Pointless Internet Arguments

The removal of  "For each member who joins, we will donate $0.50 to Haiti earthquake victims".

Today, I won the most pathetic, worthless victory imaginable, barring [sports analogy]. I oversaw the removal of a group purporting to donate money to Haiti earthquake victims, which was, of course, a stupid hoaxing spam group set up by a teenager from Singapore with too much time on his hands.

It started with a message explaining how 50 businesses had agreed to donate 50 cents for every member who joined the group, encouraging members to invite all their friends, etc. It's an old formula. Obviously there was no mention of who these companies were, or when the end date for the donation would be, or whether people's leaving would result in money being taken away from Haitians, and the whole thing was so transparently fake that it was almost laughable.

Except, for some reason, almost 300,000 people had joined, presumably (excepting the minority of angry misanthropes like me) because they believed they were helping in some small way. Their ignorance was breathtaking. Unsurprisingly, I was called "sick", "cynical" and "disgusting", and many other somewhat less-eloquent words, simply because I thought that exploiting human sympathy at a time of genuine suffering was despicable.

Thanks to people pointing this out, the founder (that is, the power-crazed nerd exciting himself over the thought of getting friends to spam each other) decided to remove all forms of interaction in the group, annoying even some of the most diehard (stupid) members, but not before a tremendously underwhelming showdown where I got to tell him just how pathetic and worthless he was. I, and many others, I hope, had also reported the group repeatedly for its spam-tastic content.

A few hours later, the group had disappeared. I'm taking partial credit for this. My god, my life is so completely pathetic, that I actually feel a bit disgusted with myself for how I've wasted today.

The Idiot (iii)

And yet another quote, but it is a damned fine book:

I hate you, Gavril Ardalionovitch, simply because - this will perhaps seem marvellous to you - simply because you are the type, the incarnation, the acme of the most insolent and self-satisfied, the most vulgar and loathsome commonplace. Yours is the commonplace of pomposity, of self-satisfaction and Olympian serenity. You are the most ordinary of the ordinary! Not the smallest idea of your own will ever take shape in your heart or your mind. But you are infinitely envious; you are firmly persuaded that you are a great genius; but yet doubt does visit you sometimes at black moments, and you grow spiteful and envious. Oh, there are still black spots on your horizon; they will pass when you become quite stupid, and that's not far off; but a long and chequered path lies before you; I can't call it a cheerful one and I'm glad of it.

The Idiot (ii)

There is nothing more annoying than to be, for instance, wealthy, of good family, nice-looking, fairly intelligent, and even good-natured, and yet to have no talents, no special faculty, no peculiarity even, not one idea of one's own, to be precisely 'like other people'... There is an extraordinary multitude of such people in the world, far more than appears.

This bland multitude are subdivided by their intelligence, "some of limited intelligence, some much cleverer":

Nothing is easier for 'ordinary' people of limited intelligence than to imagine themselves exceptional and original and to revel in that delusion without the slightest misgiving... Some have only to meet with some idea by hearsay, or to read some stray page, to believe at once that it is their own opinion and has sprung spontaneously from their own brain. The impudence of simplicity, if one may so express it, is amazing in such cases.. this unhesitating confidence of the stupid man in himself and his talents...

The second category has it much tougher:

 [Gavril Ardalionovitch] belonged to the class of the 'much cleverer' people, though he was infected from head to foot with the desire for originality. But that class... is far less happy than the first; for the clever 'commonplace' man, even if he occasionally or even always fancies himself a man of genius or originality, yet preserves the worm of doubt gnawing in his heart, which in some cases drives the clever man to utter despair... His passionate craving to distinguish himself sometimes led him to the brink of most ill-conceived actions, but our hero was always at the last moment too sensible to take the final plunge.

Dostoevsky: The Idiot

There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you for ever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps, the most important of your ideas.

..and they say that strange fictional teenagers with consumption don't give good advice.

