Counter-intuitive (and frequently bloody stupid) ideas

[Alfred Rhazi]

"Was there ever any hate that did not truly spring from love? Well, yes. I mean, duh. But I bet there's far less than you think."

"If you don't have any firearms training, why not shoot from the hip? You have about the same chance of hitting anything and it looks cooler."

"There is no such thing as the soul. Therefore, there is no such thing as life. Therefore, I cannot truly die."

"Altruism is a slippery concept. If you save a woman's life, and because of this she lives to reproduce, her grandson may grow up to be a mass-murderer. However, the concept of levelling in World of Warcraft is solid. Meaningless, but solid. If you help others, you can never know if you aren't just making things worse, but if you reach level 60 then you know that you reached level 60. You can tell all your friends. You can engrave it on a bracelet. You can face the abyss and scream into it: 'I reached level sixty!' That's morality."

"Thinking that you are a bad person or a weak person is selfish. If you are a bad person, then to get through the day without killing anyone is a victory. If you are a weak person, getting through the day at all is a victory. But if you consider yourself a good guy, and have a clear idea of the world around you, you have duties."

"Never pretend that anything is not. Pretend that something else is. This invariably makes for a far more effective lie."

"Love comes and goes. Enlightened self-interest is eternal and reliable."

Add your own!

[Kai]

I actually like the third from the last.

[Manta Obscura]

Some of these are pretty good, Alfred (though I'm not a WoW player).

I don't really have many of my own quotable ideas, other than, perhaps, the quote that's in my signature. However, here's one that's not from me but paraphrased from (I think) Laing:

"Life is a sexually transmitted disease that is always terminal."

[Alfred Rhazi]

"Hating gay people of your own gender is not only stupid, but counter-productive. The more gay people there are in your gender, the fewer straight people you have to compete with for the affections of the opposite gender, and the better your dating odds become. Now, straight guys opressing/hating lesbians and straight gals opressing/hating gays would have a sort of sense, but somehow it usually doesn't work out like that."

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

"Science is the practice of bullshitting until you hit upon the 'truth' by chance. Mind you, we can only know whether or not we've hit it by whether or not it meshes with all the other bullshit we've considered to be a relative success. So, why not just make up shit that sounds good, and not bother with the other stuff? Even better: make up your own BS, designed to make you happy, and call it 'reality'."

[Alfred Rhazi]

"Small groups of young, intelligent people can make any society, creed or idea function. Communists, sadomasochists, anarchists, greifers, pornographers, Furries, trollers, crank callers and even Discordians have been able to create communities that are not merely functional, but stylish and even somehow honourable. Therefore, the true test of any meme or theory is how well it fares when exposed to large quantities of 'normal' people."

[Golden Applesauce]

"Small groups of young, intelligent people can make any society, creed or idea function. Communists, sadomasochists, anarchists, greifers, pornographers, Furries, trollers, crank callers and even Discordians have been able to create communities that are not merely functional, but stylish and even somehow honourable. Therefore, the true test of any meme or theory is how well it fares when exposed to large quantities of 'normal' people."

Rather, wouldn't it be the test of intelligence to see what happens when you expose it to a 'normal' meme?

[Alfred Rhazi]

"Small groups of young, intelligent people can make any society, creed or idea function. Communists, sadomasochists, anarchists, greifers, pornographers, Furries, trollers, crank callers and even Discordians have been able to create communities that are not merely functional, but stylish and even somehow honourable. Therefore, the true test of any meme or theory is how well it fares when exposed to large quantities of 'normal' people."

Rather, wouldn't it be the test of intelligence to see what happens when you expose it to a 'normal' meme?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

Also, give me one example of a 'normal' meme.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

"Small groups of young, intelligent people can make any society, creed or idea function. Communists, sadomasochists, anarchists, greifers, pornographers, Furries, trollers, crank callers and even Discordians have been able to create communities that are not merely functional, but stylish and even somehow honourable. Therefore, the true test of any meme or theory is how well it fares when exposed to large quantities of 'normal' people."

