It's all about selling you stuff
0 Comments Published by Icon on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 2:26 PM.
How to sell science
Advances in robotics could one day bring about actual cyborgs. Horny cyborgs. Cyborgs with terabyte hard-drives full porn and screens in their eyes so you don't have to crick your neck looking at the TV while you have sex with them!
Basically, you can sell anything in life by showing it's potential to offer sexual pleasure, especially to a nation full of highly repressed people. I can see a world where giant corporations enforce repression just so they have this little access port into their psyches, a means by which they can manipulate them.
The fact is that every phenomenon in popular culture has a monetary motive, from religion to racism, to the plot-lines of your favorite TV shows, somebody somewhere is making money if you do the right thing, so somebody somewhere is always trying to get you to make a decision.
Everything that makes up you, your tastes, what makes you horny, the clothes you have on, whatever it is you plan to do when you shut down the computer you are reading this on, all of that was sold to you. You can't stop consuming because that's all you are, a consumer, a purchaser of products, the fuel to be burned up in the economy.
Advances in robotics could one day bring about actual cyborgs. Horny cyborgs. Cyborgs with terabyte hard-drives full porn and screens in their eyes so you don't have to crick your neck looking at the TV while you have sex with them!
Basically, you can sell anything in life by showing it's potential to offer sexual pleasure, especially to a nation full of highly repressed people. I can see a world where giant corporations enforce repression just so they have this little access port into their psyches, a means by which they can manipulate them.
The fact is that every phenomenon in popular culture has a monetary motive, from religion to racism, to the plot-lines of your favorite TV shows, somebody somewhere is making money if you do the right thing, so somebody somewhere is always trying to get you to make a decision.
Everything that makes up you, your tastes, what makes you horny, the clothes you have on, whatever it is you plan to do when you shut down the computer you are reading this on, all of that was sold to you. You can't stop consuming because that's all you are, a consumer, a purchaser of products, the fuel to be burned up in the economy.
All unsophisticated people everywhere like to think that they are better than other think they are. This goes for rednecks who imagine themselves to the hardworking stalwarts of the American nation, and 3rd World natives who think that their culture is unique and striking. Rednecks are pretty much just drunken bully-boys who will remain at age 14 for the rest of their lives, and the 3rd World is sewer so they can keep all their pretty colors and tribal art.
Everybody thinks they are hot shit and under-appreciated. The truth is that nobody is, and when you are a hick, you are just a hick. Your culture is as brutal and stupid as you are. Don't put too much faith in what you see on TV. Life is a little bit more complex than that.
You won't ever be underestimated by anybody all that important, so you won't get to embarrass them with your country-boy smarts. You won't ever get to meet that hot blond from the big city, so you won't to use that Toby Keith smile you've been working on in the mirror. You also won't ever get to show how much tougher you are than city-folk since none of them visit your shit-hole town looking for fights, when they do come, they come because they are lost.
The fact is that small time is pretty much always small time, forever. Sorry.
Everybody thinks they are hot shit and under-appreciated. The truth is that nobody is, and when you are a hick, you are just a hick. Your culture is as brutal and stupid as you are. Don't put too much faith in what you see on TV. Life is a little bit more complex than that.
You won't ever be underestimated by anybody all that important, so you won't get to embarrass them with your country-boy smarts. You won't ever get to meet that hot blond from the big city, so you won't to use that Toby Keith smile you've been working on in the mirror. You also won't ever get to show how much tougher you are than city-folk since none of them visit your shit-hole town looking for fights, when they do come, they come because they are lost.
The fact is that small time is pretty much always small time, forever. Sorry.
Labels: People I know
How smart is your average voter, really?
1 Comments Published by Icon on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 4:28 PM.
If this really is a contest between America's morons and the elite and educated why is it a dead heat? Unless it's not really close and this appearance of a dead heat somehow suits the intellectuals (in which case American Idol fans beware, the nerds are are playing chess while you figure out how to work the remote). It may just be a contest between people who are dumb and people who just think they are smart. Maybe the really smart people have opted to go do something productive rather than spend a lot of time thinking about which is worse, the frying pan or the fire.
The fact is that whoever wins you are still going to have to live in this country with people you have come to despise. The racists will win, or the elitists, and either way they won't like you any more because you have stopped letting your dog piss on their yard-signs. The contempt people have for each other, of which political differences are a symptom, is a far more lasting and interesting issue than the passage of another election which, like a birthday, is only a sign that you are getting older and more dead.
Oh yes, this is about civics and the machinations of democracy and is thus important. It should be taken more seriously than whatever you would be doing otherwise. The problem is that you are not in control. You can influence your redneck granny to vote for one guy over the other, sure, but that's more about your little personal victory, your ability to pat yourself on the back for your powers of persuasion than it is about influencing an outcome. It's like being an environmentalist, it's just another futile and dimwittedly optimistic pursuit that is more about you killing time than it about creating something important.
