The Blog I Never Use

Previously, I posted about devolution due to technological development, but there is another factor at work here.

In 1864, Herbert Spencer finally read Darwin and, in response to drawings theory of Natural selection, he coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest" to express the concept. Spencer was a proponent of Social Darwinism, a movement which, when taken to bizarre extremes, has been the root of various defenses of evil, but perhaps, if we use it for explanation rather than profiling or prediction, it can be used profitably.

For example, I am living in Idaho. Idaho has no helmet law for motorcycle riders. In my opinion, this is a great idea, except for the whole I- have- a- motorcycle- rider- on- my- windshield thing. The logical progression goes like this: start with the two distinct assertions, if 1. Helmets save lives and 2. If smart people wear helmets: dumb people don't then smart people are less likely to die in motorcycle accidents, that means that there will be more smart people in the gene pool which will tend to curb the trend toward devolution which will tend to counteract the effects of the technological threat mentioned previously.

We must, however, be careful in the construction of laws based on this principle. For instance, while the relaxation of helmet and stabled laws may tend to curb the trend toward devolution, relaxation of drunk driving laws contributes to the trend. Why? Drunk drivers are obviously not that bright but high alcohol levels cause relaxation, this allows many of them to survive the crashes. Additionally, while they are encased in a protective shell, their potential victims are not necessarily so fortunate. Thus, in the case of DWI, the advantage goes to the forces of devolution.

Do you have any suggestions for laws that should be revoked to staunch the spread of stupidity?

[As a side note, I've decided to make this blog for stuff I think you might want to read and to start a blog where I make posts about things that are either too serious or too nerdy to post here, even by my standards. I'll try to cross-link to posts on each page to keep you up to date. My post about the unwise firing of preacher, Mike Sanders at the Eldorado Church of Christ has been moved to my other page]

Currently my other post has a little info about The Treaty of Waitangi (this one is easy to understand, but not too fun)