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.
The Brilliance of Mass Effect
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
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.
Gamers Aren’t Toxic
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
My Music
Do you like electronic music? Do you like free stuff? Are you okay with amateur music from someone who's learning? Yes? Because that's what this is.
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.