The Anti-Tumblr

This is something that pisses me off more than anything:

People who think that forwarding e-mails will solve a problem. Some chain e-mails try to petition stuff, some try to scare people into forwarding, and then the worst ones of all are the ones that say, “On such and such date, don’t buy gas!!”. These e-mails tell people not to buy gas in an attempt to show those greedy oil companies who’s boss. The idea is it will hurt the companies and force them to lower the prices to an all-time low. The people who come up with them fail to realize one thing… A few thousand lazy people sitting at a computer (who are apparently bored enough to read their chain e-mail messages) don’t hardly amount to anything when compared to everybody that purchases gasoline. This is a society that’s constantly on the go. While some people can go several days or even weeks without filling up with gas, others buy it almost every day and cannot simply go a day without it.

Sure, if everybody in the United States didn’t buy fuel for one whole day the price would drop and the oil companies might have a little dent in their margins, but it would only be temporary. Everybody would go back to their routines the next day and the price would go back to where it was. I can imagine a big CEO in his office  looking at graphs and discussing them with his Vice President after the “event”…

CEO: “What’s this tiny little bump right here?”
VP: “That? Oh, that’s the little stunt those crazy e-mail forwarders tried to pull off.”
Both: *A mixture of scoffing and laughing*

Giving up fuel is like becoming vegan. When you do, you’re giving up a lot. You’re giving up eggs, milk, obviously meat, and some extreme vegans even give up fruits and veggies that weren’t hand picked because a combine might have killed a few rabbits during harvest.

In the perspective of fuel, you not only give up a day with a full tank of gas but you also give up any packages you might have been expecting in the mail. Some service businesses may close for that day because they need gas to get to their clients (e.i.- Taxi services, lawn mowing services, etc.). Schools would most likely be shut down because school buses won’t run without fuel. And in case you didn’t notice, those semi-trucks on the highway aren’t there for the scenic effect. They’re transporting goods to and from industries. Shut them down, and not only do people receive their express shipped Amazon products a day late, but factories will not be able to ship or receive goods. Without goods coming and going, these industries will also be hurt and will most likely raise prices to cover lost production. Guess who will suffer because of it… everybody. 

You might suggest that people should just fill up the night before. Well, that defeats the purpose now doesn’t it? It doesn’t make much sense to tell people not to buy gas on a certain date only to have all of these people fill up the night before.

To lower the price of gas, the demand must be lowered. It can’t just be a one day thing. The best thing anyone can do is buy a bike or moped for short city trips and simply use as little gas as possible every day. Our fast paced world where we can drive from Louisville to Nashville in just three hours will have to change. People will ultimately have to travel less (and who the hell wants to do that?). You’re not going to convince every single American to do it but over a long period of time, with better technologies on the rise, and maybe a little persuasion thrown the right way, we can slowly but surely reduce our dependance on gasoline and by then, we’ll be so used to riding our bikes and mopeds that we really won’t give that much of a shit about high gas prices anymore. Man, I hate chain e-mails.