How many of you have read Harrison Bergeron
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
That is sort of what it is like trying to work while following the top conservatives on twitter (#tcot). Every twenty seconds or so, tweetdeck will chirp, and up comes something so stupid that it just jars you, and by the time you have recovered, lo and behold, another top conservative will want to share their deep thoughts.
Bill H
Which is exactly why I don’t have twitter.
geg6
Again, I must ask…
Why are you torturing yourself with this inane crap, John? Are you into S&M?
Tax Analyst
geg6 said:
geg6 – Doesn’t this fall into the “so we don’t have to?” category?
Tax Analyst
Well, I don’t know why my blockquote only blockquoted part of geg6’s comment. But whatever…
Comrade Kevin
@geg6: Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard, you might break your arm.
licensed to kill time
I can barely tolerate my cell phone. And every time a text msg does its doodle-a-doot-daloo! thingy, I jump out of my skin. I think Twitter would give me a meltdown/heart attack.
beltane
Please don’t do this to yourself. It’s not worth it. Just ignore the twits and twats and go take Lily for a walk.
Zifnab
Omg, you’re right. Going through this shit is like getting shoved face first into a bucket of crazy and stupid. I particularly like the “Brett Farve gives aid and comfort to the enemy” bit, whining about how some Iraqi detainee said Farve played really well for the Vikings.
/facedesk
lutton
That’s why I don’t follow people who will drive me crazy directly. I get enough RTs and follow ups from people whose commentary I do enjoy about those inane posts to more than satisfy any desire to see what crazy is out there.
Of course, one of John’s subjects about which he writes is the crazy, so I guess he needs to have that faucet running. Crosses to bear and all that.
SpotWeld
Careful, that is weapons grade wingnut you’re sipping there.
Put up some buffers or something. Interspace it with some Will Wheaton or Stephen Fry at least. It’s like the carbon rod that keeps radioactive material from reaching critical mass. (Or the clensing fire to the infernal pages of the Necronomincon)
donovong
Where is the written mandate that we all have to Twitter now? Is it in the Death Panel legislation?
Elizabelle
Gadzooks. Miley Cyrus’s tourbus calvacade is giving VP Biden’s motorcade a run for its money.
One dead in a Virginia accident today; Miss Cyrus not aboard.
http://www.thestate.com/324/story/1036960.html
SpotWeld
Pehaps you’d best add Big Ben… it’s a like a refreshing cup of tea at regular intervals.
twitter.com/Big_ben_clock
neill
it’s sorta like tailgating other cars so you can read their bumperstickers…
after a few fender-benders even Hazel gives it up…
Martin
Love Vonnegut. Read it when I was about 11 or so, still remember what room I was in when I read it.
John S.
One of my all-time favorite short stories along with The Grand Inquisitor.
Very apt analogy, John.
Surreal American
Somehow I was under the impression that the wingnuts claimed “Harrison Bergeron” as the one Vonnegut story they liked. With its Randian implications of suppressing talent in the name of “equality.”
At least it’s better written than anything by Ayn Rand.
Chat Noir
@Tax Analyst:
A category for which I’m extremely grateful to our Balloon Juice hosts. I can only take teh stupid when the Balloon Juice commentariat provider their (collective) unique take on it.
Persia
@Bill H: Yep.
NutellaonToast
I don’t get the connection between Harrison Bergeron and TCOT… Can someone splain plz?
LT
Too funny. It must be the exact purpose of Limbaugh and O’Reilly and Hannity and the rest. Although most of the listeners require little zapping anyway.
SpotWeld
I wonder if doing nothing but watching #tcot is a reasonable recreation of the inside of Glenn Beck’s head.
*shudder*
Morbo
@NutellaonToast: i think John means to imply that #tcot is making him less intelligent.
licensed to kill time
@NutellaonToast:
Because this is what you feel like when you follow tcot? I know I feel that way when Fox News oozes from the teevee.
lamh31
OT, but watch the wingnuts head explode. A poll said that almost 70% of the country likes Obama personally, even about 1/2 of those who “doesnt’ agree with his policies”
It’s stuff like this that makes the wingnuts heads explode. I guy just looks too cool at everything, and it really pisses them off.
Obama, NFL Players Star In Thanksgiving Day PSA
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/obama-nfl-players-star-in-thanksgiving-day-psa.php?ref=fpb
”
President Obama and NFL players Troy Polamalu, Drew Brees and DeMarcus Ware are starring in a public service announcement to air during three Thanksgiving Day football games.
The PSA, which promotes Play 60 and United We Serve, encourages kids to exercise and adults to volunteer in their community.
Watch Obama make a slow-motion catch (and try not to cry):”
yellowdog
@surreal american
I’ve been reading SF for 50 years; I read Vonnegut before he got famous and I’ve always thought that story was an over-the-top satire of political correctness (and it is one of the few Vonnegut writings I don’t like). I could never understand those who thought it was a defensive of individuality and diversity. It makes me feel dirty to be in any sort of agreement with the Randians, but they like the story for its message and I don’t.
