Abbr. Enth.

Well, I’ve given more than enough criticism of religion recently, and I doubt I’m the only one who thinks the subject is getting stale. Unfortunately, other than Art Majors, there aren’t very many demographics I have much beef with, and my psychologist has “encouraged” me to let the whole Art Major thing go [grumble grumble]. Maybe I’ll make a happy post. Maybe I’ll create some top seven list, pseudo-trash talk a small group who isn’t represented in my readership and pretend I’m pissing people off, or spill the contents of my brain in a paragraph-less and question mark-less wall of text (just kidding, I love you all). Or perhaps…just maybe…I can create a post that is happy, humorous, and deep.

Then again, maybe not. How about we pick on feminists this time? Ooooh, that sounds like loads of fun!

Now I am, and always have been, of the (somewhat diminishing) belief that you can appreciate racist and sexist jokes without being racist and/or sexist. The kind of jokes that rely solely on shock factor can keep me giggling for hours, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with them. I know I’ve made a couple of off-color jokes on this website, but that’s all they are. Jokes. Laugh, leave, or be impartial (go impartiality, wooooooooo!).

Now that being said, I’ll completely agree that the world has its share of scum who either believe that oppressing women is morally acceptable or think that it’s just plain ol’ fun. I promised myself I wouldn’t get into religion in this post, so I’ll skip the people who think it’s morally acceptable. That leaves the group who think it’s more fun than a barrel of misogynistic rapist monkeys, and I’m sure we can all agree that they’re just plain douche bags. The people, not the monkeys. The monkeys are just misunderstood.

On the other end of the scale, here’s some shocking news. I am not a rapist. I have a penis, and yet I am not a rapist. HOLY CRAP! Confoundlement ensues in feminazi camps across the world! Nobody wants to hear your story about the cab ride you took that one night where you were terrified that the driver would rape and murder you because in your head just the physical ability to do so is all the rationality men need for anything. As it turns out, we are completely capable of coexisting in an equal environment without being accused of being rapists just because we’re men. Besides, she was totally asking for it. It’s science.

Another thing I get sick of hearing about is how women don’t get paid the same as men. Well last I checked I can’t go into any bar in America and offer to take my top of for 20 bucks, but you don’t see me begging for equal rights do you? Besides, I don’t know how the statistics are elsewhere, but there was like a 10:1 ratio of guys to girls in science and engineering majors at UNH. I know there’s a social stigma lurking about that says women should do more feminine things with their lives (which is complete crap), but to blame men because you went to hair dressing school and you’re not making as much as someone with an engineering degree isn’t the best way to go about breaking that social norm. You know what is? DO SCIENCE! Seriously, how many feminists do we know of who have science majors? Not very many, because between sciencing, cooking me dinner, and cleaning my house they’d be way too busy to whine about this crap.

A government study also listed these reasons for why women don’t make as much as men, and unlike the aforementioned reason these are not pulled straight from my ass:

• Women have fewer years of work experience
• Women work fewer hours per year
• Women are less likely to work a full-time schedule
• Women leave the labor force for longer periods of time

So there we have it. Blaming sexism and bigotry for all your problems will only get you so far, and in this situation will do nothing to solve your problems. Even if sexism is completely removed from the planet pay will still be determined by other factors, as listed above.

I fully believe that sexism, racism, and sexual-orientation…ism are things that we are fully capable of socially evolving out of. I do believe that there will always be stereotypes associated with any group, but hopefully they won’t be used as anything more than an organizational tool for our brains based on our own experiences. But that’s a topic for another day.

Are we living in the end times? This question may seem like complete gibberish to you, but let me delve into it a bit more. The concept of the “end times” usually refers to the prophetic end of the world, the second coming of Jesus, and a seven year span of death and destruction. Many Christians are eagerly awaiting this, and fully expect to see it happen in their life times. Why, you ask? Well I’m glad you did. Allow me to present the case of those who believe they are “Rapture Ready”.

The Claim:
Jesus claims that he is coming again! The gospels of Matthew and Luke talk of great terror and war heralding the the triumphant return of Jesus in the clouds, concluding with Jesus saying of these events:

“Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place.”
Matthew 24:34

Well that generation passed away a long time ago, but people are still waiting. Apparently the claim itself doesn’t hold much water, but let’s keep looking anyway.

The Event:
Recently popularized by the release of the best-selling Left Behind book series, the idea of The Rapture has picked up a lot of momentum in church circles. It’s not hard to find information about what the Bible says about these events, but I’ll highlight some of the key points so you don’t have to do any outside work:

1. BAM! Loud trumpet sounds and Christians around the world are teleported to the clouds and start a big dance party with Jesus.
   

