Ask Dr Stupid: Subject: Your writing is brilliant! Funny, too!
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Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:48:25 -0800
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To: Dr. Stupid
From: torchpratt@beer.com (Torch Pratt)
Subject: Your writing is brilliant! Funny, too!
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
Torch Pratt (torchpratt@beer.com) on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 00:48:25
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email: torchpratt@beer.com
realname: Torch Pratt
subject: Your writing is brilliant! Funny, too!
Form-ID: Dr. Stupid Form
Message: Loved "Why is poo brown" and the "equator" trilogy - top shelf writing.
I just turned 41, and I live in
Taiwan. Is there any way I'll see world peace before I die? -- Torch
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Dear Torch:
Dr. Stupid is confused. On one mitten-hand, Dr. Stupid is honored that you find Dr. Stupid's writing to be brilliant and funny. On the other hand, Dr. Stupid is worried about the type of people who may be visiting this site, so if you get a restraining order, please understand, it's just standard business practice.
Welcome all the way from the other side of the planet. It pleases Dr. Stupid to see that a site that does not do any advertising in any way, shape or form is slowly but surely being discovered by the masses. Taiwan sure is a long way away from the home base here in California, USA, but visitors from all over are certainly welcome here.
Now to answer your question: Will you see world peace before you die? That's a tricky question to answer. You've already stated your age, and based on the average life expectancy, Dr. Stupid doesn't think it will be possible for you to see world peace. Then again, does your family tend to live a very long time? Even then, Dr. Stupid still doubts that it would be possible to see world peace during your time on this planet.
Dr. Stupid watches a lot of the history channel these days. Mainly because Dr. Stupid's keeper seems to leave me laying on the sofa with the TV on, usually tuned to the History Channel or History Channel International. Dr. Stupid does appreciate the DirecTV service and getting the History Channel in high definition. But due to learning by osmosis, Dr. Stupid has acquired a rather unique view of the world. This view is also tainted by the constant re-runs of sometimes watching the same thing over and over again. Dr. Stupid has seen that The History Channel does seem to be a bit obsessed with an individual called Hitler, who appeared to be a Charlie Chaplain impersonator with an attitude problem and a salute fetish. Maybe Dr. Stupid has been watching too much "American Movie Classics" as well. This is what can happen when you park a doll in front of a TV for too long. Perhaps one day Dr. Stupid will learn to operate the remote control with stuffed mitten hands.
Back to watching too much history channel, a few things are readily apparent, if television documentaries are to be trusted. The general view seems to be that as long as there has been life, there has been fighting. Fighting takes many forms. The most basic form is the fight to survive. This includes your basic "survival of the species" as well as the struggle to simple stay alive. Contrasting with the fight to stay alive is the opposite side of that, which is usually the "fight to eat the other thing". This ties strongly to the "fight to stay alive". And of course, there is survival of the fittest, which is largely believed by those who don't get eaten. Most of this fighting is performed by that which people consider to be "animals". People themselves seem to forget that they themselves are animals.
Dr. Stupid will use the term "animal" to refer to reptile, avian and mammal life forms that are not the species human. Many shows on various channels show fighting in various forms among animal species. Dr. Stupid knows this because Dr. Stupid has also sat through countless hours of Animal Planet. In a highly rated show called "Meercat Manor", a group of really ugly desert dwelling rats fights to protect territory against another group of identical ugly desert dwelling rats. These animals live, die, reproduce and otherwise live a full life. The main reason behind the fighting is to retain control over land that may contain food sources. Obviously, meercats haven't discovered such things as "land titles" and attorneys. Although these legal mechanisms aren't in place, it does bring into question who or what is more civilized.
Meercats aren't alone in this group-dynamic fighting, pitting one group against another. Animal Planet has shown this to also occur in many other species. Sometimes the fighting is more group-oriented, such as with packs of dogs or schools of fish. Some animals are more solitary but still may fight. It is clear that most fighting is done to protect food sources to ensure they get the food they need to survive. Since animals don't have money, credit cards, bank accounts or supermarkets, it's not like they can just simply grab a cart and start walking up and down the aisles to get the food they need to survive. However, as humans, we mainly eat other animals. No doubt a trip down the supermarket for other animals would be confusing, and no doubt uncomfortable. Imagine a cow pushing a cart down the aisle and passing by the meat counter and saying "Aunt Bessie?" Then again, a talking cow would be pretty cool.
Because people are animals it would be no surprise that people would also fight. It would make sense that the first fights between tribes of people would be over land disputes for the purposes of securing food sources. Largely, a complicated and expensive legal process has replaced most of that fighting. Dr. Stupid is not suggesting that this is an improvement, just merely different. Even so, actual fighting is still possible.
