I've decided it's funny to create generic lines that could be, but aren't, from 90's Disney made-for-tv movies aimed at people in their young teens. Here are some.
1. "You really built a robot?" "No, but they don't have to know that".
2. "That's Brent Hartigan. Nobody in town can beat him on rollerblades. Nobody."
3. "What's he doing?" "Don't worry. That would beat the school record. There's no way he can jump that high."
4. "Who's that?" "Alyson Michelin, but don't even think about it." "Why? Is she out of my league?" "Alyson Michelin is out of everybody's league.
Make me more of these in comments. They are as mind-heroin to me.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Recently, I've more and more often found myself picking verbal fights on various politically based website's comment sections. There isn't any sane reason why anyone would do this, and I suspect a large part of why I do is to either practice writing or to vent some of my all-natural manly aggression. Since the only other way I know to do the latter is to convince my friends to box with me, and since they usually don't want to box and I'm no good at it, Its probably better for me - and them - that I do this.
That being said, I've had the opportunity to codify some of how I generally handle the arguments, and I've made a cheater's guide to winning them, at least most of the time. You should note that these don't work in a well-moderated environment or in one where you can't really expect any sympathy from 99% of the room, like Cracked's Hitler's Brain forum or very clearly partisan sites where you take the opposite view, respectively.
Clever or smart-ass readers will notice that I include a few argumentative fallacies as tools here; I think they are useful in this context, but I wouldn't try them with anybody who knows a whole lot more than you. In no particular order, here are the tips I can think of right now.
1. Don't focus on convincing your opponent
In most arguments about politics or religion, nobody wins the argument in the traditional sense(I.E. you convince the other guy and he starts thinking like you). On the internet it becomes more even difficult to win in that sense, partially because people play dirtier when they can't see you face to face. It's also more difficult because when people have conversations in person, empathy kicks in and you don't start out throwing sand in each other's eyes right away.
The solution is to not focus on convincing your target of your points, but to make your points while systematically destroying his from the viewpoint of an impartial observer. You have to play to the invisible crowd a little bit, and form your arguments with the idea of them listening in. To do that, you need to:
2. Go crazy with the sourcing
You know what separates you from any random jackass on the internet? Nothing, that's what. Chances are, you aren't famous. You aren't special, and the people listening in are just passing by. That's where sourcing comes in: if you pick any relatively non-kooky website to get sources that support what you were going to say anyway, It's like adding another more respected person to your debate team; enough good sources, and you can mob your opponent until he or she crumbles.
A good source weights your argument to a point where only another source that is just as good or better will keep the other guy in the game, and a surprising amount of the time people will forfeit arguments they would have died to win just to save the trouble of using google for five seconds. Of course, occasionally you get someone who is so oblivious to the concept of citation that nothing dents their resolve to be right, so you then have to:
3. Be 25% nicer than you actually are.
Remember the people from 1., the ones you were trying to convince? They generally aren't reading two random dudes going back and forth in a comments section so they can learn the finer points of why you hate or love Ron Paul or Paul Ryan; they want action. They are much closer to being Romans watching gladiators chop each other up, and they want blood. That's where being too nice comes in.
Being too nice or too mean both have specific uses in an internet argument, and if you use them at the wrong time, you can either come off as a weakling or a lunatic who flies off the handle at a moment's notice. You have to pick your timing carefully; If your opponent goes mean too early, or from the very beginning, sometimes you can calm him to death by disagreeing with his point while being slightly(but only slightly) condescending the whole time. The idea is to get them going to the point where they say and do unreasonable things, while all the time you sit calmly off the the side, letting them look crazy and dig their own hole. You look rational because they can't, which makes them more irration, which makes you look even better. Its a vicious cycle that mainly just benefits you for once.
There are, of course, a few more ways to go about this; I'll get into some tomorrow, plus the only real benefit to this that doesn't involve hitting people less. As for now, I've got to go nurse a viscous headache. with some reasonable amount of sleep before I have to get up and do some more brutal, unforgiving things to make money.
