If you want to scare yourself silly with the full spectrum of just how stupid people can be, you can do what I did one day last week. Sick in bed with pneumonia, I decided to watch a couple of documentaries in my Netflix queue.
The first was a documentary called Waiting for Armageddon. It's an exploration of a frightening strain of last-days-rapture-obsessed-Israel-centric-fundamentalists and their horrifying worldview. These people have a form of "Christianity" that makes them excited and even hopeful at the thought of violence escalating in Jerusalem and the surrounding region. If the success of the Left Behind series of books is any indication, an alarming number of people share these beliefs to some extent or another.
The next documentary was called Yes Men Fix the World. The Yes Men are a couple of guys who use a strange combination of subversive stunts and con games as a form of social activism against large corporations and the evil forces of greed. The things they get away with are astounding. What they do would be funnier if they weren't so successful. Watching them work their plans was hilarious but nerve-wracking, and in the end, depressing.
The moral of both stories is something you probably already know—humanity has a breathtaking capacity for idiocy. If you're looking to feel more optimistic about the future, don't watch these documentaries. They both sent a shiver through my soul.
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