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I have taken little holidays before now from the onerous and thankless task of enlightening benighted fools, but this time, in one moment of irrevocable resolution, I decided I would never return, for suddenly I realised the thankless, hopeless, Sisyphean nature of my labours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This little squib is intended to explain my abstinence from that invaluable symposium of eminent intellects and selfless benefactors of humanity, should anyone be sufficiently interested and willing to take time from their busy lives to read on.<\/p>\n\n\n
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It was while I was mocking some angry dullard, not even a particularly egregious fuckwit [1]<\/a>, that I had what I might call an epiphany, if that is not too grandiloquent a term. I am not claiming some noble inspiration to a greater good or enlightenment. In fact, quite the opposite. In a rare moment of clarity, I wondered exactly how my time and efforts were benefitting me, and I realised that not only was I selflessly providing a public service for free, but it was largely unappreciated, and, even worse, was actually preventing me from earning a desperately needed crust. Fuck that for a game of soldiers, thought I.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n So what’s trolling all about, and why do I call it the noble art? Troll, like hack [2]<\/a>, and even LOL, are jargon, with their origin in the early days of computing and networking. And, as is usually the way with jargon (including, ironically, the word jargon itself) the uninformed pick-up on the term, can’t be arsed to find out what it actually means, and then proceed to misuse it until it loses its meaning by common usage. (And so proceeds the degradation and impoverishment of language into a crude and blunt instrument, incapable of expressing anything but the most banal and superficial platitudes and clich\u00e9s [3]<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Way back in the early 1980s, when the internet was all bright and shiningly new, the vast majority of its denizens were people of intelligence and education. This was before browsers (the internet equivalent of kiddie’s picture books) and the web allowed any fuckwit who could point and click to spray their banal and inane opinions about like a hippo sprays dung.[4]<\/a> A time when you had to be able to use a command-line interface, and have a fair knowledge of computing (unix, shells, emacs, vi, telnet, gopher, etc.) to use the net, and you probably had some connection with a university or computer company to get online at all, access being quite restricted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So at that time you could pretty much rely on your fellow netizens being the kind of people with whom you could hold an intelligent and interesting conversation. If you asked a question or proposed an argument, then the replies were probably coming from people who not only knew what they were talking about but also understood the rules and procedures of rational debate.<\/p>\n\n\n The place where a lot of this intercourse took place was known as Usenet, a sort of bulletin board where subjects could be explored and discussed. Usenet was organised into groups by subject (newsgroups) and threads, but because of the primitive, linear and sequential nature of the systems, following a discussion was a quite slow, laborious and expensive process. So people repeating previously-made points or questions were an irritating and obstructive nuisance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alas, all too soon and all too predictably, the great unlearned began to get access and the quality of contributions suffered greatly. Fools and newbies began to drown out the original users with inane clamour, and the signal-to-noise ratio plummeted. At this point, trolling began as a service to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trolling, as originally conceived, has its etymological roots not in mythological Nordic troglodytes and dwellers under bridges, but in the practice of anglers who would ‘troll’ a lure past the likely lurking-spot of a fish in order to entice it out of the line-entangling weeds. The fish, in this case, being someone who either didn’t know what they were talking about or who hadn’t bothered to read what went before. By disingenuously making some simple-minded comment, or asking a trivial question, the troll could expose the user who hadn’t done their homework, or had nothing new to say. In the words of that source of all wisdom, the Grateful Dead,<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘Please don’t dominate the rap, Jack. Needless to say, the trolling technique was soon expanded to include all sorts of ways of provoking the ignorant and stupid onto exposing themselves – and thus the noble art was named. <\/p>\n\n\n By now, anyone with a halfway decent education will have recognised that the true original troll was the greatest philosopher who ever lived – Socrates – who never expounded his own theories (‘I only know that I do not know’), but merely asked questions of those people who pretended that their half-baked thoughts, theories and beliefs meant they actually knew what they were talking about. You don’t get a more noble practice than that. He compared himself to a gadfly, his role being “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.” It would be laughable hubris to compare myself to Socrates, but even the basest fool might try to follow his example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as everyone knows, Socrates’s methods revealed the poverty of accepted wisdom, and the thoughtless ignorance of those who propounded it, and that made him somewhat unpopular. The stupid and ignorant hate having their deficiencies exposed, much less ridiculed. So much so that the powers that be cooked up some ludicrous charges and had him executed. And that is the likely fate of all those who love knowledge, understanding and truth above personal profit, prestige, power and popularity. So it goes, as Vonnegut would say.