"That Time The Stupidsphere Showed Up"
I've been kind of sort of half-assedly following the brouhaha being talked about in this post, over on Twitter and Facebook (and even, occasionally, Tumblr, which is how I found, via a repost of that Tumblr page on FB, that post from Mr. Wheaton's website), so I thought I'd post a link to it here, because I found it interesting. From that, among other things, I learned two new phrases: The Dunning-Kruger effect and Epistemic closure. And I learned of the existence of something called DuckDuckGo, which is apparently a different (some claim better) alternative to Google and something I'll have to look more into at a later time. It also led to me reading this post, which in turn led to this post on his older site.
As for the political stuff, I'd never even heard of that whole "Obama turned NASA into a 'Muslim outreach program'" idiocy before this, which as Mr. Wheaton pointed out is just some typical Rush Limbaugh horseshit from a few years ago.
(EDIT)
Mr. Wheaton also says this: "And the whole thing actually makes me kind of sad. The Stupidsphere HQ and its leaders are all making money off of their gullible followers, and they’re all helping to prop up a political establishment that deliberately makes things worse for working class people. The Stupidsphere HQ and its leaders don’t give a shit about the people who follow them and leap into action when told to do so. All they care about are their clicks, and they’re laughing at them all the way to the bank."
However, that reminds me of something I said myself a few years ago. Since that particular post is friend-locked and not likely to ever be removed from that status, and thus is not visible to anyone not already on my LJ friend list, I'll copy/paste what I said there to here: "You know, to go off on a tangent, I rant about Faux Noise a lot and how it and guys like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and the like are brainwashing and otherwise deluding and hoodwinking people like the above. I'm going to revise my opinion now. It's not that Faux Noise and such are controllers of these people, but more that they are simply facilitators and enablers of them. Faux Noise/Beck/Limbaugh/etc. are, just like any other work of fiction, merely a means of escape for these people from the rigors of reality. They allow these people to live in a make-believe fairyland reality for a little while, divorced from common sense and logic. And if that's what it takes to get them through their days, well... whatever floats their boats I guess. *shrug* The only annoying part is when that kind of crap intrudes upon others, such as me, who simply don't want anything at all to do with it."
(/EDIT)
In any case, I've always liked Wil Wheaton. He's good people, in my opinion, and for a great many reasons. Mind you, I don't know him personally at all outside of his Twitter and Facebook, and have never met him in person, but I still feel that way. As such, it annoys me that a bunch of asshats have been dogpiling him lately, though at the same time, it amuses me to watch him wreck their shit so effectively. (And, just for the record, I didn't even mind Wesley Crusher all that much either, both when I was originally watching TNG back during its original run, and when I was watching it again more recently, during that whole Star Trek marathon thing I did. Also, for the record, I have never seen Stand By Me, which is an oversight that I should probably correct someday [nor did I know before today that the film was based on a Stephen King novella, which I similarly have not read yet].)
As for the political stuff, I'd never even heard of that whole "Obama turned NASA into a 'Muslim outreach program'" idiocy before this, which as Mr. Wheaton pointed out is just some typical Rush Limbaugh horseshit from a few years ago.
(EDIT)
Mr. Wheaton also says this: "And the whole thing actually makes me kind of sad. The Stupidsphere HQ and its leaders are all making money off of their gullible followers, and they’re all helping to prop up a political establishment that deliberately makes things worse for working class people. The Stupidsphere HQ and its leaders don’t give a shit about the people who follow them and leap into action when told to do so. All they care about are their clicks, and they’re laughing at them all the way to the bank."
However, that reminds me of something I said myself a few years ago. Since that particular post is friend-locked and not likely to ever be removed from that status, and thus is not visible to anyone not already on my LJ friend list, I'll copy/paste what I said there to here: "You know, to go off on a tangent, I rant about Faux Noise a lot and how it and guys like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and the like are brainwashing and otherwise deluding and hoodwinking people like the above. I'm going to revise my opinion now. It's not that Faux Noise and such are controllers of these people, but more that they are simply facilitators and enablers of them. Faux Noise/Beck/Limbaugh/etc. are, just like any other work of fiction, merely a means of escape for these people from the rigors of reality. They allow these people to live in a make-believe fairyland reality for a little while, divorced from common sense and logic. And if that's what it takes to get them through their days, well... whatever floats their boats I guess. *shrug* The only annoying part is when that kind of crap intrudes upon others, such as me, who simply don't want anything at all to do with it."
(/EDIT)
In any case, I've always liked Wil Wheaton. He's good people, in my opinion, and for a great many reasons. Mind you, I don't know him personally at all outside of his Twitter and Facebook, and have never met him in person, but I still feel that way. As such, it annoys me that a bunch of asshats have been dogpiling him lately, though at the same time, it amuses me to watch him wreck their shit so effectively. (And, just for the record, I didn't even mind Wesley Crusher all that much either, both when I was originally watching TNG back during its original run, and when I was watching it again more recently, during that whole Star Trek marathon thing I did. Also, for the record, I have never seen Stand By Me, which is an oversight that I should probably correct someday [nor did I know before today that the film was based on a Stephen King novella, which I similarly have not read yet].)