My Anti-Simpleton Crusade

[impressive]

Oh, no! Don’t tell me.

You are not going to turn into another one of those who respond to a simple term meaning “A descriptive account, record. or history.”as though it were an analeptic?

She said analeptic. Tee hee.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Thanks -you said what I wanted to say for me.

I am pleased to oblige in any way.

Shanglan

 

[smoochypig]

Now, with the glorious convenience of suburbia, my car takes me door-to-door.
[/B]

And even that isn't required for posting to literotica... Can you imagine if we had to leave messages in envelopes to everyone still?

 

[BlackShanglan]

And even that isn't required for posting to literotica... Can you imagine if we had to leave messages in envelopes to everyone still?

Muir Woods would suffice for perhaps a single day of the paper we would fling about on Literotica. Sobering thought.

Shanglan

 

[English Lady]

blackshanglan


And I didn't see Joe belittling anyone... I sae him making a good point actually.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

And walking to and from those positions. Granted, factories could be damned unhealthy places to be . . .

I would recommend a closer look at the devekopment of cities. By 1900, fifty per cent of all Americans lived in a city.

From The Guilded Age:

“Crowded inner-city slums developed, and with the invention of the Cable Car and the Trolley, middle and upper class city-dwellers moved out into the suburbs, commuting by mass transit to work.”

Most people walked, only through poverty, not for exercise. Cheap mass transportation grew because of a political demand for access for poor (often immigrant) workers to large manufacturing companies, balanced against an equal desire to keep them cooped up within inner-city slums.

Ford did not start mass production until 1914, when he doubled his workers’ salary to enable them to also become customers. (And every other worker, whose employer had to match salaries.)

 

[impressive]

blackshanglan


And I didn't see Joe belittling anyone... I sae him making a good point actually.

It came across as belitting because a lot of folks have a bias re Joe. I'm fairly certain that he was meaning to provoke thought/discussion rather than start a flame war ... but, I could be wrong. (It's happened once or twice before.)

 

[BlackShanglan]

Most people walked, only through poverty, not for exercise. Cheap mass transportation grew because of a political demand for access for poor (often immigrant) workers to large manufacturing companies, balanced against an equal desire to keep them cooped up within inner-city slums.

This assumes that the mass transportation went door-to-door. It doesn't do that. The walking is not all the way to work - which for many people would be impossible in a working day - but to get to the transportation stop from the house, and to the work from the stop, and all again in reverse on the way home. Where I lived in London - quite close to a Tube stop - that added a nice mile's walk each day, suitably broken into four segments. Had I lived a few streets further down, it would be more like two miles. That's considerably more than anyone I know gets in a car-based society.

Shanglan

 

[LadyJeanne]

Muir Woods would suffice for perhaps a single day of the paper we would fling about on Literotica. Sobering thought.

Shanglan

Aack! No! Muir Woods is my own personal enchanted forest - I'd write with a stick on sand before I let anyone near it.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Aack! No! Muir Woods is my own personal enchanted forest - I'd write with a stick on sand before I let anyone near it.

Agreed. I would even give up Lit to save that place of beauty.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Agreed. I would even give up Lit to save that place of beauty.

Then it shall be well protected indeed.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Joe was making a point that if we consider the warnings as there because of the stupid people that are just unfit examples of what a person should be... then we have to include people that need them. Like Ernie. Who is a really nice guy.

I'd rather force a company to spend $100.00 a year on those few words on the label for their products than see us go without. Regardless how funny it might seem to us "above the need for that kind of thing" people.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Actually, people are doing more to protect their health now, than ever before.

How many ordinary people jogged, or went to a gym in the fifties? In 1900, how many people were taking any kind of instruction in how to exercise to reduce the effects of a sedentary lifestyle? How many women studied to understand of what foodstuffs a well-balanced diet was composed? Other than the exigencies of their labors, outside those in a military regime, what men took even a minimum of exercise.

Which employers attempted to discover how to best arrange their work for their laborer’s health and comfort?

Now, we have a layer of food processing between the producer and the consumer, adding chemicals and preparing it in such a way as to be more appealing, have a greater shelf life, and look more attractive, with little or no concern for the nutritional value of their product. Even when they promise to improve the quality, offering more healthy choices, we quite often find – later – that those improvements were no improvement at all.

Finally, more industrial and human waste is pumped into our water, either through landfills that contaminate the water table, or straight into flowing rivers, or towed to sea and jettisoned overboard. We are being systematically poisoned by both polluted water, and the flesh of animals which depend upon that polluted water to exist.

We are not getting sicker because we are babying sick people, we are getting sicker because we are babying polluters who are making us sicker.