<\/p>\n\n\n But, in case you think this is an exercise in self-aggrandisement or mere self-justification, let me explain the real reason why I will no longer practice the Noble Art. The revelation I experienced came down to this – I’m not getting paid for this! While I am all in favour of educating the ignorant and enlightening the fuckwits, pro bono publico<\/em> as it were, the simple fact is that I can’t afford it. There is a saying ‘Do not cast pearls before swine’<\/em> [5]<\/a>, which means do not give a gift of great value to those who cannot appreciate it. Especially if one isn’t getting any benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not just financially that I am losing out. I could be spending my time on something that interests me and from which I might gain in those most precious treasures, understanding and wisdom. Seriously, what can I learn from the sort of fuckwits who don’t even bother to check their spelling and who cannot construct a grammatical sentence in their own native language, much less a coherent and logical argument? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking back, I can honestly say that not once in all the years I was on FakeBook\u2122 did I ever see a ‘political’ comment that was worth wasting the 15 seconds of my life it took to read it. Not once, not ever, not by anyone. The very idea that I would squander my time trying to debate with the oafish, puerile and self-righteous perpetrators of such idiocies is utterly unthinkable. No one has so much spare time or patience that they can educate the ineducable. Nor, of course, do these asinine loud-mouths have any inkling of just how much they need it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Seriously, I don’t expect you to devote the time and effort required to learn Quantum Mechanics or Relativity, although I recommend you should, if only because otherwise you are missing out on 99% of the beauty and wonder of our universe. You can get through life without knowing anything about them (and even manage to have an opinion about them, not that anyone would care in the slightest or it would make the slightest difference). And I appreciate that you almost certainly lack the educational and intellectual wherewithal to acquire that knowledge, but you obviously haven’t taken the slightest real interest in learning about or understanding politics nor given it even the most superficial level of thought. Every simplistic partisan comment I read just shows how little people really consider how complex, difficult and messy politics is in real life. This is frankly disappointing, even shameful, given that politics actually affects them and they have a say in it. No, all they do is join a tribal slanging match for the ignorant, the naive and simplistic. Just reminds me of a troop of baboons flinging their faeces at strangers and screaming inarticulate imprecations. One thing is certain; these people have never run anything more difficult than a local allotment society. Listening to them is like listening to sex and relationship advice from a nun. If they could do better then why aren’t they doing it themselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I could be spending my precious time on Earth in discussion with people from whom I might learn, people with something meaningful to say. I could, at least, be reading something that will improve my knowledge and understanding – there is a near-infinite supply of worthwhile books to be read. As Marvin said in H2G2, ‘It hurts me to even think down to your level’<\/em>. So why should I do so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The erudition and eloquence I have been sharing with you, gratis,<\/em> has cost me dear. Firstly, in long, arduous, often painful, years of extremely hard work to which I applied myself while you were enjoying yourself, amusing yourself, or generally just pissing about. It also cost me a fortune; not just in paying for books, journals and courses, but also in huge amounts of lost earnings. I could very easily have made a very tidy amount working when I was otherwise occupied in learning (which is very poorly paid, if at all) while you were getting paid for whatever it is you do. <\/p>\n\n\n Let’s face it – the overwhelming majority of the fuckwits giving us the benefit of their ill-informed, ill-considered and definitely ill-written opinions on FakeBook\u2122 have nothing to say worth hearing, never mind discussing. So the best I could hope for was some influence on the silent people who mostly watch; those who, to repeat the aphorism, know it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt on the matter. You surely cannot imagine that I would be in even the slightest way interested in the opinions of 99% of FakeBookers? And despite all that, I have been giving you the fruits of my labours for nothing, and you are ungrateful! For Fuck’s Sake, have you no shame? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some na\u00efve souls might think one should adopt a gentle, reasonable and patient approach to fuckwits. This is nonsense, of course. These people are not amenable to sweet reason; evidence and rational argument have no influence over them. If they were at all susceptible to the voice of intelligence then they would not be promulgating such absurd and duplicitous nonsense in the first place. It is not as if I can have been the only person to have pointed out their errors, but they are voluntarily deaf to all argument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a simple law of nature that the effort, time and energy required to refute bullshit is vastly greater than that required to produce it. It’s a losing battle in which I no longer feel any inclination to participate. As I said, a Sisyphean task, and therefore hopeless.<\/p>\n\n\n From now on, the world can go to hell as far as I am concerned. There is a truth I have known for many years, i.e. that people don’t value what they do not have to pay for. I will, in future, only share my thoughts when there is a chance of getting paid for them, even if my reward is only appreciation. As the great lexicographer and wit, the Sage of Litchfield, Dr Samuel Johnson said, ‘No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.’