-Ben
P.S. Did you see that I have ads on the site? You wouldn't think that if you clicked a relevant one that you could make me some cash, but you totally can, because this is America.
That being said, I've had the opportunity to codify some of how I generally handle the arguments, and I've made a cheater's guide to winning them, at least most of the time. You should note that these don't work in a well-moderated environment or in one where you can't really expect any sympathy from 99% of the room, like Cracked's Hitler's Brain forum or very clearly partisan sites where you take the opposite view, respectively.
Clever or smart-ass readers will notice that I include a few argumentative fallacies as tools here; I think they are useful in this context, but I wouldn't try them with anybody who knows a whole lot more than you. In no particular order, here are the tips I can think of right now.
1. Don't focus on convincing your opponent
In most arguments about politics or religion, nobody wins the argument in the traditional sense(I.E. you convince the other guy and he starts thinking like you). On the internet it becomes more even difficult to win in that sense, partially because people play dirtier when they can't see you face to face. It's also more difficult because when people have conversations in person, empathy kicks in and you don't start out throwing sand in each other's eyes right away.
The solution is to not focus on convincing your target of your points, but to make your points while systematically destroying his from the viewpoint of an impartial observer. You have to play to the invisible crowd a little bit, and form your arguments with the idea of them listening in. To do that, you need to:
2. Go crazy with the sourcing
You know what separates you from any random jackass on the internet? Nothing, that's what. Chances are, you aren't famous. You aren't special, and the people listening in are just passing by. That's where sourcing comes in: if you pick any relatively non-kooky website to get sources that support what you were going to say anyway, It's like adding another more respected person to your debate team; enough good sources, and you can mob your opponent until he or she crumbles.
A good source weights your argument to a point where only another source that is just as good or better will keep the other guy in the game, and a surprising amount of the time people will forfeit arguments they would have died to win just to save the trouble of using google for five seconds. Of course, occasionally you get someone who is so oblivious to the concept of citation that nothing dents their resolve to be right, so you then have to:
3. Be 25% nicer than you actually are.
Remember the people from 1., the ones you were trying to convince? They generally aren't reading two random dudes going back and forth in a comments section so they can learn the finer points of why you hate or love Ron Paul or Paul Ryan; they want action. They are much closer to being Romans watching gladiators chop each other up, and they want blood. That's where being too nice comes in.
Being too nice or too mean both have specific uses in an internet argument, and if you use them at the wrong time, you can either come off as a weakling or a lunatic who flies off the handle at a moment's notice. You have to pick your timing carefully; If your opponent goes mean too early, or from the very beginning, sometimes you can calm him to death by disagreeing with his point while being slightly(but only slightly) condescending the whole time. The idea is to get them going to the point where they say and do unreasonable things, while all the time you sit calmly off the the side, letting them look crazy and dig their own hole. You look rational because they can't, which makes them more irration, which makes you look even better. Its a vicious cycle that mainly just benefits you for once.
There are, of course, a few more ways to go about this; I'll get into some tomorrow, plus the only real benefit to this that doesn't involve hitting people less. As for now, I've got to go nurse a viscous headache. with some reasonable amount of sleep before I have to get up and do some more brutal, unforgiving things to make money.
-Ben
P.S. Did you see that I have ads on the site? You wouldn't think that if you clicked a relevant one that you could make me some cash, but you totally can, because this is America.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
New Cracked article up today! You already knew that, though, since that is almost for sure how you got here.
This one was a lot of fun to write, and its neat being able to go through something you did after the editors get to it and find out they changed surprisingly little. What they did change made it much, much better, though.
Now I get to sit around today and watch that hit counter go up. It's like virtual numeric heroin, and help me I can't stop.
This one was a lot of fun to write, and its neat being able to go through something you did after the editors get to it and find out they changed surprisingly little. What they did change made it much, much better, though.
Now I get to sit around today and watch that hit counter go up. It's like virtual numeric heroin, and help me I can't stop.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Oh, I forgot in the last post to mention this, but the upside to this week is that the air conditioning is fixed on my work truck. I live in Arizona, and heat makes me stupid, so this should keep me from degrading into a simpering monkey over the next couple months.
