First, my opinion as a certified cranky Old Person: Anyone willing to get a tattoo so they’ll never miss an incoming phone message… is not mature enough to consent to body modification.
Second, it looks like those of us here at Balloon Juice may be wasting all our time on the wrong social media site:
James Erwin, 37, works for a financial services firm in Des Moines, Iowa, writing software manuals. He’s been doing that for a couple of years, and he enjoys it. It’s a pretty low-stress job for a person with a methodical turn of mind—good pay, short commute. He’s home by 5:30 every night to spend time with his wife and 1-year-old son.
__
One Wednesday last August, Erwin rose from his desk around noon. He walked to the company lunchroom, microwaved a pretzel-bread Hot Pocket, and carried it back to his desk on a paper towel. He took a bite of the Hot Pocket and logged in to Reddit.com…
__
It’s common for random questions to appear on Reddit’s front page, like “Is there a magnet capable of pulling the iron out of your body?” or “What is the most awkward thing you could say to a cashier while purchasing condoms?” That day, as Erwin scanned Reddit, a question caught his eye. It was posed by someone calling themselves The_Quiet_Earth: “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit]?” Erwin clicked on the question and a lively comment thread unfurled. Hundreds of people were whipping hypotheticals back and forth, gaming out the implications of a marines-versus-Romans smackdown. What’s the range of a Roman spear? How would the Romans react to a helicopter? What would happen when the Americans ran out of bullets?
__
Erwin, who studied history at the University of Iowa, had been posting on Reddit for about five months. He used the alias Prufrock451, a dual reference to the schlubby protagonist of a T. S. Eliot poem and the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451. Prufrock451′s contributions were all over the map. One day he wrote about the historical roots of the civil war in Liberia; another day he told a funny story about a shooting range in Iowa. He also uploaded a few pictures of European forts that he thought looked cool and a quote by Voltaire. In his atypicalness—Prufrock451 was pretty clearly a quirky character—he was entirely typical of a habitual Reddit user, and like many other redditors, as they are called, he found the site addictive. More than just a creative outlet or time-killer, Reddit was a game. The object was to amass points—”Reddit karma.” Every time Erwin saw his karma level increase, he felt a little squirt of adrenaline. “People are sweating to make you laugh or make you think or make you hate them,” Erwin says. “It’s the human condition, plus points.”
__
Now, in response to The_Quiet_Earth’s question about time-traveling marines, Erwin started typing. He posted his answer in a series of comments in the thread. Within an hour, he was an online celebrity. Within three hours, a film producer had reached out to him. Within two weeks, he was offered a deal to write a movie based on his Reddit comments. Within two months, he had taken a leave from his job to become a full-time Hollywood screenwriter….
(via)
Apart from all that, what real-world issues & applications are on the agenda for the start of the weekend?
PeakVT
Something to watch for between games: James Cameron is about to go to the bottom of the Challenger Deep.
ETA: I did not know this. At Challenger Deep depths, though, the calcium needed for animals to form shells dissolves quickly. It’s unlikely—though not impossible—that Cameron will find shelled creatures, but if he does, the discovery would be a scientific jaw-dropper.
hhex65
I love Erwin’s story, an update on thee olde days when the dream was being discovered like a diamond in the slush pile. There’s still hope!
Karl The Crap Blog Detective
Too bad it’s probably going to be turned into a crappy movie.
WereBear
@Karl The Crap Blog Detective: Sturgeon’s Law says: 90% of everything is crap.
I have no idea if the Shit My Dad Says phenomenon is still going, for instance. But hey, knowing people still get “shots at it.” That’s great.
I’m writing from my Chromebook and welcome questions. Mr WayofCats is already at the “that’s nice honey” stage after being in on all my research.
The future is the cloud.
Raven
While fertilizing, seeding, raking and strawing our freshly cleared 8,000 square ft lawn a lens fell out of my prescription glasses. What do you think the chances are I’ll find it?
isildur
Hooray for Reddit, home of child pornography and misogyny. Google ‘reddit pedophilia’ or ‘reddit mra’ for some awesome examples of just how Reddit’s pseudo-laissez-faire philosophy works in actual practice!
No thanks, I’ll stick with social media sites that don’t make me feel filthy.
Joey Maloney
@Raven: I think the chances that you will find it with a power mower, weed-wacker, or other motorized device that will render it unfit for use are near to unity.
When my downstairs neighbor wakes up I’m going to enlist him to translate a sign for me into idiomatic Hebrew: “Stop fucking with my bicycle. If I catch you I’ll cut off your balls and feed them to you. It ain’t worth it.”
I know that “balls” is “ביצים”, but after that I need a native speaker to strike just the right tone.
Stupid no-security apartment building.
Raven
@Joey Maloney: First thing I thought of!
