Ed Ranks Other Obsolete Things that Should Go Away Like "The Greatest Show on Earth"

What is this nightmare fuel?

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus finally held it's last show after 146 years. It's gone. There will be no more supposed "Greatest Show on Earth." And the fact that it just held it's last show is the only reason it has made the news or anyone has even thought about it in the last 30 years. Nobody cares anymore. It's not just about the alleged animal abuse (although that's a huge part of it, for sure) - it's also about the fact that the times have, quite simply, changed. The traveling circus that went across the country by train had its time and place. It's hard to believe that its time and place somehow continued all the way up to 2017. It's even harder to believe that anybody ever liked clowns. I mean lions I get. So long as you're on the same page as me and hoping the lions just maul everyone.

Here is some other crap we should also really consider just ending. Because it's time to move on, people.

10. Westphalian sovereignty - Yeah, I went there and started out political. With increasing globalization, interdependence, the free flow of communities across the Internet, and the tenuous legacy of a huge chunk of the world's borders being drawn by racist, colonial Europeans that never paid attention to ethnic or cultural groups - it seems like that whole "nation state" thing is kind of passé, no?  Look, I'm not calling for radical overthrow of all governments or anything. I'm pretty sure if we give this thing a few hundred more years it will just die on its own.

9. Fax Machines - Why is there still one of these in every office I have worked in? Are we just waiting for old employees to die before we throw them out? This is about as useful as a telegraph machine in the office.

8. Zoos/Aquariums with Animals in Tiny Spaces - I'm not one of those "end all zoos" or "all animals must be free" people who believes that zoos have no role in the 21st Century and should be banished forever. While a lot of zoos and aquariums are indeed awful for-profit entertainment businesses which treat their animals like crap - not all of them are. Some of them serve legitimate educational purposes and inspire people to become veterinarians, zoologists and things like that.  However, let's get rid of all the ones that have things like exploitative seal or elephant shows, or throw animals in tiny little cages with bars. We need more of the zoos like the ones out there increasingly doing stuff like giving animals large habitats where they can live a somewhat natural life. 

Basically what AT&T wants you to
add to your plan for no reason.

7. Landline Telephones - Some people swear these things are still necessary for some reason or another. They claim that you need them for 911 calls because the dispatcher can figure out your address right away. But really... can't they just ping the cell phone towers to find your location too? I know it's not an exact science like in the movies, but you can also TELL 911 your location too while you're on a cell phone, just like you can tell them on a landline. Does anyone believe the "oh you need it for 911" thing?  That's just what Verizon is trying to tell you to try and sell you a "Triple Pay" package that includes a service you don't need.

6. Pennies - This coin costs more to make than its face value. Canada got rid of them. Canada is smart, be like Canada. Pennies are an annoyance. Nickels and dimes aren't that much better.

5. Pornographic Magazines, Movie Theaters, and Call Lines - I know they're mostly all gone now, but some still exist for some reason. Gross. Haven't you people head of the Interwebs?

4. Print Newspaper - Same as above, but for different reasons and with less pages stuck together. All your favorite newspapers are online now. There is no need to deforest the planet so that a disposable copy of already outdated news can be looked at for a few minutes while you drink a coffee and then promptly discarded.

3. Reality TV Shows - Please just end these trashy things already.

2. Hunting for Sport - If you're hunting an animals for food or something else life sustaining - great! Carry on with what you're doing. Honestly, it seems more moral and efficient than the massive slaughterhouse industry that sustains the rest of us hypocrites in society who just like to pretend the meat in the magic grocery store just appears. Now, if you're hunting animals for trophies or for "the fun of it," then you should probably just take that gun and shoot yourself in the face instead. I've seen arguments, especially after the Cecil the Lion killing, that game hunting actually does more good than bad in places like Africa because it's a source of revenue that funds parks and other animal conservation efforts. Which is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. A much more reliable source of funding would be to just tell rich game hunting idiots that it's still cool to come hunt - but then kidnap them all and hold them for ransom. Then when you collect the millions of ransom dollars you just feed them to the lions anyway. That's how you get the big dollars.Think on that, Zimbabwe.

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1. Beauty Pageants - There is honestly no reason to have these stupid, sexist things where we take models and ask them questions about politics and world affairs so that we can pretend to care about their answers while we instead ogle them to make an arbitrary judgment about their comparative physical attractiveness to those from the other sides of various state and national borders.