The future documentary Idiocracy has a scene where an average person tries to solve a problem in a room full of idiots. It’s one of the best scenes in modern cinema!
We’ve all experienced this. One side is trying to suss out rational solutions to an approachable problem. The other side isn’t necessarily opposed to a solution but they’re not helping. They keep circling back to a small list of slogans or factoids which lacks the depth to help. Even if they have the best of intentions it’s pointless.
It doesn’t have to be about politics. It’s common for members of Curmudgeon Compound to encounter folks where the situation hits the wall and we just have to ride it out. Among ourselves we mutter “plants crave electrolytes” and everyone understands.
“What happened to the anchovies? There are three of us and we agreed to get anchovies on one third of the pizza.”
“The pizza guy couldn’t do 1/3 he could only do half.”
“But he’s right there behind the window! I can see him putting toppings on the…”
“Plants crave electrolytes.”
“Yeah, I get it. Fractions.”
“Sorry man.”
It’s not that you hate the person you’re dealing with, it’s not that they’re deliberately trying to mess up your pizza, it’s just that they’ve hit a cognitive wall. You have to let it go. It’s probably been that way since the dawn of time.
Enter the meme of the NPC.
NPC, as all nerds know, means “non-player character”. In a video game it’s often a character programmed to give one of a handful of responses. NPCs are only slightly more interesting/useful than the scenery. Unlike players, they’re not a full participant in or driver of events. Ideally, an NPC moves the game along but, since the NPC only has a few responses, it’s going to be utterly useless for anything but the simplest situation. If you have to deal with an NPC more that the bare minimum it gets frustrating.
Player: “I need a spell of healing immediately!”
NPC: “There’s a legend of dragon’s gold to the north. I’d get it myself but I took an arrow to the knee.”
Player: “I just shoved a pork roast in your ear.”
NPC: “There’s a legend of dragon’s gold to the north. I’d get it myself but I took an arrow to the knee.”
See the pattern?
The NPC meme was fermenting in some vat of troll until the last week or so when it lurched into the national consciousness as a crudely drawn, grey, blank faced entity. The ultimate nothing. Neither angry, nor sad. Simply a thing that will do what it has been programmed to do.
“Meh.” Says the Curmudgeon. It meant nothing to me.
Then NPC was applied to the social justice warrior (SJW). The wokest of the woke, SJWs do indeed move, act, and speak with a hive mind uniformity that many of us deplorables find disturbing. Speaking for myself, I find it terrifying. A flock of birds or a school of fish, all moving in unison may be beautiful, but a thousand shrieking snowflakes wearing identical vagino-symbolic hats and bawling that Trump is literally Hitler is just… yuck.
For example, I wasn’t happy about the Christmas Eve passage of Obamacare, but I didn’t put a dildo on my head and stomp around the Lincoln Memorial shouting that Obama was literally Stalin. Who would think that way?
However, it’s not all about politics. It’s about uniformity. Get a thousand green clad Green Bay Packers fans in one space and I’m looking for the door faster than you can say “cheap beer in a can”.
Also, I pay attention to the degree to which uniformity is enforced. In Sturgis, where the religion is Harley and the the uniform is a black t-shirt, I wore blue and rode a Honda. Everyone was as nice as peaches to me. Good crowd really. (I wouldn’t try the same experiment with a Vikings shirt on a day the Packers lose.)
Anyway, the NPC memes arrived and I found them somewhere between “no shit Sherlock” and mildly amusing. Big yawn from me.
Surprisingly (to me), NPC caused SJWs to freak out. (I’m assuming there are things that don’t make SJWs freak out.)
How interesting! Direct hit to the inflated ego. As they say, you know you’re over the target when you start taking flak.
Apparently, the NPC meme poleaxed the self-esteem folks who enjoy gathering in big groups to act identically; which apparently is nothing like the NPC meme and a clear demonstration of their thoughtful exercise of free will. GO PACKERS!
As always happens with snowflake butthurt, folks posting NPC memes were declared racist, violent, misogynist, capitalist pig dog, poopy heads… and probably literally Hitler. Then, of course, came the banning.
Voltaire said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” Last I heard some 1500 Twitter accounts were toast. So there you have it. Deplorables are meanies and SJWs spoke truth to power by using their power. Shutting down a wad of Twitter accounts wasn’t censorship because it’s not censorship when SJWs do it. Etc.