Actually, the statistics I've read in magazines such as Men's Health and Men's Fitness, would strongly imply that we're actually getting fatter and less healthy. I can't say where their stats come from, but it's not Maxim. These mags are fairly good sources of info from what I've read and known of them. Might be wrong, but stilll...
As as far as us being health conscious... Most of those gym goers (like myself... well, when my back pain eases some) while exercising and becoming more fit, aren't necessarily eating better foods. I know a lot of people who work out constantly, and eat more Mickey D's than I do. Truth is, we want to look better naked, not live longer. We're also in the minority. It's like that line between the upper and lower classes (income I mean); it keeps getting bigger. While a large number of people are shifting to become more healthy and being educated and whatnot, more are simply falling into line in our fast-food, high-cholesterol, hypertensious cultures. A small percentage of us are getting healthier and fitter, and the rest are simply getting less healthy. Might even balance out, but I doubt those "Body-for-lifers" are really giving us a better average.
And as for those companies and the women learning how to balance meals and whatnot: The information is just more available, not so hard to get. Television did that alone. Back then, the foods that we eat now that are hurting us most may not have even been available...

Q_C

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

And life expectancy is a blasted fable spread by the minions of Social Security

 

[Quiet_Cool]

And life expectancy is a blasted fable spread by the minions of Social Security

Ummm...

Huh?

Q_C

 

[Edward Teach]

Yes, there are people who don't know that you shouldn't use a hair dryer in the shower.

Some are very, very bright people with lots of education who just never read or paid any attention to anything having to do with things mechanical. I know someone very bright with a very good education who literally cannot change a light bulb. He always breaks the base off in the socket because he hates the chore so much that he gets in a hurry and forgets which way to twist. He then learned the trick of using a raw potato to remove a broken base from the socket. Yep, he forgot to turn the switch off, got shocked and fell off a step ladder, spraining his ankle.

Those labels save us all money. They prevent lawsuits and injuries.


Stup Dity

 

[The_Darkness]

I have the solution....

I have the solution to the problem of people. It's really simple and it's fun to think of during the normal hours of your lives when you're working or shopping or whatever.

It's called the Apollo Clensing Act.

What we do is take care of the problem of excess nuclear warheads and missiles and the problem of the intellectually disinclined at once.

What we do is give everyone an IQ test. Those who fall below about 85 we load into a missile and shoot them into the sun. If a person qualifies for a one-way ticket into space but performs some job in society that is needed (garbage man, comedian, etc) for society to go at its normal pace, they can stay.

And no, it really doesn't make much sense....most of the people we know that we'd like to put on the rockets are too damn smart to pass, but in the shorthand explanation, we're cleansing the genepool and performing nuclear disarmament all in one stroke.

 

[The_Darkness]

Those labels save us all money. They prevent lawsuits and injuries.

Edward, how true, how true. But at the same time we still have my favorite quote:

I've discovered the cure for stupidity; we simply take all of the warning labels off everything and let the problem sort itself out. - Random chatroom chick

 

[SeaCat]

(Those of you who wish to may ignore this post. )

What I see as the problem here, and what I think many others see as the problem is not the warning labels per se, it is the need of them to protect the companies from lawsuits. There is rarely a day which goes past when we don't here about a lawsuit being pressed by someone who wants to get money from a company because they didn't warn or go to extreme lengths to protect the populace.

Now don't get me wrong, (and I know some of you will anyways, but that's okay.) I don't mean these companies should not be held responsible if they produce a product which is faulty and therefore dangerouse(sp). Several instances of this come readily to mind. The Pinto, (which should have come with the warning :this car explodes upon minor impact.) The car which made Ralph Nader famouse. (No I can't remember the name.) Which tended to roll a tire underneath itself when it turned too tightly at speed.

What I see as the problem is the people who sue, and the lawyers who help them, for things which are entirely their fault, or could have been avoided by a modicum of thought. Three classic cases come to mind, two of which I'm sure you have heard, and the third is a fairly local one at this time.
The first is the case of the woman who burned herself with coffee from McDreck. She sued for medical damages and pain and suffering if I remember correctly. What rarely showed up in the news reports was the fact this woman had purchased a cup of HOT Coffee, and had opened it to add her creamer and sugar while holding it between her legs and driving. While doing this it spilled, burning her. Notice I mentioned she had ordered HOT Coffee, not iced coffee. Did she somehow expect her hot coffee not to be hot? Would she not have complained if it was not hot? So what if the cup didn't have a label on it warning her that the coffee was hot, do her cups at home have that same warning on them to prevent her family and guests from burning themselves?
The second case is the one of the obese gentlman from New York who is again sueing McDreck for making him obese. It seems in their commercials proclaiming their sandwiches were healthier than their competitors they forgot to tell him a diet made up of strictly their food would prove to be unhealthy. Again Hello? You didn't bother to think that a diet of purely fast food might be a tad unhealthy? Did McDonalds tell him a diet of purely fast food was healthy? What about purely Sub-Way? Their commercials tend to point out how healthy their sandwiches are, why not sue them as well?
The third case is a local one. The first part received national attention. Who here remembers the case of the murder of D. Grunow the teacher by one of his students? (I still don't agree with the verdict of the Jury but that is my right.) The widow of the teacher is not suing the person who shot her husband, nor is she suing the owner of the gun who kept it in a can from which the kid stole it. She also is not suing the manufacturer of the handgun used in the shooting. Instead she is suing the company which sold the handgun. She claims the handgun had a faulty safety which resulted in her husband being shot, and maybe the handgun did have an inherently faulty safety. However who is liable in this case? Wouldn't it be the maker of the handgun for making a firearm with a bad safety? Or is it the owner who didn't secure the handgun? Or maybe it should be the kid who stole the gun, loaded it, and pointed it at the teachers head?

