Tag: sarcasm

NASA Study Says Rich People Will Destroy Human Civilization

In the wake of yesterday’s contemplation of my own poor money habits, I thought it fitting to share a story that confirms my poor impulse control in actually helping save human civilization as we know it. Woo, go me.

Apparently, a new NASA study has determined that modern civilization is doomed to collapse and that it’s due to happen in the next few decades. And the reason for this collapse? It’s not climate change or nuclear war; it’s due to rich people. More precisely: social stratification and unequal distribution of resources:

Motesharri investigated the factors that could lead to the fall of civilization, which included population growth and climate change, the New Zealand Herald reported. He found that when such issues interact, they can cause the breakdown of society through the “stretching of resources” and “the economic stratification of society into ‘Elites’ and ‘Masses’.”

Using different scenarios, Motesharri and his fellow researchers found that collapse is difficult to avoid under the current conditions. In these scenarios, they discovered that elite wealth monopolies are affected much later by environmental collapse than common people, which allows them to continue their “business as usual” way of living despite the catastrophe, according to the Guardian.

Human civilization is in its twilight and it’s mainly due to income disparity and the control of resources. The next time someone on Fox News opines that it’s wrong to punish success by taxing the rich, you can point out that if we don’t tax the rich to make them less rich, human civilization ends.

I don’t know about you, not being rich myself, but I’d feel really bad if I was the cause of the collapse of civilization.

Worry not, for there is hope! But if you have a lot of money or if you watch Fox News, you’re probably not going to like what that hope requires. That’s right, it’s time to pucker up and kiss communism right on its big, Marxist-Leninist-socialist-whatever-ist loving lips.

However, the researchers stated that society can avoid collapse with the right policies and structural changes, which can also lead to the creation of a more stable and advanced society, the Guardian reported. The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality to make sure resources are distributed fairly, and to reduce the consumption of resources by relying less on limited resources and bringing down population growth. With these changes, the “business as usual” model can end and civilization can be saved and evolve.

I don’t know about this. Sounds more like class warfare and typical liberal propaganda to me. Instead of unpleasant policy and structural changes (socialism!), we should “something something something job creators something something it’s what Jesus would have wanted.”

Okay, enough jokes. I actually do believe there’s a real story here, so I’ll turn off the sarcasm for a moment and speak directly. Is the end really “extremely fucking nigh?”

Maybe. On all matters of doomsaying, I remain cautiously optimistic. I generally think that people are good and we’re capable of saving ourselves from destruction. Predictions of doom are a dime a dozen, both from street prophets and well-meaning scientists alike.

On the other hand, civilization is a remarkably fragile thing. It is rather like a spider-web; beautiful and strong but still fragile and in need of constant repair. Civilizations before ours have fallen to war, to social collapse, to neglect, to the failure to adapt to new paradigms.

We’d be arrogant indeed to assume that just because we have the Internet and smartphones, we’re immune to the pendulum of history and the caprice of nature.

Wealth inequality is a real problem, not just in the United States but across the entire world.

Really, Mark, What Did You Think Was Going To Happen Here?

Mark Kessler is the chief of police in the small Pennsylvania town of Gilberton. He achieved national attention by posting reasonable and thought provoking discussions on YouTube about what he perceives as the erosion of Second Amendment rights.

No, wait, that doesn’t sound right.

Let’s try this again.

Mark Kessler was the chief of police until he decided to make an Internet Tough Guy video that was little more than a profanity-laden rant against “libtards.” He then proceeds to fire a lot of guns at things. Because nothing indicates “responsible public servant” and “reasonable political discussion” like shooting guns in a YouTube video and swearing a lot.

Because his actions brought shame on his one-officer department, he was forced to ask himself to resign due to conduct unbecoming of a police officer. He was later heard to be shouting at himself and angrily slammed his badge down on his own desk before storming out of the building, only to return a moment later to file the paperwork to terminate himself.

