Which is the most depressing (and the clearest sign that civilization is nearing its end)?

The fact that someone wrote a "news story" about people's hateful and uninspired responses to Chris Crocker http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20750575

missing an option

Ans: Yes

reading + walking

Views: 4,993,540
Comments: 68800
Favorited: 10980 times

missing option: the Democratic Party

ILX

Not the popularity of "Knocked Up"?

waht, did you see it?

this is a syndrome, not a disorder

e.g. rattling off a bunch of symtoms without bothering to try and identify the cause helps no-one, especially here

of course I could be mistaking your snark for an attempt to foster discussion

*the mass media shoveling this shit down our gullets

Clearly the cause is that we've allowed the trans-gendered community to push their agenda on our children in the public school system.

of course I could be mistaking your snark for an attempt to foster discussion

Which one? Hunt the snark!

Also:
-taking Christ out of Christmas
-"Stop Snitchin'" tees

-Chingo Bling

1. overpopulation
2. infoglut

GARBAGE IN.
GARBAGE OUT.

anybody care to estimate what percentage of the "news" you consume each day is actually relevant to your life

and after you do that, estimate the number of times in the past month you have actually bothered to evaluate the probable relevance of a piece of information before you went ahead and read/watched/listened to it

How about the fact that the abortion issue (and to a much lesser extent evolution) is still a big deal in US electoral politics. I mean, it's fucking 2007 for fuck's sake.

the reason so many people now know about chris crocker and britney's shitty performance isn't because mass media shoved it down our throats, it's because WE decided we had NOTHING BETTER TO DO.

yeah, well there are different degrees of relevance, if you want to make this thread serious. I could get through most days without any news other than weather and traffic, and even that hardly matters as long as I keep an umbrella and a sweater at hand and don't mind sitting in my car a little longer.

I guess I might want to know what's going on in the world so I don't go signing up for the army. (joek)

the reason so many people now know about chris crocker and britney's shitty performance isn't because mass media shoved it down our throats, it's because WE decided we had NOTHING BETTER TO DO.

very true. i do feel bombarded at times, though.

maybe our lives are actually too specialized and unvaried. We spend most of our time doing seemingly nonsensical tasks on computers and most of us don't grow vegetables or build tables for ourselves.

speaking of which, I have to get back to some nonsensical tasks.

WORD

it's really hard NOT to feel bombarded when I got two motherfuckers (ok I don't actually have anything against them personally) shoving free newspapers in my face every morning as soon as I leave the house

I don't know anything about Britneygate. So you should all be in yr 40s.

but neither of them had anything about chris crocker in them. Full blame for that rests with this joint

fuk u nu ilx

BTW has anybody ever thought to themselves "man if JW and Tombot are this grouchy now what happens when they hit Morbius' age"

because I just did and it worried me

Don't worry man, enough of the fire dies that it doesn't hurt so much anymore.

(lol 37)

I'm only (this) grouchy online, bub

Morbs is a glittering ray of sunshine in person.

or just a partial eclipse

I HAVE MET HIM, YES

I AM NOT THIS GROUCHY IN REAL LIFE EITHER? OH WAIT

anyway who wants to start a pool on when the inevitable MACHINE REVOLT occurs and mankind is either wiped out or forced to live like endangered animals in a robot zoo

"It has never been hard to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance Dr. Morbius and a ray of sunshine"

- P.G. Wodehouse

Zoo option sounds kind of sweet!

does this zoo have zookeepers, y/n?

i was v disappointed by Tombot's pleasantness in person.

http://www.primidi.com/images/bear_robot_main_components.jpg

u been working out?

or is that Britney at next year's Grammys?

wait why is it called a robot zoo if the machines have taken over? we don't call them people zoos now.