Somehow to me at least, these cases could have been avoided by people using their heads a little bit. If the woman had placed her cup in a cup holder, or even, stopped her car before opening the cup lid to add her creamer she wouldn't have been burned. If the man in the second case had thought about it for more than a minute he would have realized that a diet made up of fast food is not balanced and could have consequences. In the third case if the owner had kept his gun secured it wouldn't have been used to kill the teacher. If the kid hadn't rebeled against authority, (he was asked not to talk to a girl in class.) and if he hadn't left school to get the gun, and if he hadn't loaded it and pointed it at the teachers head, the teacher would still be alive.

Cat

 

[The_Darkness]

Joe was making a point that if we consider the warnings as there because of the stupid people that are just unfit examples of what a person should be... then we have to include people that need them. Like Ernie. Who is a really nice guy.

I'd rather force a company to spend $100.00 a year on those few words on the label for their products than see us go without. Regardless how funny it might seem to us "above the need for that kind of thing" people.

Joe, I couldn't agree more, but at the same time we have people sueing McDonalds because they've eaten every meal there for the last 5 years and they're fat. No shit? Food fried in fat and dripping with grease is unhealthy? You mean inhaling tar and crap from cigarettes is bad? Alcohol is a poison? Well hot damn!

There is a definitive line between uneducation and callous apathy. The warning lables are generally there so that arduously appathetic can't sue manufacturers, and in point, do little (except in miniscule numbers of specific cases) to prevent harm to the user.

 

[BlackShanglan]

McDreck's. I love it

If I recall, however, the crux of the suit against McD's was not that the woman didn't know that coffee would be hot, but that the coffee was at an extremely high temperature that actually precluded drinking it safely. If memory serves (damn, too much Iron Chef lately), they'd had a string of complaints of similar burnings. I think the court based its decision at least in part on the idea that they were serving a liquid at a temperature much higher than would normally be expected, and that the second-degree burns the victim received would not have been incurred from ordinary hot coffee.

If I'm not mistaken, that second case was thrown out of court. I think they were given two options by the judge - either to show that the company had engaged in misleading advertisements, or that the ingrediants and processes used in the food were so different from the normal food found in one's kitchen that an average person might reasonably not understand how unhealthy it was. They went for the first route and lost - their ads were too old and not very convincing anyway - but I would have been interested to see them go for the second. It really is quite astonishing what hydrogenated fats and high fructose corn syrups can do to nutritional values, not to mention the quantities of sodium. It's not your mama's cooking, that's for sure.

Shanglan

 

[The_Darkness]

Black Shan, here here and damn right!

The people suing Micky-D's over the fat thing though also had another strike against them; virtually no exercise in a week or month. Some people can get by with that, most of us can't. I'm hella-lucky in the fact that I can eat whatever I want whenever I want (though not to extreme excess) and not gain weight at all, so long as I at least walk at night....and I used to for a few miles each night with friends.

It all goes back to a life-style switch. We (America) went from a country of ball-busting work-a-holics to a country of clerks and desk jockeys in the matter of 20 years....that's why we're "obese." Somehow, between that and the cell phone revoltion...er....revolution....we became one of the more irresponcible societies ever, but can't seem to blame ourselves, hence the increased need for the warning lables.

50 years ago when my grandpa lost his teeth because he didn't brush right, drank a bottle of whiskey a night and smoked 2 packs a day of non-filtered Camels, he didn't run to the lawyer, he ran to the mirror and took a good look.

I wish the rest of the world could do that. It would solve the lable issue at the least.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Personal Responsibility.

We lack it in this country.

For every ill, we blame this and that, because we are unable to take a step back and be brutally introspective. And it harms us in other affairs. When it turns out we use torture or politicians lie or that Americans sometimes do intentionally bad thing, we react with shock. How can we not be all-good? Such reactions are stupid. Of course, there is evil and stupidity and villainy. Even within our own lives. When we gain a victory or make a decision or miss a hint, we commit small villanies that we must learn to recognize and when we screw up, we need to stop saying "who did this to me?" unless we follow it up with "was it me?"

Until we do that, we'll be seeing this crap.

 

[dreampilot79]

VB way back when most folk didn't have a sedantry lifestyle.

And I think it is only a teeny-tiny fraction of folk who do the gym/jogging/excercise thing now.


the government over here is spending money on trying to educate folk into healthy eating and excercise regimes because it is hoped they can save themselves lots of money doing it!

we are unhealthy but also VB you have a point...processed food doesn't help matters at all!

Hell EL... the government has a plan over there!!!!! YOU HAVE TO WALK.. you don't have any damn parking places!!!!!!

 

[dreampilot79]

As for me.. my vow of an exercise/health plan... is to have sex 5 times a day... excellent exercise!

Now if only I could find someone willing to help!!!!