The cute part is how in his videos, he thinks anybody who’s upset with him is upset because he uses profanity, which is fucking hilarious. Here’s the truth, Police Chief Kessler, we libtards out there aren’t worried about your fucking language. Honestly, we’re not even worried about you, because:

a. You’re making a great case for why mentally unstable individuals should not be allowed to have guns . . . or be employed by as police . . . or be allowed to be chief of police . . . or be allowed to have a computer . . . or be allowed to have an Internet connection . . . or be allowed to have access to YouTube and a camera.

b. You get to be the poster boy for your side of the gun control argument now.

Congratulations! Because, you know, there’s nothing I’m more afraid of than a terrifyingly-angry man with a camera, a command of the word “fuck”, and a lot of guns.

Oh wait. Actually . . .

There’s one thing I’m more afraid of. If I’m honest with myself, this is what I consider to be a real fucking nightmare scenario for supporters of gun control: a person who argues against gun control with a reasonable presentation of his position, statistical evidence supporting his claim, and convincing rhetorical skill outlining his argument. Thinking about that guy? That’s the shit that keeps me up at night.

Fortunately for me, Kessler’s videos have gained hundreds of thousands of views, which means that the poor guys who are out there making reasonable arguments on his behalf are getting ignored.

Well done, sir. Well done.

Evangelical Personality Analysis

One of the tenets of Evangelicalism is handing people things. At least, that’s what I’ve been able to determine based on the number of things I’ve been handed over the years, many of them by Evangelicals. I don’t really mind this, except for a brief feeling of regret for the trees that died and whose deaths served no purpose. If you’re wondering, yes, I also think of the trees as I recycle the truly horrendous amount of junk mail I seem to get.

This particular Evangelical tract is a bit of folded cardstock made to look like a wallet. The inside flap has several juicy pretend offerings: a few $50 bills poke out of the top and we’ve also got some pretend guy’s three credit cards, driver’s license, social security and a few other cards I don’t recognize. If this was a real wallet and I was a bad person, I could go on quite the shopping spree, I imagine.

Insider the pretend wallet is a series of questions under the heading of “Personality Analysis.” I imagine the point is to make you consider your own personal level of avarice as you contemplate what you would do if this was a real wallet. Interestingly, there is no provided answer key or assessment for what your choices mean; it’s up to you to interpret them. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Here are the questions, along with my own personal interpretation of the answers:

1. If this was a real wallet, packed with real money, would you:
a. Keep it?
b. Take it to the police?
c. Give some of the money to the poor?

This question is interesting as it’s not quite obvious which answer the author of the tract considers to be the “right” one that a “good” person would choose. My answer is B, of course; the wallet is not my property and “finders-keepers” is not a moral justification. Nor is helping myself to a “finder’s fee.” If the owner is grateful enough to give me some money for my trouble, that is his or her choice. My moral obligation is to do my best to return this to the owner.

But what about poor people? The Bible is full of stories about giving money to poor people and how that’s a good thing to do. Perhaps by giving this person’s money to the poor, I’m doing the wallet’s owner a favor; he or she would likely spend this money on sinful things like alcohol and prostitutes. Clearly, if I was a good Evangelical, I should strongly consider C. But I’m not, so I won’t. The wallet goes to the police.

2. You have been underpaid for years. There’s a BIG mistake in your paycheck to your advantage, would you:
a. Tell the boss?
b. Keep quiet?
c. Give some to a church?

Again with the money questions! Unfortunately, this question is so far removed from real context that it is entirely meaningless. Have I literally been underpaid, as in my employer has been shorting me for years? If so, why haven’t I contacted Human Resources or Accounting if I work in some big organization, or quit and found another job if it’s my boss who is shorting me? Or reported him for criminal behavior, since it’s illegal to pay your employees less than they lawfully earn? How do I know the increase in pay is a mistake and not compensation for previous underpayment? In my case, I’d go with B, having come to the reasonable conclusion based on the premises that this is money I earned through my work.

