Unbelieva-babble!

[ameerat42]

UNBELEIVA-BABBLE (def.) Something (unbelievably stupid) that has been talked about and that has
finally come true/happened. To normal Homo sapiens such events are invariably accompanied by
one or more of: peals of derisive laughter, gasps of disbelief, bouts of self head-slapping, and for
the more divinely inspired, ashes on the head and garbing of oneself in sackcloth.

So some time ago I heard about this: Pedestrian Warning Lights. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-30/sydney-phone-pedestrians-to-get-traffic-lights-in-pavement/7459152)
On tonight's news they said it has actually happened.

I hereby move that the Darwin Awards be awarded to the perpetrators of this brainless idea along with the
species for which it is supposed to save.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[bitsnpieces]

But on the other side of the coin, that'd be really useful for car lanes as visibility of a lot of lanes in Victoria usually diminishes when the road is wet, at night

[ameerat42]

OK, for that we'll hold off their extinction, Dave:D

[Mary Anne]

A sign of the times I guess and makes sense with so many people with a phone or tablet in their faces these days..

[arthurking83]

set them all to green I say .. and let nature(ie. natural selection) do it's thing.

You can't mess with natural selection, as it's been a proven process for billions of years now, therefore we know it works

Humans have a natural tendency to mess with nature, and for the past few hundred years we know this seems to have a negative effect in various aspects of nature.

So(this is just a theory I have) if we attempt to disturb the proven process of natural selection we risk developing a new retarded species of beings .. a branch off the homosapien line and a new (eg. dodosapien/dumbosapien/morosapien/stupidsapien/etc) mutation may arise.

So, do we want this new dumbed down species to thrive and possibly compete with in the future?
I say no! .. so set them all to green and sit back, have a drink and enjoy the show!


I'm betting that the 'ol Neanderthal folks rue the day they let the sapiens into Europe the way they did! :p

[John King]

Arthur, it could be argued that evolution has worked to produce the mess us (and our beautiful planet ... ) are in today. Sad thought!

[arthurking83]

Arthur, it could be argued that evolution has worked to produce the mess us (and our beautiful planet ... ) are in today. Sad thought!

Nah!
I think we're working harder to break the continuum of evolution at this stage in our development.

Think about it ... we used to make stuff(or make stuff up) that assisted in expanding our knowledge.

simple examples: fire before we learned how to make fire we ate food raw. raw food is OK, but cooked food is so much better. we got better at making cooked food, from the rudimentary throw the day's catch into a roaring fire situation to the commonplace fine cuisine we have today. human's ever increasing database of food cooking grew, expanded the collective knowledge and so it went.
Science. One mans idea seeded another womans idea which another man came along and built upon both those ideas again .. once again collective knowledge building up the collective knowledge.

Nowadays tho(and I think it really began in the 50's) where the collective knowledge was more focused on convenience for our difficult lives!
First it was the vacuum cleaner(because the broom was so labour intensive), then the microwave oven, because fire is nearly impossible to create when it involves turning a dial and pushing a button to spark it up on the stove .. etc.
The culimination of all the collective knowledge behind the convenience minded inventors was the smart phone.

The smartphone is not a bad idea, that's for sure. But it appears that the smarter the phones are becoming, the dumber it makes the user.

So now we arrive at the situation(above) where these dumb and dumber smartphone users need to be nannied with what surely amounts to the most ridiculous safety device proposition to date.

[jev]

We have these lines here that light up when you're supposed to stop for red:
https://hig.nl/website/files/HTS-verkleind/_cache/564/1000x1000.jpg

"Smartphone-pedestrians" are a problem, but on a bike... it's like a plague!