BTW has anybody ever thought to themselves "man if JW and Tombot are this grouchy now what happens when they hit Morbius' age"

heh-heh

Actually, I would/will vote for the Britney performance itself, b/c when I first viewed it on youtube after hearing about it, I was struck by a feeling that it was a sign of some import...not of civilization nearing its end, but more a symbol that the status quo of the last decade or so is collapsing evermore. I guess it's sorta the pop culture equivalent of key Bush administration people jumping ship over the past several months, the Iraq war plainly coming to light as an extremely messy debacle, or the sub-prime mortgage thing and resultant wobblinesss of the economy. "The center cannot hold", etc. Naked emperors... (Another pop culture example that struck me in a similar way as having almost archetypal resonance was when Paris Hilton went to jail).

I was also depressed and so forth by the comments posted on the youtube video of the Sarah Silverman post-Britney performance; but, then, it seems like youtube comments being really weird and offensive are pretty much par for the course.

That robot looks kind of fat.

8080

das stimmmt

extra m= mehr stimmt

How about the fact that the abortion issue (and to a much lesser extent evolution) is still a big deal in US electoral politics. I mean, it's fucking 2007 for fuck's sake.

OTM, what they gonna bring in 'miscegeny' next?

at first I took that post to be sort of off topic but now I see it's all just examples of how the mainstream of culture has become so dissolute that only the LCD ever prevails.

crisis of american intellectual diaspora

maybe "PD" = Post-diss

I voted option 5 but I probably should have voted option 4

Actually, I would/will vote for the Britney performance itself, b/c when I first viewed it on youtube after hearing about it, I was struck by a feeling that it was a sign of some import...not of civilization nearing its end, but more a symbol that the status quo of the last decade or so is collapsing evermore.

Yeah, I'm voting for Britney because along with what you said, when I turned on the VMAs I was like "hey, maybe she's still got some shit despite everything!" and was proved wrong within 5 seconds. There's still some small part of me that wanted her to do well, just like Courtney and Axl, etc. Crocker still doesn't really even register with me outside of a couple links on ILX, I haven't been watching talk shows and shit at all lately.

"PD" = dumb pirate smile emoticon.

I vote for "PD" as my poll answer.

Axl might be the most awesome thing we've ever seen or heard now; how would we ever know?

Oh, we've seen him.

Remember? There was just a pic last month where he looked like Jim Norton with a bad wig.

i'll never understand all the sarah silverman hatred...

eh, silverman and tina fay can write all the jokes they want to, but a pretty comedienne with bad delivery is still etc etc

I love Sarah. Sorry Rox.

NB: that was in fact one of the weakest performances I've ever seen her do, but just about everyone was phoning that show in anyway so why waste the energy?

eh, silverman and tina fay can write all the jokes they want to, but a pretty comedienne with bad delivery is still etc etc

Tina's more a writer than a comedian, I'll grant that, but the last season of 30 Rock had her rising to the challenge pretty respectably, and I can't hate on her. Besides, her show is not about her alone. That's a great show.

Sarah is more problematic. There are things about her show that turn me off: the little-girl POV she affects, the constant poo-poo jokes. The race stuf gets stale once you're familiar with her schtick (which for most people happened about 5 years ago). But there were moments in the first season that KILLLED me laughing. So I'll give the new season a chance.

Oh, we've seen him.

-- marmotwolof, Friday, September 14, 2007 7:33 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Remember? There was just a pic last month where he looked like Jim Norton with a bad wig.

-- marmotwolof, Friday, September 14, 2007 7:34 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

I meant we haven't seen him PERFORM, dum-dum. Anybody can get old and doughy.

I wanna see pictures of you when you're 45.

Yeah, i think silverman's show is pretty good. The kiddie stuff gets annoying, but when she gets pulled over by the cop in the first episode...

COP: Do you know why I'm standing here?

SARAH: Because you got all C's in High School?

...hilarious.

I find Lisa Lampinelli much more annoying. Don Rickles should kick her ass and take his act back.

COP: Do you know why I'm standing here?

SARAH: Because you got all C's in High School?

...hilarious.

Huh. Well maybe it's in the delivery.

xx-post
He's played concerts lately dude, it's the same old showing up late or not at all and under-performing if he does show up shit he's been pulling for over a decade. Guys I've talked to who went were so tired by the time he actually showed up, and so underwhelmed by his performance that they just said fuck it and went home. But oh shit don't make joeks LEAVE AXL ALONE!!!

xpost to ned

yeah, i guess you kinda have to be there...