In case you’re wondering about my political leanings; I’m ideologically/philosophically a socialist but organizationally a life-long Democrat.
geg6
@Tax Analyst:
I guess. I just can’t imagine the headache it would give me.
@Comrade Kevin:
Ummmm, what? I am not at all sure as to what you are referencing here.
Alan
Todays’s conservatism is dumb. Yeah, there are a few breaths of fresh air out there, like Larison or Bartlett. But for the most part all it does is brain fart talk radio talking points. If anything of value ever springs up from that cesspool it’s lost in a sea of stupid.
slag
@licensed to kill time: Yeah. Well. You know who else hated #tcot? Hitler.
Rick Taylor
I don’t understand the point of twitter. It seems to be mostly a mechanism to embarrass oneself or to torture others.
NutellaonToast
@Rick Taylor: I think it just acts as a method to concentrate stoopid in order to cut down on transportation costs.
binzinerator
Somehow this observation seems related to this one in an earlier post:
The conservative narrative eventually renders the human brain superfluous, doesn’t it?
sparky
seems like a good straterergy on their part: anyone not a member of the faithful gets brain damage, and anyone who is stays perpetually agitated about, well, everything! an agitated base is a useful base.
too bad the GOP operatives didn’t prefer neurobiology to power.
EnderWiggin
Umm, Twitter is only useful if you follow people you actually want to read. Maybe setup a list and use a client to separate the nuts from your actual follow list, and treat the crazy like you treat the Blogs We Monitor And Mock As Needed.
Sasha
One of my favorite short stories (and I especially loved the name of the Handicapper General, Diana Moon-Glampers).
Have you ever seen the film adaptation? A different animal for sure, but I think you might enjoy it. Consider this bit of dialogue:
Martin
@Surreal American:
What isn’t better written than anything by Any Rand?
Sasha
Sigh. Let’s try this again:
Phoenix Woman
Scott H
If someone accidentally shot themselves in the foot with a nail gun they would have my sympathy. If they shot themselves in the foot with a nail gun every fifteen minutes I would assume that they enjoyed it.
On the whole, a tool’s value is in how well you use it and how you choose to use it.
gbear
@Phoenix Woman:
TURN THE SHIP UPSIDE DOWN.
That line wound up being the all-purpose punch line for a band I played with in the early 70’s. We had a half-dozen Vonnegut books floating around the panel van at any given time.
Ken
John, you’ve got no-one to blame but yourself for this twit nonsense. Get out now, while you still have time.
jibeaux
I don’t know where you all went to middle school, but at mine Harrison Bergeron was required reading pretty much every year. Not a lot of cross-grade communication there, really. I liked it, but I really liked getting into Vonnegut’s other stuff that they definitely don’t read in school, later on.
Chuck Butcher
Since I can’t think of a thing I need to be bothered about that can be said in 140 characters I won’t use it. I also don’t have a texting circle, I can barely manage that on the odd occurance I need to due to lack of practice.
Just because you can design something doesn’t mean there is any usefulness to it.
tamied
@Sasha: Isn’t that President McCain speaking?
geg6
@Chuck Butcher:
Okay, I suddenly find you irresistibly attractive. It’s like you read my mind.
Xanthippas
See, I told you. Twitter is perfect for Mr. Cole.
Tax Analyst
Rick Taylor said:
I don’t either, really, but my best guess would be that it’s just the old-fashioned childhood desire for attention that’s suddenly been made pick-your-nose easy today’s hyper-accelerated technological advances.
Tax Analyst
that should have read “…by today’s hyper-accelerated technological advances.”
Chuck Butcher
I’m not tech adverse, I was online in 1990, I had one of the first 386s, and I know I had the first 486 in town. That rapid turnover stopped with the 486 which could accomplish most of what I needed done quickly enough. My laptop came about because I started travelling for politics and is two years old, my desktop is 4 years old and runs XT happily. I’m still holding off on MS7 for the laptop.
When things do what I want as well as I need it done, I let the additional gadgets go. About the only thing I use a cell phone for is phone calls. I do use it to take pictures on the Harley since it is small and there’s no good place to put my good camera.
Chuck Butcher
@geg6:
It’s alright to, some people do. I am ornery enough to try to understand issues from as many levels of the argument as possible.
Sasha
@tamied:
More like President Palin. Or Bush.
In the film, the President is randomly chosen from the citizenry. Thus the President is, quite literally, an average guy — just like the rest of us.
Randy P
@Sasha:
Will someone remind me what the trick is for blockquoting more than a paragraph? I know it has something to do with putting underline characters somewhere.
licensed to kill time
@Randy P: Use two underscores in every empty line between paragraphs. Blockquote hates empty lines, why oh why?
