Dumb and Stupid Quotes Thread: Idiotic Source and Context are Key.

[Kyriakos]

Translation: "I don't know how to use social media prudently, so I'm just going to say it's terrible". Seriously, is it so much trouble to think before hitting that post button?
"Social media is, on the whole, a very bad thing. It wastes time, gives at best ephemeral pleasure with a modicum of interest, causes privacy and necessary social boundaries to disintegrate, and enriches people very much at the expense of others. Anyone can make a statement they later regret. It is now impossible to genuinely retract or escape such a statement. This is outrageous. Social media brings out the very worst in people. Rather than free speech, ot also promotes - essentially requires - a ridiculous level of self-censorship or imposition of extreme global shaming. This is not a societal good."
-Ralph, comment on "How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life", The New York Times Magazine

Don't even who Sacco (?) is, but mostly morons type something in social media without thinking what it may cause + it was already something potentially horrible in the first place.
I don't really see how a person who tends to think things through will get duped into posting crap in a web-page he/she maintains.

(a major other case is if the person had little experience with such things, or is very young anyway, of course).

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

And the award for stupidest thing I've read all day (although it's only mid-day) goes to...
"I think that a fighting game has more "emergent gameplay" than something like simcity"
-facdgg, comment on "Video Games Are Better Without Characters", The Atlantic

I think that's his problem. And yeah, I think people who deserve the heat do get most of it but I think people who don't deserve the heat gets some of it and as Farm Boy says below, it becomes part of the system's requirement of accessing your personal life for profit.

Just like not drinking too much, I suppose restraint is a a forgotten virtue these days.

You can't always say what you want. Examples include not using the word "niggardly" around people of the relevant descent and not cracking jokes about the deceased at a funeral. Always think before you speak or write. We will all be the better for it.

 

[Hygro]

What relevant descent does niggardly apply to?

 

[Borachio]

Bof! Scottish, Jewish, and Yorkshire people spring to my mind.

But I fancy other people have their own popular myths about which people are niggardly. Or thrifty, as they say in my circles.

These myths are usually based on actual poverty amongst their objects, btw. That is, poor people are often accused of being mean, when they simply don't have the money.

 

[Farm Boy]

None, but it sounds suspicious along the lines of calling somebody a Nigerian.

 

[Arakhor]

The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say about it:

"mean person, miser," late 14c., nygart, of uncertain origin. The suffix suggests French origin (see -ard), but the root word is possibly from earlier nig "stingy" (c.1300), perhaps from a Scandinavian source related to Old Norse hnøggr "stingy," from Proto-Germanic *khnauwjaz (source of Swedish njugg "close, careful," German genau "precise, exact"), and to Old English hneaw "stingy, niggardly," which did not survive in Middle English.

 

[Kyriakos]

^ Of course it would be german

 

[Cutlass]

"Maybe that wasn't the best way...I saw the letter, I saw that it looked reasonable to me and I signed it, that's all. I sign lots of letters."
—

Sen. John McCain, on letter sent by 47 GOP senators to Iran's leaders to undermine negotiations

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Take away his driver's license, he's clearly gone senile.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It is a bit strange to see oneself seeing things.

 

[Farm Boy]

Why? I can sometimes see when and why I made a mistake. Heck, sometimes I might even admit that my action was poor and explain my mistake. Especially hard to do when my reason sucked or I was just being lazy.

Or is it just funny to call him old? Hardyharhar.

 

[Flying Pig]

That would be fair, but to me it sounds like a cop-out - more like 'oh, what I did was unpopular, so let's call it an oversight.' If you're going to be bullheaded like that, you ought to stick to your guns.

 

[Farm Boy]

Sounds like he admitted to being lazy and screwing up. Which is probably true on both counts. US politicians don't stick to their guns. The only support they are rock solid in is loyalty to the people who keep them bought.

 

[Cutlass]

"Let me be clear. Americans have freedom of religion -- but not freedom from religion."
—

Texas Congressman Sam Johnson, on the Preserve and Protect God in Military Oaths Act, which would require Air Force Academy cadets to say "So help me God"

 

[madviking]

so help me satan

- a satanist

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Preserve and Protect God in Military Oaths Act

Sorry, I'd like to confirm that this was during the 21st century in a liberal democracy.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Now that you mention it, I did forget to pay my taxes to my local lord.

 

[Samson]

Sorry, I'd like to confirm that this was during the 21st century

Confirmed

in a liberal democracy.

Debatable

 

[Gori the Grey]

See, this is one of the places where you would like a Republican politician to actually read the actual phrasing of the actual Constitution that they so vociferously claim to value.

America doesn't have "freedom of religion." It has this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

So the verbal basis of Johnson's little "of"/"from" formulation doesn't exist. In the Constitution.

 

[Farm Boy]

It resides in that little "free exercise thereof" when people whine that they aren't getting the state to silence religion when they want one silenced. Though how this manages to apply to a law writing an religion into an oath, that's a bit more confounding. I'll chalk it up to him triterizing the phrase.