<\/em> No more FakeBook\u2122 for me, then. I will confine myself to my blog, where I hope my fellow philosophers (literally, lovers of wisdom) will join me, and appreciate, along with Keats, that ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty \u2013 that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.’<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n To conclude, I would just like to mention how this position affects me personally. My overwhelming feeling about it all is one of bitter disappointment. I have laboured, struggled and paid dearly always in the conviction that it is my duty, as it is everyone’s, to try to build a better world – a kinder, happier, more rational world where, even if we could never put all human folly and cruelty behind us completely and permanently, then at least we might ameliorate human suffering and the worst excesses of our nature. I lived in hope that we might approach asymptotically the ideals of the Enlightenment. As Bertrand Russell famously said, ‘Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.<\/em>” I am now convinced that this effort of mine was utterly futile, just a wasted life. And I cannot tell you just how sad, lonely and hopeless this makes me feel. Perhaps it is, at last, time to accept the Buddha’s Dhamma, i.e. that suffering is inevitable, and all we can hope for is that only for an individual is there any amelioration through an acceptance of that suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PS. If you enjoyed my little entertainment, please share it with your friends, and, who knows, if enough people visit my site I might even enjoy enough popularity to get paid for all my hard work. Thanks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Update 14\/03\/2021:<\/strong> Over the last few days I have broken my fast and taken a quick look at FakeBook\u2122. How pleased I am to no longer degrade myself in that sink of iniquity and ignorance. I must admit that it is hard to shake the habits of so many years – hard to restrain myself from correcting the shamelessly ignorant and brazenly thoughtless – but I wonder that I ever felt obliged to reply to the ill-considered, ill-informed jabber of people who, utterly unaccountably, feel their opinions are worth publicising. As Sonnet 129 warns us, the momentary pleasures (substitute exposing fuckwits for lust) are not worth having;<\/p>\n\n\n\n Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame <\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> One of the very few satisfying rewards of my time on FakeBook\u2122 was seeing the term ‘Fuckwit’ taken-up and spread among my friends. It is not my invention, but I think I can take some credit for increasing its popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> Hacking never originally meant breaking into computers. That is called cracking, and the term is, as they say, deprecated – its use in that sense marking you out as a newbie. It probably comes from Hackney (as in cabs), meaning to do undistinguished work (as in newspaper journalism), or, rather more complimentary, exploring computer systems in original ways. See A Short History of \u201cHack\u201d The New Yorker<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> Orwell was wrong – ’twas not by sinister stratagems of dark forces [IngSoc – English Socialism, inventors of NewSpeak intended to render ThoughtCrime impossible] that language and thought are crippled; it took merely human stupidity and indolence. Mind you, the forces of Woke are doing their best. See the Appendix to ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel<\/em>‘, ‘The Principles of Newspeak<\/em>‘.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a>If you have never seen a hippo shitting then do yourself a favour and google it, or take a look at https:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/video\/hippo-marks-its-territory-by-spraying-dung-stock-video-footage\/3B2FBBC9_551<\/a>. There’s something curiously fascinating about the way that stumpy little tail wags back and forth like a manic metronome while the hippo shits, scattering green, slimy, smelly, shit everywhere. As I said, much like many people on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> Matthew, 7:6. Or, as the French say, ‘ Il ne faut pas donner de la confiture au des cochons’.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Those of you who have been paying attention (wake-up at the back!) will have noticed my absence from FakeBook\u2122 for the last year. One or two of you may even have wondered why. It is even possible, though improbable, that some misguided individual may even be missing my contributions, sparkling with wit, erudition, and heart-warming compassion as they were. I have taken little holidays before now from the onerous and thankless task of enlightening benighted fools, but this time, in one moment of irrevocable resolution, I decided I would never return, for suddenly I realised the thankless, hopeless, Sisyphean nature of my labours. This little squib is intended to explain my abstinence from that invaluable symposium of eminent intellects and … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.control-g.co.uk\/plaintales\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2021\/03\/Gnus-reading-news.png\")
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If you’ve got nothing new to say.
If you’ll please go back up the track,
This train’s got to run today.’<\/p>\nNew Speedway Boogie – Working Man’s Dead<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.control-g.co.uk\/plaintales\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2021\/03\/Socrate_du_Louvre.jpg\")
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Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despis\u00e8d straight,
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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