Those Crazy Tourists

Are we really raising more idiots or I just did not see them 50 years ago? I read something like this and think back 50 years previous the person who got injured in a national park doing something stupid got his just due. They did not ticket them. Maybe the government protecting ourselves from injury has made us into idiots. Or Maybe it is the electronic age [cell phones, computers] is the cause since everybody thinks they need to keep up. I heard a bluegrass song last spring that was titled "My Smartphone Made Me Stupid" and the song may have been correct. I just finished reading a book titled "The Shallows: What internet is doing to our minds" by Nicholas Carr that is along those same lines. I make an effort to limit my time surfing the internet and do not do twitter, facebook or any of the social things. My surfing is mostly reading the news--international and national -- from sites outside my state or the US. I hope I am not one of the idiots that would do something stupid in any park. I like to think I respect a park as property of others protected for our pleasure and use with the idea we go there and leave changing things an minimally as possible.

A large part is the need a lot of people who need to 'have attention from others.' The attention issue is what drives the anti-social media like Farcebook, TWITter and the like. Not only do people immediately post everything they do to get immediate attention, they go out of their way to do stupid things to push the number of hits up - planking is an example. They don't think about how stupid some of the things make them look, or how they can get killed doing them - think backing up over a cliff for a better 'selfie' as a prime example here. They chase their 15 seconds of fame with a total disregards of everything else. Add in the fools who things such stupid behaviour is good, and you increase the potential for more idiot behaviour. Add in the idiots who don't pay attention to what's around them while they keep up with what everyone else is doing on their anti-social behaviour, and you get a huge pool of death-wish idiots.

Another large part is advertising companies wanting to make money by getting awards to allow them to charge more, and you have all sorts of stupid ads of people doing weird and dangerous things.

These two come together with people doing dumb things to push their video blogs on YouTube.

Another factor is the nanny-state which doesn't allow anyone to do anything, so people look for opportunities to do things, and also they get fed up with so many signs about everything they ignore them all. The real interesting aspects as the people from the countries where they have the laws set to allow more law suits is where you see the worst behaviours.

The Internet, per se, is not at fault. I spend much of my life on the Internet researching things, writing books, and reading books, and it doesn't make me go out and do dumb things, but then, I get plenty of attention from people emailing me about my books.

I guess American tourists don't have the corner on doing stupid things.



nypost.com/2017/01/01/tourist-bitten-by-crocodile-after-trying-to-take-a-selfie-with-it/amp/