JGabriel
Wired:
And yet, shockingly, no one from Hollywood has yet contacted me to write a script based on Man On Dog vs. Dog On Car.
The world is so fucking unfair.
.
Baud
@isildur: I spend a lot of time on Reddit. It is an open forum in which anyone can create a “subreddit” on any topic they want, so yes, they have attracted some awful people, and it got to the point where they recently banned sexualized child images and subreddits devoted to those types of topics. But, like real life, you’re not going to run across that stuff unless you’re looking for it.
Uncle Glenny
Balloon Juice is a social media site? Who knew? Someone warn Cole.
Joey Maloney
Social media for the anti-social, maybe.
TomG
I’m amused that it’s taken so long for the people at Balloon Juice to discover Reddit. The site’s been around for several years (I’m kind of a latecomer myself), and really shot up in prominence after Digg started really screwing up.
Isildur – Now that is just lame. Do you really hate the entirety of Reddit? Yes, tar the whole set of subreddits (thousands of them exist) with 2 recent notorious problems the site had. If you are fixated on the worst areas of a site, I’d say the problem is you. People in the real world were fairly unaware of the (small) group of pedophiles until a different site (Something Awful) combined with news media looking for the new hot outrage happened to stumble on certain areas that, like the whole damn Internet, are white hot controversy.
Reddit suffered the growing pains of a community getting big too fast, got attacked by people who were judging the whole site for a few small areas, and ended up deciding to sacrifice those areas so the rest of it wouldn’t be dragged down and destroyed.
I am not defending the vile nature of the subreddits that got attacked – I’m defending Reddit. Anyone who focuses on the worst of a large, admittedly anarchistic set of interests and judges them all – and worse, tries to tear down the whole thing because of the worst – is pretty pathetic in my view.
WereBear
@JGabriel: Too bad Jim Carrey is too old for it.
amk
So nokia is now reduced to peddling tattoos to sell their stuff ? Result of samsung and andriod beating the crap out of them in the cell phones game.
Karl The Crap Blog Detective
@isildur: Oh yeah, that too.
jeffreyw
Heh, indeed! Take a peek at r/eatsandwiches, r/foodporn, or r/tonightsdinner. Search for jeffreyww. Oh, and give me an upvote while you are there, my karma needs the points. LOL
Lee
I’ve been on reddit for about 4 years. It has some really great subreddits.
Just to name a few:
/r/economics
/r/askscience
/r/science
And a wide variety of pr0n (you can figure those out).
Reddit is very much like real life. It has a wide range of individuals commenting on any given thread. It also has its share of trolls as does any website that allows comments. Some of the subreddits have iron fisted moderators and some not. Like TomG said. Reddit is exactly what you make of it.
If you want nothing but sunshine and rainbows subscribe only to /r/aww and /r/catpictures. If want the entry into the dark underbelly of the internet, you can find it there as well (the actual underbelly of the internet is actually very far from even reddit).
Cheap Jim
@Lee: I wouldn’t call not wanting to accommodate the sexual abuse of children “nothing but sunshine and rainbows”.
Southern Beale
I have been without internet for nearly 24 hours (thank you, Starbucks, for free WiFi!). So I’m feeling a little out of sorts this morning. Fucking AT&T losers. I hope they DIAF.
However, I did manage to get some good news posted over at my place, for anyone who’s interested.
Lee
@Cheap Jim:
If that it was you think reddit is, I would stay very far away. You would not do well there even in /r/science.
Joey Maloney
Concerning the ostensible topic of this post, I bet Eric Flint is mad enough to spit spiders. He’s been plowing this same ground for years, but has Hollywood come knocking on his door?
Viva BrisVegas
Call me old fashioned, but I yearn for a simpler time when the traditional chip in the brain was considered stylish.
The Romans vs Marines premise is very familiar, but I can’t think of an exact precedent. It’s a bit “Lest Darkness Fall” and a bit “The Doomfarers of Coramonde”.
I’d pay to see it, but not in 3D.
catclub
commenting agianst the mobile site. When is this so-called redesign going to fix this?
the fugitive uterus
this does not make me want to check out Reddit. i spend enough time on the internets already anyways.
that includes jeffreyw but only because his food pr0n makes me jealous and hungry! :)
dmsilev
@Viva BrisVegas: “Modern people, including military, chucked back in time” has done in various forms before. The ur-example is probably Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. From contemporary SF, there are things like “Island in the Sea of Time” and “1632” and so forth.
One wonders how he deals with the logistical issues. No supply chain. No replacement helicopter turbines, ever. With a lot of work, you probably could get some fuel from local resources. Going to be a long long while before anyone is making useful bullets. Etc.
the fugitive uterus
i was at a Chinese restaurant yesterday. i was surrounded by people, a lot of them who looked like “good ole boys” completely engrossed in their iPhones and walking around with bluetooths attached to their ears. i feel like i’m the only person observing life around me anymore and all i get to see is a bunch of people playing with things that come from the sweat and tears of Chinese children.
it is times like those i just decide we are fucked as a nation.
