Comments

  1. rpjohnston says

    When I was around 7 or 8 or so, I was BIIIIIG into astronomy. It was my special interest at the time. And when I learned that the earth was 93 million miles away from the Sun, I thought it was so fascinating I had to share it with everyone.

    Most of the kids didn’t give a flying fuck, of course, and didn’t pay any attention. But one guy, Carl, kept insisting that it wasn’t.

    He didn’t give any alternative, of course. Just said “no it isn’t!” every time he saw me. I tried everything – reasoning; evidence, argument to the authority of the book I read it in, argument to consensus…nope. Same old thing – I’d mind my own business, he’d see me, creep up with a smug smile, go “No it isn’t!” and run away.

    So eventually I started beating the shit out of him every time. It’s a wonder that I didn’t get expelled. But the adults sure went to lengths to impress upon me that my retarded shit was unacceptable. Not a word to Carl, of course – I was the retard that needed to be controlled, not him.

    I took their instructions to heart and became even more ARGUMENTATIVE and stopped getting in fights and eventually learned to just roll over even when I knew I was right because the opinions of a retard kid don’t matter and it was pointless to struggle against that.

    And now my life’s come full circle and I advocate for punching nazis, banning trolls, and generally being publicly willing to use violence instead of arguing with people acting in bad faith. My responses to that kid at the time were correct – if someone’s just trying to fuck with you for the sadism of causing pain, then it is appropriate, if you wish, to cause pain back. Once they realize there’s consequences, they might be more willing to act in good faith – or eventually the problem will take care of itself. *cough*

  2. birgerjohansson says

    OT: Philippine populist president and Trump friend has just bragged about stabbing someone to death in his youth.
    Because nothing says “stable pair of hands” at the rudder of government than “I murdered a guy once”. Bob the Angry Flower would probably approve.

  3. rpjohnston says

    My previous attempt seems to have been eaten. Apologies if this shows up twice.

    When I was around 7 or 8 or so, I was BIIIIIG into astronomy. It was my special interest at the time. And when I learned that the earth was 93 million miles away from the Sun, I thought it was so fascinating I had to share it with everyone.

    Most of the kids didn’t give a flying fuck, of course, and didn’t pay any attention. But one guy, Carl, kept insisting that it wasn’t.

    He didn’t give any alternative, of course. Just said “no it isn’t!” every time he saw me. I tried everything – reasoning; evidence, argument to the authority of the book I read it in, argument to consensus…nope. Same old thing – I’d mind my own business, he’d see me, creep up with a smug smile, go “No it isn’t!” and run away.

    So eventually I started beating the shit out of him every time. It’s a wonder that I didn’t get expelled. But the adults sure went to lengths to impress upon me that my retarded shit was unacceptable. Not a word to Carl, of course – I was the retard that needed to be controlled, not him.

    I took their instructions to heart and became even more ARGUMENTATIVE and stopped getting in fights and eventually learned to just roll over even when I knew I was right because the opinions of a retard kid don’t matter and it was pointless to struggle against that.

    And now my life’s come full circle and I advocate for punching nazis, banning trolls, and generally being publicly willing to use violence instead of arguing with people acting in bad faith. My responses to that kid at the time were correct – if someone’s just trying to fuck with you for the sadism of causing pain, then it is appropriate, if you wish, to cause pain back. Once they realize there’s consequences, they might be more willing to act in good faith – or eventually the problem will take care of itself. *cough*

  4. rpjohnston says

    Trying a third time with a different browser, hopefully this one works.

    When I was around 7 or 8 or so, I was BIIIIIG into astronomy. It was my special interest at the time. And when I learned that the earth was 93 million miles away from the Sun, I thought it was so fascinating I had to share it with everyone.

    Most of the kids didn’t give a flying fuck, of course, and didn’t pay any attention. But one guy, Carl, kept insisting that it wasn’t.

    He didn’t give any alternative, of course. Just said “no it isn’t!” every time he saw me. I tried everything – reasoning; evidence, argument to the authority of the book I read it in, argument to consensus…nope. Same old thing – I’d mind my own business, he’d see me, creep up with a smug smile, go “No it isn’t!” and run away.

    So eventually I started beating the shit out of him every time. It’s a wonder that I didn’t get expelled. But the adults sure went to lengths to impress upon me that my retarded shit was unacceptable. Not a word to Carl, of course – I was the retard that needed to be controlled, not him.

    I took their instructions to heart and became even more ARGUMENTATIVE and stopped getting in fights and eventually learned to just roll over even when I knew I was right because the opinions of a retard kid don’t matter and it was pointless to struggle against that.

    And now my life’s come full circle and I advocate for punching nazis, banning trolls, and generally being publicly willing to use violence instead of arguing with people acting in bad faith. My responses to that kid at the time were correct – if someone’s just trying to fuck with you for the sadism of causing pain, then it is appropriate, if you wish, to cause pain back. Once they realize there’s consequences, they might be more willing to act in good faith – or eventually the problem will take care of itself. *cough*

  5. rpjohnston says

    Ok, it’s eating my post, so I’m going to break it into chunks and stuff and hope it works.

    1/ When I was around 7 or 8 or so, I was BIIIIIG into astronomy. It was my special interest at the time. And when I learned that the earth was 93 million miles away from the Sun, I thought it was so fascinating I had to share it with everyone.

    Most of the kids didn’t give a flying fuck, of course, and didn’t pay any attention. But one guy, Carl, kept insisting that it wasn’t.

