whidbey: Mordant: m not going to inconvenience myself just because stupid scienticians want to destroy business.

FAIL.


I've seen you on FARK for a while. How can you fall for our worst troll?

Mordant: I've basically just given up. When something like bearsfolks manages to crawl into the daylight to express itself I lose all hope for humanity. So in a way I'm serious. Why should I even try to support improving things if it's going to impact my way of life and end up being a tremendous waste of time ? It'd be worthwhile if it had a chance of going someplace, but it doesn't.

Even if bearsfolks is a troll (and I'm convinced he submitted that headline, and bumped it himself to commented), diminishing returns can be a real issue that deserves being discussed. Things can't be perfect, environmentally or otherwise. There will come a point where we'll have to decide that the situation is "good enough", and concentrate on other issues that also need looked at. I'm not saying that we're anywhere near that "good enough" situation, but we're already hitting the dimishing returns phase in some places.

I work in Quality Assurance (done pharmaceutical, biotech, and currently environmental testing QA), and I know that to go from 90% to 99% perfect costs twice the amount of resources as it does to go from 50% to 90%. And going from that 90% to 99.9% costs twice as much again. (obviously the numbers are made up, since they vary from one process/product to another, but the rule still stands).

We'll have to decide when we're content with the way things are (and it will be hard, since some people are already content with how things are now, or even content with how things were years ago, before any regulations were enacted, and some people will never be content unless we're perfect, which can't happen).

timmy_the_tooth: sigdiamond2000: Temescal: I've seen you on FARK for a while. How can you fall for our worst troll?

Worst troll? Is sarcastic humor trolling now?

Nowadays, making a comment someone disagrees with is considered trolling.

Making ONE "sarcastic" comment in every single political thread, right at the beginning of the thread, then not sticking around to discuss it further is what I would consider trolling, this thread being an exception more than the norm.

Also, don't confuse sarcasm and bitterness. Not saying that Mordant doesn't have all the rights in the world to be bitter, but I rarely find his posts to be sarcastic, in the proper sense of the word.

Riche: ... I'm thinking what we really need is a damn-the-cost crash program to develop commercially viable fusion power plants ASAP...

Whith whose money? Very few, if any companies/people/goverments want to spend a huge wad of money (maybe all they have, in a damn-the-cost program) on something that will be available and useable to everyone later at little cost. That whole "what's in it for me" mentality. Very few people will voluntarily screw themselves for the betterment of humanity. Me first, to be honest. Screw humanity. It's full of assholes (myself included)!

sigdiamond2000: Temescal: Not saying that Mordant doesn't have all the rights in the world to be bitter, but I rarely find his posts to be sarcastic, in the proper sense of the word.

Bitter...sarcastic...I don't care what you call it. They're usually really farking funny, and that's all I care about.

Trolls aren't killing Fark. It's the growing legion of humorless dullards.

You're honestly telling me that Mordant's comments never get old to you? They're always the same. I swear I sometimes feel like he's a bot reacting to specific keywords in the headline, posting one comment picked from a list of half a dozen or so (with rare variations).

Mordant, I don't mean to pick on you, and as I said, you probably have all the rights in the world to be bitter. I just don't think you're funny, and I'm not convinced you're even trying to be. It feels more like a "fark it, I'm sick of discussing this shiat" attitude. And I can relate to that. That's why I rarely post in (and even try avoid reading) political/philosophical threads nowadays. I don't think anyone's opinion has ever been swayed by anything posted in a FARK thread, ever. Of course I'd love to see a link to a thread proving me wrong. :)

timmy_the_tooth: I don't think they're humorless but rather, authoritarians looking for a means to stifle the opposition.

It's a divided country. 20 years of "culture war" have ensured that for some Americans their identity is defined in opposition to "the other." Add in the dumbing down of America, the simplification of complex ideas, and the sloganizing of politics and basically people get insanely angry when you challenge their slogan.

Then they report you or call you a troll.

For the record, I've never reported anyone on FARK, or anywhere else for that matter.

Also, I've only been in the US for 8 years, so I missed more than half of that "culture war", and I don't think I was much of an active "fighter" in that war in the 8 years I was here. :)

timmy_the_tooth: Temescal: You're honestly telling me that Mordant's comments never get old to you? They're always the same. I swear I sometimes feel like he's a bot reacting to specific keywords in the headline, posting one comment picked from a list of half a dozen or so (with rare variations).

Why do you care? Put him on ignore for f*ck's sake.

I seriously don't understand this mentality.

If I were to put people on ignore just because they don't amuse me, I'd have next to nothing to read on FARK. Also, Mordant sometimes (more often than not actually) makes good posts in non-political threads, and I would feel like I'm cheating myself if I were to put him on ignore.

/clear ignore list so far
//never really been offended enough to put anyone on ignore