[Y’all know I’ve been busy with some shit. Here’s a video of my day.]
Idiocracy is like a mirror. What you are has a lot to do with what you see in it. So too with society. Observe this sign I noticed a week ago.
Shit happens. Bakeries catch fire. I get it.
This sign is earnest and truthful. Vastly more informative than any news program!
On the other hand, it looks like it was scrawled by a monkey. Nobody expects Shakespeare on a hastily posted sign, but I’d be pretty embarrassed to post something like this. I’d at least try for decent penmanship. I’d also try hard to not misspell anything. Then again that would be “inconvince”.
Here’s a different example.
It was at a much snootier locale, a coffee shop (the natural habitat of woke overeducated unemployable trustafarians). You’d expect improved penmanship and grammar. (It feels like you need at least a few year’s graduate school to be a barista.) As expected, the sign is well written, informative, and concise. Well done.
On the other hand, did we as a society overindulge in grammar education when we really need plumbers? (BTW: I’ve done a lot of “homeowner plumbing”. It’s not rocket science, but it is a skill one must develop. I can do some plumbing but not all plumbing.)
Are all bets off when the plumbing fails onto an electrical system? Maybe. Maybe not? I’ve had similar “homeowner scale” issues. It wasn’t the end of the world. I just killed the power at the breaker, and then (in an abundance of caution) I shut down the whole damn building. (Better safe than sorry.) I fixed the plumbing as well as I could, cleaned up the mess, and then figured out what circuits were safe to energize and which ones needed a pro (those circuits stayed dead until a pro arrived!). I’m not great at “repairing shit”, but I can do a lot more than nothing. (If I was truly skilled I’d charge $100 an hour like a real pro.)
Here’s a third sign I found.
Proper spelling (if you assume “4” and “for” are equivalent), concise and to the point, easy to read. I’d give it an A- but I’m dropping it to a B because “4” ain’t “for”. (Yes, I used “ain’t”; it’s my blog and I can abuse the language with full knowledge of what I’m doing.)
A second pen (possibly a second person) added details. I’ll take it!
A quick notice about a breakdown in the system followed after the fact by true information (presumably) explaining what went wrong. I’ll crank my score back up to an A-.
I wish news media could provide true data as follow up to unexpected events. It’s not that hard. CNN are you listening?
Let’s not go overboard with my little observations. Three signs about closed businesses doesn’t mean the end of the world. Unexpected events happen. That’s life. A sign taped on a door is better than a locked door with no explanation. I think of it as civilization clutching at the edge rather than fallen into the abyss.
What about the lack of electricians and plumbers? Is that the sign of a doom loop? Probably not. There’s been a shortage of skilled labor since labor got skilled.
As for literacy? Even the first sign, which looks like it was scrawled on a wall, conveys what needs conveying. It implies that any consumer (like me) could read the sign. I optimistically think it shows we’ve got near 100% literacy. That much of our literacy is at the 4th grade level isn’t the best news; but you already knew you lived in Idiocracy.