People are disabling their brains to put their trust in satnavs
A TERRIFYING NEW disease called Brain Abdication is sweeping the world.
The intelligent part of your brain (missing in Fox News viewers) warns you about something but you disregard it because A GADGET tells you something else.
Here are four examples.
1) Three Japanese tourists last week followed the instructions of a satnav machine in their car to drive to an island 15 kilometers off the coast of Australia.
The gadget’s voice told them to “drive straight ahead” so they motored merrily into the sea.
They eventually abandoned the hired car to the waves, returning to shore on foot. (Pic at top by Reuters.)
Australian observers watching from the shore expressed their deepest sympathy by rolling on the floor, clutching their stomachs and saying: “Ha ha ha.” (This means “Aww, poor you” in Australian.)
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2) A girl in the US state of Arkansas last week received a one-liner from the Internet saying:
"When I’m bored, I send a text to a random number saying ‘I hid the body, now what?’”
So she did.
The random number she punched in belonged to the police.
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3) In the UK, a coach driver heading for France mis-programmed his satnav and accidentally took a bus-full of tourists to the wrong country, Belgium.
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4) Setting a possible record for measurable stupidity, a Turkish lorry driver aiming for Gibraltar (the bit of Spain that nearly touches Africa) put his trust in a satnav which took him to a place of similar name in the north of England, more than 2,000 kilometers off course.
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Brain Abdication is everywhere.
At a fruit and veg shop in Hong Kong, I bought ten items costing $2 each.
Instead of using her mono-cellular brain to multiply 10 by two, the cashier ignored the $20 note I was thrusting at her and punched the number two into a calculator ten times over.
She lost count halfway and had to start again. And even then she got it wrong.
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It’s only a matter of time before Brain Abdication causes an international incident.
US PRESIDENT: “I have pressed the red button to launch a nuclear missile attack at North Korea.”
ADVISOR: “Sir, the missiles seem to be going to Little Korea in Toronto, Canada.”
PRESIDENT: “Er, do you think I should pretend I meant to do that? To get those damn Canuks for always being so superior?”
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A survey last week revealed that most rural households in India have used their hard-earned cash to buy mobile phones even though more than 50 per cent of families are still defecating outside.
As long as men are the decision-makers, gadgets will take priority over sanitary facilities.
Indian brides regularly arrive at their new homes to find them toilet free.
BRIDE: “Darling Ravi, I love this place! Flat-screen TV, wi-fi everywhere and massive stereo system. Now, where’s the toilet?”
GROOM: “Do you think I’m made of money?! Take a dump outside like the rest of us.”
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China may be our last hope. Top Hong Kong accountant Peter Wong Hong-yuen told me that he used his calculator once in front of a mainland Chinese counterpart in Beijing.
“Let me double-check the result,” the man said, getting out a wooden abacus.
Ironically, that was around the time that both Intel and Microsoft revealed that their calculator-chips contained errors.
The abacus had the right answer.
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(Stupidity can be good. It saved this guy from making a racist statement.)
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