads these things unless they are being lazy or want an alibi, I’ll stop enabling you.

Paranoia Can Be Fun

Ever heard the phrase, “I don’t suffer from paranoia, I enjoy every minute of it!” and wondered exactly what that means? Then you probably won’t understand this blog. But for the rest of you, please read on.

Anyone else notice the little crumbs that fall off of the bottom of a pizza? It’s not part of the crust, it just sticks to the bottom of the pizza. It always falls off in the box, or on your plate, or sticks to your lips, but a significant amount does make it into your mouth. So, why do we eat it? Why are we putting things into our mouths when we don’t know what they are? What if it’s something you really don’t want to eat?

What could these crumbs be, anyway? If they are part of the crust, then why are they stuck to the bottom of it instead of being baked in like the rest of the dough? What if it’s crumbs from the other pizzas that they have baked? How old is the bread you just stuck in your mouth and swallowed? That’s not something I want to be eating. What if it’s not bread? What if it’s not food at all? Maybe the pizza companies wanted to know what kind of ingredients the customers liked, and the best way was to plant tiny sensors into their pizzas that look like simple bread crumbs. Every slice of pizza you eat adds another couple dozen sensors into your body which send signals to their computers to let them know what to change in their recipe to get people to like them better. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but it’s a huge invasion of privacy. What if the sensors aren’t from the pizza companies? What if they’re from the government? What if they want to keep track of where people are, and how healthy they are? Again, a good thing, but a huge invasion of privacy.

But what if it’s not our government, but another one? What if aliens wanted to stick those sensors on our pizza? Yes, it all makes sense now! Aliens have planted tiny robotic sensors onto the bottoms of our pizza crust to learn the tastes of the human population in an effort to control the food market, thus controlling the people of the Earth! These small droids are hovering in our bodies until they safely pass through with the rest of the waste, taking information about our bodies, giving the aliens our secrets and weaknesses. Once In the stream of our water, they will collect together, force their way into the lakes and rivers of our planet, taking in more information of the strengths, weaknesses and secrets of the planet. Eventually, the tiny robot ninja sensors will wind up in the earth, taking control of the plant life, waiting until the aliens give the signal to poison our food, drain our lakes and rivers and siphon it off for their mobile army of trees, seaweed and house plants that will enslave the humans to grow more plants to rule over them and populate other planets, for the aliens are actually a plant-like people that hate this entire planet for it’s over abundance of creatures that eat their kind. They go from planet to planet, enslaving or destroying the inhabitants and freeing their kind from the horrible role nature has given them, simple food for those of the flesh!

Warn your neighbors! Tell the press! Burn the lawyers! The Foliage-Cyborgs from outer space are coming to enslave us all! We must prepare to fight back! Get those missile silos in space to point outward to defend ourselves from the coming invasion with their first-strike capabilities! We can win the war, before it is too late! Don’t give up! We still have a chance! Destroy the forests! Drain the oceans! STOP EATING PIZZA! For the love of God, stop eating pizza! It was started by the French! They’re in on it! Run for you lives! The truth is out there!

…

Phew. That was intense. *Grabs a slice of pizza*

The Human Computer

Welcome to the new year! Did anyone learn anything over the holiday season? I know I did. I learned that too much information can be a bad thing. Your brain might freeze trying to take in all of the ads you’ve seen on TV, all of the holiday specials you watch, or just from the amount of people wishing you a happy holidays. You’ll usually find, at the end of the holidays, your brain actually took hold of this task quite well, and stored it all in one location, where you might not access it ever again.

There’s one thing that has always fascinated me about the human brain. It can quickly, and easily take in information using strange signals that wouldn’t even be related if we hadn’t connected these two very different dots. What I’m referring to, is our intellect versus our language.

Look out a window right now, and look at something. Don’t think of anything else, just look at that one thing. What was the first thing your mind threw at you? For most people, it would be the name of that object. If you looked at a tree, deep down in the back of your mind, you could hear a quiet voice whispering tree. Same thing if you looked at a road, it would whisper road. Some people may not even realize that they are telling themselves what those things are, rather than knowing them immediately. To take another step into this mess, let’s think about what we hear everyday, basic human speech.

It doesn’t matter what language you speak, every word you say is nothing but a mesh of sounds that someone has told you means something. In reality, we are trying to voice an idea, our brain interprets that idea into those words, then the person you are talking to interprets those words back into the basic idea as best as they can, and the brain reads the new message. This happens practically instantly.

You want to try something fun? The next time you are hearing someone speak, not necessarily to you, just sit there and listen to them. Don’t try to hear what they are saying, just listen to the sounds they make. If you can turn off your language skill and just listen to the sounds, even your native language can sound alien to you.

This is a great skill to learn. This way, you can zone out to make sure you don’t receive very much information, that would likely push out the more relevant knowledge, yet still be active enough to catch when you are supposed to respond, and what you are responding to. Just don’t use it on your spouse, parents, or anyone trying to teach you something. They seem to become enraged by it. I’m not sure why.