I think if I was in good with God, or wanted to get in good with God, I would be obligated to go with C. I’m not sure what that actually does, though. It is an action that has no actual bearing on my moral choice to keep or return the money. How I choose to spend the money that comes into my possession doesn’t represent a mitigating factor i. e. it’s not as though keeping the extra money is immoral if I use it to buy food, but totally okay if I use give it to a church.

3. If telling a white lie would save a friend’s job, would you:
a. Tell the truth?
b. Act dumb?
C. Lie?

I’m going to assume by the reference to a “white lie” means that my friend hasn’t done something criminally negligent, such as caused a catastrophic meltdown and endangered the lives of other people. I’ll assume it’s something small, like maybe took an extra ten minutes on his lunch break or something even though the department has strict rules against this sort of behavior. Maybe he did something small, but it will earn him a third strike on his record.

My morality is such that loyalty to my friends and family is more important to me than simplistic admonishments such as “lying is always wrong!” The fact is, I’m going to do what I can to look out for the people around me. This, to me, is part of being a good person and a good friend. The only kind of person who would “tattle” is this case is a sanctimonious dick and not somebody I would want to be friends with.

Everybody needs a job. Everybody has bills to pay and many people have others depending on them to make a living. If my idiotically blind dedication to Truth caused my friend to lose his job which led to him being unable to provide for his family, how can that result possibly justify my actions? Hooray, I get to feel good about myself while another person now has to suffer and struggle.

But God would know! That’s the Evangelical response. God will know that I lied. By lying, I’m risking my own soul. I could go to Hell! All I can say to this is that if Heaven is filled with the people who chose Option A, Heaven is not the afterlife for me. It is not going to be filled with the sort of people I want to associate with: the sort of people who will sell out their friends for promise of a reward.

That’s what Heaven is. It’s not an indication of a true understanding of moral behavior. All that Heaven and Hell represent are extensions of the reward/punishment consideration. This is how children understand morality. You’re throwing your friend under the bus for a cosmic pat on the head and a cookie.

4. Do you consider yourself to be a “good” person?
a. Yes.
b. No.

Pretty straightforward. Yes, yes I do consider myself to be a good person. I use rationality to attempt to arrive at a moral understanding, which I then try to live my life by. I don’t always succeed, but I never stop trying to live up to my ideals.

I think that it is narrow-minded and insulting to suggest that I cannot understand morality without resorting to a higher power. Either moral actions are correct through their innate essence, which means it doesn’t matter how God feels about morality, or moral actions are only such because God said so, and thus morality is nothing more than a cosmic game of “might makes right” and is thus meaningless. Plato articulated this in 399 B.C.E. It’s amazing we’re still arguing about it.

5. Have you ever told a lie for any reason (including fibs and white lies — be honest)?
a. Yes.
b. No.

I love the little admonishment here to be honest on a question about lying. It’s just so mind-boggling silly that you have to reflect on it for a while. Why is it even here? Is there a person out there that is so self-deluded he was able to lie to himself about his lying until he was reminded to not lie? Seriously?

This is another one of those questions that’s silly, both because it implies that a person who lies ever for any reason is an evil person and because lying is part of human nature. Obviously, we should do our best not to lie . . . unless you have a really damn good reason. What are some good times to lie? Here is a brief field guide to appropriate lying:

  • When a Nazi storm trooper is asking you if you are hiding any Jewish refugees in your cellar (and you are), it is okay to lie.
  • If your friend is going to suffer unless you tell a white lie, it is okay to lie.

Basically, if telling the truth produces a worse result for another person, it is permissible to lie to help that person. Lying for your own personal gain is excluded from this permission.

6. Have you ever stolen something — irrespective of its value (listen to your conscience)?

Again, we have a warning against lying on this analysis, which is really cute. This question is interesting, because clearly, stealing is wrong . . . but what if you stole food for a starving child? What if you were starving? Would theft be wrong in that case? As I’ve never been reduced to such extreme measures, I’ve never felt the need to steal. This one is simple enough.

