Objective Demonstration

[bellatrys]

The screencap webcomic Darths & Droids is imo an extremely hilarious one, but I never bothered to sub to the discussion forum because a) no time, b) not very impressed with the caliber of posts. However I do sometimes glance at it.

This time I almost wish I did belong, simply to smack an idiot ironic hipster edgy libertarian college kid - at

Comments

My question is...

[violaswamp]

...how do you argue against people like this, people who don't even have the most basic level of concern for others?

And is there something about American culture in particular that enables this kind of thinking?

I don't know -

[bellatrys]

I haven't lived in enough other countries, and since for all I know this guy is actually British or French or Kenyan, my answer is a definite maybe? I mean, I can see things in our culture that encourage this and work against discouraging it, but I don't know if others have the same or as commonly.

Re: My question is...

[lyorn]

...how do you argue against people like this

That guy is probably fourteen and so much in love with his newfound coolness that no molecule of Earth logic can make it through to him.

So, in general: Attack. Don't defend, don't explain, don't justify.

The quickest trap to catch them is to have them tell you that they did it all for themselves as they grew up with twelve siblings in a cardboard box in the middle of the highway, and then tell them that in their ideal world they wouldn't even have been born as their parents would have been incinerated for being losers. But even that requires two postings-and-back, more if you want to set it up well, and those are ten minutes of your life you'll never get back.

If they tell you they come from old money, it's actually a little more difficult.

A classic snark is,
"Yeah, I used to think that, too. But then [dark voice of doom]something happend[voice of doom off] and I changed my mind

Re: My question is...

[vashti]

Not a word of a lie there. Look at his *name*.

Yep, fourteen sounds about right

[deiseach]

That age combines maximum obnoxiousness with minimum use of brain (and yes, I was a divil when I was fourteen).

So impressed with being shocking and "Épater la bourgeoisie" and thriving on any outrage he can generate. The screen name alone is proof of how far up his fundament his cranium is lodged.

When he turns sixteen and gets a bit of common sense, he'll cringe to think he was this callow and stupid.

Alas, would it were so--

[bellatrys]

The one I knew after college was a recent college graduate, and no prodigy, so he was about 23-24. And he would argue against - for example - modern medicine, claiming that it was weaking the human race by allowing individuals to survive with diseases that would have killed them in ancient times (bio major here, a very poor one, but a bio major nonetheless who did pass his courses

Depressingly true

[deiseach]

Being all gung-ho for 'survival of the fittest' but having not a clue that, by that token, his parents should have kicked him out on the street as soon as he turned sixteen to fend for himself.

It's always the ones with plenty of support (financial and otherwise) who recommend such medicines for society, with no visible indication that they have the faintest hint that this applies to them, also, and that they are the exceptions to the rule that they are complaining about.

Which is why I hope our little friend Daemian (aw, how cute! the same name as the anti-christ from the Omen films!) is fourteen and not, say, twenty four (or thirty, even worse).

There's hope if he's fourteen and just being a silly, ignorant, 'hasn't copped on yet to how politics and society work' gadfly.

Re: Depressingly true

[bellatrys]

It's always the ones with plenty of support (financial and otherwise) who recommend such medicines for society, with no visible indication that they have the faintest hint that this applies to them, also, and that they are the exceptions to the rule that they are complaining about.

Which is why I hope our little friend Daemian (aw, how cute! the same name as the anti-christ from the Omen films!) is fourteen and not, say, twenty four (or thirty, even worse).

Larry Niven would at least know how to use the spacebar. And the apostrophe.

So it probably isn't him, at least...

Re: Depressingly true

[fridgepunk]

If I'm remembering correctly, DL explained in another thread that his failure to use a spacebar after punctuation is an intentional thing.

Alas, "being an idiot" isn't a developmental stage people neccesarily grow out of in all cases, so it's possible he's 20+. Especially considering he's very nearly describing the Poll Tax, and the Tory Liche who came up with that was about 8 thousand years old at the time.

Is his 'creative' spelling also deliberate?

[bellatrys]

And eke his indifference to the apostrophe?

Because those are the kinds of daring, individualistic choices ("I am proudly illegible to show my uniqueness speshul snowflakiness, just like all the other millions of people out there who don't actually *know* how to type") that *will* make you unemployable anywhere that *writing* is involved as a regular part of the job, even more than visible tattoos and piercings or indifference to ties and razors will.

So he could have a profitable career as an auto mechanic or septic tank cleaner or tree removal/landscaper, but anything involving computers and desks is likely out (unless daddy - or mommy, going by my personal experience - owns the company...)