Octonauts

So there's this show my boys like called Octonauts. Its one of the most bearable shows out there, in my opinion. The premise is there are a bunch of animals living in a submarine who make it their mission to save other animals in need. I do think it's a little inconsistent considering the animals on the ship have pressurized tubes which allow you to go to different levels of this submarine, a long distance communication device in all of their smaller submarines as well as a squid (I think he's a squid) who has extensive knowledge and a huge library where he spends most of every episode reading, and all the while the rest of the ocean life can barely do anything without being threatened by something, no matter where the Octonauts go.

Some may call it admirable, and in the real world, I get emotional when I see viral videos of people fishing ducklings out of sewer pipes or helping rams get their horns unstuck. I saw one where a man helped two swans get untangled, when it was clear they wouldn't have been able to do it themselves.

I'm not sure if it's the heartless side of me coming out our if it's simply because it's a fictional television show, but I can't help but think of all the natural selection that isn't taking place in the Octonaut universe. The Octonauts go out of their way to save the animals of the deep, when in some cases it would be better for them to die than pass on their defective genetics to the rest of the species population.

There's one episode in particular that I actually really enjoy, but every time I watch it, I have a hard time not criticizing it. But it's about a saltwater crocodile who swims into the Arctic sea, and it ends up going into something of a hibernation since it can't handle the intense cold.

Now, I'm no expert, but if I had to guess, making a stupid decision like this would be detrimental to the saltwater crocodile species. Think about this; if every saltwater crocodile behaved as the one in the show did, they'd die out in the matter of a few months or years.

It's a theory that Josh learned in one of his classes that both of us have tried hard to follow. The idea goes like this.

Before you do something, ask yourself, "If everyone did this, would the world be a better place?"
If the answer is no, don't do the thing.

I think this same theory applies to this show.

Now don't get me wrong; I don't think that we should let every animal die if it finds itself in a compromising situation because of its own ignorance and stupidity. But I think Darwinism should be a factor when writing scripts like these.

And I'm done.

Love, Mackenzie