T w e n t y S i d e d
Writing about politics is usually miserable, pointless, and time-consuming. It would be just as productive for me to sit by the road, giving the finger to people with the wrong bumperstickers. So I don’t do politics here. However, while doing some vanity searching a while ago I found something amusing.
The thing is, years ago I had a political satire site. One of my bits was a news story wherein it said that:
The point was to take the “why do they hate us” attitude of the far left and reflect it back at them through a funhouse mirror. The “why do they hate us” mentality de-humanizes people by reducing them to actors who can’t rationalize and who should be expected to lash out violently when wronged. Inverting the argument showed how silly it was. Like a lot of the stuff I wrote, it was better in concept than in execution. It wasn’t really funny. It needed a punchline.
On this forum there are a bunch of people who took this very obvious parody, missed the joke, and tried to argue with it as if it was in earnest. These aren’t well-reasoned arguments about how the article is wrong or senseless, this is AMERIKA SUKS!
This is like putting up a goofy George Bush/Bill Clinton scarecrow in the yard with a dunce cap on it, then coming out the next moring and finding someone having a heated argument with the thing. It wasn’t very funny before, but now it’s hilarious.
Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
Skyrim Thieves Guild
The Thieves Guild quest in Skyrim is a vortex of disjointed plot-holes, contrivances, and nonsense.
I Was Wrong About Borderlands 3
I really thought one thing, but then something else. There's a bunch more to it, but you'll have to read the article.
Shamus Plays WOW
Ever wondered what's in all those quest boxes you've never bothered to read? Get ready: They're more insane than you might expect.
The Best of 2012
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2012.
I have a simple test for whether an idea is sane or not: reverse it, and see if it still makes sense. Not all of my beliefs pass this test, but at least when they don’t I am aware of it, and figure out why.
I’m not a ‘liberal’, but this practice of trying to develop some perspective makes people think I am. Which says something about the whole politcal dichotomy thing.
Two days ago I saw on Reddit.com, which is a social aggregator news site, a story claiming that Roger Ailes is Thetan Level VIII in the Scientology organization. Their source? A story on the SomethingAwful.com forums.
The Lemon was you? Huh.
Yeah, that was me. You read it at the time? Not many people remember it now.
The site was a flash in the pan thing. It was really hot for a very short time, but I’m not dedicated or talented enough to keep something like that going. I let it slide, then let the domain expire. Now it’s a spam portal.
Sigh.
[…]A story on the SomethingAwful.com forums.
Not just a story on SomethingAwful, but a story in the SomethingAwful forums.
Wow. Also: Wow again.
I wasn’t a regular, but I did stop by a few times. Never made the connection until now. :)
I must be thick, daft, a dunce, or otherwise, but I don’t really understand–
Oh. I get it now. Heh.