"Scientists" predict The Time Machine.

Not a time machine, this is a guy predicting that humans will split into Morlocks and Eloi. Now, much as I respect H. G. Wells as a science-fiction writer, his scientific thinking was not the hardest ever, and certainly his predictions shouldn't be taken as gospel.

If you analyse the whole Eloi/Morlock scenario you'll quickly realise that it wouldn't work: The Morlocks would never need the Eloi, and would replace them with easier food crops/animals, and would become the sole human species.
If the Elois were smart too, then they'd just get rid of the Morlock's. Either by geneering, or by simple extermination depending on how moral the species was at the time.
The whole idea of genetic haves and have-nots is based on the concept that the haves will choose to keep the have-nots around long after it becomes feasible to have a whole society of haves. That is not really likely, because havenots aren't that useful when you have robots.

This post (כ) Kingreaper: May be a pessimist, but isn't pessimistic enough for this BS.

Does anyone really believe this stuff?

http://www.isecureonline.com/Reports/FCBK/W680H6A1/

Cancer is caused by microbes that live in every cell in your body. They know this because they're in all cancer cells. And all other cells too. I'm guessing they're talking about mitochondria, but they could just be making shite up.

Yet, the same page claims that it's caused by nutrient deficiency.

So apparently, cancer can be cured by two natural and very tasty foods.
Apparently, scientists the world over are hiding this amazing discovery from you.
Apparently, these people know what the two foods are.

BUT: They need you to buy their book, and read tens of pages before even getting to what the foods are.

I wonder what's in the other pages?

Actually, no I don't. The other pages are a combination of apologetics for why the technique doesn't work, and proselytisation for the cult-like group that's selling you the book. How do I know this? Because if I was going to manipulate amazingly stupid people and made a huge book containing one bit of "information" that's what I'd do.*

This Post (c) Kingreaper: Be glad he's not evil.

*Also: because it claims to be full off testimonies of their followers.

Does it count if they're just pretending?

Unless you are new to the internet, you are almost certainly aware of the prevalence of amateur fiction,* often set in an established universe. Now, some of this is good, some even good enough that you wonder why they're only an amateur: Or even to create suspicions that they're actually a pro writing anonymously.

Some is not.

One of the most maligned forms of amateur fiction is known as "slash fiction", fiction in which heterosexual or non-sexual characters from an established universe have homosexual relationships. Generally, it deserves this reputation, by it's very nature it requires the breaking of characters, and the sort of people who write it, well, really shouldn't. Given as everyone knows about how bad this can be, I thought I'd share with you one of the rare "good" examples, and avoid going through the horrors of Total Annihiliation slash, or slash where Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader have hot schmex. So, if you like that sort of thing, feel free to enjoy reading how Mac got off with the Vista Guardian.

But it's not just slash fiction that can cause you to want to burn your eyes out with hot plasma,** all sorts of amateur fiction can.*** But some can just be funny; like this guy. But as I suggested in the title, I'm pretty sure he's just pretending.

Mmm, yeah, I didn't really have a point here.

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Decided against linking to tons of the worst stuff, because he wants his readers not to kill themselves.


*Even I put lots of fiction online. While nothing of the level I'll be discussing here, it's not all great. Still, you might like to check out my current piece: the alternate-reality blog Blogging Under The Dark Sun
**If you'd read the Total Annihilation slash, that line would make you want to burn your eyes out with hot plasma.
***Some relatively professional fiction can be even worse, like The Eye of Argon. I don't recommend you read that without the MSTing. It won't make you want to remove your eyes, but it make burn your brain out all on its own.

"Affirmative Action" "Reverse Racism" and other alliterative terms for an insane institution.

A comic I came across made me laugh recently. It also made me think; I disagreed with it.


What is the first thing you notice here? For me, it's the fact that this comic is saying that white people owe black people something.
The second thing: This comic treats white people and black people as completely seperate groups that can each be represented by an individual. Almost as though it's making assumptions based on the race of the person...

Isn't that called racism?

Here's my problem with the idea of "affirmative action". It assumes that black people deserve to be given better opportunities than white people in the same situation; because of their ancestry. This is nonsensical. Why should I care that person A is poor because their ancestors were slaves, while person B is poor because their ancestors relied on slaves for their plantations, and lost everything after the civil war? They're both poor people coming from underprivileged backgrounds whose parents can't support them through college. Why does A deserve the scholarship when B doesn't? A fair system should never punish someone for their ancestry.

Lots of people defending this reverse racism argue as though all black people are poor, and all white people are rich. My richest friend is black; I find any nation that'd give him a scholarship over my relatively poor white friend, who just happens to be a genius, to be a very silly one indeed.

Here in the UK we've never had as big a problem with this business as America has: We have the welfare state. People came along saying: "Those poor black people, they need support" and the government went "we support them 'cause they're poor already, why do we need to support them because they're black too?"

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Has a financial background more complicated than the Mandelbrot Set.

They annoy me too, but that was taken

Welcome to Stupid People Amuse Me. This is probably actually the last of a long series of posts here you've read, but it's the first I'm making, so it's an intro. Nyah!

I made this blog on the evidence of this rant, which showed that I can mock stupidity in a humourous way, at least occasionally. I was also encouraged by an incredibly annoying sort of idiocy on Facebook: People who confirm attendance to events they have no plan to attend. It's just a way of pissing off the person who invited you.*

I planned to call the blog Stupid People Annoy Me, but stupidpeopleannoyme.blogspot.com is already taken. So I went with amuse, because it's also true.

I'll try and have at least one post about stupid people, and how they annoy/amuse me, up soon.

Oh, and about the blog design: It's not just to look intellectual, it's also because I used the two minimas for two other blogs, and I don't want more than one blog of a style active at one time.

This post (כ) Kingreaper: Smarter than your average Homo Sapiens Sapiens

*This is a sore point, because I waited 3 hours for people to turn up, and none did.