Man is always on a journey to improve. Why should fighting be any different? There is no way of knowing how the first fights took place because there was not documentation. Written language would have to wait a few thousand years mainly because man was still trying to develop spoken language. It could be assumed that a great many fights took place due to miscommunication due to non-standard language, which is still true to this very day. What were the tools of fighting? It would make sense that the first weapons were simply fists and feet. Probably sometime later, grabbing readily available sticks and rocks to be used to extend reach or attack from a distance was the next natural step in fighting. As man evolved and learned skills and passed them on, new things were invented. Many items used for hunting, killing and dismantling food were probably realized to be quite useful for performing similar tasks against each other. The same spears, knifes and other cutting implements that were so useful for bring down game animals were equally effective at doing likewise to other men. The only problem with doing this against other men is that the other men were doing this too. Using these tools as weapons was a natural progression of using rocks and sticks alone as weapons. Most weapons were refined versions of the basic stick or rock and sometimes combined both elements into a single device.
Although virtually all animal species fight to some extent, it took man to bring fighting to a new level. Fighting wasn't manly enough. Man had evolved past simply fighting. Man had created war. From watching the History Channel, it would appear that war arrived right around the same time organized religion entered the timeline. This group fought that group, and it seemed mainly over religious differences. As religions came and went, or in some cases stayed, the wars continued with different religious backings. The issue never really seemed to be which religion was better, but mainly because the other religion is different. Many religions seemed to feel obligated or impelled to impose itself upon other peoples. This practice is readily apparent with Christianity and Christian variants, including Catholicism. These religions went around the world trying to impose itself upon other societies, many of which had their own religions that in some cases had existed for thousands of years. A series of epic battles, known to the western world as "The Crusades", involved mainly European nations trying to remove Muslims from "the Holy Land". This "Holy Land" also had significant religious significance to the Muslims as well. Instead of setting this land aside as being a place of worship, it seemed better off to make it a place of war. Even to this day, this area is still an international spot of conflict.
Christians didn't confine themselves to the middle east to try to impose their views. They brought their religion to the Americas and even the Far East. Not only that, they brought disease with them. If the war didn't win them over, then the diseases would wipe them out. In a sense, Europeans invented biological warfare without even knowing it.
But Christians aren't the only ones responsible for this behavior, they just seem to have the bulk of it. The Muslims have also been fighting in the name of their religion forever as well. It seemed way back during the time of the Hindu Kama Sutra, the Muslims were annoyed about the "depraved nature" of this, and waged war against them. Again, this is a clear case of one religion trying to impose itself over another. This sort of disagreement in religious philosophy within the Muslim faith has also lead to a great deal of fighting and other small wars.
The Muslims and the Christians have a long history of war and not getting along. The Moors, a Muslim group, invaded Spain, and it took the mostly Catholic Spain a good long time to effectively clear them out. The Christians keep trying to take back the "holy land", which the Muslims have quite effectively kept the Christians out of. Imagine how much more effective if Spain launched a "Spanish Inquisition" type campaign against the Moors?
When wars for religious reasons break down, groups can always use political reasons. A group of Muslim extremists were able to successfully plan, plot and execute the events that became September 11, 2001. While this may reflect poorly on Islam as a whole, that single act of terror, as are most terrorist acts, is really the work of a very tiny group of religious extremists. Who else would try to make a fashion statement by wearing a bomb as couture?
With so much documentation on war, it appears that people enjoy war. War is fun. War is profitable. People seem to enjoy killing people. Because misery loves company, nations ally themselves with other nations, making it clear who likes whom or who hates whom. In war, it's always a good thing to know who you're supposed to kill. Confusion and weapons of mass destruction are not a good combination. At some point, one group gets tired of being killed and surrenders. At which point, there are usually headlines in newspapers declaring "Peace". Unfortunately, peace is a temporary situation that exists only between wars, or at least the signings of the peace agreements. With war having so many good attributes, it's just a matter of time before the next war.
But sometimes war isn't good enough. War is obvious. It's hard to ignore things like bullets and blood and explosions and lots of people covered in olive drab and camouflaged materials carrying weapons. When people go to war against another people, this is something the world takes notice of. In this age of instant information, most organized violence is quickly broadcast for the entire world to see. Thanks to the United Stated Federal Communications Commission, on February 19, 2009, Dr. Stupid is ensured to see all the blood and gore in high definition. Technology has been so good to us! But high profile fighting isn't necessarily the best way to get things done. China has figured this out, and is using their knowledge to quietly take over the world.