Cliff in NH
chris hayes just said that Trayvon Martin called 911 before he was shot
Viva BrisVegas
@dmsilev:
Yes, but I thinking that the premise was so obvious I was surprised I couldn’t recall a prior more matching storyline.
Can a M1 Abrams tank run on olive oil?
Cat Lady
I just love these kinds of stories – how some detritus that bubbles up out of the subconscious of the hive mind goes viral. I understand bemoaning the lack of actual physical human contact now that everyone’s in front of their screens 24/7, but I think that’s always been human destiny – to become like ants or bees, except with moar cosmic consciousness. All of this crowdsourcing is not just interesting and helpful, it’s our fate. Ignorance and fear seem to be ascendant, but I think we’re just able to see it because of the internet. It’s like the false perception people have that crime is out of control when in fact the rate has gone drastically down – the nutjobs have a lot of outlets to be heard and because they’re anonymous are emboldened, but based on nothing except my own intuition I think that their way of thinking is shrinking and is an evolutionary dead end.
This has been your moment of morning zen.
redshirt
Damn. I posted about “Modern marines v. Romans” on the internet years ago. I want royalties damn it!
middlewest
So I guess people here will discover Pinterest in roughly 2015.
Joey Maloney
Someone let me out of moderation! Post repeated without multiple links:
Concerning the ostensible topic of this post, I bet Eric Flint is mad enough to spit spiders. He’s been plowing this same ground for years, but has Hollywood come knocking on his door?
WereBear
@Joey Maloney: The “discovery” story is part of the publicity, I’m sure.
Cheap Jim
@Lee: Look, enjoy your science chat, but realize, somewhere you don’t go, a child is being raped for profit and the host of your little salon is taking a cut.
Hal
Am I the only one shocked conservatives didn’t attack President Obama for his Trayvon Martin statement? I actually expected some type of “he’s a racist, what if this kid were white” non-sense, or some type of claim of race baiting.
It is still early though, so maybe by Monday Gingrich will go back to talking about teaching kids like Trayvon not to wear hoodies or accept food stamps and get jobs instead.
Poopyman
@Viva BrisVegas: How about a nuclear powered aircraft carrier getting sent back in time to December 7, 1941? That’d make a good movie, I bet.*
That’s a pretty well-worn trope, and I doubt anything new or interesting will come of it, moviewise. Also too, I wonder how many other questions are posed on reddit by movie exec types? Pretty clever way of harvesting ideas, if you ask me. At least they have the ethics to hire the reddit author for the movie script. What a change of careers though!
(* = NOT)
danielx
It’s 55 degrees this morning, which is only 15 degrees above normal for this time of year. Better than the 35 degrees above normal which has been the case for the past three weeks. (Cue wingnut raving: Climate change doesn’t exist, it’s all a liberal plot! Blaaaargh!) Only upside has been hanging out on the back porch a month ahead of schedule. Always look for the pony under the pile of manure…
Lee
@Cheap Jim:
Any proof of this? I did not think so. You can scare monger all you want. But that is all it is.
Yes I am aware of the controversy awhile back. But if there was actually any PROOF of what you are claiming don’t you think the FBI would have been on it in an instant?
Like I said please don’t show up. You won’t be welcome.
Karl The Crap Blog Detective
@Hal:
Uhhh
Omnes Omnibus
@danielx: The weather the past couple of weeks has been weird, but we should do what the right does and confuse weather with climate. Note: I am completely open to the idea that the wild weather lately his a function of climate change. It is also possible that it is just one of those things that happen and we may have a cold summer – at which point every climate change denier will be out shouting that 60 degrees in August is proof of a mini-Ice Age.
redshirt
@Hal: Give it time. All signs point to it bubbling up for Monday. I’m sure Evil HQ is formulating the talking points for dissemination as we speak.
Signs: It’s a top search on Google; Fox Nation already has a blisteringly racist thread on the subject (See “Little Green Footballs”).
burnspbesq
Road Trip! Heading up to Fresno in about 3 1/2 hours to watch the Duke women’s basketball team in the NCAA tournament. It’s 250 miles each way, ,and I’m hoping to make it up and back on one tank of go-go juice (have I mentioned recently how much I love my Jetta diesel wagin?). Put a bunch of new music on the phone , which connects to the car audio system via Bluetooth, so I’m good to go once I top up the tank and put air in the tires.
