Comments on: Ten Things I Want To Stop Seeing On The Internet In 2014

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 22:00:02 +0000

How much dogecoin would someone have to offer to tip you before you would accept?

By: lmm

lmm — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 23:38:19 +0000

Its community seem to put a much higher value on being nice than the bitcoin one or other altcoins. And it’s inflationary.

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By: Jonathan Graehl

Jonathan Graehl — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 04:03:00 +0000

Random doge-crap showed up on Facebook: http://dogeweather.com/

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By: Anomalocaris

Anomalocaris — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 23:38:41 +0000

So on to propogate the is meta humor funny debate too much more, and I get that no one thinks that it’s hugely annoying and terrible, but I’m not a fan of the idea that all meta humor is the same sort of obnoxious people trying to be clever. Since you mention Douglass Hofstadter, I’m going to say that the reason that it works for him is not that he’s inherently better at making jokes that reference themselves, it’s that he’s using it as a humorous way of making his point, but there’s a deeper meaning than “haha the joke referenced itself.” In fact, beyond that, I think he also does it because the idea of recursion and self-reference matter a lot to him and this is a way of celebrating it in humor, the same way that he celebrates it in the art of Escher and the music of Bach. And, hopefully, he’s not the only one. It’s my personal belief that the postmodernists ruined everything for people who actually cared about self-reference as a way of exploring the universe, by making everyone think that metaness is clever but not deep or actually interesting. This has both lead to a many people looking at it like a piece of contemporary art and saying “my 5 year old daughter could do that” and making the obnoxious cookie cutter sort of meta joke, but it’s also led to people lumping all meta humor in with the stock self referential jokes. I agree that there are a lot of obnoxious people out there, but it seems that people don’t distinguish between good and bad meta jokes, and I think that it’s problematic how quick people are to dismiss not only meta humor but meta anything. Also, I, and probably Douglass Hofstadter too, resent the “it is so algorithmic a computer could do it.”

That said, if it really is true that only Douglass Hofstadter can pull it off, then has Randall Munroe found a way around it? http://xkcd.com/917/

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By: John

John — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 23:54:21 +0000

Regarding dudebros, I suggest rewiring your brain so that whenever you hear “dudebro”, you think of this video and its sequels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjJzwl7W4vE
And any accusations that someone is a dudebro can be interpreted as referring to these guys and not taken seriously.

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By: Multiheaded

Multiheaded — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 07:48:53 +0000

the author fails to realize that the odds of any artist or piece of art making a political difference is incredibly low

Oh, I think the author understands this rather well; in the first part, they very nearly acknowledge it – but then, somehow, they continue to identify with their class and to envision a more hopeful future for it, even after outlining why, in the present situation, this class fails so miserably to live up to its creed. They seem to realize how hypocritical they sound, but keep it up anyway.

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By: Nancy Lebovitz

Nancy Lebovitz — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 07:02:03 +0000

I don’t come out of that article hating leftist intellectuals even more, but I find myself thinking that the author fails to realize that the odds of any artist or piece of art making a political difference is incredibly low.

This doesn’t mean everyone should stop trying, but it feels like it’s got an implication I can’t put a finger on.

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By: Multiheaded

Multiheaded — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:50:36 +0000

What, practically, do we mean by such rhetoric? That’s what we have to find out — or else we have produced one more sonorous elite hypocrisy.

You can’t make this shit up.

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By: Multiheaded

Multiheaded — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:49:05 +0000

An N+1 article that seems rather typical of the problem to me. First, the author very correctly describes why leftist intellectuals despise leftist intellectuals; then lapses into the kind of self-congratulation and delusional optimism that make the reader hate leftist intellectuals even more.

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By: Multiheaded

Multiheaded — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:44:25 +0000

Presumably, actual proletarians who turn to Marxism to make sense of their circumstances and not to score one against the competing elites would be exempt from the charge of hypocrisy. Or at least Marxism says so.

(Of course, there aren’t many such people left since 1968. Reactionaries say that it was a typical case of leftist intellectuals turning away from the common folk; I say it mostly happened because capitalism adapted to the circumstances and very successfully incorporated the parts of the “1968 ideologies” most attractive to the ordinary person – individualism, the focus on feelings and subjectivity, etc. Yes, we might dislike their excesses, but that doesn’t change the fact that this ideology is not just a dogma imposed by media and education; it appeals to common people on its own, and it’s fucking stupid to call it “liberal degeneracy”. So now left intellectuals have no easy way to frame their ideas without being trapped; reproducing the supposedly anti-capitalist parts of ’68 is now a part of capitalism, and renouncing ’68 altogether, which you appear to like, ignores the truth of people’s needs expressed in it. Even Zizek half-admits it, I think.)

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