If only I could tell the ram to scram...

Today, kids, I'm going to rant about stupid people, yet again. Or, not necessarily stupid people, just people who don't think too well.¹

The first type of people are the partisans, those who don't think beyond what they're told. This came up since I've recently been reading a lot of the Daily Kos, a Democratic website devoted to winning at any cost. Now a lot of these people are pretty good thinkers, but the majority are just reactionary. If the Republicans say something, it must be bad, by the virtue² that the GOP is supporting it. It's thoroughly frustrating to read some of the comments.³ And, unfortunately, it's hard to avoid these people when there's so gosh darn many of the them and our nations espouse democracy.

The next ones I loathe are the sheeple. Those who just think as they're told. A good number of these people start out as malleable children and evolve⁴ into the partisans. That's what learning to answer a question on a test does as opposed to learning for the sake of learning or expanding the mind. And they don't think beyond what the media says.

Which brings me to the media. This is the worst group. But there's so much to say about this that I can't be bothered to type it all up. Perhaps when I have more spare time. Let's just say that I rue the media slightly less than I loathe politicians and the government.

What started this rant? Well, the inspiration was something I absorbed from the media. I'm not sure if I read it on the interwebs, heard it on CNN, MSNBC or Fox News, or read it in a newspaper (so I can't provide a reference), but it was an opinion by someone about our use of oil.⁵ They were saying that we should be ashamed at using oil for (solid) plastics when it's so much more valuable to burn. That's just a perfect example of group number 2. Why would oil be better to burn? Once it's burnt, it has no use whatsoever (except to grow things very indirectly), whereas in solid form it's practically indestructible and so reusable (and, I daresay, recyclable). Additionally, it's far, far cheaper to make alternatives to fuel than it is to petro-chemicals of most sorts. This is a perfect example of not thinking through an argument. And it made me mad.

So there you go. Sorry for a half-baked rant. Here, go play some games designed to make you think. The Illinois one is not fun at all, but it is fun being an oil god.

¹Full disclosure. I'm not stupid. I'm quite smart, in fact. I'm in the top 5 percentiles for both Mathematical and Verbal tests, and I do quite well analytically, too (but have never been tested aside from essay writing, which was broadly marked and in essay form. So far, I've written 5 essays since leaving high school, so practice may help on that front). I am, I have to admit, smart, and so slightly, ever so slightly, biased against people who judge and don't think things through.^6
2I get the irony.
³This may be due to the fact that I prefer the Republicans marginally, but I do get annoyed at similar right wing websites, so I'm going to believe it's the people, not the policies.
⁴Unless they're creationists, in which case they're set on a path by God himself and so shouldn't deviate from party lines.
⁵Every medium I use now tends to blend together, mainly because of the sheer volume I use, but also due to the facts that they all report 80% of the same news with different spins.
⁶Which, quite often, means that I'm biased against myself. But it's OK, I'm Catholic, so I feel guilty about it.

Exacerbating circumstances

The most infurating task ever to be burdened with has to be helping one's mother¹ sign up for a Skype account. I am going to broaden this to 'explain anything at all to do with technology to one's mother, who continues to blame her inability to understand the most basic concepts on the fact that she's fifty'. Incidentally, my dad has a computer science degree, so why she can't ask him I don't know. But back to my mother!

Not only is she the most painfully slow (and inaccurate) typist in history, but she barely understands how it is she is managing to aim spelling atrocities at me via my brother's MSN messenger account. I'm saving the concept of automated sign-in for another day. Frankly, she's still struggling with the basics, the internet equivalent of not being sure which hand is left and which one's right (there's a trick to that one²). Anyway, so once I've gone over the reason they ask for your email address³ and explained to her that there's no reason for me to send her her password via text message rather than msn (the Russkies will be monitoring text messages too you know!) I am rapidly losing patience, especially as I can apparently assume no base level of knowledge, despite my family having had internet access since 1997.

Anyway, I'd continue, but I just uttered the phrase "Well, you just plug it into the USB port" and I suspect this is going to take a little while to explain.

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1. Real mother, not the mother that first placed me in a boat.
2. It's "stop being retarded". I bet you thought I was going to say you can make an L with the index finger and thumb of your left hand. Common misconception - that L doesn't stand for Left. It stands for Loser, which you are if you still have to do this.
3. I'm starting to think it's a really a base-level IQ test.