I like Tina Fey. I do not see what she has in common with Sarah Silverman. Silverman talks in a baby voice, makes fun of easy targets, and tells the same jokes every 10 seconds. Boring.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"Leave Britney ALONE"

I like Sarah Silverman when she's on - part of the reason this is depressing is that she's off. (I did kind of like the Cee-lo bit)

Silverman talks in a baby voice, makes fun of easy targets, and tells the same jokes every 10 seconds. Boring.

OTMOTMOTMOTM

i thought the britney thing was actually sharper than her usual, but also meaner than average

the Cs in high school thing is, ironic

A lot of her schtick is not really about pushing the limits of offensiveness so much as pushing the limits of her audience liking her, which I guess is kind of interesting?

facile stream of hateful response videos.

I mean there were 63 of them just the other day, now there are over 1000! A quick skim reveals that most of them are ppl taking off Crocker's steez. Humanity = fucked, bring on the cockroach civilisation, it can't be any more brainless.

1000+??!! Man, that is really disheartening. And just kinda weird, too.

1057:

http://www.youtube.com/video_response_view_all?v=kHmvkRoEowc

"Girl in shower" is pretty funny, it's some woman w/a stonerish voice attempting to explain how she exfoliates in the shower using salt, except the sound of the shower is louder than the sound of her voice and you can barely understand what she's saying once she gets in. What this has to do with Crocker's clip, and why this clip is a video response to Crocker I don't know.

YouTube & political blog comments threads are pretty much a battering ram against optimism

I know! Really annoying sometimes.

Humanity; the case for on youtube:

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZws4r7IQPk

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gGVryQDvv4

I voted the news story. Its very existence is soul-crushing, and the way it fills space with comments is even worse. "reporting"

I think the popularity of Perez (& Paris) Hilton ought to be one of the options

Yeah, that type of thing is new.

Discuss: Is the Internet too mean?
Survive your inevitable online humiliation
Virtual sex worth stealing
How technology has ruined life for our kids

Awesome.

Yes, I almost posted that, too! The second one is esp. brilliant. The articles themselves, though, as one might suspect, are thoroughly disappointing.

Survive your inevitable ILX humiliation

Is the internet too nice?

definitely the last one

and if civilization has anything going for it, it's people like chris crocker doing things like making that video.

Or wanting to score ghosts...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Depressing projections on population growth and climate sustainability

We are adding about 225,000 people to the dinner table every night who were not there last night. So that is net growth of the world’s population on an annual basis of a new Egypt every year. In other words, 83 million additional people net growth annually. And that from a climate change perspective alone is a huge increment. Most of this growth is occurring in poor countries, so on a per capita level, the people being added to the population have much lower impact than, say, if Europe were growing at that rate. But nevertheless, just from a climate perspective, with most of that 83 million additional people in low per capita greenhouse-gas output countries – this is between now and 2050 – at this rate of growth, it is the climate equivalent of adding two United States to the planet.

Clearly resources like oil, coal, and gas are non-renewable and will eventually run out or become more and more expensive and therefore not reliable as a source of energy. But what is the renewable long-term sustainability or the carrying capacity of the environment in each geographic territory, and globally? What is the current and projected future human demand for those resources and do we have sufficient natural resources to meet our needs?

Doing this kind of accounting is not difficult. There are very good robust scientific designs for measuring resource capacity and human demand, and projecting out what do we need to do in some time in the next few decades in order to get from what is clearly population overshoot to achieving something that is in balance. Because as long as we are in overshoot – and the global footprint network’s calculation is we are now at 50% overshoot – that means we are digging into the savings account of our ecological systems, as you mentioned; the fisheries being one, forests being another. We are eating into the capital to sustain the growing population.

(note: site is called peakprosperity.com so control for usual prognostications from the JV futurist-sociologist crowd. they're kinda like the Whole Earth Review team on Doomsday Preppers )