people you meet when you don't have a gun

[the_siobhan]

Now I'm seeing people threatening to sabotage Earth Hour by turning on every electrical device in their house.

Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with people?

Comments

[cavalorn.livejournal.com]

... you're not implying some sort of parity between this and people not taking part in the LJ boycott, are you?

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

Have you MET people? They are pretty disappointing. I lowered my standards ages ago.

[divine.livejournal.com]

Teach me the ways, oh wise one.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Not taking part in != going out of their way to take the piss & be assholes about it.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Point. :-p

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

First assume that everyone is an asshole.

Next, let people prove you wrong on a one-by-one basis.

Finally: profit!

[snogwise.livejournal.com]

another reason to hate people. thanks :P

[eveofdstruction.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the "for every animal you don't eat, I'll eat 5" response to vegetarians. Animals are tasty, but that just isn't nice.

[divine.livejournal.com]

Ok, so what if you do assume people are assholes, then they fool you into believing that they're nice and then they show their true colours after awhile.

I reckon that's a deficit!

[minwee.livejournal.com]

The second step is always the hardest one.

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

It's an imperfect system, I'll admit. There do need to be periodic asshole-checks, but then again I don't exactly have a good track record for assholery detection. This is why I lower my expectations on an annual basis.

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

People need to opt-out of being assholes in my book.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Please expound on the whole "profit" part?

'Cause I could do with a lot more of the profiting.

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

Friends bringing beer over is an example.

Riddle me this

[divine.livejournal.com]

Re: Riddle me this

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

Well much lower would put me on the Unibomber career path. I'm already pretty damn misanthropic.

Re: Riddle me this

[divine.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. there's not a whole lotta money in that particular career.

But a shitton of instant gratification!

[eveofdstruction.livejournal.com]

Underpants?

[redheaded-pixie.livejournal.com]

you forgot the mumble mumble

[ravensee.livejournal.com]

ALL HAIL RICHIE!!!

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I thought the "haha, let's all post 5 times our usual output during the strike" thing was juvenile. This is pre-embryonic on the same scale.

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but then they'll short their houses and be stuck in the dark, thus doing even more for the cause they are trying to sabotage.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

We should be so lucky.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

isn't there a "steal underpants" step in there somewhere that you're missing?

[kudzu.livejournal.com]

Haha, seriously what the hell?

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

I think my icon says what I feel about those kind of people.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I did that.
Figured people still on LJ would at least want to see fresh content on their f-lists, and I declined to amalgamate some of my posts.

I was altruistic.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

I bet they wish they came up with the term "Scorched Earth Hour".
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/social_sciences/report-105160.html

Marked national differences arose when freeloaders were punished for putting their own interests ahead of the common good. And whether they accepted their punishment or retaliated in kind depended on what kind of society they lived in, the researchers found...

But the Science study also uncovered a new phenomenon. In subsequent rounds of the game, the freeloaders took revenge and hit back at their higher-paying counterparts in what is described as ‘anti-social punishment’. Or at least, they did in some cities — most notably in more traditional societies based on authoritarian and parochial social institutions such as Muscat in Oman, Athens, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Samara in Russia, Minsk in Belarus, Istanbul, Seoul and Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine. Players in these cities showed the highest levels of ‘anti-social punishment’.

The ultimate effect of this is to decrease co-operation between individuals, bringing down contributions and earnings to very low levels.

One possible mechanism: at some level they feel shamed and angered by Earth Hour, so this would be one way of lashing out.

[empressjad.livejournal.com]

Have you forgotten you're talking about *humans* here? Since when do they need a reason to be assholes?

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Some people just enjoy being arseholes. Some people see those who care about stuff like that as weak and easy targets - sort of like bashing up the school nerd. Besides, the more someone cares about the sandcastle they built, the more fun it is to kick it down.

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

I move that to the profit section, which is to say they are an end rather than a means.

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

I'm smrtr than gnomes.

[digital-space.livejournal.com]

I move that to the profit section, which is to say they are an end rather than a means.

[eveofdstruction.livejournal.com]

That would depend entirely on whose underpants are in question.

[http://users.livejournal.com/cincinnatus_c_/]

You know what I did for Family Day?

I KILLED MY FAMILY WITH AN AXE.

Take that, McGuinty!