I have no dog in this fight; I don’t have a Twitter account and SWJs have been hurling insults at me so long I hardly notice. Each new insult (“all white males are racist dickheads”, “math is sexist”, etc…) is just another drop in the ocean of insults that folks like me wade through daily.
However, I’ve started to love the NPC meme. Like all humor, it grows from a seed of truth. I see humor as more important every day. Never underestimate the power of laughter to keep the vainglorious in check.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going squirrel hunting. Hopefully, the NPC meme will keep growing in my absence.
Apparently I’m not hanging at the cool (anti)social media sites, NPC memes are new to me, so I learned something today. It was worth waking up for
Maybe the SJWs are tweaked because NPCs are not black, brown, white or yellow; they are just depictions of people. We can’t have people being portrayed as non-hypenated people; that is reverse discrimination reinterpreted
But the comment about knowing you are over the target when you start taking flak, that is certainly apropo to a few people struggles I’ve faced recently. My dad would say, “The kicked dog yelps the loudest”. Maybe they feel they have been publicly exposed as mindnumb robots.
Understanding the mind of a SJW, Snowflake or the average cat is pointless, but strangely entertaining to ponder.
I’ve been laughing all week at the Elizabeth Warren Native American memes, but I’ll have to keep an eye out for these.
The Warren moment: “I’m potentially 1/1024th of some unidentified tribe that hasn’t yet accepted me” has an element of pathos. It’s reminiscent Greek tragedy.
There was a time, in roughly her 30’s, where she took a gamble on a “little white lie”. It paid off. She cashed in on the diversity sugar fund and had a soaring career. But, as is often the case, it took on a life of it’s own. Trump, give him credit for this… pushed the issue and forced Warren to deal with her own actions. She may, at this later stage in life, be wishing she’d gotten to her lofty perch though less duplicitous means. But that of course is the reason we don’t lie. Because we don’t want to be liars. She had two choices; say “I was wrong but that sweet payoff was worth it” or double down on some sort of fuzzy half-answer. She had to do something, and finally chose the latter. The least painful of bad options. Definitely not the squeaky clean honorable one. But she is employed in DC after all.
Her timing is excellent, right before a mid-term election in which she has no jeopardy. Two years from now, possibly when she’s aiming for even higher office, she’ll try to shrug this off as “old news”. Can’t you see her saying “at this point why does it matter”?
The Greeks were on to something. Hubris leads to nemesis. Flaw to downfall.
I was a senior in high school when Joe Biden ran for president the first time (I think) and I remember the huge fallout when it was discovered he had plagiarized some pretty prominent historical figures. One of my good friends had been volunteering on his campaign and fell into a serious depression after having his dream candidate blown up. Somehow, though, no one (especially the Dems) seems to remember that incident. Or maybe plagiarism is just small potatoes now. I’ll be curious to see how the midterm elections play out. I don’t think they’re going to go the way some people are hoping they will.
Plagiarism? Ha ha ha… just about the lamest form of corruption. Cite your sources y’all!
Thanks, AC. Not being a gamer, I had no idea what those gray things were.
Glad to help. Enjoy the fun.
Voltaire said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
That’s certainly the case with Corey Lewandowski
Have a look:
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/corey-lewandowski-refuses-to-say-the-president-was-wrong-for-praising-congressman-for-bodyslamming-reporter/
I’m not sure what happened there. I haven’t been paying attention to this issue I guess. The best I can untangle from the CNN link is that President Orange said nice things about Politician A. Politician A, at some time in the past, “bodyslammed” Reporter X. Therefore it follows (?) that political creature B is getting hassles by CNN-NPC because he’s not saying President Orange is a poopy-head. Why? Because bodyslamming some reporter in the US is just like Saudi theocratic-despots dissolving a different reporter in acid.
What. The. Fuck?
Do these nitwits at CNN ever come up for air and sketch out the situation on a napkin. Maybe have a moment where they think “Whoa, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
Until I figure out more about this “bodyslamming” I’m provisionally unconcerned. Reporters are just people and some of them are raging assholes at that. Assholes need an occasional attitude adjustment. It helps you learn to stop being an asshole. Unless Politician A went full gorilla on a thoughtful insightful and polite reporter who was asking a relevant question at an appropriate time I’m thinking it’s OK with me. Also I’m not sure I’ve seen a thoughtful insightful and polite reporter who was asking a relevant question in years.