Godwin's Law

A good example of Godwin's Law came up today in a FaceBook group which opposed the proposed installation of Rod Liddle as editor of the Independent:

Liddle in the running for the Indie editor? Whatever next? Thank god for the web. Do we really need newspapers and TV "news" these days? The Sutton Trust did a survey of the educational background of leading Brit media journalists a couple of years ago. Over 50% attended private schools. You know, the ones that Hitler so admired. [http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/Journalists-backgrounds-final-report.pdf]. The BBC refused to co-operate with the survey. Can't think why. When I subsequently sent an FOI request to the BBC for this info they fobbed me off with some lame excuses for not providing it. So it seems that British media is the old boys'/girls' eye view of the world. No prizes for guessing which posiitons in the hierarchies of the media they occupy. 

Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

It made me smile, and I got to publicise my AMAZINGLY-APT FaceBook group:
The link to which I've removed as part of my bizarre privacy drive (26th July 2011).

which is titled removed I did thoroughly enjoy this man's (boy's?) post though, as it combined a reasonable level of verbal sophistication with naked anti-snobbery and poor logic. I might make him a literary caricature! Incidentally, this would be the highest honour ever bestowed on anybody. And that's including receiving the Oscar for Best Picture. I rate myself highly.

Christmas as a Heathen

Back when I was a believer, Church at Christmas seemed like cough medicine: it was unpleasant, but I knew that it was good for me. Nowadays, I happily go because it's only once or twice a year, it makes one or both parents happy, and the unpleasantness of Church provides me with karma balance, so I can enjoy the pleasures of food, drink, family and presents guilt-free. Because I'm such a nice person, I tear myself away from the warmth of my room and the excitement of various free online games and attend the Christmas Church service.

I'm handed an exciting looking candle upon entry, which distracts me throughout the prayers being offered by a ten-year-old, which all end with a resounding "god wiv us". I'm clearly not looking devout enough, as a man in white, like the priest but not the priest (his sidekick, perhaps?) frowns disapprovingly at me. For a second, I feel we're going to start a horrendously violent physical fight atop the altar, as the priest faints and various members of the congregation bay for blood on the outskirts, placing bets on who'll be disembowelled first. But he seems to lose interest as a cake is brought out for Jesus. Although we sing him Happy Birthday, Jesus declines the opportunity to blow out his own candles, and the priest, who considers himself a reasonable stand-in for the son of god, does it himself.

The inevitable contradictions of a Christian service all seem to be present, as the priest lectures us on the nearest fire exits, whilst lighting the hundreds of candles he has distributed. No one seems to mind either that the ten-year-old next to me is three inches away from setting his mother on fire, or that I'm entertaining myself by trying to drip candle wax on everything around me. I also know for a fact that around 30% of the musicians playing hymns in front of me are atheists. As we eat Jesus's birthday cake, I wonder whether there are parts of the congregation's body baked into the cake, as a small way of saying thank you for the millions of pounds of flesh Jesus must have given Christians worldwide throughout the centuries. Although I make fun of their beliefs now, I find these sorts of Christians relatively benign and mostly very pleasant too, so I don't mind making the occasional sacrifice to spend an hour or two with them. After all, did not Jesus give himself up for sacrifice at Christmas? No? Oh.

If money were no object: Comedy shop

If I had to have a job, but at the same time I was fabulously wealthy and didn't need to make money from that job, I would create the world's best comedy shop. There'd be a physical comedy section for whoopee cushions, fake turds, and the like, a DVD section, split into sections like animation, stand-up, sit-com, film, etc., and a section on humorous literature. It wouldn't need to make money, because I'd live on a lottery salary (I've decided that the lottery is how I'll make my millions), and I could sell everything at cost price, so I'd effectively compete with big retailers. I'd offer my expert opinion on comedy to everyone who entered the shop, and people would come in for that, the creative atmosphere, and the canvas paintings of comedians plastered all over the wall. It would be a one-off shop, so I'd need to plan carefully where the funniest place in Britain is, where they'd most appreciate the genius of this shop.