China is a country torn between many lines. China has probably one of the richer histories of some of the more modern nations. For hundreds of years, China developed their unique Chinese culture. Unfortunately, China fell to communism. That alone is worthy of a book, but Dr. Stupid's mitten hands cannot handle that. The main issue is that due to China being taken over by communism, their traditional Chinese culture was basically outlawed, along with their religion. China couldn't even take a hint when the Soviet Union collapsed and had to stop being a communist state. When the birthplace of communism fails, that's typically a hint and a half that "hey, this isn't going to work". But China continues to be a communist state politically, but the actuality is that they are a capitalist state, just like pretty much everywhere else.
China has a population of a billion people. With so many people comes lots of cheap labor. American companies, finding it annoying to have to pay people minimum wage, had to find another solution. Many companies lured by China's cheap labor, moved factories overseas to China. Look at most products you have. Where is it made? Chances are above average that has been made in China. The Chinese love American money. It has value. A common practice in America is to try to find ways to cut costs in order to produce something. China is no different. And this is where China began plotting to take over the world.
The laws in China are different than in the United States. As has been the observation of Dr. Stupid, laws in Asia generally don't seem to exist, but that is a topic for a whole other book. Differing laws is nothing new. No two countries have identical laws or regulations. In the United States, lead-based paints were outlawed in the 1970's, but that law doesn't exist in China. China, against the orders of the American companies that are providing them jobs, decided to use lead-based paint in the production of children's toys. Step 1: Poison American children. Those that they don't kill will grow up to be retarded and become members of Congress. This was a clever and devious plan that was foiled by inspectors. The Chinese countered quickly and started sending tainted food. Again, inspectors foiled that too. Now the Chinese make plastics that make GHB(Exctasy) when they get wet or something like that. And you thought toad licking was bad! It's bad enough for a kid to have a security toy or blanket they really enjoy, but how about being chemically addicted to their stuff now? With so many items being made of plastic and so many of those items made in China, it would be possible to turn the entire world into drug addicts hooked on Chinese made products. But we saw through that.
Now China has been given the 2008 Summer Olympics, where they can try to convince the world to "Buy the lie". The Chinese even banned ghosts from the internet, which I'm sure is easy to do since you can't prove they are even on the internet in the first place. But the Chinese also still love American dollars, and so they make sure they host all the penis pill sites, porno sites, swinger sites and other spam-oriented criminal sites with safe haven status. While China publicly damns these types of sites, under the surface the truth lies. China is engaged in the worst sort of war, the war of deception. What else is China hiding? It will soon be revealed!
But if China wasn't good enough with their stealth war, there should no doubt be years upon years of endless war-type entertainment that will occur between the United States and the Middle East. It appears one Muslim state after another is going to have an issue against the United States. Should one issue be resolved, a new issue will spring up. Resolving that issue may negate the previous one and/or bring up new issues. It's a no-win situation. The best resolve may be to simply get the United States out of there and watch these Muslim states fight each other in high definition. Now that's a ratings catcher!
Muslims fighting Muslims is an activity that makes no sense to Dr. Stupid. This behavior may be amusing and even entertaining. Fighting between different sects of the same base religion does not make logical sense. Historically speaking, this type of behavior is nothing new and is not limited to Muslims. There have been many groups and even countries fighting within themselves for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
When people fight for a long time, they grow up not knowing anything else. One of the big issues in the Middle East is that those that started the fighting have been dead and buried for hundreds of years. The origins for the fighting have been lost to the sands of time. In Africa, it's a bit more purist. There is now no valid point to the fighting. Warlords have taken things over, and people fight because they don't know anything else to do. All that really happens is that groups fight to stage a rigged or show election, and use that as a vehicle for more fighting regardless of the announced outcome. Clearly these are people that just enjoy fighting and war. At the same time, it should be noted that most of these places do not have television. It is possible that if they were to watch documentaries about their behavior that they might be encouraged to change their ways. Chances are they would shoot their television sets instead of trying to implement change.
In the words of Megadeth: Peace sells but no one is buying. That's true. Nobody wants to hear about peace. People want blood and gore. Horror movies are making a come back. The news has a saying "If It Bleeds it leads". With reality TV being all the rage, surely some group of bottom-feeding television executives can come up with a 300-channel "24X7 All War All the Time" programming package in HD. Hell, it could be sponsored by alcohol companies, since after all, alcohol is the cause of, and solution to most of the worlds problems. Even allow tobacco companies to put on commercials: Marlboro: Sure, You can smoke us while you watch them smoke each other! "If you think war is a drag, try these cigarettes". Bring in laundry companies: "Tide gets out more blood stains that competing brands". I bet that Oxy-Clean guy would make a killing on that channel, no pun intended.
