32 For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
and the complacency of fools will destroy them; – Proverbs 1:32
Another blogger I follow published a story of a workman in a farming community who ignorantly, but purposely, set a blaze to burn cut brush in very dry conditions. It was a day with a light breeze. And it was next to fields that provide this blogger’s animals’ feed. Another quick-reacting farmer cut a fire-break that minimized the destruction that would have been – to the surrounding fields and forest.
My wife recounted by phone to me mid-day a terrifying encounter on a highway with a fool speeding behind her by inches, screaming, throwing the “finger” around, and swerving around and slamming on brakes. Worse still, he was taking pictures of her with a cell phone. A maniac on a mission to kill himself or others. She was shaken but unscathed. And her passenger, returning from a cardiac treatment, safe as well. And the often-maligned law enforcement officers were not present to intercept “road rage”.
A train operator in a large metropolitan center on the U.S. East Coast was distractedly using a cellphone while a train was traveling through an area too rapidly to navigate a turn. Of course it crashed. Because the automated speed-control feature of the track had not been installed at that time. In the IOT (Internet of Things), we are not yet at the future our futurist movies depict. But then fallible humans design them.
A Navy ship with a highly-advanced navigation console, but relatively unfamiliar operators and overly confident command authority, collided with a commercial ship. It resulted in death, destruction, and ruined lives and careers. This week, a social media post by a popular American television star, blatantly and undeniably abhorrent, resulted in firing and the show’s cancellation. A fool’s big mouth resulted in lost jobs for all those behind the scenes.
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil. – Plato
People are often responsible – or irresponsible – for many problems that beset us. Many times, of course, the things that plague mankind including influenza or wildfires, earthquakes or volcanoes are beyond human control. But then, building a community on an active earthquake fault or on an island (Hawaii) created by an active volcano is by human design.
These behaviors and consequences are reasons to find comfort and instruction in the Proverbs of the Bible, wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers, or other contemplative authors. Human behavior has been the same for thousands of years. Only the technology has changed.
Technology… is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971 via http://www.quotegarden.com
Quotes courtesy of http://www.brainyquote.com except where noted
Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories 