A “Double Darwin Award,” Anyone?

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.

As was the case in the story, the continued consumption of fast food is both tragic and stupid.  In my view, it is crystal clear that you must blame it on fast foods.

- B. J. T. Pepin