Stupid times - when stupid ideas succeed

Tradition has it that there is a curse - "May you live in interesting times."

I don't know what we did in order to deserve the current state of affairs, because proof shows that not only are we in interesting times, but we are in stupid times, too.

Weird stuff has been happening in the past couple of years that reminds me of the kind of things that would happen in the 1980s, and I now think that we live in a decade that is basically 1980s + technology.

For instance, this man, who lives off selling advertising on the front of his t-shirt. Anybody sensible would think that this is a stupid idea, that he needs to get a real job, and that his role in life as a walking billboard would not only fail, but be monumentally unsatisfying and contribute next to nothing to a society already filled to overflowing with the effluent of consumerism and greed.

It is a sign of the times that his business is expanding and he is making a solid profit.

See? It is like the 1980s. Bring back the 1960s, please. I have already lived through the 80s once. It is a shame that there is too much profit in it to force it to go away.

I'm not even talking about other stupid things, like vaccine conspiracy theories, the re-emergence of magnetic therapy, thermal imaging and sensible people being swept away in the flood of bullshit dressed up as fact that can drown the unwary on the internet.

It is the little things that really push us over the edge. It started with crocs. Well, maybe it didn't, but I blame crocs. Somebody came up with an idea for plastic shoes with holes in them, and it took off, and now everywhere I look, I see people who would otherwise be sensible individuals who are wearing the ugliest piece of footwear known to man.

Bare feet make me cringe, but not as much as crocs do.

In a million years when all there is left of the planet is plastic, aliens will arrive, point at the piles of crocs and work out that not only were they the cause of the downfall of civilisation, but that it was fortunate that we were already gone when they got here because creatures who create these have no place in an intelligent solar system.

Yes, I'm bitter. I blame surgery rotation. Bring back psychiatry and GP, please, I want to hang out with patients and talk about care plans, babies and not have to worry about five million eponymous syndromes, and wonder about who the hell Pott was and how he got so many nasty things named after him in amusing ways. (A peculiar tumour AND a puffy tumour? What a legend. If there is a question in the exam that I have no idea about, I will answer, "Percival Pott's puffy tumour.")