Alan
“Harrison Bergeron” is by far my least favorite Vonnegut work. It fits into a class of literature that I refer to as “right wing paranoia porn,” i.e. fiction designed to show how awful things will be if Liberals get into power and do all sorts of crazy things that no Liberal has ever suggested doing. It’s the sort of future-vision that might be imagined by someone who really thinks that universal health care will inevitably result in America becoming a socialist hell-hole.
Tom Ames
I’ve long used that passage to describe to my childless friends what it’s like to become a father.
BTW, does anyone remember the name of a story by Robert Sheckley in which politicians were required to wear a special medallion of office at all times? (The medallions were wirelessly connected to polling places where citizens could register their disapproval. So many negative votes in a day would trigger the medallion to explode.)
KRK
It a sincere desire not to be that person I don’t usually mention John’s wild inconsistency in the capitalization of “is” in post titles. But twittering has apparently so degraded John’s senses that he can’t even be consistent within a single title. Aggh. I can’t take it.
PTirebiter
It’s been a long, long time; but didn’t Welcome The Monkey House have a story about Ethical Suicide Parlors located just outside every Howard Johnson’s? Obviously an incremental plan for death panels.
PTirebiter
It’s been a long, long time; but didn’t Welcome To The Monkey House have a story about Ethical Suicide Parlors located just outside every Howard Johnson’s? Obviously an incremental plan for death panels.
PTirebiter
I apologize for the the secondary launch.
Randy P
@PTirebiter:
Yep. Much to my wife’s annoyance, I reminisce about that story every time we run into a still-existing Howard Johnsons.
Regnad Kcin
And so it goes…
licensed to kill time
@PTirebiter: Yep.
licensed to kill time
@licensed to kill time: If I had a goddamned edit button I would have added my suggestion that teabaggers be called “nothingheads” from now on.
licensed to kill time
@licensed to kill time: And if I had a goddamned delete button I would have dumped that last comment since it makes no sense in the context. I just like the term nothingheads.
Comrade Alan
There’s another Alan on this thread. To distinguish who is who, I’m the dumb one from Florida who will now go by the name Comrade Alan. That is all.
Regnad Kcin
@PTirebiter:
The Aztecs invented the vacation! Our forefathers took drugs! Your brain is not the boss!
Joe1347
If you’re a fan of Idiocracy or Office Space, then you’ll love the film verison of Harrison Bergeron. I believe that you can find the film online on google.
0whole1
I think I read that story in a SF anthology that also contained something about a jail without walls, where the inmates had pain transmitters implanted inside them that worked like radio collars for dogs. The main character trained himself to withstand the pain, and then walked away to find a doctor.
0whole1
@Tax Analyst: a) Twitter allows you to 1) broadcast a single thought to a group of people and 2) see a bunch of thoughts from other people *pushed to you* in a simple way. b) Twitter allows you to peep *a group of conversations selected by a third — and presumably non-random, trusted — party. c) Twitter allows you to filter the entire group of non-private conversations based on keywords and then view individual thoughts. d) Twitter works across a variety of devices.
I think those’re the points…I might be off or missing something.
Each individual item above can be done in other ways as well — Facebook’s wall, email, blogs, other types of websites, phone texting, etc. Twitter is just another spin on managing text-based communication.
It’s one of those things I have a hard time about tech — wrapping my head around talking abstractly about small increments of functionality differences.
Citizen Alan
Actually, Comrade Alan, I think you were here first. Henceforth, I shall call myself Citizen Alan in the style of the French revolutionaries, as I think a lot of our financial problems could be solved if we just installed a guillotine on the sidewalk in front of the NY Stock Exchange. Not necessarily a working one; just a friendly little reminder.
Chuck Butcher
@0whole1:
Just to maintain geg6’s affection I’m going to double down on this. It’s really difficult to make reasonable a pointless toy. Honest to god, why would I want a freaking stranger to bother me with a thought that can be expresssed in 140 goddam characters? If it’s a case of “Hi, how’re you-I’m fine,” what kind of stupidity is going to be inflicted on me? If you read about somebody getting into trouble over Twitter it is generally really stupid.
Half the blow-ups I’ve seen online are due to the limits of written communication in personal usage. No cues are available, :), doesn’t replace facial expressions, tonality, or body language. So an it’s a fucking advance to further limit an already limited art?
geg6 and I got into it because I couldn’t make clear that what I was arguing had nothing to do with respect for her or her abilities because they weren’t an issue in what I was arguing – that her field had nothing to do with what I was expressing. An insult was inferred (or condesension) where there was none – the cues were missing. So in 140 characters you’re going to do what? There’s an advancement…
Batocchio
I prefer you citing Harrison Bergeron to Ron Paul doing it.
ruemara
Hah! I remember those words. I last read that book in junior high and I wondered how that book knew so well what kids were like. Then I grew up and discovered adults. I will sell out this planet to the first decent alien civilization with a good, comfy spaceship, decent maps and 2 billion in galactic credit.