Even if people got along, it seems either the Earth is at war with people, or perhaps the people are at war with the Earth. People drill into Earth to get petroleum. People dig into the earth to procure various minerals and other materials that people have determined to be useful or valuable. People pump billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. But the Earth isn't taking this lightly. Despite the fact than humans have created devices that can move earth and nuclear weapons, the planet itself is armed with a vast array of devices it can use to defend itself. The attacks are random, but deliberate. Due to the unpredictable nature of these attacks only does prove that there is in fact a "Mother Earth", and boy is she mad!
As destructive as man's weapons of war are, the earth can easily outdo that. What fun is a nuclear blast capable of killing a million people all at once? How about an earthquake? Perhaps tsunamis and tidal waves are more your style. Can nothing better than a massive natural disaster to bring not only massive amounts of immediate death. Just like nuclear fallout and radiation poisoning killing untold thousands or millions from a nuclear blast, natural disasters have the ability to also kill massive numbers after the initial disaster. Man has a lot to learn in mass murder tactics caused by violent acts. So, is it a natural disaster or a pre-meditated act of self-defense? That is a question that may in fact be too much for even Dr. Stupid to answer.
Man has created biological agents for the intended purpose of killing other people with this. One of many such known agents is Anthrax. Although Anthrax is also the name of a very loud speed metal band, I don't think the boys in Anthrax would honestly take any sort of joy out of killing people because that would certainly put a crimp in record and concert ticket sales. The Earth is not impressed or amused. The Earth invented biological warfare. Come on, we're talking about the same entity that gave us such hits as HIV, AIDS, Ebola, flesh eating bacteria, meningitis, polio, small box, herpes and many more. Some diseases man has conquered. Man still has many more diseases that he has yet to control. Even if man does create cures for all the biological baddies that the earth has currently chosen to reveal, Dr. Stupid is sure there are tens of thousands of new and nastier bacteria and viruses yet to be released.
Chemical warfare is also another big topic. While man has to make things like mustard gas to be used as weapon, the earth itself makes many natural occurring gasses that are toxic and lethal to human life. Generally speaking, chemical warfare is rarely effective. Both man and earth figured this out. Even so, the earth is ahead of man. Earth can make gas leaks anywhere at any time. Man has to launch or otherwise deploy a chemical weapon. The Earth has what can be considered an endless supply of toxic materials, while man must generate his toxic chemicals.
But even the Earth itself has other issues outside of man to worry about destroying it. It has been theorized that the planet that we currently inhabit is "Earth 2.0" and just like any x.0 software release, it is plagued with bugs. Dr. Stupid is not referring to all the various types of insects either. The theory is that at some point during the creation of Earth, it may have gotten to a point where the planet was able to sustain life. This is unlikely to be proven mainly since the theory goes further to state that some sort of large celestial object impacted the earth to the extend that it destroyed the planet in its then current form and then became what is now. But we don't need some un-provable theory to show what kind of violent place the universe can be. In recent documented astronomy, man was able to witness at the comet named Shoemaker-Levy break into 9 pieces and then slam into the gas giant planet we call Jupiter. Having seen this happen, astronomers are now on the constant lookout for any objects that may possibly impact earth. Another theory about an object crashing into the earth is significantly more provable. This impact caused the end of the dinosaurs. Perhaps less spectacular are the various craters that have been discovered on Earth caused by much smaller objects. Looking at the moon, we can see a surface covered with impact craters. The big debate isn't a matter of when the next big object is going to travel in a collision course with Earth, but what would be the course of action man can take to prevent this from occurring. Should the Earth be taking this as a form of apology for man being so abusive of the planet? Chances are that the Earth may perceive this as yet another selfish act of man to preserve the human species.
Even more violence is larger than the just the Earth, our solar system or even our galaxy. Violence is what makes the entire universe work. Life comes from death. Death creates life. Destruction and creation are tied together. Huge super giant stars are born, and when they explode in a violent death known as a super nova, the explosion creates elements that we have determined are necessary to create life. But even before stars or galaxies is the universe. And if memory recalls, the start of the universe we know and understand was created in a giant explosion called "The Big Bang". Scientists theorize that at some point in time, the entire universe will collapse upon itself, thus destroying all that is known, all that was, and all that would be. And when this happens, the process will repeat itself over and over again. This has happened since the beginning of time, and will happen until the end of time. Basically, it's the forces of nature starting over with a clean slate, trying again and hoping to get it right this time. Good luck. After all, nature abhors a vacuum, and there sure seems to be a lot of vacuum in space. One might think that nature would have tried to fix that a long time ago. And everyone knows a vacuum sucks, and therefore life sucks, and that is why you're never going to see peace on earth. Dr. Stupid suggests that you get a helmet.
Thanks for asking, Torch.
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