   “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words”
   1 Thes 4:16-18

   It’ll look something like this:
   

2. The Seven Seals are opened (I’m not sure if they’re the kissed-by-a-rose kind or the balance-a-ball-on-my-nose kind). The opening of the first four seals are accompanied by horses of the apocalypse, representing conquest, division, famine, and death. The fifth seal speaks of the martyrs and future martyrs. The sixth seal gets pretty interesting and, well…physically unsound, if you will.
   

   “I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake.
   The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood.
   The stars of the sky fell to the earth,
   like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind.
   The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up.
   Every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
   The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.
   They told the mountains and the rocks,
   ‘Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne,
   and from the wrath of the Lamb,
   for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?’”
   Revelations 6:12-17

   Phew, quite a bit of chaos there, eh? Stars falling down to Earth? The sky being removed? I sure don’t want to be around for that! Not that it would matter, because the whole solar system would be ripped apart by the gravity of the hundreds of billions of stars from each of the hundreds of billions of galaxies all heading for little ol’ Earth. Maybe they’ll burn up in the atmosphere, before we lose the sky and all our air floats away.

3. Seal number seven is a big one, it is broken up into seven parts (noticing a theme yet?), each part sounded off by a trumpet. In these seven trumpets a third of the Earth is burned up, a third of the sea is turned to blood, some meteors fall from the sky turning a third of the fresh water all icky tasting, a third of the sun, moon, and stars (which already fell on our heads mind you) are blotted out, some locusts kill people, some angels kill a third of mankind, and loud voices are heard from heaven.

There’s also a bunch of stuff about the antichrist, the mark of the beast, seven (more) plagues, and all that fun stuff, but I think you get my point that it’s gonna suck. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a fear tactic to get people to convert to Christianity though, that would be…logical.

The Evidence:
Ok, now we’re on to the silly stuff. While the Bible seems to be saying was already supposed to have happened almost 2000 years ago, people are still waiting. Even more profound than that are the things people come up with to justify their belief that the end times are happening right now (or soon).

I was on my way to work today, and I drove by a pasture full of cows. One of the cows was looking up in the sky, like she heard or saw something. I automatically looked up…thinking…this might be the day that Jesus comes.

Harry Potter books are even showing up in your supermarket, the drugstore anywhere a few dollars can be made. The occult is becoming the accepted norm these days. Another sign of the last days? I think so.

[Regarding the suspicion that Obama is Muslim]Maybe if we get a muslim president the Lord Jesus will call his Christian children home and we’ll be out of this sinful world.

That’s right folks. Cows, Harry Potter, and Barack Obama. Together they have the power to bring about the Jesus Disco Party. You know what I think is a sign of the end times? This:

I had an epiphany today and I’ve gotta say it felt good. Words are tricky. Seriously, listen to Brian Regan and you’ll know what I mean. This wasn’t my entire epiphany, but I’m leading up to a point, so bear with me.

In my senior year of college I took a course called Computational Linguistics. The class was basically about how to get computers to interpret language algorithmically. In the roughly 40% of the classes I went to (hey, it was at 8:00AM, did you expect me to go?) I fell in love with the English language. Not in spite if its flaws, but because of its flaws. Sentences can be incredibly ambiguous in English, and although it is usually very easy to figure out what people are saying by inflection, tone, etc., these elements aren’t present in written sentences. I find great joy in taking what somebody says and pretending they meant a very different interpretation of the same sentence, then watching the ensuing befuddlement. It’s a hobby, and probably a contributing factor to why I have no friends.

One would think that our language would evolve out of these sort of things, but from my (admittedly limited) perspective it seems that just the opposite is happening. It’s almost shocking to me how few people know when to use the correct there/their/they’re, then/than, etc. On English papers you will expect to see these things corrected, but on the internet, which is becoming a huge social outlet, you actually get berated and deemed a ‘Grammar Nazi’ for bringing these things up. We all know English is evolving like any other languages (pick up a copy of Seamus Heaney’s version of Beowolf some time, he has the olde English and the modern translation side-by-side), but I would expect it to be evolving to be MORE specific, not less.

This brings me back to my epiphany. In a lot of debates over Creationism vs. Evolution you can observe a fundamental lack of understanding of Evolution which makes it easy to see why people wouldn’t want to believe in it. First off, let’s take the idea of the Theory of Evolution. In regular English the word theory is thrown around as being synonymous to guess, which has a very different meaning than is used in science (as anyone who has read my former posts already knows). Now we can easily shoot down someone as ignorant for not knowing the difference, but whose fault is it? If scientists wanted a word to describe a hypothesis supported by multiple tests and facts, then they should have picked a better word. This way creationists automatically lose the argument that evolution is “just a theory”.

