Tripe
The visions of the naifs who opened the Internet to the world must, at times, be classified as hallucinations. Against the good done during the Arab Spring, for example, against the increasing--at times excessive--transparency of nearly every facet of public life, we must set news comment pages of every stripe and kidney. Where the founders envisioned a high-minded level of civil discourse, we get a forum which requires a degree in Stupid just to take part.
Take a recent piece of discourse about the security of the Titanic wrecksite. The facts are disturbing: indiscriminate looting, foolish actions by tourists who surely represent the 1%, and garbage. Certainly explorer Robert Ballard's idea that the remains should be coated with anti-fouling paint and preserved seems a little off the wall, but it doesn't justify the sheer imbecility of the comment thread. We had the Teabag types who jumped to the conclusion that Ballard was proposing that the US government paint the wreck. There were a large number of commenters who felt compelled to share their lack of interest by posting variations on "who cares?" The best of that genre was the genius who said that the dead of the Andrea Doria were more important than the dead of the Titanic. I leave the reader to ponder the nature of that hairsplitting.
My personal favourite is the denier who said that since only the US gummint and a few universities have submersibles capable of reaching the Titanic, then either the whole thing was a plot (objective very unclear) or the damage was done by the aforementioned.
It took me about 30 seconds to construct a Google search that revealed sales pitches (pre-kerfluffle) for submersible tours to the Titanic: not government, not academic, just plain old tourist hustling. It is the disconnect between Mr. Denier and the facts that leads me to present him the Gold Medal for the Internet comment Stupid competition.
Alas for the hopes of the Interwebz founders! However, the non-stop parade of public idiocy on comment threads is much more hilarious than the original vision, which sounds something like cyber C-Span.
Take a recent piece of discourse about the security of the Titanic wrecksite. The facts are disturbing: indiscriminate looting, foolish actions by tourists who surely represent the 1%, and garbage. Certainly explorer Robert Ballard's idea that the remains should be coated with anti-fouling paint and preserved seems a little off the wall, but it doesn't justify the sheer imbecility of the comment thread. We had the Teabag types who jumped to the conclusion that Ballard was proposing that the US government paint the wreck. There were a large number of commenters who felt compelled to share their lack of interest by posting variations on "who cares?" The best of that genre was the genius who said that the dead of the Andrea Doria were more important than the dead of the Titanic. I leave the reader to ponder the nature of that hairsplitting.
My personal favourite is the denier who said that since only the US gummint and a few universities have submersibles capable of reaching the Titanic, then either the whole thing was a plot (objective very unclear) or the damage was done by the aforementioned.
It took me about 30 seconds to construct a Google search that revealed sales pitches (pre-kerfluffle) for submersible tours to the Titanic: not government, not academic, just plain old tourist hustling. It is the disconnect between Mr. Denier and the facts that leads me to present him the Gold Medal for the Internet comment Stupid competition.
Alas for the hopes of the Interwebz founders! However, the non-stop parade of public idiocy on comment threads is much more hilarious than the original vision, which sounds something like cyber C-Span.
Labels: Internet comments, Titanic
posted by Uncle | 22:16
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