Dear God,
I had a baby a month ago. Thank you for the little bundle of joy. But I have to be completely honest with you. Your design for human babies is outdated, literally antediluvian. Why am I saying this?
For nearly a million years human baby design has remained the same - uncoordinated, suckling-challenged, poor-sighted little fellows whose only means of communication is by crying. All other animal babies are better designed. I once saw a cow giving birth. The calf came out, fell to the ground in a heap. The cow licked the calf a couple of times. The calf then stood up on all fours, sauntered along to the cow and started suckling. No crying, no trial-and-error on how to suckle, no need to be held up and shown what was what. Which, by the way, is why humans sometimes use the phrase "silly old cow" but never use the phrase"silly young calf".
Which brings us to the main issue. Which is
How is it that human babies are so inferior to animal babies while human adults outmatch animal adults by a gargantuan margin?
The reasoning goes something like this. Humans need large brains to be the super-smart species we are. But with a large head, it would be difficult for a mother to give birth. So humans give birth early, when the brain is still small, and care for the baby until its brain fully develops. Which is why human babies can do far less than other animal babies. Well ... even though you are God, I have to be blunt here; bad designers make excuses, good designers make iPhones. Surely, as God, you can design around the challenge of big human heads. Just to illustrate the point, even a mere human like me, with no design training can think of better baby design. Here are a few of my ideas ...
Enhanced Storage: Babies need more space to store food. If they can store more food, their feed/sleep cycles can match that of adults, allowing parents to get a full night's sleep. How do you create more storage space? Expandable pot-bellies; expands when filled with milk, contracts when empty. So they don't bother mommy during child-birth, yet expand to hold enough milk for a night of feeding. And let the pot belly attachment fall off on becoming an adult, leaving adults incapable of having a paunch.
Suckling Aid: Babies have poor eye-sight and no coordination. But to suckle, they have to aim and latch on to a tiny circle on top of a mound in three dimensional space. No wonder they get it wrong. The obvious design improvement would be have a tube on the baby. Mother picks up the tube, attaches it to herself and the milk runs through. Strangely enough, babies are born with a tube but for some unfathomable reason, you have designed it so that the tube falls off at birth.
Pointing instead of Crying: Babies have a pair of hands which can be equipped to point at the source of discomfort, when a baby feels uncomfortable. For instance, if a soiled diaper is bothering a baby, the baby should be able to point to the diaper. Instead, in your current design, you make the baby cry and leave it to the parents to figure out what is wrong. And harried parents, who have slept little, and are struggling to feed their baby, usually figure wrong. The other day our little girl started crying. We assumed she wanted to be cuddled. Tried it. Crying goes on. Probably needs to be fed. Close the door, sit down, undress, feed. Baby still crying. Bring thermometer and check temperature. No fever. Baby still crying. Probably lights are bothering her. Turn off lights. Baby still crying. Check diaper. Its heavy. Change diaper. Baby stops crying. You see how it is. I wonder how you would like it if people of the world went to places of worship and instead of praying, stood there and cried for hours until you figured out, all by yourself, what may be wrong with them.
I had a baby a month ago. Thank you for the little bundle of joy. But I have to be completely honest with you. Your design for human babies is outdated, literally antediluvian. Why am I saying this?
For nearly a million years human baby design has remained the same - uncoordinated, suckling-challenged, poor-sighted little fellows whose only means of communication is by crying. All other animal babies are better designed. I once saw a cow giving birth. The calf came out, fell to the ground in a heap. The cow licked the calf a couple of times. The calf then stood up on all fours, sauntered along to the cow and started suckling. No crying, no trial-and-error on how to suckle, no need to be held up and shown what was what. Which, by the way, is why humans sometimes use the phrase "silly old cow" but never use the phrase"silly young calf".
Which brings us to the main issue. Which is
How is it that human babies are so inferior to animal babies while human adults outmatch animal adults by a gargantuan margin?
The reasoning goes something like this. Humans need large brains to be the super-smart species we are. But with a large head, it would be difficult for a mother to give birth. So humans give birth early, when the brain is still small, and care for the baby until its brain fully develops. Which is why human babies can do far less than other animal babies. Well ... even though you are God, I have to be blunt here; bad designers make excuses, good designers make iPhones. Surely, as God, you can design around the challenge of big human heads. Just to illustrate the point, even a mere human like me, with no design training can think of better baby design. Here are a few of my ideas ...
Enhanced Storage: Babies need more space to store food. If they can store more food, their feed/sleep cycles can match that of adults, allowing parents to get a full night's sleep. How do you create more storage space? Expandable pot-bellies; expands when filled with milk, contracts when empty. So they don't bother mommy during child-birth, yet expand to hold enough milk for a night of feeding. And let the pot belly attachment fall off on becoming an adult, leaving adults incapable of having a paunch.
Suckling Aid: Babies have poor eye-sight and no coordination. But to suckle, they have to aim and latch on to a tiny circle on top of a mound in three dimensional space. No wonder they get it wrong. The obvious design improvement would be have a tube on the baby. Mother picks up the tube, attaches it to herself and the milk runs through. Strangely enough, babies are born with a tube but for some unfathomable reason, you have designed it so that the tube falls off at birth.
Pointing instead of Crying: Babies have a pair of hands which can be equipped to point at the source of discomfort, when a baby feels uncomfortable. For instance, if a soiled diaper is bothering a baby, the baby should be able to point to the diaper. Instead, in your current design, you make the baby cry and leave it to the parents to figure out what is wrong. And harried parents, who have slept little, and are struggling to feed their baby, usually figure wrong. The other day our little girl started crying. We assumed she wanted to be cuddled. Tried it. Crying goes on. Probably needs to be fed. Close the door, sit down, undress, feed. Baby still crying. Bring thermometer and check temperature. No fever. Baby still crying. Probably lights are bothering her. Turn off lights. Baby still crying. Check diaper. Its heavy. Change diaper. Baby stops crying. You see how it is. I wonder how you would like it if people of the world went to places of worship and instead of praying, stood there and cried for hours until you figured out, all by yourself, what may be wrong with them.
In closing, I must remind you that delegation is the key to success. You have got Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Al Jazari (the Arab inventor), Thomas Crapper (perfecter of the flushing toilet), Sushruta (the surgeon) and others sitting up there whiling away their time playing the harp or dancing with virgins or avoiding becoming a lizard or whatever it is people do up there. Call them for a conference, put them on the job and release Baby 2.0.
Your Sincerely,
Mohan Kannegal
Your Sincerely,
Mohan Kannegal
"Check diaper. Its heavy. Change diaper. Baby stops crying."
ReplyDeleteDude, you probably have a heavily stuffed nose. First thing that hits you is the smell. :-) Go clear your nose fursht!