8 Historic stupid fears of change

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OrangeDragon
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8 Historic stupid fears of change

Post by OrangeDragon »

http://www.cracked.com/article_22224_8- ... gress.html

I love cracked and theses are, as usual, great. What's interesting is to take and apply them to fears in the modern world... and how ridiculous those fears will seem in 50 years.

A few of my favorite lines:
But then, there was the Catholic Church, who opposed street lighting on the grounds that God very clearly established the delineation between night and day, and putting lights up after sundown was like spitting right in Jesus' face, while cats chase dogs and giant wieners ladle mustard over screaming human beings.
Pilots were often instructed to deal with issues such as "wings on fire" by maneuvering the plane -- so as to extinguish the flames with that timeless fire-fighting technique, "blowing on it a lot."
In 1756, Divis' lightning rods were torn down by angry peasant mobs. Meanwhile, in Boston, Franklin's were denounced by Protestant clergy as "heretical rods" that invited divine punishment upon the city by providing lightning with a path of least resistance, thereby preventing God's wrath from smiting its intended sinners.
But, in the 13th and 14th centuries, there came a theological crisis as young, liberal musicians began infecting the church's sanctity with the Devil's noise: polyphonic music. That is, there was more than one instrument involved, and they were all doing their own thing like some kind of out-of-control ear orgy. You might recognize this as pretty much the basis of all music today, except for your watch alarm.
And, in case your lady simply insisted on maintaining her quaint, aesthetically dangerous hobby, newspapers ran columns of advice for women to enjoy their velocipedes to minimal negative effect -- advice such as "don't scream if you see a cow" and "try not to ask every man you see what he thinks of your bloomers."
The fear was that a train moving at more than 20 mph across the landscape would blight crops, cause milk to curdle in cows' udders, and even induce a form of insanity they called "delirium furiosum."
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Re: 8 Historic stupid fears of change

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Anchor Moy
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Re: 8 Historic stupid fears of change

Post by Anchor Moy »

Sanest thing Willy's done for a long time.

and :thumb: for the link - I didn't know about cracked.com.
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Re: 8 Historic stupid fears of change

Post by MekongMouse »

Cracked is awesome. I'll have to visit one of Willie Nelson's shops when they open. I wonder if he'll draw heat for them. Head shops have existed in the US unmolested by law enforcement for decades until Tommy Chong opened one up, and he ended up being prosecuted and found guilty, though I don't recall if he served jail time. Big names draw heat and marijuana is still federally illegal. I hope he shows restraint.
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