Or how about the whole idea of Creation vs. Evolution. Now this is not ambiguous, but it implies more than it seems at first. Let’s look at the two ideas:

Creation (as depicted by the Abrahamic religions):
1) God created light.
2) God created the sky.
3) God created the ground, seas, and vegetation.
4) God created the sun, moon, and stars.
5) God created the water animals.
6) God created the land animals (including man).

Evolution:
1) The diversity of species is a result of natural selection and descent with modification over time, with all species sharing a common ancestor.

When you look at it that way it hardly seems like a match-up does it? When we say Creation vs. Evolution it’s implying that evolution covers all the topics of creation and has opposing explanations for all of the elements thereof. You can see how this is fundamentally flawed, and why Evolution is often laughed at by fundamental creationists. Evolution doesn’t explain where the universe came from or how life started, and we know it doesn’t make any claims either way, but when we compare the two in that context we’re implying that it should.

So what do we do about it? We boycott! It’s never a bad time for a good boycott as far as I’m concerned. We know that social trends can change our language, just grab a recent copy of Webster’s Dictionary and you’ll find the words bootylicious and gaydar. By this law of the universe, I propose we end the confusion once and for all, and henceforth refer to scientific theories as Smarken (plural and singular). Think about it! The Smarken of Gravity, the Germ Smarken of Disease, Einstein’s General Smarken of Relativity, and String Smarken.

Unite behind me Obscurians, and together we can re-shape the English language, one Smarken at a time!

As we all know, the internet is a series of tubes. We know this because Senator Ted Stevens said so in his June 2006 speech about net neutrality. And I quote:

Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

[...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

I’ll give him a bit of a break because he’s old, and old people are afraid of computers and all, but you’d think that if you’re going to give a speech on net neutrality to criticize a bill you’d at least know something about the internet. Now as nice of a lead-in as this would be for a post pointing out all the stupidity on our government, I’d rather pretend it was a good lead in for stupidity on the internet (just go along with me here, ok?).

Spend any amount of time on the internet and you’ll inevitably run into something that just brings your palm shooting up to your forehead in a slap of disbelief and shame. Sure there’s a ton of good information out there, but it seems like the people who really want to share their information are the ones who have nothing to say (see here). The sheer stupidity and ignorance of what you’ll find, accented with rudeness, foul language, and hate, is astounding. Go to any video on YouTube and start reading the comments. People who have nothing to say at all will still be spewing racist, ignorant, sexist, stupid crap. The same can be said for the online gaming community. While I don’t own any of the console systems that allow online play and headsets, I’ve heard some horror stories of what people will say over them.

So what makes perfectly normal people turn into complete idiots? I present you with John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory:

That’s right. Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad. So the real question is why? Why the stupidity and ignorance? Why the blatant disregard for anyone else? Was Freud right? Are we all really just that selfish inside, and it’s just becoming so obvious now that we have this tool of opinions with anonymity? Well I think that’s part of it, but I also think we can blame the e-peen.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of an e-peen, allow me to direct you to the definition from UrbanDictionary (edited for spelling):

Internet slang for ego, pride, or attitude in the virtual world. Long standing net definition for the age old “bigger penis” argument.

and also:

Unlike rl-peens (i.e. a real life penis), e-peens are ‘flexed’, brandished, whipped around, (or otherwise used) with unfailing regularity.

Another difference between e-peens and rl-peens are that e-peens can shrink and grow exorbitantly, i.e. more than a regular penis would with an erection.

Well under that definition it starts becoming clearer. I mean…who doesn’t want something they can be “flexed, brandished, whipped around [...] with unfailing regularity”? I can feel myself breaking down already, it’s just so…desirable.

So does the e-peen apply to women? Of course not, it only applies to men because there are no girls on the internet. It’s not sexist, it’s science.

This actually leads to one more reason the internet is so full of stupid. Things like YouTube comments and internet forums get in the way of porn. When guys are out looking through the series of tubes, hoping to find some good midget-on-midget action, and suddenly they find themselves in the midst of a heated debate about who’s prettier, Flava Flav or Carrot Top, you’re bound to have some testosterone filled, e-peen inflating comments about how it’s obviously Sylvester Stallone.

So what do we do about it? Well I’d hate to sit back and just let it happen, but to get involved will just fuel the fires of fuckwadity. Instead, I vote we just sit back and laugh, and possibly make up new ways to brandish one’s e-peen.

