DAMMIT, NIVEK, EXPLAIN THIS SHIT.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

So explain to me:  How did a species this retarded ever survive the period between falling out of the trees and inventing fire?  It boggles the very mind.

Good question. I would guess it has something to do with the fact that humans seem to get/act dumber when they appear in big clumps. I heard a story of 100 people (in Amsterdam, I think) watching a building (non-residential, a shop or something) burn down because everybody thought someone would have already phoned the fire department by now.

And if there's one thing I'm pretty sure that's very different compared to the falling out of the trees and inventing fire period, is that nowadays we have way more lumps of much higher concentrated human all over the fucking planet than we ever had before.

I don't really see a solution to this except for killing off most of them, but then what if I was wrong and it doesn't help and just the bad ones are left and have the place for themselves and then still stink it all up.

I dunno man. I think this is the cause though.

Its the bystander effect, I was introduced to this phenomenon when I read teh Watchmen. Alan Moore uses the example of Kitty Genovese, who was raped and murdered in front of a group of several bystanders outside her apartment building, nobody interfered or even called the police. This example is commonly sited in psychological textbooks and such, and the wiki article makes for a pretty good read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_genovese

Do you think she was Mexican, Zurtok?

[Triple Zero]

Also, it misses the point, the "bystander effect" is just one of the many many reasons humans get dumber as they form larger groups.

I gotta look up that syndrome though never heard of it, wikipedia suggests "General adaptative syndrome" is that the one?

[Requia ☣]

Nivek,

It turns out that a leak in the FBI revealed that actual terrorists (planners and money men, mostly) are not on the terrorist watch list, because it might alert them.  Bear in mind that you are not allowed to SEE this list, which makes me wonder how they'd BE alerted.

So basically, we have a terrorist watch list that consists exclusively of American citizens who have the "wrong" values.

Recap:  A terrorist list that only has non-terrorists on it.

Nivek, this is the perfect storm of stupidity, even leaving the Orwellian side of the situation alone.  There has to be a word for this (I mean besides "stupid", "assinine", "clusterfuck", etc).  There has to be a word for this sort of bureaucratic circular reasoning.

How did we get so DUMB, Nivek?  Is there lead in our plumbing?  Melamine in our baby food?  What?  Because I see no evidence that things can't and won't get even DUMBER, though I can't imagine how.

So explain to me:  How did a species this retarded ever survive the period between falling out of the trees and inventing fire?  It boggles the very mind.

Or kill me.

I can't even scream anymore, I'm just laughing.   

[Corvidia]

 

What the hell.


TGGR, have you got a link handy?

[Payne]

Some thoughts that occurred to me while reading this thread.

-It's racist to focus on the smudgies when it comes to terrorism watchlists. Focusing on Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and other "Domesticated" people is far less BADWRONG, and the guys who do these watchlists are the Good Guys, right?

-If you're doing the 'left hand not knowing the right hand is doing' thing, how can you let word of it leak out in any way? Because the word HAS gotten out, then obviously that isn't what they're doing... Honest.

-Really, though, hasn't the US Government appeared to be focused on inconveniencing and fucking with it's OWN citizens ever since 9/11? I mean, apart from all the foreign adventures and shady operating procedures in dealing with foreign terror suspects, their domestic policy (and that, to be fair, of almost every other western government) has been focused very much on The Threat Within. That the idea of them focusing exclusively on American "suspects" should come as no surprise to anyone by now. That they should use the excuse of not wanting to tip off their REAL targets should be, by now, laughable. They do great work at incompetently disguising their incompetence with a façade of competence . The more confusing their working practices, the easier (and cheaper) it is to do it all out in the open. Everyone else will get bored and go back to Fast Food and short "news" clips.

-I laughed so hard a little tear rolled down my cheek and fell into my coffee mug. They should get these guys to do stand up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Recursive parody FTW.

-This is a fifth point. I'm doing another one after this cause FUCK all of you five obsessed spags.

-Lastly, I'm unconvinced that the bystanders in Amsterdam didn't collectively. consciously. CHOOSE not to call the emergency services. A good old fire is great entertainment after all.