Naive couple bike near ISIS territory to prove 'humans are kind'--they were proven wrong

A couple of naive, idealistic 29-year-old millennials, quit their office jobs in Washington, DC, unchained their bikes and went on a cycling trip around the world. Their goal was to prove that: "Evil is a make-believe concept we've invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans."

They were proven wrong.

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan had to prove that evil doesn't really exist. Austin, a vegan, worked for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Geoghegan, a vegetarian worked for Georgetown University admissions office. They realized that they were wasting their lives working for a living and decided to go for a bike ride and concurrently prove that people are good and ISIS is not a real danger if you have a good heart and don't eat animals.

Unfortunately, their theory was disproven--they were killed by ISIS last month.

Before he quit his job and then taking the unwitting suicidal bike trip, Austin blogged: "I've grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige. I've missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed."

Very heavy, man.

The couple went public on Instagram to document their totally cool journey on a joint blog. The New York Times said that they shared "the openheartedness they wanted to embody and the acts of kindness reciprocated by strangers."

"You read the papers and you're led to believe that the world is a big, scary place," Austin wrote before being murdered by ISIS along with his partner and another couple on bikes.

"People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil."

Yes, some people are bad and evil and Austin and Geoghegan learned that the hard way.

"I don't buy it," Austin said. "Evil is a make-believe concept we've invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own. ...By and large, humans are kind. [Yes, just not ISIS humans]. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind."

And that's why Austin and Lauren deserve to be nominated for the Darwin Awards.

When the couple got to Tajikistan, riding their bikes through the country on July 29th, a car filled with jihadis rammed them. Five Muslim men got out of the car and stabbed the couple to death along with two other idealists, one from Switzerland and the other from the Netherlands.

They were not killed with kindness.

Two days after the murders, ISIS released a video showing the same group of jihadis sitting in front of an ISIS flag as they looked into the camera and vowed to kill "disbelievers." Yes, the religion of tolerance will kill you if you don't believe in Allah and Mo, the prophet of Islam.

It's really very sad but very avoidable.

You don't need to be a genius to know that ISIS territory is dangerous to all non-ISIS members, even Muslims who aren't Islamic enough. But being a progressive, thinking that human nature is all roses and unicorn farts will get you killed if you go biking or hiking in many lands I call the "Stans" and the "Bhad-lands."

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