Well, since last week’s post generated a little heat, I decided I should take a step back and try to look things over from a different angle. Travis seems to be worried about my descent into lunacy (more likely solipsism, but whatever), so I decided to make this a more humbling post. “Maybe this time,” I thought to myself, “I’ll focus on my intellectual inadequacies. I’ll make an entire post about stupid things I’ve done. That will restore my readers’ faith by showing the more humble side of myself.”

A few seconds later I realized just how bored you’d be with an empty post, so I decided to talk more about people who are dumber than me. It sure is a good thing I have your best interest in mind, or this post would already be over, and you’d be sulking in front of your computer wondering what to do with the rest of your worthless day. But behold, thy savior hath shown mercy and blessed thee with another aneurysm-inducing post. Lucky you.

I did, however, feel like I should extend an apology to anyone who may have been offended by my last post, so I wrote one up for those of you who were. It took a lot of effort for me to get that out, so I hope it really speaks to you.

Seriously though, the arrogance act is kinda my thing. It’s my own flavor of comedy. I don’t expect everyone to think it’s as funny as I do, but I was a bit surprised at how literal some people took me, especially the people who have known me for so long. This is the same act I’ve been doing since high school. While there may be piles and piles of evidence saying that I really am better than you, I don’t really believe it (see what I did there?). Like it or hate it, it’s up to you, just remember it’s all in jest before you get too pissed off.

Anyway, the points brought up by Travis and Will last week did make me step back and re-think my position. My initial assumption was that people are losing their ability to think for themselves. This assumption was based on the directly observed stupidity level of people and my denial that it could have ever been worse than this. Hence, we must have either plateaued or have a degenerating level of critical thinking. Denial isn’t very scientifically sound though, so I’ll retract my statement. Also, stupidity is far more prevalent when you’re searching for it so you have something to write this weeks post about. Either way, I’ll concede my point and offer a modified version. While humanity as a whole is not necessarily declining in their ability to use reason and logic, there are still far too many uneducated people out there pushing an agenda that they themselves don’t have a full understanding of; too many people dogmatically following something they know little about.

Just look at some of the political rallies going on in colleges around the US. At UNH we had a huge group of people in support of Barack Obama; there were huge turn outs at the speeches, people putting up posters and banners, and doing all the Clinton bashing you could think of. However, when I tried to ask a few of these people what made Obama stand out against Clinton, very few people actually knew enough about him to tell me. I’m really all for people getting into politics, but a democratic process doesn’t work if people are casting their vote based purely on whatever bandwagon happened to roll by first. People just really want to get behind something, whether it’s religion, conspiracy theory, politics, feminism, or art-majoring, even without taking the time to look at these things from all angles.

Getting back to my original point, Clay Shirky presented an argument similar to mine, and he backs it up with some really solid reasoning. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of a presentation he gave at a Web 2.0 conference last week, entitled Gin, Television, and Social Surplus:

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing– there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.

And it wasn’t until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders–a lot of things we like–didn’t happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.

It wasn’t until people started thinking of this as a vast civic surplus, one they could design for rather than just dissipate, that we started to get what we think of now as an industrial society.

If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels would’ve come off the whole enterprise, I’d say it was the sitcom.

Shirky goes on to talk about how after World War II when more women were joining the workforce and more people were working what we now consider normal work days, there was a huge amount of extra time on everyone’s hands. In the years since we as a society have put a vast majority of this time into sitcoms. He goes on to say that this is creating a huge social surplus; that our brains are desiring social stimulation which we cannot get from the television, so a lot of the human potential is just being wasted. Shirky argues that social projects on the web, such as Wikipedia, are the answer to this social surplus. Getting on the internet and being able to contribute to something is stimulating our minds by giving us a social outlet to channel all of the potential that was being wasting away in front of the television.

I’m not doing his speech much justice, but if you have the time to read the whole thing I really encourage it. It will give you a far better understanding of the stupidity that I so thoroughly believe in, only it has the optimistic twist that things are going to be getting better soon, instead of worse. If you’re not the reading type but you’ve somehow managed to get this far, there’s also a video of his presentation at the conference.

While I do enjoy poking stupid (and fat) people with sticks, my plan here was more to provide a socially stimulating place for us to look at these type of things and offer some sort of thought-out discussion on the subject. I was very pleased with the responses that the last post received, but that doesn’t mean we have to take things so seriously. Besides, as HP so eloquently pointed out, smart ppl r ugly. And at the end of the day, who wants to be an uggo? Eew!