On General Stupidity

I am so sick of people.

Earlier this week, a fellow by the name of Osama Bin Laden met his end by the hands of a U.S. operative. While this end was definitely well earned, I took no joy in it and said as much on my facebook page. And so the great stupidity storm began.

Initially there was good, healthy debate. Was he or wasn't he responsible for the deaths of soldiers, were we in Afghanistan to get that guy or was it just resources, etc. The healthy debate didn't last long though. Very soon, the fecal fling fest started. I got compared to Nazis, accused of supporting terrorism and insulted in general BECAUSE I took no joy in the death of this man. It's funny how the less information people have, the stronger their opinion is.

If we could shift our focus away from killing each other and focus long-term, we as a species would be much more likely to survive the next 500 years. What if all the money poured into weapons development went into space programs and the sciences instead? Could you imagine the amount of progress we could make if we decided to work together instead of scrapping over dwindling resources? If we started thinking of ourselves as a species rather than little warring factions we could truly show some of our staggering potential. As things stand though, I'm betting we all kill each other off or make our planet simply uninhabitable in the next 150.

I know this post doesn't really fit the theme of this blog, but I'm just so damn sick of stupidity holding us back. I'm by no means immune or better than anyone else, and the amount of idealism here is borderline absurd. But wouldn't it be nice?

The great teacher Carl Sagan put it best: