Has Natural Selection Short-circuited? I got into a debate about the present safety issues creating an environment where the ones that are too stupid to cyoa no longer run the risks of being striken from the food chain by fate. Later in the morning, I commented that you never see cut-off levis being worn any more by children. When I was younger, the jeans were turned into shorts when the knees got tore out, both out of practicality and need. I haven't seen a pair of cut-offs on a child in years and it set me to wondering...I haven't seen the knees wore out of a pair of jeans in years and it set me to wondering...I don't even recall a grass-stained knee in recent years and something is definately wrong here. Jeans now wear out in the ass first or on the thighs...almost never see any wore out at the knees. Kids don't crawl over hills any more to sneak up on each other. They don't wrestle or play hide and seek or kick the can or red rover...too damned many ipods and playstations, I guess. It makes me sad but by extension, I wonder if that isn't the new rules for natural selection?
We played hard as kids and today they might arrest you for what we did to have fun, world is going down the tubes, Im with you Sea it will come back to bite us in the ass someday.
You don't see kids in good, hard, independent play these days, not back when Mom said "Go out and play, be home by dinner time." Too dangerous in some areas, but it was back then, too. So now it's run their little butts off in organized soccer or such, and listen to the parents berate the coaches with language that would have made a sailor blush 25 years ago. No longer, tho', it is common and not too genteel these days. Polite? What's that? Courteous? Again, what's that? And, of course, the ones that don't play soccer sit and get fat. Really fat, and their little psyches get wounded, so they eat even more. Back in the good old days, whenever and whatever those were, if your payche was wounded, you did something about it. Do that now, and they arrest the kids for being kids. Gag. Off disjointed and ill thought out rant.
I think part of the change has occured because of national/worldwide news. We hear about kids with brain damage after falling from bicycles and now we have helmet laws. There may not be more dangers now than in the past, only that we are more aware of them. When I was a kid, I don't think I wore shoes from May through September. If I got ringworm or poison ivy, there was tobacco juice and fels naptha soap as a cure. I rode my horses bareback, barefooted and without a helmet. I carried tools and nails up into a treetop to build a tree house where, eventually, I would take a bottle of Coke and a book and rule my own kingdom. I'd head into the woods in the morning and not return until dark. I caught snakes and frogs, tracked and snared animals and built campfires by myself. I was never without a pocket knife. I ate apples right from the tree and wild blueberries and never worried about pesticides. We didn't have TV but I was never bored. I ran and jumped and rolled in the hay and dreamed. Life was an adventure and every day was a new beginning. I, too, mourn the loss of these freedoms for our children and grandchildren.
The part that worries me the most about it is on the grander scale mentioned, that in fact selective reprocriation is being avoided. We so heavily protect the stupid and weak that then go on to reproduce generaly far more than those with some basic intelegence. I fear it dose not bode well for the future of the human race. After several generations of the weakest out breeding the strong then if something happens and the world requires strength again then will there even be enouph strong folks left to preserve the species?
I'm not such a cynic. I think the world is filled with strong and intelligent children and adults who will be capable of bringing our ever evolving species into the future. I don't feel those of us on earth today represent the final dying gasps of humanity. Life will change and humans will change along with it - so it has always been.
I think some of what you're seeing is that parents don't want to be bothered with their kids and leave them in front of the tv or computerm (some are working 2 jobs to make ends meet) . And schools etc take an active kid and put them on ritalin or some such. Granted there are dangers out there, but on weekends at least parents should get kids out in the open air and let them run their little legs off. I don't think it's the end of the race, but do think a lot of adults as well as children will have a real tough time in the days ahead. Best use of energy I can think of.
I agree. The older ones among us have experienced life before the influence of electronics and well as participating in the current age which gives us a great advantage. We have a responsibility to teach and to encourage the younger generation to learn some of the skills we have acquired by virtue of our experience. Our failure to pass on what we know will be the true end of the world as we know it.
