Posted on 10/05/2010 2:50:28 AM PDT by Daisyjane69
Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?
Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter "literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else."
Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her "kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Speaking of dialing, I watched my daughters try to dial a rotary phone once. It was comical.
Think of all the poor folks who starved to death in their showers because the shampoo bottle instructions said:
1. Lather.
2. Rinse.
3. Repeat.
LOL...glad I could help...these can be pretty grim times to consider, but then you think about that stupid, inane, ridiculous movie, and it has to make you laugh even though it is spot-on!
It’s a “John Wayne”!!!!!
LOL...I sure do hope so!
*we DID raise a nation of idiots, does that count?*
Nov 2008 proved that....
I had a cat that could open the screen door by sticking his claws in it and was learning how to open a doorknob on a regular door. He put his two paws on opposite sides of the knob and caused it to turn some.
I believe if he had lived longer, he would've eventually been able to open an unlocked door.
God Bless those men.
Thank you.
I have a saying I like to use: “We are all “A$$holes”.
My theory goes as such: Many of us try to drive a car in a civilized, polite and heads-up manner. We largely succeed, but even the most astute and careful drivers amongst us eventually do SOMETHING that will piss off someone else. We drive appropriately 99% of the time, but...that one time you misjudge the speed of an oncoming car as you pull out, or begin to change lanes and don’t see that car in your blind spot. The person in the other car thinks you are a total jerk, even though you drive well 99% of the time. Then you multiply that by EVERYONE driving on the road who has that 1% lapse, and everyone ends up driving around thinking everyone else is an inconsiderate bastige!
But this is different, I suppose...I can screw up that one time, but I can drive well the rest of the time. Kind of like that old saw: “I will wake up sober tomorrow, but you will still be ugly and stupid...”
Stupid is forever!
Probably sets off metal detectors.
I agree. Far too true.
You're right, I think it's the 2nd generation.
I remember my cousin in the mid-eighties saying that few of her college friends knew how to cook. Her boyfriend was very impressed that she was able to prepare a fairly simple meal.
I think about all the opportunities for collisions to occur during the rush hour.
Consider, say, fifty thousand vehicles trying to get to work in a given city, all at the same time, in stop and go traffic.
There are likely to be a dozen fenderbenders, and one or two worse collisions, during that rush hour.
Now consider all the opportunities for collisions that occurred among all motorists involved during that time. Any one driver must have had a hundred opportunities to cause a crash, and yet only a dozen or two, out of fifty thousand drivers, times at least a hundred opportunities per driver, actually caused a crash!
So, doing the math, that means a dozen collisions caused out of 50 000 * 100, or 12/5 000 000 opportunities, or 2.4 parts per million.
That's almost six sigma performance.
The wonder is not how many accidents happen, but how few.
Agreed. I often think that if aliens were watching rush hour from outer space, they might have the same impression we have as we peer down at a busy ant hill...
Great analysis, btw, from a data geek...:)
When I first saw Idiocracy, I thought, “Wow, some of these things are true now! In another 20 or 30 years we’ll be there!”
Then in Nov 2008, I thought, “We're much closer to Idiocracy
than I would've guessed.”
When Obamacare passed, I thought, “It's here. Right now.”
Good point.
Boomers are saving the world, you are only now living in the age of the boomer, America has been moving slowly right since they finally started coming of age in the late 1980s, Contrast the age group that runs America (age 46 to 64)today, with that age group of 1935 to 1975, when the worst damage was done to America.
Enjoy your restored gun rights.
Gosh, do you really need instructions for heating up canned corn?
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