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An Outbreak Of Stupidity

Posted on 14th July 2015

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There seems to have been a mass outbreak of stupidity. Perhaps people are trying to qualify for a Darwin Award (click here for the official Darwin Awards site).

In this story on the BBC, a singer from the boy-band Rewind collapsed from heat exhaustion (he survived) because he was wearing 12 layers of clothing on a flight, presumably trying to save on luggage costs. Doing this in the winter is one thing, but trying this in the heat of recent days is pure madness.

In this BBC report, a boy in South Africa died after having his face sliced off by a road sign. The minibus in which he was travelling hit a sign while traversing a narrow street. While the bus was still moving, he looked out of a side window to see what had happened, just in time to be hit by the next road sign.

The next story, also on the BBC, describes the death of a 16-year-old boy who climbed on to a freight train and died after touching overhead power lines.

Whilst the stories are sad, and the friends, families and fellow passengers have my sympathies, nevertheless, these people were all being stupid. This kind of thing seems to be becoming more frequent. Are we as a race becoming more stupid?