First world problems #1: Origins

April 17, 2012
posted by Captain Obvious

“Oh my Science, Captain Obvious you’re down to Origin stories- are you out of ideas like Hollywood already?!” Rest assured readers, I have 10 unpublished drafts saved as of right now. This category is one I’ve been planning for awhile. It’s very simple: All things considered? We live in an amazing time.

-In America, many of our poor are actually obese. Yep. Also, many families below the arbitrarily set poverty line have cable TV, microwave ovens, and air conditioning. These things would have been foreign even to the very, very wealthy in 1912. Less than 100 years ago, and people living in that era would have gladly handed over a king’s ransom for your busted microwave. Too bad a king’s ransom in those days would have probably amounted to $28.50 in today’s dollars amirite?

-The fact that we have the Jersey Shore is a sign things are going well. Because we can spend time doing nothing but watching “Italian” teenagers puke on TV. F**kin wow.

-We can complain about cruise ship rescues (even ones with a 97%+ survival rate) for not being good enough or fast enough. People who came to rescue you when your ship went down in the year 1300: No one. Maybe Gus the janitor with the eye-patch who survived “something like this one time” is your best friggin hope, being the person most experienced in these matters. Helicopters that flew to you carrying professional rescuers who do this full time: Zero. By the way, Amelia Earhart, flew off in 1937? Gone. Poof. Disappeared forever. Under 80 years ago.

-Polio? Gone. Bubonic plague, the black death, that thing that killed like 1/2 the population of Europe in like 5 years? Some villagers probably thought it was “magic”, not having any idea why it was happening- none the less how to cure it? Well, today’s 3rd graders know how it spread. We know what causes it, how to cure it, and China’s probably got a .50cent version of the cure.

-Bitten by very poisonous snake? Yep we have medicine for that. Almost any other time in history: Total and complete death sentence! That’s it! Your card is punched! You win nothing! Good day sir!
Now you have a chance of survival.
That makes you think… What do we have today? Drunk driving, an elective activity. People who have complications related to smoking, and smokers in this generation are aware it will kill them. I wonder what a one armed caveman would think when a drug addict told them “I ruined my perfectly healthy body with recreational drugs.”

-Books are so available that we consider them BORING! 100 years ago one may have spent a lifetime trying to track down a single book for its knowledge. Now we complain if we cannot find a free version of said book.

-Birth control. By the way we have a medications, and widely available mostly inexpensive ways of actually STOPPING the reproductive process entirely. No big deal. It’s not complex, doesn’t involve rituals, or magic, none of that. I’d venture to say 99% of the sex in this country is now recreational. The process by which we populated the planet is now a game! We’re actually now in a pissing contest over who should pay for it- we apparently have that kind of time!

-Power structures are not controlled by monarchies, (save the creative writing psuedologic horses**t, we do not have real feudalism style monarchies or dynasties in today’s western world, get f**ked) complete with oppression enforced by armored trained knights. S**t, even if someone were to even try this, in say, Canada? And they were brutalizing their own people? Their new Dictator/King saying, “America is now property of Generallisimo Joffrey Lannister”… You’d hear an army of Ford diesel engines idling and guys tuning their damn banjos. We wouldn’t have even heard the President’s reaction address before the first “Dada ningning-ningning-ningning-ninggg”  pierced the night air. Sales of a few things would go up very quickly: Ford trucks, black rifles, and replica civil war hats. As they say on some image sharing sites… ‘merica.

-Terrorist figurehead not killed fast enough. Think back in history for a moment. How common do you think it was for some warlord to travel to a faraway land and brutalize/kill people for their territory or supplies – and then get away scott-free? He crosses an ocean, sits home in a castle, has paintings of him, songs about his deeds, etc. First rate jackhole, and the guy that got away. The people who were hurt? Also have tales; bad ones.
Osama Bin Laden. His terror network was shattered. Most everyone who served under him was shot to pieces or blown up by missiles they never saw coming. The guy ended up sitting in a room graying and watching reruns of himself on tape. All this was done by people who live a world away. This roach was stomped out via bullets to the face. The guy who did the stomping likely never has to buy another beer in his life.
Qaddafi? Raped with a knife by a guy wearing a stupid hat, after his women’s sunglasses were ripped off and he was beaten mercilessly of course.
Saddam Hussein? Hung. His sons? Dead after Special Operations Forces pelted their compound with .50caliber machine gun fire and anti-tank missiles for like an hour. We dragged them out on carpets. Google “Qusay and Uday Hussien” and click Images if you want to see it. Check this out- not only have these tyrants been killed? We aren’t stuck settling on hearing songs/tales about it and saying, “Wow that must have been a sight to see!” (With the exception of Osama, we can’t see his picture because a re-run of Jimmy Carter is currently playing in the Whitehouse) You can watch Saddam’s hanging or Qaddafi’s… whatever one would call that… on a video sharing site, right now.
Check it out, here’s an image of the raid that got Hussien’s sons, no big deal:

BTW check out the guys in the “black hockey helmets” near the front of the pack. I don’t want to violate “OPSEC” (OPerational SECurity) here so I will simply say: They’re “those guys”.

It’s a neat idea. Some of the baddest dudes to have ever walked the planet, with the most advanced war-fighting equipment in human history. Real stand up guys of good character too, noble men that live lives marked by sacrifice and commitment. And what they do professionally? Shoot bad guys in the face on the behalf of the free world.

 

If you live in this day, in this age, and all you can do with your time is complain about is how people can be “mean” to eachother, or you don’t have X Y or Z, or your feelings were hurt after you did a cursory glance over a history textbook? You’re such a sorry weak-kneed bitch that you’re very, very fortunate to live in this day and age because you’d be meat in any other. Now, as public events unfold and I find myself saying, “Oh for f***’s sake!” it may end up in this category here! Stay tuned!


3 Responses to “First world problems #1: Origins”

  1. TTTTTTTTTha kid Says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

  2. Captain Obvious Says:

    Excellent insights- this topic/section above all should be a fun one!

    “How quickly he thinks the world owes him something he knew about only 10 seconds ago” reminded me of how quickly Luke judged Han for not believing in the force…
    /Luke found out about it like an hour before that, and had barely cleared the orientation course on it at the time.

  3. Benjamin Franklin Says:

    This is great. Highlighting the beautifully positive aspects of the world we get to live in that other people earned for us. The idea that right now someone is dying of thirst trying to keep a lion from eating his kids, and I’m sitting on the west coast getting paid to surf the internet that I get for free.


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