My homepage is, and has been for many years, set to Yahoo. Most of the time their top headlines off to the right of the main page are decent enough for getting a handle on what’s happening in the world on any given day. However, today was different. Today… They had an earth-shattering revelation of a headline:
“Oral tobacco not safe substitute for smoking”
Ok, now once you’ve caught your breath, read on:
…The bottom line, Hecht said, is that “smokeless tobacco products are dangerous.”
“The evidence suggests,” he continued, “that smokeless products are in fact a cause of oral cancer and pancreatic cancer in humans. The current evidence does not support smokeless tobacco as a substitute for cigarette smoking.” [article]
So upon reading this, I decided to go out and find other things that you may not know could cause you harm:
- Petting rabid animals.
- Snorting glass shards.
- Huffing raid.
- Eating raw sewage.
- Sticking various metal objects/appendages in power outlets.
- Seeing how many pills out of your medicine cabinet you can eat at once.
- Visiting Africa for the sex.
- Playing hot potato with used hypodermic needles.
- Attending a 50 Cent concert dressed as a Klan member.
- Playing kick the can, blindfolded, on an interstate during rush hour.
- Watching MTV (it lowers your IQ far enough that you’ll likely attempt at least one, if not all, of the above)
It’s alright; I know many of you were planning on attempting some of these in the near future. Just leave your thank you’s in the comments.
Fucking hell, is society actually DE-evolving? Or did I just miss the day in school where they told us common sense was a load of crap, and that sticking a wad of what’s essentially juicy, cancerous dirt in your mouth should certainly seem safer than smoking?
And on a side note concerning chew, using the non-nicotine kind is one of the more futile things I’ve ever seen someone do: I mean, instead of spending $4 or whatever on a can you could go home, grab some dirt, spray Lysol on it, and call it the same damn thing. Not only do you get the same effect, but it’s cheaper! Yay!
Back to the point…
What we need is a study showing that humanity consists largely of lazy, apathetic morons. Maybe if something as blatantly obvious as that were pointed out in an “official” way, there’d be a massive epiphany and universities would cease with this crap.
Humanity is in a state of decay. To prove my point, think of any socially despondant raid-huffer. Got one? Now just imagine what their kids are going to be like. Oh yeah, the end times are a-comin’.
Chewing is no way in hell a good replacement for smoking.Consider the fact that if you get cancer from smoking you can get a nice whole put in your throat, but if you get cancer from chewing they will cut half your jaw off! Nice alternative right. Whatever!
nOW for the definitivee proof that society is devolving:
http://www.associatedentertainment.com/aec/images/main/Rosie-O_Donnell.jpg
I gather from the last paragraph you think universities are wasting time studying this. But, you did read this paragraph from the article, right?
So, the fact that we have conflicting studies on the subject would suggest that the conclusion isn’t, in fact, obvious, or it’s at least worth studying further to make sure our conclusions are correct.
I’d also like to point out that there is a value in confirming the “obvious,” because quite often being obvious only means it fits our lazy preconceptions. When we see a study confirming those, we think “Duh! Stupid academics…” but when some study comes up with a novel conclusion, we fail to realize that had that study not done so, it would have been thought a waste of time. If we stop doing studies on things that seem obvious, we will lose some novel conclusions.
If you want an example, think of suicide terrorism. Doesn’t it seem obvious that those peope are a bunch of poor, uneducated, religious fanatics? That’s certainly the common opinion you hear. Turns out, the data we have so far say they’re about the opposite.
Finally, I have to say that this comment seems really out of place among the current comments.
Considering how hard industry lobbyists fight against good science, there is a lot of good in publicizing such things.
So, basically, it shouldn’t be on the front page, but it’s good that it is.
*gasp* Christopher getting owned?
P.S. Yes, I’m commonly refered to as “CAPTAIN OBVIOUS”
haha
ooh the hilarity
I agree with your points, but you also made a blatantly obvious statment.
“Fucking hell, is society actually DE-evolving?”
Well, no shit sherlock. I mean really, not only has society de-evolved (gotten lazy, whiny, stupid, and cruel) but our actual physical and mental capacity is de-evolving. The survival of the fittest thing is tottally gone. There is no more natural selection, because even weak and stupid people can survive to pass on their worthless genes. Indeed, stupid people tend to make lots and lots of babies. (“Oh, you have to put the condoms on for them to work!”)
Yep, and if you think it’s bad now, wait 50 years and then see what happens.
I guess I made sort of an obvious point with the de-evolution too, didn’t I?
Here’s a few pertinent and funny pictures anyway:
http://www.uwm.edu/~roebber/evo.gif
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/L/R/bush_devolution.jpg