Yes, Gianforte went full gorilla on a thoughtful insightful and polite reporter who was asking a relevant question about healthcare during a public event.
In a letter to Jacobs, Gianforte wrote his “physical response” to the Guardian reporter’s “legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful”. —note: Unlawful—
He was subsequently charged with assault.
Trump, the “law and order” prez, praised someone who by his own guilty plea admission, committed a crime. Trump praised him FOR committing the crime.
It’s ok with you that your president praises criminals?
The reporter was just doing his job, asking Gianforte a legitimate question about his stance on healthcare. When Gianforte didn’t respond, the reporter pushed the microphone closer to his face.
Some said Gianforte acted in self defense. Would you have felt physically threatened by a skinny reporter with a microphone?
What’s the harm in simply and truthfully answering the question?
I haven’t seen the video or whatever but now I’m curious. If he went full gorilla for no reason that’s bad. I’m wondering what the question was. It might have been a pretty interesting question if it’s both insightful (as you said) and causes a politician to shake off their conditioning and freak out. I’ll have to check this out further.
So, there’s no video and I can’t quite suss out the details. The gorilla’s apologizing for gorilla-ing which seems proper. The reporter is rolling in victim-hood like “knocked to the ground” is ten rounds with Mike Tyson which may be justified or maybe it’s a little leavened with exaggeration. I dunno, the whole thing looks like a cluster. There was a time when I’d reflexively side with any reporter but lately I can’t see any good parties.
Been away and just now read your responses on 23 Oct. Gianforte apologized, at least. Much more than Trump would do.
We got sidetracked. The point of my first comment is that Trump’s minions are scared to say anything against him, that isn’t at least tagged with “what abouts” and “they do it too”.
One important point: They’re not the President, who’s supposed to be Role Model in Chief for Americans.
The recent pipe bombs aimed at people Trump dislikes? It’s the liberals and the media that are doing it, amIright?
To themselves.
Actually, I’d believe a deranged left wing radical did it to see if Trump would call out the terrorism or blame the media.
No surprise. Trump blamed the media.
I think that’s a common characteristic in most recent regimes. Depending on one’s bias, it could get filed under “hardass boss that doesn’t want bullshit from employees” or the less positive “narcissistic boss who’ll get butthurt if his underlings aren’t cowed”. If minions means employees I’m pretty sure any recent president has tried to make sure his higher employees are on board with his plans. It can seem positive or negative but within reason I can see the logic.
————
I’m withholding comment on the bombs. We all have insufficient evidence at this date. Either it’s a collective of folks working together who are amazingly skilled at delivering devices without detection but incredibly bad at making the devices themselves. Which doesn’t pass the smell test. Or it’s a false flag…. which is just so stupidly transparent I can’t imagine it came to fruition. So I’m not sure what to think.
Regardless, if the FBI can’t chase down one of the multiple people who hand delivered (!) devices within a few days then the FBI should be replaced by the Keystone Cops. Or perhaps America is infested with Ninjas.
It’s bad juju to be playing these games but something ‘aint right. I’ll accept it as a serious situation when/if it transitions from fortuitous discovery of something that didn’t function into the realm of damaged buildings and serious criminal investigation with nice long stints in “Federal pound me in the ass jail”. (See: Office Space.)
——————–
The bombs (which didn’t do what bombs do en masse; either through luck or design), and Kavinaguh and, the inevitable immigration “caravan” all follow roughly what I expected for this season. I expected an ugly election full of October surprises and indeed that’s what’s happening. Not that I like it.
When I was a kid a school teacher explained how important it was that Carter left office for Reagan and didn’t “hole up in the Whitehouse with a box of grenades”. That stuck with me. I always remember it and have been grateful for every peaceful transitions of power my whole life. It seems a time of calmer heads (when elections we’re more clearly respected) is gradually fading.
It’s gradual but definitely happening. Losers in elections aren’t good at losing anymore. I felt nervous when Ken Starr drifted from what could have been a straightforward investigation of Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater land deal all the way to spooge on a dress and House (not Senate) impeachment for process crimes (perjury and obstruction of justice) in 1998. I thought “this ‘aint good”. The Al Gore recounts of bothered me even more because there were folks that never ever accepted George Bush Jr. as president after 2000. Folks running around the streets shouting about impeachment for a man who wasn’t even sworn in in 2016 turned the dial to eleven. The essence of free competitive elections is that half the time you’re disappointed.