Rather, wouldn't it be the test of intelligence to see what happens when you expose it to a 'normal' meme?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

Also, give me one example of a 'normal' meme.

"kill all infidels, and anyone else you can plausibly claim to be an infidel"

[Requia ☣]

"If you don't have any firearms training, why not shoot from the hip? You have about the same chance of hitting anything and it looks cooler."

Because if you look through the goddamned sights you can hit your target, at 30 yard, with poor lighting, in the head, while nearsighted, whether you have training or not.  Maybe not every time, unless you ditch one of those, but its better than never.

[Reginald Ret]

All bloody stupid ideas are automatically deleted from memory, sorry can not comply.

[Telarus]

"Small groups of young, intelligent people can make any society, creed or idea function. Communists, sadomasochists, anarchists, greifers, pornographers, Furries, trollers, crank callers and even Discordians have been able to create communities that are not merely functional, but stylish and even somehow honourable. Therefore, the true test of any meme or theory is how well it fares when exposed to large quantities of 'normal' people."

I feel the urge to quote you as Count Alfred Rhazi. Wtf.

[Golden Applesauce]

"Small groups of young, intelligent people can make any society, creed or idea function. Communists, sadomasochists, anarchists, greifers, pornographers, Furries, trollers, crank callers and even Discordians have been able to create communities that are not merely functional, but stylish and even somehow honourable. Therefore, the true test of any meme or theory is how well it fares when exposed to large quantities of 'normal' people."

Rather, wouldn't it be the test of intelligence to see what happens when you expose it to a 'normal' meme?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

Also, give me one example of a 'normal' meme.

I took your original statement to imply something like the below table:

Good meme + intelligent people -> good results
Good meme + mediocre people -> good results
Mediocre meme + intelligent people -> good results
Mediocre meme + mediocre people -> mediocre results

This implies that you can test a meme by exposing it to mediocre people (as you pointed out.)  If you get mediocre results, it was a mediocre meme; if you get good results, it must have been a good meme.  I was just pointing out that you could also take a known mediocre meme and expose it to a person of unknown intelligence.  If the results are good, the person must have been intelligent; if mediocre, than the person's intelligence must have been been mediocre to start with.

And I'll show you a normal meme when you can produce a normal person.

[Alfred Rhazi]

"Small groups of young, intelligent people can make any society, creed or idea function. Communists, sadomasochists, anarchists, greifers, pornographers, Furries, trollers, crank callers and even Discordians have been able to create communities that are not merely functional, but stylish and even somehow honourable. Therefore, the true test of any meme or theory is how well it fares when exposed to large quantities of 'normal' people."

Rather, wouldn't it be the test of intelligence to see what happens when you expose it to a 'normal' meme?

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

Also, give me one example of a 'normal' meme.

I took your original statement to imply something like the below table:

Good meme + intelligent people -> good results
Good meme + mediocre people -> good results
Mediocre meme + intelligent people -> good results
Mediocre meme + mediocre people -> mediocre results

This implies that you can test a meme by exposing it to mediocre people (as you pointed out.)  If you get mediocre results, it was a mediocre meme; if you get good results, it must have been a good meme.  I was just pointing out that you could also take a known mediocre meme and expose it to a person of unknown intelligence.  If the results are good, the person must have been intelligent; if mediocre, than the person's intelligence must have been been mediocre to start with.

And I'll show you a normal meme when you can produce a normal person.

Ahhh. Sorry, I thought that "it" meant the meme, not the intelligent person/group of intelligent people.

There is no such thing as a normal person; 'normal' people, however, are less rare.

One last point: intelligent people tend to get angry when you try to expose memes to them. That's why the internet hates Jack Chick.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

One last point: intelligent people tend to get angry when you try to expose memes to them. That's why the internet hates Jack Chick.

The internet fucking LOVES Jack Chick, just as it loves Samwell and Time Cube Guy. Look at the success of Charlie Unicorn and ICanHasCheezburger. Fucking BACON TAPED TO A CAT.

If intelligent people get angry when exposed to memes, I think we can conclusively state that people on the internet are not intelligent.