That aside, we now return you to our somewhat regularly scheduled column already in progress. Just taking a look at the Internet shows that there is plenty of evidence out there that the net is populated heavily with idiots. First of all, our inboxes are clogged by spam coming from people who couldn't be bothered with such things as common sense unless they could put it on an expense account (and even then, it's questionable that they could figure out how to fill out an expense form in the first place.) They plead a constitutional right to flood the Internet with junk e-mail without taking any responsibility for the damages their unsolicited advertising causes, and then wonder why nobody with a vocabulary beyond "Me Too!!!!!!!11" will even listen to them. Then you have all the other idiots who e-mail you with problems like "I can't get my e-mail working" and other such drivel. Taking a look at just about any Usenet group, and you find plenty of evidence of rampant idiocy flooding the Internet.
But who said that one needs a computer to be an idiot? If this were the case, we could make society a much better place to live by tracking down all the idiots out there, then replacing their computers with cardboard cutouts. Sure, they may start calling tech support, but then all we need to do is feed 'em constant busy signals. Sure, they'll complain for a while, but they, being idiots, should be easily convinced This should be conivncing enough, but in case some of these people start showing signs of catching on to this, so if this is implemented, someone would occasionally have to pass by each of these lusers and beep, which should convince them that the computer they're on is real. Not only will this keep the lusers happy, but it should make the net a much safer place for people with brains.
Yet still, the problem remains, we will still have to deal with idiots in real life. Judging from the popularity of AOL, there is certainly no shortage of these. Ideally, the rest of us could just sit back and watch the idiot contingent bumble around life and laugh hysterically. Unfortnuately, some idiots turn into lawyers, and start suing us if we do that. The fact that most of the lawyers out there are also idiots has allowed the stupid people of the world to make life miserable for the rest of us. Thanks to the idiot contingent, just about every product out on the market has been slapped senseless with warning labels that seem utterly ridiculous to anyone who has half a brain. <soapbox>I mean, why would I be using a hair dryer while I was still in the shower? And gee, I think that my toddler would love playing with a plastic shopping bag! Yeah, right. What would we need any of these ridiculous disclaimers for in the first place if people had half a brain? Since when does having a lawyer replace the need for common sense?</soapbox> BTW, if you would like to see a list of some of the more ridiculous product warning labels, here is a list of these that I found.
Not only that, but the idiots of the world also have a virtual monopoly on the disreputabl;e field of crime. If one considers that commiting a crime is just about the stupidest thing that one can do in their lifetime (other than signing up for AOL) and often in the commission of the crime, this stupidity is manifest, often hastening the criminal's arrest. For example, there was the guy who tried to steal an air conditioner from a federal building, He was using an all-metal meat cleaver to chop through the various hoses and things one normally finds hanging off an air conditioner... including the electrical cord. Needless to say, this genius offered little resistance when arrested. Then there were the two defendants in an armed robbery case who raised their hands when the prosecuting attorney asked a witness on the stand if the robbers were present in the courtroom. Two books that I highly recommend in this regard are America's Dumbest Criminals (some of you out there may have seen the TV show) and Wanted! Dumb or Alive, each containing 100 storues of shockingly idiotic criminals. I think that somewhere in this mess of a den, I have copies of these two books... For now, if you're looking for some good dumb criminal stories, try this page.
And on top of all this, you don't even need a computer, a lawyer, or even criminal inclinations to be an idiot these days. It has been said that history is often made by idiots and other stupid people. The problem is that these days, stupid people are making just about everything else too.