The fact is that whoever wins you are still going to have to live in this country with people you have come to despise. The racists will win, or the elitists, and either way they won't like you any more because you have stopped letting your dog piss on their yard-signs. The contempt people have for each other, of which political differences are a symptom, is a far more lasting and interesting issue than the passage of another election which, like a birthday, is only a sign that you are getting older and more dead.
Oh yes, this is about civics and the machinations of democracy and is thus important. It should be taken more seriously than whatever you would be doing otherwise. The problem is that you are not in control. You can influence your redneck granny to vote for one guy over the other, sure, but that's more about your little personal victory, your ability to pat yourself on the back for your powers of persuasion than it is about influencing an outcome. It's like being an environmentalist, it's just another futile and dimwittedly optimistic pursuit that is more about you killing time than it about creating something important.
Labels: Politics
Hollywood has convinced you that a 90-minute piece of entertainment is somehow worth 6 months of anticipation. Seriously, even if it's the best movie ever on the planet is it really worth looking forward to a year prior to release? It's not like you are going to meet the girl of your dreams, or win a million bucks, you are going to pay some very rich people for the privilege of watching them recite some memorized words. Now, if you were one of those guys with a camera who was going to run home and make bootlegs then I could see why this would be important, but no, you are a good little law-abiding consumer who pay and then go home and tell everybody you know how fucking awesome it was. You are what Hollywood wants everybody to be, a mark and a shill rolled into one.
I thought Iron Man was a pretty good movie, I like Robert Downey Jr., I think Jeff Bridges was good, I liked the actions scenes. It was competently done, I chuckled, I believe I was even excited at one point. When I was over, I was still who I am, my life had not improved, and there I was with a piece of my life and my net worth gone. To a certain extent you can say this about any movie, but not every movie was hyped the way Iron Man was. If, on a whim, you go see a movie you know nothing about and are pleasantly surprised, then it wasn't about being manipulated, it was just you making a decision. They still benefit but you didn't waste time looking forward to something insignificant, also, maybe, you will be smart enough to not be one of those tools hyping somebody else's cash-cow.
I thought Iron Man was a pretty good movie, I like Robert Downey Jr., I think Jeff Bridges was good, I liked the actions scenes. It was competently done, I chuckled, I believe I was even excited at one point. When I was over, I was still who I am, my life had not improved, and there I was with a piece of my life and my net worth gone. To a certain extent you can say this about any movie, but not every movie was hyped the way Iron Man was. If, on a whim, you go see a movie you know nothing about and are pleasantly surprised, then it wasn't about being manipulated, it was just you making a decision. They still benefit but you didn't waste time looking forward to something insignificant, also, maybe, you will be smart enough to not be one of those tools hyping somebody else's cash-cow.
People are so suited to slavery, so easy to break, so easy to make submit. Fighters are rare, for the most part the herd has the mentality of submission rather than confrontation or defiance.
That's why everybody is so eager to find a "good leader". You all want to find the person who will tell you what to do in way that you (not your commander) will benefit, which is, in case you haven't noticed, seriously fucking stupid. If I have a bunch of ignorant, servile fucks at my command, everything they do will be for my benefit, not theirs.
You can make the argument that it stems from people having gotten soft, life having gotten too easy and too leisure-obsessed, but to an extent humanity has always had the tendency to follow instead of do. The essence of the exceptional man is to get the herd to move in a certain direction, to manipulate it to benefit himself. Nobody sees anything wrong with this, everybody is satisfied with their personal mediocrity, with never having done anything special.
So continue to take it, continue to let them tell you what you can or cannot put in your bodies, what you can share with your friends, what you can read, what you can watch, how to live, like the good little children you are. I am not here to tell you to grow up and take your own path, it obviously doesn't matter to you if you do or not. I am here to tell you to stop pretending that you have a spine. I hear rape victims suffer less injury if they just shut up and lay there.
That's why everybody is so eager to find a "good leader". You all want to find the person who will tell you what to do in way that you (not your commander) will benefit, which is, in case you haven't noticed, seriously fucking stupid. If I have a bunch of ignorant, servile fucks at my command, everything they do will be for my benefit, not theirs.
You can make the argument that it stems from people having gotten soft, life having gotten too easy and too leisure-obsessed, but to an extent humanity has always had the tendency to follow instead of do. The essence of the exceptional man is to get the herd to move in a certain direction, to manipulate it to benefit himself. Nobody sees anything wrong with this, everybody is satisfied with their personal mediocrity, with never having done anything special.
So continue to take it, continue to let them tell you what you can or cannot put in your bodies, what you can share with your friends, what you can read, what you can watch, how to live, like the good little children you are. I am not here to tell you to grow up and take your own path, it obviously doesn't matter to you if you do or not. I am here to tell you to stop pretending that you have a spine. I hear rape victims suffer less injury if they just shut up and lay there.
