{"id":2149,"date":"2012-07-25T22:26:20","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T12:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wildcard.gnubies.com\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2017-12-09T19:31:22","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T09:31:22","slug":"subsidising-stupidity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=2149","title":{"rendered":"Subsidising stupidity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>IT IS not uncommon these days to witness people walking the streets of any city, apparently fully engrossed in some very important activity on a mobile device. <\/p>\n<p>These folk are oblivious to their surrounds and expect the rest of those who are walking alongside or in the opposite direction to avoid them, not the other way around.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nIn other words, they expect the rest of the crowd to look after them. Their stupidity in not being bothered to look around and navigate safely along the pavements should be subsidised by everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>There have been cases reported in which people have died by falling into manholes; they were so engrossed in some extremely important activity on their mobiles that they fell down manholes and their sojourn on earth ended abruptly.<\/p>\n<p>Yet we continue to subsidise such stupidity on our sidewalks every day.<\/p>\n<p>A young woman came within an inch of crashing into me some weeks ago and was taken aback when I told her she was stupid and that she should look where she was going. <\/p>\n<p>The next time this happens &#8211; and there will be a next time given the number of nitwits who traverse the paths of the city I live in &#8211; I will experiment with knocking the mobile device that is the source of the distraction out of the individual&#8217;s hands.<\/p>\n<p>It will be an interesting experience if nothing else.<br \/>\n<!-- Start of StatCounter Code for Default Guide --><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\nvar sc_project=2720500; \nvar sc_invisible=1; \nvar sc_security=\"d25d8712\"; \nvar scJsHost = ((\"https:\" == document.location.protocol) ?\n\"https:\/\/secure.\" : \"http:\/\/www.\");\ndocument.write(\"<sc\"+\"ript type='text\/javascript' src='\" +\nscJsHost+\n\"statcounter.com\/counter\/counter.js'><\/\"+\"script>\");\n<\/script><br \/>\n<noscript><\/p>\n<div class=\"statcounter\"><a title=\"Web Analytics\"\nhref=\"http:\/\/statcounter.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img\nclass=\"statcounter\"\nsrc=\"\/\/c.statcounter.com\/2720500\/0\/d25d8712\/1\/\" alt=\"Web\nAnalytics\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/noscript><br \/>\n<!-- End of StatCounter Code for Default Guide --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IT IS not uncommon these days to witness people walking the streets of any city, apparently fully engrossed in some very important activity on a mobile device. These folk are oblivious to their surrounds and expect the rest of those who are walking alongside or in the opposite direction to avoid them, not the other &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=2149\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Subsidising stupidity&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-smartphones"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3104,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=3104","url_meta":{"origin":2149,"position":0},"title":"Political correctness has reached dizzy heights","date":"May 31, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"THESE days political correctness has grown by leaps and bounds; people who generally speak out tend to muzzle themselves in order not to offend some group or the other. It means that often we have to stomach stupid statements without responding, to point out that the speaker\/writer is clearly delusional.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Australia&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3168,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=3168","url_meta":{"origin":2149,"position":1},"title":"Emma Alberici strikes again","date":"August 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"EMMA ALBERICI: And the question is: can air strikes drive the Islamic State out of the Middle East? - The ABC's Lateline programme on August 13, 2014 I KID you not. This was a serious question put to David Kilcullen, a so-called counter-insurgency expert, by Emma Alberici, one of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ABC&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4992,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4992","url_meta":{"origin":2149,"position":2},"title":"Old is gold: 1937 crime thriller Death on the Nile is being remade","date":"January 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"In recent years, there have been a number of remakes of old films, underlining the fact that people in the industry appear to be running out of good ideas. That trend will be emphasised in February 2022 when a version of the Agatha Christie novel Death on the Nile is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;America&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2060,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=2060","url_meta":{"origin":2149,"position":3},"title":"Why Australian retailers suck","date":"May 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"AUSTRALIAN retailers are always quick to whinge about the trading conditions they have to put up with, due to the high value of the Australian dollar. They are very quick to offer excuse after excuse for their poor performance. But there are other, more fundamental, reasons why Australian retailing is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Australia&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3021,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=3021","url_meta":{"origin":2149,"position":4},"title":"ABC: incompetence is a bigger issue than bias","date":"March 31, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"EMMA ALBERICI: Let's talk about the economics shortly but I just want to stay for a moment on the politics. What's curious in this instance is that there appears to be little to no appetite in the US for a more aggressive military-style response from president Obama. Even the Republican\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ABC&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4765,"url":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=4765","url_meta":{"origin":2149,"position":5},"title":"Vale, Robert Fisk","date":"November 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk died recently at the age of 74, and his death means one of the Western world's journalists who best understood the region has left the scene. Fisk lived in Beirut for most of the 30-plus years he covered the region and reported the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Afghanistan&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4128,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions\/4128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}