  6. rpjohnston says

    2/ He didn’t give any alternative, of course. Just said “no it isn’t!” every time he saw me. I tried everything – reasoning; evidence, argument to the authority of the book I read it in, argument to consensus…nope. Same old thing – I’d mind my own business, he’d see me, creep up with a smug smile, go “No it isn’t!” and run away.

    So eventually I started beating the shit out of him every time. It’s a wonder that I didn’t get expelled. But the adults sure went to lengths to impress upon me that my retarded shit was unacceptable. Not a word to Carl, of course – I was the retard that needed to be controlled, not him.

  7. rpjohnston says

    2/ He didn’t give any alternative, of course. Just said “no it isn’t!” every time he saw me. I tried everything – reasoning; evidence, argument to the authority of the book I read it in, argument to consensus…nope. Same old thing – I’d mind my own business, he’d see me, creep up with a smug smile, go “No it isn’t!” and run away.

  8. rpjohnston says

    Ok, I think I figured out why. Those words. I’m autistic, so bite me, and I’m sorry for the spam.

    So eventually I started beating the shit out of him every time. It’s a wonder that I didn’t get expelled. But the adults sure went to lengths to impress upon me that my r—–d shit was unacceptable. Not a word to him, of course – I was the r—-d that needed to be controlled, not him.

    I took their instructions to heart and became even more ARGUMENTATIVE and stopped getting in fights and eventually learned to just roll over even when I knew I was right because the opinions of a r—-d kid don’t matter and it was pointless to struggle against that.

    And now my life’s come full circle and I advocate for punching nazis, banning trolls, and generally being publicly willing to use violence instead of arguing with people acting in bad faith. My responses to that kid at the time were correct – if someone’s just trying to fuck with you for the sadism of causing pain, then it is appropriate, if you wish, to cause pain back. Once they realize there’s consequences, they might be more willing to act in good faith – or eventually the problem will take care of itself. *cough*

    (I think that those words might have been the problem.

  9. blf says

    Heh. As I know I’ve mentioned previously, in the last few months I’ve been watching a lot of online videos in an ill-defined(?) music genre typified by bands such as Faun — “medieval(-inspired) folk”, sometimes electrified. The problem is that since it mostly all comes from various European traditions, the comments are a minefield, with what seems to be a lot of white supremeist arseholes “celebrating” something they frequently don’t seem to understand (many lyrics are not in English, so the English-language comments can be particularly detached / deluded). Fortunately, they aren’t allowed to stand uncontested by the rational commentators, albeit I’m not aware of any of the bands I know of making a statement.

    As far as I know, none of the bands or music is in any way white supremeist — the nazis have just latched onto something which they interpret as “white culture”. The arguments in the commenting minefield often seem to follow the pattern in the OP’s cartoon, albeit multilingual.

  10. microraptor says

    Funny, most of my experiences with such people are the opposite: they keep insisting that every toxic delusion that passes through their head is an objective fact.

  11. Nemo says

    Although the roles are reversed, this reminds me painfully of Ayn Rand — “You MUST agree that A=A”, [wild leaps of logic], therefore radical capitalism, etc. Hence why she called her sick philosophy “objectivism”, because it was supposedly all about objective truth.

  12. birgerjohansson says

    Microraptor, you have just described the core of the voting bloc that Berlusconi, Trump and
    all other populist leaders depend on.

    BTW Jimmy Kimmel just tricked a lot of Trump voters to enroll for free health care by calling the ACA “Trumpcare”. You actually have to trick them into acting in their own interest.
    BTW sorry for the OT post, I just thougt it was something that needed sharing.

  13. blf says

    birgerjohansson@8, “Jimmy Kimmel just tricked a lot of Trump voters to enroll for free health care by calling the ACA ‘Trumpcare’. You actually have to trick them into acting in their own interest.” Thanks for pointing that stunt out, which I shared with poopyhead’s current Political Madness All the Time thread:

    Too Many People Fell for Jimmy Kimmel’s “Trumpcare” Bit (original emphasis):

    Days ago, Jimmy Kimmel adopted a new tactic on health care in order to get people to sign up during the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment period: telling them it was actually Trumpcare. You might be inclined to think that no one could be ignorant enough for that to actually work. You would be wrong.

    Last night, Kimmel noted some of the praise he’s received for bridging the partisan divide, a.k.a. putting Trump’s name on something President Obama did, in order to ease the minds of Trump supporters who just don’t like that Obama fella. Apparently, he had about as much success as Republicans initially found in labeling the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare” to make people hate it, without question, in the first place. As during the election last year, too many people seem to have no idea what the Affordable Care Act actually is or does, and only that Trump = good and Obama = bad.

    When I say “too many” people, I mean any people at all. It’s impossible to say, just from the few examples Kimmel presented, that there was actually a large number of people who were duped, but it’s distressing that anyone who felt strongly enough about the issue to comment could have such a poor grasp of what was going on here. […]

  14. woozy says

    Funny. I thought the complaint against liberals was their reliance an moral relativism and that objective reality is what justifies the rights odious value system and…. or right… consistency…. That’s not a very important concept to you-tubers.

  15. says

    Interesting fact about Bob the Angry Flower: Its creator, Stephen Notley, is the brother of Rachael Notley, the premier of Alberta. Her New Democratic Party (Left-leaning) recently unseated the Progressive Conservatives after decades in power, and she’s hated with a level of bile reminiscent of Obama by the rednecks of “Texas North”

  16. damien75 says

    That’s really not the way I pictured “skeptics”.

    Are youtube skeptics different of generic skeptics ?