Open Diary Entries


Compensation for ignorance

5/21/03

Just thought I'd mention to the world how annoyed I am that the world has gone more and more toward building safeguards into life, protecting you from your own carelessness.

This is a world where hot coffees say "Caution: The beverage you are about to enjoy is VERY HOT!" and toothpicks boxes come with instructions (perhaps so you don't try to stick them in your ears to pick the gap in your head rather than the gaps between your teeth).

The people who need this sort of thing scare the hell out of me.

Life has actually gotten to the point where directions are given for everything less automatic than breathing. People walk into my bookstore every day determined to get "that new book" but don't know what it's called, who it's by, or where they saw it advertised. Yet somehow they think there should be a way to find it for them even though the only piece of information they have is that they want a book. This righteous indignation they emanate, this air of entitlement, gives me the impression that people not only WANT the world handed to them on a plate; they EXPECT it. This is not cool, people.

Why should you have to know how to spell? A spell-checker checks it for you. If you still have mistakes, it's the stupid spell-checker's fault. Why should you have to watch where you're going? If you bump into something, whoever put it there can be complained upon and punished. If you still run into things, you're able to accuse your environment of being hostile. Why should you have to know anything at all, come to think of it? You can worm yourself into one little niche in the world and do that thing well enough to get a paycheck, and then in every other area of your life you're entitled to just sit back and let other people think for you.

This rant is sponsored by my tee-shirt-making experience tonight. On my old printer I used to make them all the time with transfer paper, carefully flipping the image of the design before printing it so that it could print with the writing not going backwards. This new printer has a "transfer paper" option on it that I chose to set the paper thickness, and the option automatically reversed my flipped transfer so I got backwards letters despite the fact that I had taken care to prevent it.

Electronic devices built in to handle ignorance have struck again.


Notes:

lol, yes but sometimes stupid people can be somewhat amusing =P [lucid moon]


Oh, I passionately hate spell-checkers. Conversation with classmates "We shoudn't have spelling tests!" said one. "Why is that?" I ask, nonplussed. "Because, it bring down my grade, when I could have an A," she replied. "Ohhh.." I said, think at was a stupid reason. (If you really want that A, you dont sit round and PRAY for it) "And that's what spell checkers are for!" said another [katqueen]

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