There have been several news items recently about a new craze in the north of Lincolnshire,  basically it involves kids spraying themselves with aerosols and setting light to the vapours to see what happens ???????

They interviewed one dad who's son decided to see what would happen after spraying himself with petrol. The lads glasses saved his sight but received major burns.

It seems that as technology increases IQ drops

like the old saying "Stupid should hurt" and sounds like it did big time.    I wonder if some of this is due to kids not getting an education in living dangerously as safely as possible? They have not been exposed to danger enough to build up a protective "What might happen if I---OUCH! Let's not try *that*!" thinking pattern.   Or as another older saying goes: "The burned child fears the fire!"

When I teach my intro session I roll up my sleeve and run my arm through the dragon's breath of the propane forge and then *show* them the burnt hair as I explain to NOT put their heads there if they drop something in front of the forge. (In a busy season I run out of arm hair...)

They'll be ones in every generation. Kid in my neighborhood in High school ended up lit up pretty good in a stunt dealing with matches and gasoline.

todays generation are told all views are valid, now everyone wins a trophy.  well, welcome to the real world

today we protect morons so morons proliferate, remove all the dumb warning labels you have to use and darwin would help raise the average IQ of the race

I'd have more to say but the keyboard on our new car's fully connected dash screen is a little small and passing these semis on the bridge and dodging oncoming traffic might take two hands.

Frosty The Lucky.

3 hours ago, the iron dwarf said:

today we protect morons so morons proliferate, remove all the dumb warning labels you have to use and darwin would help raise the average IQ of the race

I have to admit I agree with that. I have wondered on many occasions how many of those labels are there just because someone thought someone might be stupid enough to try. I know most are probably because someone actually did it and got hurt. I believe  in learning from experience. If I do somethin stupid and get hurt I'm less likely to do it again and will probably warn others before they do it.

No comment from an early age experimenter............. trying to quit as I get older.

How many smiths do you know that when they drop red hot steel they  merely get out of it's way; let it come to rest and use a pair of tongs to pick it up.  Rather than let it fall onto them and then over react.

school of hard knocks is a  great  teacher if you can survive it. sounds like he did, barely. wonder if he learned anything

I agree with ID, remove the warning labels, Learn from your elders, and yes Thomas, stupid Should hurt. I've seen ( and even laughed at) idiots on YT that do stupid stuff just for kicks. Yes they should be laughed at, and yes they deserve what they get. And No. We should not have to pay into their hospital bill. If I do something stupid I deserve the outcome. I accept that. But to set yourself on fire like that, um. You should know the outcome. 

School of hard knocks. I have my stories of stupid stuff I learned from as do others. Let the idiots do what they will and do your best to talk em out of it. After that it's out of our hands. 

As Jeff Foxworthy and probably others have said. " you can't fix stupid". 

it's a sad world, the more info that is available the stupider they get.sure i wish i wouldn't have done some of the stuff i survived, but, unfortuntly common sense is no longer available.

 

Replacing the airbags in the center of steering wheels, with sharp metal spikes would greatly improve people's driving habits.  .... The more protected people are, the more they will push the limits.

We have gotten into the 3 + 4th generation of Stupid so now the majority of the young are being taught by Yesterday's Stupid.  Most of the labels came from underworked Lawyers who have made a buck or two on protecting Stupid.  Common Sense died a long time ago but my kids were taught it growing up and I notice practice it today.

23 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

How many smiths do you know that when they drop red hot steel they  merely get out of it's way; let it come to rest and use a pair of tongs to pick it up.  Rather than let it fall onto them and then over react.

the problem is I have been doing this long enough even at my day job I step back to let something fall, really annoys the other electricians who can not understand why I don't automatically try to grab it.

Invite them over to forge some day off and stock up on silvadene.  The good electricians I know are hesitant to grab stuff as they work with the higher voltages and you don't get a warning jolt!  The ones working 110 sometimes  tend to get sloppy. I bought my first house from a widow with two small children whose husband worked maintenance in the phone switching buildings and electrocuted himself working on the kitchen sink.   Sure encouraged me to swear to NOT leave my wife in the same situation.

I rarely have worked with more than 4160 volts. normally 480.

I don't see the problem with not grabbing things in that situation!

I think its because the new rules require all power off there is little chance of working live lines, and we have to wear 40cal/cm suits when we do work live.  Where in the old days... we didnt have those rules so had to be more careful, all they see is me not catching the tool one of us slipped and dropped, so now someone has to climb down to get it and bring it back up.

I can't comment, I stabbed myself in the hand as a youngster & had to go to A&E due to stabbing the bottom of a Pringle can whilst watching TV, as you do, of course I missed when I looked up.

Now I play with fire & power tools for a living, what could go wrong?

let's just say that not everywhere follows the lockout/tagout rule!

I also blame reliable birth control. Smart people tend to use it a lot more than stupid peaple. 911 and advanced ER tramma centers also contribute to survival of the dumbest. Sadly, we are likely to die of some one else's stupidity, no matter how wise we are. 

 

3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

let's just say that not everywhere follows the lockout/tagout rule!

On the rails, it's if it's blue, it ain't you. Best use I know for a rr spike is to manually block a switch from use. Wow, despair, and agony unto the man that pulls a blue flag, derail, or undoes a spike that ain't his.

I sometimes wonder that a lot of our problems started when they ended the  Draft.  No matter how dumb you were when you arrived at Boot Camp by the end of 8-10 weeks you had smartened up a WHOLE LOT.  They also had a job for even the Stupidest recruits.  Your stupid pants weren't down around you butt and your hat was facing front. 

Uncle Sam (Department of defense) is really concerned that there aren't enough "qualified" recruits in the up and coming generation. Out of shape they can fix, dumb to (break it down barony simple) but lazy, winey and entitled is a big issue