Cutting Corners

Over the last two days I refereed about 19 hour-long games at a youth soccer tournament. People are always moving around the fields during these games, and inevitably they cut the corners of the fields to save about five seconds on their trips to and from the concession stands. It pisses me off to know end because they are in my way while I am trying to ref (especially when I am the assistan referee and I have to run up and down the touchline), but I do understand why people do this. They are evolutionarily inclined to cut corners.

Cutting the corner saves about five seconds. Just like water takes the path of least resistance because is conserves the potential energy of the water, so to do humans save energy when they cut corners. That is five seconds more of energy that our ancestors had to run from a predator, which could have been the difference between life and death. This means that the proto-human monkeys that survived and passed their genes on to us - the corner cutters of today, were those that had the corner cutting genes.

The only thing that could be a bit confusing about this is how there can be a gene to cut corners. Sure your shoe size has some hereditary predicatability, but not complex brain function. I would agree that cutting corners isn't just one gene, but rather an entire complex of cerebral proteins that developed alongside other cognitive abilities over millions of years, but nonetheless the habit did develop as a result of evolution.

So, to all you corner cutters, I'll get over it. I understand why you do it. But to all of you stray brothers and sisters that awkwardly glance up at me to see if I'll say anything because you know that you shouldn't cut the corner of the soccer field, I hope a cheetah catches you and eats you and all your genes for dinner.