But wait! What about music? Have I stolen music? Well, that depends, too; what if there was a piece of music that I wanted to have and tried to pay for, only to find that it was not available through any legal means? What if I tried to pay for this music and found no way to get money to the creator, who had elected to not make this music commercially available? Am I justified in downloading it then without paying for it? Is that stealing?

7. Would you consider a person who admits that they are a liar and a thief, to be a “good” person?

Well, I’d expect an actual liar and thief to be dishonest about her lying and thieving, which seems to me a reason to never trust anybody who doesn’t admit to being a thief and a liar. Think about that for a moment.

8. Who do you think will enter Heaven?
a. Those who say they are good when they are not?
b. Liars and thieves?
c. Those who God has forgiven and cleansed of sin?

Oh, come on, now you’re not even trying to introduce some ambiguity. Unless these are the honest liars and thieves from the previous question we’re talking about here? The analysis does some heavily weight against lying in particular; perhaps a person who is honest about their lies will find that their honesty cancels out the lying? Maybe? No?

What if our liar lied to safeguard a family of runaway slaves as part of the Underground Railroad? Does she get to go to Heaven?

What if our thief stole critical information from a terrorist cell and used that information to prevent the deaths of hundreds? Does that outweigh the fact that he stole it?

There really are no other jokes to make about this question. It’s painfully obvious that I’m supposed to get here and think, oh, shits, I might be the kind of person that says that I’m a good person when I’m not. Uh oh.

Regardless of the obvious answer I’m supposed to pick, I think I’ve made a good case that B could be chosen in good conscience, with the caveat that these liars and thieves had good reasons for what they did.

But aren’t you just equivocating? Aren’t you just trying to muddy the waters with your words? The difference between good and evil is simple!

Except . . . it’s really not. If there’s one thing that is universal about morality, it is that it is not simple. Everything requires context. There are shades of grey. The real world is not so basic that it can be distilled down to a handful of quotes written in a book. Life is more complicated than that.

9. Do you realize that the Bible warns that thieves, liars, fornicators (those who have had sex out of marriage, idolaters (those who create a god to suit themselves), adulterers, and the covetous (the greedy) will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

No multiple choice for this one; either you realized the Bible said this or you did not. I think it’s funny that so many of these horrible descriptors have to do with sex; because it is, after all, humanity’s fault for having been created in such a state that sex feels really, really good and we feel a biological compunction to seek out sex. It certainly isn’t the fault of the creator who made us this way, even though a reasonable designer who didn’t want us having sex would have just written the sex drive out of the blueprint.

After all, you don’t blame the engineer who designs an engine that explodes every time you activate it, right? It’s not his fault. It’s your fault for turning the engine on. Clearly.

10. Did you also realize that the Bible says “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery for her in his heart?” On Judgement Day, God will bring to light, every secret thing, whether good or evil. When you stand before . . . wait, a minute, you’re not asking a question any more, now you’re just using this as a chance to preach! (Seriously, it goes on for the final fourth of the card in this sermon mode and then just ends without giving us any kind of interpretation of our results).

Again, no multiple choice for this one: you either realized this is what the Bible says or you didn’t. Interestingly, only he can commit adultery in his heart. The Bible makes no reference to what happens to her if she looks at him with lust for him. I guess that means God is okay with ladies getting lusty, if you know what I’m saying. Guys, sucks to be us, I guess.

Seriously, it’s illegal to even think lusty thoughts? Do you know how fucking hard it is to not think about something, especially after somebody tells you, hey, don’t think about that?

DON’T THINK ABOUT ELEPHANTS

DON’T THINK ABOUT ELEPHANTS

DON’T THINK ABOUT ELEPHANTS

Hey, what are you thinking about? Is it elephants?

How about now?

Sucks to be you, I guess. You failed and thought about elephants. Off to Hell with you!

Seriously, it seems to me that if you want people to not think about something, you shouldn’t arrange things so that trying not to think about something is literally impossible.

That concludes our Evangelical Personality Analysis. My interpretation of the results is that I would make a very bad Evangelical.