Labels: People, People I know, Social Issues
6 Better Ways to Pick a President
1 Comments Published by Icon on Saturday, September 20, 2008 at 9:43 AM.
Fuck Democracy, I say we find everybody who wants the job and then weed them with a set of entertaining contests.
The background checks would inevitably weed the field of nutjobs leaving us with a few possible candidates. Here is what we should do with them. At the very least we would be able to have some serious, genuine respect for the guy who emerged.
1. History test
Whatever failures or speech impediments a leader may have, every single one of them should be a history geek. In fact, I would say that a love and knowledge of history is, by far, the most important quality in a national leader, above what his personal life is like, above whether or not he likes apple pie and flag-pins, above race and any other thing that people use to decide who they are going to vote for. The quote about ignorant people being doomed to repeat history isn't bullshit. History is the study of human nature, how to circumvent it's self-destructive inclinations and how to predict it's course in a given situation. People are predictable, but only to those who have studied what they have done in the past.
2. Games of strategy
Poker, chess, the video-game of your choice, whatever it takes to assess how your candidates operates under pressure with no advisers there to help him. Speed chess would be perfect.
3. The ability to run an actual marathon
Meaning he was healthy, and able to deal with at least 4 years of stress.
4. Doing the NYT crossword puzzle
Meaning that he should be smarter than most people in this country. In fact the point should be that whoever is able to complete a randomly-chosen NYT puzzle in the shortest time is the most qualified.
5. Russian Roulette
The ultimate test for balls. Of all the things on this list this is the one people should be most ready to try. You want a guy who does not blink in the face of danger? Who is ready to die for his beliefs, This test settles that pretty quickly.
6. Penis size
It points to confidence and having nothing to prove, nothing to compensate for.
We can put the old guy against some new guys every 4 years just like the Olympics.
The background checks would inevitably weed the field of nutjobs leaving us with a few possible candidates. Here is what we should do with them. At the very least we would be able to have some serious, genuine respect for the guy who emerged.
1. History test
Whatever failures or speech impediments a leader may have, every single one of them should be a history geek. In fact, I would say that a love and knowledge of history is, by far, the most important quality in a national leader, above what his personal life is like, above whether or not he likes apple pie and flag-pins, above race and any other thing that people use to decide who they are going to vote for. The quote about ignorant people being doomed to repeat history isn't bullshit. History is the study of human nature, how to circumvent it's self-destructive inclinations and how to predict it's course in a given situation. People are predictable, but only to those who have studied what they have done in the past.
2. Games of strategy
Poker, chess, the video-game of your choice, whatever it takes to assess how your candidates operates under pressure with no advisers there to help him. Speed chess would be perfect.
3. The ability to run an actual marathon
Meaning he was healthy, and able to deal with at least 4 years of stress.
4. Doing the NYT crossword puzzle
Meaning that he should be smarter than most people in this country. In fact the point should be that whoever is able to complete a randomly-chosen NYT puzzle in the shortest time is the most qualified.
5. Russian Roulette
The ultimate test for balls. Of all the things on this list this is the one people should be most ready to try. You want a guy who does not blink in the face of danger? Who is ready to die for his beliefs, This test settles that pretty quickly.
6. Penis size
It points to confidence and having nothing to prove, nothing to compensate for.
We can put the old guy against some new guys every 4 years just like the Olympics.
Labels: Effectiveness, Politics
The Hunt
Country music concerts, NASCAR events, church, these are the places where they gather and let their guard down. They are well armed and may present a challenge but also likely to be inebriated and obese, making escape difficult and resistance difficult to coordinate. Once subdued by one means or another they can be shipped to processing facilities preparation. Facilities in the southeast built for processing pigs might be more easily adapted than those built for processing cattle.
The Preparation
They are notoriously fatty, so some of that can be removed and rendered for other uses, also tattoed skin may not be everybody's cup of tea so a portion of the rinds will have to be removed. The livers likewise may be inedible due their alcohol consumption and the hearts are likely to be fat-choked and calcified. The rest of the meat, though, should be fairly palatable.
Recipes
I have heard that fat ones have different bone structure to thin ones, which opens the possibility for dishes like ossobuco, otherwise, slow-smoking might be most appropriate.
Country music concerts, NASCAR events, church, these are the places where they gather and let their guard down. They are well armed and may present a challenge but also likely to be inebriated and obese, making escape difficult and resistance difficult to coordinate. Once subdued by one means or another they can be shipped to processing facilities preparation. Facilities in the southeast built for processing pigs might be more easily adapted than those built for processing cattle.
The Preparation
They are notoriously fatty, so some of that can be removed and rendered for other uses, also tattoed skin may not be everybody's cup of tea so a portion of the rinds will have to be removed. The livers likewise may be inedible due their alcohol consumption and the hearts are likely to be fat-choked and calcified. The rest of the meat, though, should be fairly palatable.
Recipes
I have heard that fat ones have different bone structure to thin ones, which opens the possibility for dishes like ossobuco, otherwise, slow-smoking might be most appropriate.