The downside to that is I picked up a stray bolt from the work I did to make the air conditioning work, and one of my tires deflated and popped completely off the wheel. The upside to that is that apparently you can buy tires in stores now, and they are much easier to change than A/C components.
-Elijah
The downside to that is I picked up a stray bolt from the work I did to make the air conditioning work, and one of my tires deflated and popped completely off the wheel. The upside to that is that apparently you can buy tires in stores now, and they are much easier to change than A/C components.
-Elijah
So our apartment got broken into. I'm writing this from our crappy desktop instead of my (equally crappy) laptop. Apparently sliding glass doors are pretty easy to open and it only takes about twenty seconds to sweep through and steal some electronics and most of my wife's jewelry.
As much as I'd like to whine about the laptop, I can deal with that and it seems that I might have another one pretty soon because of the kindness of some very good friends. The real bitch of it is my wife's stuff; we aren't wealthy to begin with, so I haven't been able to give her a lot. Most of what she has she brought in from before our marriage, and most of that is gone now.
The cops say that there is a monitoring system for pawn shops that might make our stuff turn up. The problem is that the system itself is run by Phoenix P.D., and my experience with them has been that if there isn't any money in it for the city, they don't do a whole lot. That's probably why I saw a total of seven cops writing traffic tickets on the way to work on saturday, but it took a cop three hours to show up on sunday after the burglary to do what amounts to some quick note-taking and then nothing else.
On an up note, this has caused me to go to literally 10-20 pawn shops in the last few days. I've learned some interesting things:
1. Most pawn shop employees are missing teeth. This isn't true of the Big Nice Brand pawn shop, but it's true of all the lower level ones.
2. Tools are really, really cheap at pawn shops. At least hand tools are, and those are the only kind that I'm not afraid of. I can go in with ten dollars tomorrow and buy 40 ratchet heads, for instance. That's value, right there, and maybe next time I have to fix my air conditioning I won't have to do it with vice grips.
3. The nicer the area you are in, the nicer the pawn shop stuff. I'm pretty sure this isn't purely because of what they take in; its too well targeted. I am imagining they only keep what might sell in any given area. I think they send out most of the nicer stuff to other shops when shitty pawnshops take it in, and the nicer ones melt the crappy stuff for gold. Xboxes, tools, and guitars are pretty universal.
As much as I'd like to whine about the laptop, I can deal with that and it seems that I might have another one pretty soon because of the kindness of some very good friends. The real bitch of it is my wife's stuff; we aren't wealthy to begin with, so I haven't been able to give her a lot. Most of what she has she brought in from before our marriage, and most of that is gone now.
The cops say that there is a monitoring system for pawn shops that might make our stuff turn up. The problem is that the system itself is run by Phoenix P.D., and my experience with them has been that if there isn't any money in it for the city, they don't do a whole lot. That's probably why I saw a total of seven cops writing traffic tickets on the way to work on saturday, but it took a cop three hours to show up on sunday after the burglary to do what amounts to some quick note-taking and then nothing else.
On an up note, this has caused me to go to literally 10-20 pawn shops in the last few days. I've learned some interesting things:
1. Most pawn shop employees are missing teeth. This isn't true of the Big Nice Brand pawn shop, but it's true of all the lower level ones.
2. Tools are really, really cheap at pawn shops. At least hand tools are, and those are the only kind that I'm not afraid of. I can go in with ten dollars tomorrow and buy 40 ratchet heads, for instance. That's value, right there, and maybe next time I have to fix my air conditioning I won't have to do it with vice grips.
3. The nicer the area you are in, the nicer the pawn shop stuff. I'm pretty sure this isn't purely because of what they take in; its too well targeted. I am imagining they only keep what might sell in any given area. I think they send out most of the nicer stuff to other shops when shitty pawnshops take it in, and the nicer ones melt the crappy stuff for gold. Xboxes, tools, and guitars are pretty universal.
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