There’s nothing more frustrating than arguing with your dad and hearing him bark sarcastically, “Oh, you got it from the Internet—how reliable.”
This is beyond NSFW and should not be watched by anyone.
There’s nothing more frustrating than arguing with your dad and hearing him bark sarcastically, “Oh, you got it from the Internet—how reliable.” The Internet is the world’s largest library, you asshole. Have you been to a local library lately? Any pizza pie of a theory can make it to a printing press. Printing has become so streamlined it’s now possible to do “print runs” of a single copy of one book. And if that’s too much work, email Amazon a Kindle version. Publishing is no harder than commenting on a message board or doing a blog post, and no fool on Earth is talking about such sources when they cite “the Internet.” When we say we got our information from the Internet, it’s assumed we mean peer-reviewed studies, reputable magazine articles and, God forbid, Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is the geezer world’s laughingstock. Since anyone can post a definition, some people think one doofus can discredit the whole thing. In fact, the opposite is true. James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds argues that the sprinting doofuses are quickly trampled beneath the truth marathon we get from mobs of people concerned with facts. Ask one person what to do about your kid’s sore arm, and you’re a negligent parent. Ask a few million people, and the next thing you know you’re performing a full supination on a radial head subluxation. I did it and it saved my family five hours at the ER. In spite of all the flame wars, the Web shows that people can be relied upon to help each other. The Internet is living proof that anarchy works.
We are reminded of this every time Wikipedia’s accuracy is tested. A recent study showed the site was more accurate than most news sources (likely because the media’s “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality puts a premium on fright tactics). Cancer researchers agree it is as authoritative as their own research, and a 2005 study found it nearly as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica. Take that, old-timer!
This authority in numbers shows up on sites such as Intrade, where people get together to bet on everything from when Israel will bomb Iran to who will be elected to the Senate. In the 2004 presidential elections, users predicted every state’s outcome but Alaska’s. The same alarming accuracy manifests itself over at Hollywood Stock Exchange, where users predicted 32 out of 39 Oscar nominees in 2007. It used to happen over at TradeSports, too, until they were shut down.
Government isn’t fond of group betting sites because they don’t think we’re smart enough to pick the winner. Betting is dangerous because we might spend all our tax dollars on someone else, and Big Brother frowns upon getting together without his permission. Big Brother would be correct in Russia’s case. Running for office there under the slogan, “I will get the Jews out” would result in a sweeping victory. Russia pushed the Jews into the black market for centuries. Banished from the official economy, they created their own. When communism collapsed, the black market was the only market left. Within no time, six of the seven oligarchs controlling 50% of the economy were Jewish. Russia’s answer to this inevitability was, “Get ’em outta here.”
This juvenile worldview is especially apparent in Egypt. When protesters first started throwing sticks and stones, Western liberals rubbed their hands together hoping the ’60s were back. Then they saw the Star of David spray-painted on Mubarak’s face. Then they tried to digest the overwhelming irony of women in headscarves screaming for freedom. Then Americans started getting raped. Now only a bunch of irrelevant tools are denying the Egyptian revolution is anything more than, “Get ’em outta here.”
Let’s play matchmaker and send all our control-freak politicians to places where people actually need to be controlled. Eastern Europe and the Middle East are not evolved enough to have democracy. Let them roam free and we’ll have car races where death-row inmates are forced to kill each other trying to reach the finish line. Westerners haven’t fed anyone to the lions for 1,500 years. Leave us to our own devices, and we’ll match the work of scientific scholars—for free.
For lesser evolved nations, anarchy means chaos. For us, it means cooperation. Free from official restraint, anarchy is a collaborative party where we pin the tail on the truth. We are Crass and they are the Exploited.
‘Eastern Europe and the Middle East are not evolved enough to have democracy’
When you write about anything outside of boners, drugs or New York, you come across as a real fucking idiot.
i don’t know if i would refer to the content of a pulitzer prize winning book as ‘any pizza pie of a theory’
do you know who you are?
This is one of the only times outside of Mark Ames I’ve seen anyone acknowledge how furiously anti-semitic today’s Russia is.
Also, anyone who thinks the revolution in Egypt is going to go any way but Iran in 1979 is sorely mistaken. Revolutions always end with the most organized group slipping into power. The Iranian revolution was run by groovy socialists but the religious right filled the power vacuum because, well, they were there.
The Egyptian revolution is being run by guys a lot less groovy than the Iranian socialists of 1979 so God help us. The odds of the Muslim Brotherhood taking over that place are about 9 in 10 and if you’re a woman or gay or Jewish or anything besides a Muslim brother – get out while you still can.
One more thing fuck gavin mcinnis and the horse he rode in on. Last week he said we need to get out of Israel. This week he wants to send our entire government there. Which is it?
You lost me at Russia.
This is why Wikipedia isn’t that great:
Like encyclopedias, it’s just a compilation of facts and not very in-depth. It’s not “wrong” or “unreliable” due to vandalism like many claim, it just encourages laziness. Wikipedia is good for its citations at the bottom of the page, and if you follow them, you’ll often end up with a decent article that will inform you better than the Wikipedia page.
If you use the site for a jump off point or a source book, then great, use it. If you’re using it for all your research (like A LOT of people do), you’re not very responsible.
don’t be such a crasshole
I was going to give Crass a bj also.
Does Crass like the reach around or any thing unusual?
there was more to the oligarchs than them just being jewish. and the star of david over the face of mubarak was because he was a tool of the west, he’s not jewish obviously. There is plenty of anti semetism in civilized countries too. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed that so called christian zionists have not made jews feel very welcome in red states, unless population data has been skewed by freemasons.
