I am confident that the majority of readers have heard of
the “Darwin Awards.” For those who
haven’t, Wikipedia
suggests that the Darwin Awards originated in Usenet newsgroup discussions,
recognizing “individuals who have supposedly contributed to human evolution by
selecting themselves out of the gene pool via death or sterilization by their
own actions.”
While researching articles dealing with the stupid things
that people do, I came across one in particular that stood out. Why?
It involved two people acting in concert who paid the ultimate price for
their ill-advised actions, resulting in the “Double Darwin Award.”
The story
outlines how two intoxicated men from Rotterdam dared to test their courage
versus a train. By positioning himself
between the tracks, one man was set on proving that the train would pass over
him. The other believed that by kneeling
next to the track, the train would go by him.
As it turns out, the fast moving train was lower and wider than the men
thought, resulting in their instantaneous deaths.
Although the story is both tragic and stupid, it serves to
illustrate how often people engage in activities devoid of any forethought as
to the consequences of their actions.
Some might say that the men’s ingestion of alcohol played a significant
role in their lack of good judgement.
Others would say that their lack of judgement originated with their
decision to start drinking. Yet others
would suggest that since alcohol acts as a disinhibitor, it freed them to act
on their impulses. At this point, you
might be asking: What does this have to do with fast foods? I submit to you that the same is true about
the consumption of fast foods.
The parallels are rather simple and straight forward: People
begin by “tasting” or eating fast food due to its convenience (handiness, ease,
expediency). The poison/chemicals/drugs
that the creators of the fast food put in such items further contributes to
disinhibition that, in turn, leads those people to continually gobble down
mountains of the slop, ultimately leading to their demise.
- B. J. T. Pepin