Mostly gormless.

A man came running to Socrates with a rumour about one of his students.

Socrates: Are you sure what you wish to tell me is true?
Man: No, not entirely sure….
Socrates: Then do you know it to be good?
Man: No, in fact….
Socrates: Then at least is it useful to me?
Man: No, not quite.
Socrates: Then if what you wish to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor useful, why tell it to me at all?

There was a time when a medium where all of humanity could interact quasi-anonymously and unbound by geography seemed like a good idea. It was naïvely assumed that such exchange would lead to a more enlightened world, that people would shed their prejudices in the face of the truth that we are more alike than not and share many of the aspirations and anxieties of those that we hate.

Then the Internet was invented and it became apparent that left to themselves, six billion primates will soon descend into name-calling, semi-literacy, fraud, and spam. It’s sweet and cuddly to believe in the wisdom of the many and the inherent humanity of the human race, but the truth is that most people are quite unlikely to contribute to either the combined smartness or niceness of humanity. As a species, we’re mostly dumb and hateful. Not everyone can have an advanced understanding of quantum physics and higher mathematics (like most of the nice aliens in most of science fiction – Vulcans, Asgard, Flouwen, you name it), but everyone can afford to be respectful. You don’t need to pretend to agree with everyone else, because that’s plain dishonest. But you can choose to make intelligent, reasoned, civil statements instead of trolling cyberspace and contributing nothing good or useful. On the contrary, if all you can think of is LOL FAG DIE!!!, then go play somewhere else. Or with yourself. What else are the tubes for?

Geek civilisation.

These lyrics were written for Star Trek (the Original Series) by Gene Roddenberry but never performed.

Beyond
The rim of the star-light
My love
Is wand’ring in star-flight
I know
He’ll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches.
I know
His journey ends never
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.

Can you hear Shatner in your head?

tux@windows7-booth:~$ sudo make me a better operating system

Yes, that is Linus Torvalds, flashing a smile that proves he FOSSes regularly. “Let’s Finnish this”, he seems to say. Salute the kernel, everyone.

OKCupid crunches dating statistics. Indians hate each other.

“Terrorists… hate Americans. Indians… hate each other.”

(Russell Peters)

Clearly.

I’m impressed by the sheer diversity of sites BBC Magazine is interested in. This blog will need watching. Critics will also notice that my supposed predilection towards Asian women isn’t all that unusual. One post ago, Aquarians also hate each other.

I’m an Indian Aquarian. Brilliant.

I find it a mystery that Buddhists have very high mutual dislikes with anyone at all. Duuude… who do Buddhists hate, and who hates Buddhists? Except, you know…. And these guys, of course. And he, but Bood pwns him totally. Light of Asia on!