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*.

[voxwoman]

I cannot think of a more "useless" class of humans than "infant". Unless, it's perhaps "foetus". (OK, maybe teenagers that don't mow the lawn)

I say we draft this sucker, and turn him into a "useful" member of society.

I particularly like the inconsistency

[bellatrys]

in a purelly money oriented system,

He doesn't seem to understand that it is thanks to a purely money-oriented system at colleges that the people he thinks are wastes of time can stay on the 8-year plan. Only rich people can do that!

So since they are willing and able to keep handing the school money, the school is willing to keep on selling them classes! How much more money-oriented can you get?

But instead of that, he wants some kind of "Socialism" where they're forced to serve the Common Good (as defined by him!)...not a very money-oriented attitude, at all!

Re: I particularly like the inconsistency

[nenya_kanadka]

Yeah, I was struck by that--he's all for "deserving" students who would actually do the work getting to go to college, and not those layabouts who take ten years--oh, but what you say? The poor kids who would get into college if they could, and work their asses off, couldn't get in in his ideal, money only (no Virtue/Fun!) universe? And the layabouts would be perfectly well allowed to blow off as many classes as they liked, provided they were rich?

I think his philosophy might need a leeetle more work to be, you know, consistent.

[nenya_kanadka]

Also--woohoo Darths & Droids, and Irregular Webcomic that spawned it. Even if IW needs more girls. (Mind you, Jane Goodall rocks....)