Washington, D.C. A sprawling new study from the National Institute for Sedentary Outcomes confirms what cautious adults have long suspected: doing stuff is responsible for nearly every injury, illness, and inconvenience reported over the past three calendar years.
The study tracked 241,000 American adults, many of whom stayed in one place for the duration, the institute noted, which made them remarkably easy to track. "Just a simple camera," the methodology section reads. "Not even pan and tilt on it." The aggressively unsedentary participants, the ones doing all the unnecessary walking, cooking, exercising, socializing, driving, and gardening, were a huge pain in the ass to track. No one ever knew where they went. Researchers were repeatedly forced to ask the participants' teenage children where their parents were, and you know how that conversation goes.
"The data is, frankly, unambiguous," said Dr. Marlin Whitcombe, the study's principal investigator. "If you do nothing, almost nothing happens to you. If you do something, something happens to you, and roughly seventy percent of the time, that something is bad."
The recommended intervention, published in the institute's quarterly bulletin, is a three-step protocol: Stay At Home, Lie Down, Have A Beer. Whitcombe repeated this from her bed at home, while holding a glass of white wine. "I had to remain safe until this data could be shared."
Not Moving At All Considered Least Risky
The institute's full bulletin quantifies the danger of more than 2,400 activities that some consider 'everyday normal'. Satyr Satire recommends you follow all study recommendations. The risky end of the spectrum:
- ⚠️ Stairs are considered the most dangerous architectural design ever created. "Every new step is a trip hazard! Whoever made stairs really hated humans."
- ⚠️ Exercise has been marketed as 'being good for you' by Big Gym. In fact, the chances of getting hurt exercising far outweigh the risk of sleeping late.
- ⚠️ Other people driving: your driving is fine, it's the other lunatics on the road that will kill you. In fact, you are a pretty good driver. Definitely one of the best drivers you know.
- ⚠️ Socializing, like alcohol, increases anxiety, regret, and herpes. Nearly every dead person had socialized in their life. A clear indication that all forms of socialization are dangerous and should be avoided.
- ⚠️ Masturbating: exact deaths are difficult to determine, since symptoms are masked by rigor mortis, suicides, and falling out of bed. "Many people die with erections, but we're not sure which came first, the erection or the death? It's a chicken-and-egg problem, with a side of sausage."
For those that can't stay in bed for thirty-six months at a time, a handful of safe activities have been approved by the Institute. They are:
- ✅ Swimming with sharks. Only about 10 people die every year from shark attacks, making it one of the safest activities. Compare to death by cow, which is more than ten times that amount.
- ✅ Flying with terrorists. Flying remains the all-time safest way to travel. But if you look around at the passengers, you can always spot three or four terrorists on the plane. "I see a couple of them on every flight," says Whitcombe. "You know what they look like. They look like ... that. You know. Sometimes it's an entire family of them. But they must all forget to blow it up, or something, because it almost never happens. Maybe they are excited to get to their destination city."
- ✅ Masturbating. Probably some people die from it, but they never admit to it. They are dead when we find them. We always assume it was something else, so there really is no risk here.
The Safer Alternatives
For Americans alarmed by the institute's findings, Whitcombe offered a tiered set of safer alternatives, each progressively less ambitious:
Level One: Stay At Home. "Home is the location at which the majority of your insurance applies," Whitcombe explained. "Outside is a place where strangers operate motor vehicles and your shoelaces are entirely your own problem." Home, she noted, is also "where the couch already is."
Level Two: Lie Down. Falls from a standing position are much more common than falls from lying down. "You cannot fall down if you are already down," Whitcombe noted. "Earthquakes might be an exception." Good places to lie down are the places where you can fall asleep, like hammocks, couches, and your bed. Bad places to lie down are on railroad tracks, near the edge of your rooftop, and in the cold and heartless gutter of a drunken back alley.
Level Three: Have A Beer. A modest beer, Whitcombe argued, "encourages further commitment to Levels One and Two." Most alcoholic beverages work well here, as long as someone else can bring them to you while you keep lying down. If you can take a life partner who is a server, by profession, that is ideal. By drinking most of your calories, you are reducing the chances of choking on solid food.
Dissenting Opinions From Some Smarty-Pants
Dr. Reena Padmanabhan, a cardiologist not affiliated with the institute, expressed concerns. "If everyone in the country followed this protocol, we would see a measurable uptick in heart disease, diabetes, depression, muscle atrophy, deep vein thrombosis, and bedsores. We would lose hundreds of thousands of life-years in a generation."
Whitcombe argued that Dr. Padmanabhan could use a good lie-down and a beer, and just because she has a fancy-nancy degree from some 'University', she's not the boss of you. You can grab a beer, lie on the couch, and decide for yourself if it's safer than running five miles on a treadmill. The answer is pretty obvious for people that have common sense.
The Couch Is Calling
The bulletin closes with what Whitcombe calls "a mandate to stop doing stuff." If, while reading this article, the reader has been standing, the institute recommends they sit down. If they have been sitting, the institute recommends they recline. If they have been reclining, the institute recommends they "remain in this position and think about how few hospital bills they are accruing."
The institute is currently consulting Swami Yogi Bare to understand the risks of thinking. Early feedback is that thinking, itself, causes suffering and the Swami discourages it.
Satyr Satire recommends asking your doctor before swimming with sharks or flying with terrorists. Your doctor will say no. Get a second opinion from someone lying down.