Atomic Nerds

So the actual thing that inspired this post isn’t worth talking about*, but it’s a thing that gets Bitey the Pet Peeve dancing at the end of her chain, so why not.

Being able to predict how someone will react to something you said is not a skill. That’s basic pattern recognition. It’s not high-order meta-manipulation, it’s grasping the fact that words you say and the concepts they express will get some kind of consistent reaction out of people. This is something normal humans learn and internalize around the age of two, when they’re going through differentiation of self and other and realize that other people have their own thoughts and feelings that they can somehow affect. If I smile and say I love you, Mommy smiles and hugs me. If I gleefully yell “Fuck!” in front of Grandma, Mommy gets angry. If I cry, Mommy is concerned. Bragging about having mastered this as a grown adult is roughly akin to lording your toilet training over others as evidence of your superiority.

If you say something designed and intended to provoke, or something you can easily see will be read as being offensive because it is, and someone else responds angrily, this is as unexciting as something falling off a desk after being pushed over its edge. Yes, you did that, congratulations, you all-powerful master of gravity.

If you sincerely hold an opinion that some consider inherently offensive, then fine, feel free to express it and defend it, but fucking own it already. Make people angry with my blessing. I’ve done so in the past and I will again, always because I considered the position I was attacking as unworthy of respect, generally for reasons I elaborate at length. Just don’t fuck around playing games pretending the actual point is… making people angry about something… because that somehow proves something about them that isn’t “normal” or proves something about you that isn’t “has advanced beyond infancy”. If you really hold that opinion, it’s a chickenshit distraction tactic. If you don’t, you’re playing games expressly designed to waste everyone’s time. Doing so is called “trolling”, and own that, too- and don’t get offended yourself when someone throws rocks under your bridge.

People can make perfectly bland and unemotional assertions that are made of pure bullshit. People can make heated arguments that contain detailed logic and reason. Emotion can make you irrational, but it can also drive you to articulate why something bothers you or is just generally wrong. Declaring a victory condition met because someone got angry isn’t evidence that you, the more rational being, can cease to bother with their primitive gibberings, it’s evidence that you’re both lazy and childish.

*Scott Adams says some demonstrably stupid/offensive shit, gets called on it, defends self by simultaneously playing the “you just didn’t understand what I wrote”, “you’re emotional and therefore wrong”, “I’m a humorist, you shouldn’t take anything I say seriously”, and “I’m sorry you were offended, you morons, why won’t you accept my apology?” cards. Film at eleven, he’s becoming a Mad Lib.

Posted Ranting |