Too Stupid To Live

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Who wants to help me write a book?
Working title: “Too Stupid To Live.”
From an Aspie point of view. What would it have been like to watch it all unfold, from the point of view of a fully awake, criminally SANE and rational, alien anthropologist?

Chapter One: a brief overview of the stupidity of the species, Genesis-style.

Chapter Two: zero in on the colonies, starting just before the American Revolution. The Salem witch hunts, the institution of slavery, Manifest Destiny… Don’t forget the part where the witch doctors bled George Washington to death, just because that was the state of the art at the time.

Chapter Three: wars and other stupidities of the 20th century.

Chapter Four: September 11, 2001… more willful ignorance…

Maybe a headstone on the cover, with something about the universe being better off without these vile creatures...

Any history buffs in da house?

The world sucks. No doubt about that.

But that is neither your fault nor your problem.

You only have to live your own life.

I'm a history nut. I think you should not only focus on historical aspects of humanity, but the human condition.

We are all endowed by whatever means to live. None of us chose to be born. People are no different than any other species that wishes to perpetuate itself.
The only problem is that people have the means to be cruel and ultimately cause our own extinction.

Maybe focus on the fact that if we don't get our **** together we might as well be too stupid to live. Even the smartest people have brought around demise of hundreds of thousands.

DaVinci
Oppenheimer
Gen. Patton
Einstein
Hitler

Oftentimes it's our ambition and thirst for knowledge that is misused to cause chaos.

Motor Vehicles
Gasoline
Computers
Energy Breakthroughs
DARPA

Ahh, if only they would make me "Der Fuhrer"

I often wonder how people so stupid could put men on the moon or keep the airlines running.

It is a puzzle. Governments are run by idiots but yet we have freeways and modern hospitals.

That's what got us into this mess.

m uite interesed I am a history nut to so I consider it a very interesting proposal lets slit it 50 50 lol, no but seriously you have my interest feel free to add me to msn at [email protected]

I would ike yor help in he future to, to have a little interveiw for m bookon AS ndsociety views if possable

You are so funny, Tahitiii!

You should include some "future history" ones too like where we decimate our population either with the escape of a genetically engineered virus or WMDs. I think that particular stupidity is stupidly close in humanity's future. My vote is on Kim Jong Il, but it could just as easily be Nostradamus' "blue-turban" guy or even our own government's experiment gone awry. The U.S. certainly has an amazing ability to make enemies...

-- Vip, A.K.A. Special Agent Orange

There is already such a book: Matthijs van Boxsel, De Encyclopedie van de Domheit (The Encyclopaedia of Stupidity), Amsterdam, 1999; translated into German 2001 for Eichborn, Publishers

Sorry - this idea has been already picked up.

How about this?
The fully awake, criminally SANE and rational, alien anthropologist is from another dimension. The only way that he can exist in our universe is if he is implanted into a person’s brain like some kind of disease. To satisfy their curiosity the aliens in the other dimension implant him into one of the first humans on earth. From there each time his host dies he transfers on to another brain. In each brain that he enters he has no control over the thoughts and actions of the host and has no way of communicating. He can only observe and feel. With each person that he enters he has to live with that person until that person dies of natural causes. He also has almost no control over who’s brain he enters either. His mission is to last several million years and he has no way of terminating the mission or communicating with his world until the mission is over. He inhabits and observes the complete human history from a first person point of view. However he and the scientists on his world have made one mistake. You see, on their dimension there is no concept of time. To them his mission has a duration of an instant and they have assumed that that is what it should be for their intrepid explorer also. After several hundred years he forgets his mission and his world only to be reminded of it by something that he sees or feels. He realizes that his greatest enemy is forgetfulness; now if he could just stay focused. He is feeling every second of the passage of millions of years and there is no escape until the mission is over.

I hate it. But then again… There’s something there worth developing. An attitude or something.

How about different voices reporting on different parts through the centuries? One anthropologist finds the earthlings vile and concludes a report with the suggestion that they nuke the place before the earthlings have a chance to infest the galaxy. Another might find their behavior endearing one minute, vexing the next, and recommends tossing the prime directive in favor of intervention. Another defies orders and intervenes, with disastrous results…


Sketchy parts of Chapter One:

Wrengly, the tamer of fire: A bolt of lightning started a forest fire and little Wrengly got smacked by her mother for watching it instead of running away. 15 years later, another fire fascinated her, and she proceeded to tame it. The elders were frightened. A little kid tried to play with a burning twig and got a severe burn, for which Wrengly received a moderate pummeling. She later discovered that pigs tasted better after roasting. The tribe eventually accepted the new technology and quickly forgot who brought it to them. “Me still no like Wrengly,” said a cousin. “She weird.”

Kelm, inventor of the wheel: While carrying huge stones for the creation of a monument to the local tyrant, Kelm lost his footing and dropped the stone on a branch. The branch happened to be straight and the stone rolled for several feet. Kelm’s woman, who was bringing a cup of water for his break, witnessed the slip and started experimenting by sliding the stone over a handful of smooth sticks. The technique worked, and Kelm began to use and develop it. A few other slaves started to copy the idea, until the straw boss caught them and, assuming that they are just fooling around, put a stop to it with his trusty whip. Another slave in another group used the idea, did not get a beating, and his straw boss took the credit for the new invention.

I like the sound of chapter one others not so much.

How about this:

The Romans knew how to make a piston pump and they used it to pump out bilge water. The Romans also knew how to make a steam engine/generator. It is called an Aeolipile and was simply a sphere that turned. They also had the disadvantage of having to have large quantities of food on their ships to feed the oarsman. What would have happened if only they had put all those facts together or maybe someone did but was ignored? We could have entered the industrial revolution almost two thousand years ago and the technology of the world that we live in today would be two thousand years more advanced than it is today.

Perhaps - the Romans had a basic knowledge of mechanics and were able to handle pipes under pressure, but they had also a surplus of slaves. Holding slaves is an advantage if your technology is low-level, for higher stages of technology free labour is much more effective (Karl Marx wrote about this an whole chapter in his work "Das Kapital"). Unfortunately at the time when the number of slaves declined in the 3th century a religion became dominant which was less interested in a good live on earth, but more in the after live. So the intellectual elite took more care about religion than about the nature and so the situation was quite static till the renaissance.

Dussel wrote:

This is all quite true however it does not apply to ocean voyages and especially to long ones. On the ocean the last thing you want is to haul and feed a whole bunch of slaves especially when you have scurvy and don’t have refrigeration.

Mmmhhh ... when I re-read my statement and your remark, I think there an other factor regarding seafaring. The Roman Empire reached its limits in 2nd century. In north and north-west there were only forests and a wild sea of which not a lot seems to be gained, In the south there was the desert and in the east there was the Parther, which were even for Rome to strong to get conquered. So Rome became quite static in its structure.

The need of better seafaring was later in the north, when most notable the Hanse started trading over the north sea and the Vikings as far as North America. Here they learned to handle technologies needed for the European expansion over the world.

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The discovery of gun powder shall be also not underestimated: It was not Galileo Galilei how discovered first that Aristotle's laws of motion were wrong, but the cannoneers some years prior him, because they needed to understand the way the cannon ball should go.

If I’m not mistaken ancient Egypt was trading as far away as South America. Why wouldn’t Rome be interested in doing the same.