“to digest the overwhelming irony of women in headscarves screaming for freedom. ”
yeah they should be free to try and get modeling work in NY and run into some of Gavins pals who really respect them and so forth.
at any rate, this is very silly but if it means he thinks the US should get out of the middle east I’ll take it.
I’ve actually found that publishing a book is easier than getting my comments published on this “free-speech” site.
“Then they saw the Star of David spray-painted on Mubarak’s face”
Just so I’m clear here, the fact that one person in a huge protest made an anti-semitic poster means the whole movement is anti-semitic? So therefore the fact that a few people at tea party protests made racist posters means that the whole movement there is racist.
I’m not saying I disagree with either of these conclusions.
how is making a star of david on the guys face anti semetic? It’s the symbol for israel, of which he was quite obviously a pawn.
I thought that was the implication being made. I would say that there is an undercurrent of hostility towards judaism when you use their symbol to defame your leaders, but my point wasn’t really that the protesters are anti-semitic, which I’m sure some are and some aren’t. My point was more that Gavin has ridiculed the idea that tea party protesters are a bunch of racists just because of a few racist signs at their protests, and then turns around and seems (to me, I could have misread) to be saying that the whole Egyptian uprising is anti-semitic because of one sign at their protest.
Regardless of the positions of the Egyptian protesters and the tea party protesters, I think Gavin is inconsistent in his use of logic. That’s all.
First thing: For FUCK’s sake, the term is “anti-Semitic,” not “semetic.” There’s no such thing as a “semet.”
Second thing: “Semite” is not equivalent to “Jewish.” There’s quite a bit of controversy over whether many modern Jews actually have any “Semitic” blood or whether they’re descended from Eastern Europeans who converted to Judaism. There are possibly more non-Jews than Jews in the Middle East who are Semites.
Third thing: The Koran itself says plenty of nasty things about Jews. … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_antisemitism#Remarks_on_Jews
Fourth thing: According to a couple accounts (she hasn’t spoken publicly about the event yet, to my knowledge), while CNN reporter Lara Logan was being raped by an estimated mob of 200 in Cairo, they were chanting, “JEW! JEW!” because we all know Jews have blonde hair and blue eyes:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/02/21/daily-mail-lara-logan-stripped-punched-and-whipped-flag-poles
well israelis are jews, so theres a kind of a grey area.
@Goad
I agree with you about the semite thing. It’s just become the common use term for anti-jewish. I think I should start using “anti-jewish” when I mean that, “anti-Israeli” when I mean that, and “anti-semitic” in the rare occasion where it’s appropriate. That does accord more with my beliefs about language.
I also agree with you about the fact that muslims are, by and large, anti-jewish. I think that it’s sort of beyond debate at this point that they’re anti-Israeli.
I just think that Gavin is trying to handle some very serious issues here in a completely flippant and intellectually lazy way. I might not agree with everything you’ve ever written, but at very least you think through your arguments and try to make them with a level of rigor that makes a decent debate possible. Gavin seems to just want to spout opinions and then back them up with garbage.
Fuck that ‘newsbusters’ site has got some crazy commenters… “its either obama or america, you cannot have both”……. Hmmm
Also people rabidly deriding the middle east…. should go live there for a year or two…. You might come back with some actual wisdom.
In other news, i liked this article, i like the internet
“Second thing: “Semite” is not equivalent to “Jewish.” There’s quite a bit of controversy over whether many modern Jews actually have any “Semitic” blood or whether they’re descended from Eastern Europeans who converted to Judaism. There are possibly more non-Jews than Jews in the Middle East who are Semites.” <—-this. Holy shit this. First Godard had to say it, then Goad had to say it, and then God will say it, if the laws of alliteration have any say.
so this is what right-wing anarchism sounds like. worst of all worlds!
one man’s star of David is another man’s swastika.
All the hysteria about the Muslim Brotherhood…I’m sure at some point somewhere in the Arab world some lazy blogger claimed that the USA needs a strongman like George Bush to keep America from being taken over by the Westboro Baptist church.
Fashionable mouth breather = equally full of shit as Glenn Beck. The yin and yang of DUMB.
this miserable piece of human excrement named Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the leading egyptian “scholar”, revered by the majority of egyptians as the ultimate islamic authority. he recently addressed a crowd of millions in cairo. here’s one of his classic cuts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HStliOnVl6Q
this is just one of many gems of knowledge this scholar has dropped. i’ve been to egypt – the people are a miserable, filthy, angry, ignorant bunch who come up to you in hoards on the street demanding cash handouts simply because you have the gaul to visit their country and contribute to the tourism industry. if you don’t hand out cash money to complete strangers they react with threatening hostility. the only hope we have for dealing with these miserable cretins involves neutron technology. trust.
@OBVIOUS POLITICAL GUY
Anarchy means “no government.” So it can’t be anywhere on the political spectrum. It’s anti political. It’s “right wing anarchism” when liberals see that no government is hurting their pet programs. When the same ideology says gays should marry or women can abort or the church has no power, the right calls it “left wing anarchism.” In both cases the criticism says more about the critic than the ideology.
Corporations are evil and so is government but big business is the lesser of two evils. At least they have an incentive to serve us. All government wants is to get as much of our money as possible with providing as little as possible.
big business and corporations are kind of the same thing aren’t they? kind of exactly the same thing. and corporations, or at least corporatism exists in large measure not because they are especially good at catering to the public but because they are connected at the hip to the state and get regulations and shit in their favor in a mutually corrupt scam that goes back to the dawn of forever.
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Ripoff-Business-Government-Steal/dp/0471789070
and certainly there is right wing anarchism, despite the apparen contradiction in terms. Hans herman Hoppe Joe Sobran and others favor something akin to a theocratic sort of thing, whereas your Emma Goldmans and so forth had a different spin on it.