Also, I’m probably going to Hell. Alas.

The Irony Singularity

You’re familiar with the singularity, right? Basically, a point of mass so compact and so massive that it creates a black hole from which not even light can escape. There are other uses for the word singularity, such as the potential technological singularity, but I think the gravitational singularity is perhaps the most well known.

I would like to propose the creation of a new type of singularity: the irony singularity. They are caused when a statement is so ironic that nothing else could ever achieve a greater level of irony; we might say that this statement is infinitely ironic.

Now, research on the existence of irony singularities is still very much in its early stages, seeing as how I only postulated their existence a few minutes ago. Nevertheless, I believe we have a viable candidate that may prove the existence of irony singularities. Further research needs to be done, but take a look at this:

 GOP strategists are trying very hard to remind potential voters in the 2016 presidential election that Hillary Clinton (who hasn’t even decided whether to run yet) will be old when she hypothetically assumes office. Like, really old.

The article goes on to note that Ronald Reagan was a year older when he assumed office than Hillary would be in 2016, John McCain was three years older (although this was something we did criticize him about, to be fair), and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole was four years older when he ran. So, you know; just throwing that out there for your consideration.

So, let’s parse this out: the Republican party, which is the party of old white men,  is trying to point out that a candidate is too old. The Republican party, the conservative party, wants you to know that “voting for Hillary Clinton would be like going back in time,” even though the very definition of conservatism is the promotion of traditional ideas in opposition to progressivism.

If the irony were any more massive, it would already have its own gravitational field. Maybe it does. Further research is required.

I can’t think of a better example that shows how off-kilter conservatism is in this country when they feel it’s politically sound to paint their opponent (notably an opponent who hasn’t even announced an intention to run) as having the same problems and weakness that they themselves have. “Don’t vote for her,” they are saying, “she’s old, just like us and we all know you hate us. So . . . vote for us instead?”

Okay. It all makes perfect sense to me now.
Source: Elf Only Inn

 

Of all the strategies to use to try and turn voters away from a potential candidate, why go with this one? Did you think we wouldn’t notice the median age of your own candidates? Seriously?

The frustrating part is, if you’ll allow me to be serious for a moment, I think it’s really unfortunate that conservatism has run into a reef and is sinking quickly. A revitalized Republican party that catered to a larger demographic than Tea Partiers, old white men, and the religious right might actually have a few good ideas. As it stands right now, though, whatever good ideas their members do have are lost in a sea of noise and reactionary bullshit. I’d like it if that changed, but I don’t think it will. At least, I don’t think it will in time for 2016.

Dragons In Your Creation Museum? It’s More Likely Than You Think

Well, this clinches it. I thought it couldn’t be done, but it seems that those wily folks over at the Creation Museum have managed to create an exhibit that has convinced me of the inherent superiority of creationism over science. They are going to have a display that will prove what I’ve always longed to believe: dragons are real.

Dragons might also be dinosaurs.

Furthermore, according to an image in the link, it’s more likely that the inverse is true: some dinosaurs are actually dragons.

You can’t argue with this approach. If believing in creationism means that dragons get to be real, then I will absolutely join this movement. I mean, let’s face it; what has science done for us, aside from proving that dragons aren’t real. That sucks. I want dragons to be real. Therefore, I shall believe the museum that says they are and deny the museums that says they are not. Ergo, dragons are real.

I have a minor in philosophy. You can tell because my thinking here is both cogent and sound, with absolutely no flaws.

Of course, the caveat is that dragons have to not only be real, but they also have to be telepathic, friendly, and prone to bonding for life with loyal human riders and then have this kinky, midair sex that also drives their riders to have sex. There’s a lot of sex when it comes to dragons, I guess. I don’t know. I started reading those books when I was ten. It might explain a few of my quirks.

However! If the previous paragraph isn’t proven true by the Creation Museum’s display, I shall recant my support of them and renew my assertion of their tacit villainy.

This tacit villainy is also naked. And likes to have sex in midair.

Don’t judge me.