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Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

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Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#111

Post by jordan0day »

Karunamon wrote: post #100
salem wrote: post #4

This is where it's all heading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

I really wish I had the karma to downvote this. Idiocracy was a funny story, but it's hardly a documentary. Every time someone brings it up seriously, I die a little bit inside.

Eh, you could say the same thing about any "cautionary tale". Unless it's not a funny story, but you know what I mean.

But I don't necessarily disagree with you.

I'm constantly torn between believing that we're really living in novel times, and the cliche that "the more things change, the more they stay the same". That is, three hundred years ago, there were a lot of ignorant, illiterate, and quite possibly just plain dumb people. The writings that survive from that period and that we're most exposed to today tend to be from the most educated folks, though. So it's easy to get the sense that everyone in 1712 was highly intelligent, had a great grasp of the English language, also knew at least Latin, and probably French, too, and that they always had interesting, novel thoughts. Then when you look around the world today, it's easy to convince yourself that society has really deteriorated.

On the flip side, there really are a lot of ignorant and just plain dumb people today, too. People who say "We're turning into Idiocracy!!!!" recognize this, but they perhaps don't recognize that we used to be Idiocracy too. Perhaps we've always been Idiocracy?

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#112

Post by scott_s »

dasil003 wrote: post #39
neilk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More on the plus side: Jon Stewart and his team of researchers and writers can go from knowing nothing about a topic, to absolutely nailing some of the central absurdities, in less than a week. Either comedy is easier than it looks or these guys are really good at their jobs.

I'd be willing to bet real money that at least some of Jon Stewart's writers knew what SOPA was before two days ago. It's just a question of when it's prime for a joke.

Not Jon Stewart himself, though. Check out the beginning of January 11th's episode: http://www.hulu.com/watch/320233/the-daily-show-with-jon-ste... He quite candidly says he has "some reading to catch up on" with regards to SOPA.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#113

Post by rquantz »

pinaceae wrote: post #17

it points to a big shift in society and the economy. software is now a cornerstone of the world economy. modern life runs through the internet. even if you personally avoid the internet, you depend on it. but the baby boomer generation, represented by these politicians has not understood it. they know engineers as the guys building houses, bridges, aeroplanes, rockets. but software? it is an invisible world to them.…

I'm not sure that this is the reason politicians don't understand the Internet. It's not because they're old, it's because they're fraternity-pledging C-student jocks. you see in the video they keep saying "I'm not a nerd" -- that's because being a nerd is the worst thing they can imagine. They know engineering is hard, but if people see them knowing stuff, they won't be cool anymore.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#114

Post by [deleted] »

pinaceae wrote: post #17

it points to a big shift in society and the economy. software is now a cornerstone of the world economy. modern life runs through the internet. even if you personally avoid the internet, you depend on it. but the baby boomer generation, represented by these politicians has not understood it. they know engineers as the guys building houses, bridges, aeroplanes, rockets. but software? it is an invisible world to them.…

[deleted]

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#115

Post by dhimes »

bad_user wrote: post #65
galaktor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked, Ireland was still part of Europe :-)

That's why I said Romania. Most online content is usually blocked for me. Even YouTube wouldn't allow me for a long time to create an account tied with Google Apps, as the feature wasn't available in my country. That's why I said it is funny - usually these websites are excluding everything but the US with maybe Germany and UK added later. However in this instance I think they've got a black list - as in, allow every…

Interesting: I'm in the US and the vid wouldn't play for me either. Galaktor's link does, however. Perhaps it's something else but censorship?

EDIT: mis-credited the link

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#116

Post by thebigshane »

Everyone here (besides `jerfelix` apparently) is missing something crucial:

Jon Stewart showed 4 people using the word 'nerd'. Three of them were anti-SOPA! These were the congress(wo)men that were trying to bring in experts/techies/geeks/nerds/whatever. So, I'm sorry that the techies here were insulted by that word (I wasn't!) but most of the people using the word were actually fighting for your side! And if you listened to them in context (instead of such a short clip) I think you would have thoroughly agreed with them.

I can excuse Jon Stewart for ignoring this important fact here because he is, after all, a comedian.

Lofgren (Anti-SOPA) [http://lofgren.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&vi...]

Issa (Anti-SOPA) [http://issa.house.gov/]

Watt (Pro-SOPA) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Watt#Support_of_SOPA]

Chaffetz (Anti-SOPA) [http://twitter.com/jasoninthehouse]

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#117

Post by jff »

tfb wrote: post #55
trentmb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, however, they're laughing at you, not with you.

The joke is on them, however. "Nerds" always win in the end. This whole SOPA thing - or variations thereof - will only be small hiccup in the grand scheme of things. The advancement of technology and its ensuing freedom will trump any current setbacks. When the older generations move on and those who have grown up with the power of technology at their fingertips are in power, who have relatively open minds and unders…

"And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#118

Post by jff »

jordan0day wrote: post #111
Karunamon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish I had the karma to downvote this. Idiocracy was a funny story, but it's hardly a documentary. Every time someone brings it up seriously, I die a little bit inside.

Eh, you could say the same thing about any "cautionary tale". Unless it's not a funny story, but you know what I mean. But I don't necessarily disagree with you. I'm constantly torn between believing that we're really living in novel times, and the cliche that "the more things change, the more they stay the same". That is, three hundred years ago, there were a lot of ignorant, illiterate, and quite possibly just plai…

We're all DEVO!

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#119

Post by readymade »

keithpeter wrote: post #95
rickmb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that for a second. I'm 45 years old. My parents were born during ww2. I grew up with black and white tv (okay, partly because we couldn't afford color yet...). But my dad, an unskilled immigrant, ran IT companies for most of his life, and my mother, well into her 60's, got an iPad before I did. Hell, she was on Skype when I still had a landline... She even owns a friggin' Wii. If there are people who…

I'm 53, my parents were teenagers before the end of the European second world war. My Dad would have loved all this stuff. My mum's best friend was a telex operator in a large shipping company the 1950s and they had this thing called operator net. Facebook for 20something sweater girls, it sounds a hoot. Here is my thought: the Internet (e.g. the IP/TCP protocols and http) can support either large centralised systems…

Lets have a contest to see who is the oldest!!!!!

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#120

Post by emehrkay »

neilk wrote: post #12
bravura wrote: post #8

On the plus side, all the conspiracy theorists who claimed that Jon Stewart and The Daily Shows were pawns of their parent multinational media conglomerate, and thus wouldn't negatively cover SOPA, these people were wrong. On the negative side, no one in the news media or whistleblowers and WTF-watchers like Jon Stewart knew what SOPA was until two days ago. That's even scarier.

More on the plus side: Jon Stewart and his team of researchers and writers can go from knowing nothing about a topic, to absolutely nailing some of the central absurdities, in less than a week. Either comedy is easier than it looks or these guys are really good at their jobs.

I'll put on my conspiracy theorist hat: maybe they just waited until it was safe to say something about the subject matter.
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