“October surprises” are bad for the country. What’s best is a well contested and otherwise boring competition between excellent candidates. Sigh… I can dream can’t I?
Really upsets the cornflakes, eh?
Well, that makes sense. If they’re just meatbots, there must be a lot of “I am not programmed to respond in that area”, and if you hit them with something that REALLY messes with their programming, their masters must intervene to protect them against malicious inputs that could crash their software or even cause them to explode in giant showers of sparks.
Find out who’s pulling the strings of the Twitter ban machine, and you’ll have a further clue who’s programming the NPCs (or pulling the strings of the programmers).
NPCs certainly seize up at the slightest logic. Some years ago someone was giving me shit about a dying polar bear on Facebook. Apparently this bear, which did look in bad shape, was caused by global warming. I looked at it and said “Yep, that bear-leukemia is bad shit, poor thing”.
This caused a glitch in the “narrative”. The possibility that bears are mortal beings and die every day simply had not occurred to the snowflake in question. I don’t know what was killing the bear but I wasn’t about to blame myself for every fucking arctic mammal that dies. Amusingly the snowflake in question was less angry with me than desperate to find out if bears get leukemia. (I have no idea if bears get leukemia, but it put the snowflake off my back in nine words.)
Another NPC moment: Have you seen the video where an interviewer is asking folks on the street if they like Trump’s nomination of Christopher Columbus to the Supreme Court and whether they would have preferred Obama’s selection of Ferdinand Magellan? Watching them explain how “Magellan is more relevant to my concerns” is a little sad.
I’ve noticed that the SJWs really don’t GET humor. They laugh when someone they don’t like is derided but don’t know why something is funny. Can’t see a SJW saying something like “I don’t care who you are, but that’s funny right there “.
I agree. Instead of funny, they seem mean spirited and bullying. Almost like pulling the wings off a fly and laughing at its misery.
Humor is a beautiful thing. If it’s nothing but cruel it’s not funny. We didn’t laugh at While E. Coyote because we hated coyotes. We laughed because he did crazy things that we could see were a bad idea.
I’ve come to distrust anyone who takes things too seriously. It seems like SJWs are an inch from pogrom at any time. The lack of humor is a lack of humility. People who take themselves too seriously leave a trail of destruction behind them.
Never trust anyone who can’t take a joke.
Love the pizza maker anecdote, but the solution is more one of knowing how to communicate with the nonintellectual. If you told the pizza herder to imagine the pizza as the Mercedes Benz symbol, then fill in one segment with anchovies, you would likely have received what you wanted. If that did not work, use the “peace” symbol, they get those two mixed up anyway. 😉
No way. An idiot who can’t do 1/3 can’t make a mental image of a peace sign and then intellectually overlay it on a physical object. Might as well ask him to differential calculus.
It is possible that someone could talk their way though that kind of haze but I find myself less willing to do so every year. I don’t ask my dog to master knitting and I don’t ask the pizza guy to handle fractions. It makes everyone happier that way… except the guy who wants anchovies, he’s got to lower his standards to match the Idiocracy in which we live.
To keep the pizza thought in play, are you aware that NPC International is the franchise branch of Pizza Hut? I think you may have stumbled onto something. Smoking Man is not gonna be happy.
https://npcinternational.com/
Ha ha ha… another piece of the puzzle!
My brother-in-law tried the Vikings jersey at the Packer’s home game once. It did not go well.
As for the NPC meme, I find it apt. They’re hurt by it because it mocks how they regurgitate scripted pre-approved thoughts written for them by a central committee somewhere. No independent thought, zero reflection, and only enough self awareness for being called out on it to cause them distress.
If they dislike some silly meme that much, instead of trying to ban it, they should learn how to formulate an argument and disagree like a proper human.
“[T]hey should learn how to formulate an argument and disagree like a proper human.”
If they could do that, they wouldn’t take the NPC meme seriously. In fact, if they acted that way that as a matter of course, the NPC meme wouldn’t even be funny. We wouldn’t laugh and they wouldn’t “get it”.
NPC is a beautiful bit of humor because it only offends precisely who ought to be offended by it. And they know it.