Go Devils!
danielx
Re: Anne’s point about being a certified cranky Old Person – I’ve read a lot of theorizing about how constant stimulation of the brain via text messages, calls, tweets, IMs, etc tends to rewire the brain and lessen attention span. Further theorizing about the degree to which people can or may become addicted to stimulation and literally unable to turn off the computer and turn off the phone just to focus on something…Assuming this is true, it does make me wonder how people in school now deal with subjects that require intense concentration without any kind of outside interruption. Something like, say, medical school classes, just for starters.
Also, too – in what I regard as a total triumph of virtue over temptation, I visited the grand opening of a new REI store yesterday and didn’t buy anything. I love stores like that because every time I walk in I see something that would be awesomely useful/cool that I could even justify buying (almost). But – didn’t spend a dime. Now if they’d had SmartWool socks on sale, that would have been a different story.
Mouse-Bear
To Catch a Redditor, which is a collection of evidence gathered from the latest Reddit thread in D&D. That one concentrates on MRAs, pedos, PUAs (such people actually market videos showing how to sexually assault young women), and the hateful type of atheists. Also, r/beatingtrannys, r/beatingwomen, and so forth. It’s great place for people to come together and exchange tips on grooming toddlers for sexual abuse, as well as attacking rape victims, congratulating each other for views on extreme violence toward women, and concentrated, real-life, attacks on a mod for one of the LGBT subforums for not tolerating transphobes.
danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
True dat – unlike wingnuts in general, I get that whole normal curve concept and distinctly recall all the gloating over the completely miserable winter before this past one. But hey, I also recognize the whole “preponderance of evidence” thing – and recognize also the incredible ability of wingnuts to ignore it or rationalize it away.
redshirt
Also too: Way cooler would be a team of ninjas sent back to Roman times.
WaterGirl
I got goosebumps watching the new Obama campaign video, featuring Elizabeth Warren.
Am I the only one who thinks Elizabeth Warren is going to get the prime speaking role at the democratic convention?
Rafer Janders
You don’t know how depressed this has made me. Because back when I was about 14, I wrote a long story detailing exactly how a Wehrmacht unit in the Italian campaign in 1944 was transported back in time to Rome in the time of the Antony-Octavian civil war and managed to take over the empire.
This idea is mine, damnit! It’s mine…!
Rafer Janders
@redshirt:
Try this Sonny Chiba movie from 1979:
Time Slip (Sengoku Jieitai): When a squad of Japanese soldiers is mysteriously hurtled four centuries into the past, platoon leader Lt. Iba (Sonny Chiba) realizes that the time-traveling mix-up presents a chance for him to become Japan’s ruler. After allying his men with a group of samurai, Iba and the high-tech warriors march toward a bloody, climactic battle against a fanatical feudal army in director Mitsumasa Saito’s rousing action-adventure.
Ben Cisco
Busted virtualized SQL server. Going to copy data off to a new drive with better response time, with a simultaneous build of a hardware box as a backup plan. New hardware is in the pipeline but won’t be here for a bit. Good times.
Hal
@Karl The Crap Blog Detective:
Thanks. I was expecting something like this from Gingrich, but his initial statement seemed to indicate he wasn’t going there. Still, I love that he first says:
and then, with no irony in sight:
Davis X. Machina
@WaterGirl: She will need something like. She’s running neck-and-neck with a nonentity. Granted, incumbency advantage and all that, but still.
I wish her Godspeed. I can’t send $$, though — that’s going to the effort to flip the ME senate seat.
redshirt
@Ben Cisco: Good luck! Hope your backup is solid.
redshirt
@Rafer Janders: That sounds pretty awesome. Got to check it out. Thanks for the tip!
Davis X. Machina
@Mouse-Bear: We already have something like that called “The Internet”.
Take the fundamental depravity of mankind and the points. The fundamental depravity of mankind doesn’t always win, but it always covers the spread.
Mouse-Bear
Yes, it’s a specific place on “The Internet” called “Reddit”, where admins collude with pedos because FREE SPEECH.
Wapiti
Jerry Pournelle, in Janissaries, has a light infantry platoon transported by aliens to take control of a region of a planet. The planet has a mix of (late era?) Romans and other cultures, seeded by previous alien forays. The protagonist has the advantage of a strong background in military history, so gets around the logistics side by arming and training his allies.
Davis X. Machina
@Mouse-Bear: Proof of collusion, versus neglect, is?
Mouse-Bear
It’s always heartening to see more people use the “but other places do it to!” to excuse the rape and abuse of children.
SiubhanDuinne
Cool. This was just one of the Bluff the Listener choices on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. Thanks to Anne Laurie, I got it right. The contestant didn’t.
Steeplejack
@Hal:
How about yesterday, as noted on this very blog? Check the update to the main post.
Comrade Mary
@Cliff in NH:
HELLO? People? Any details? Anyone else see this? I can’t see it discussed anywhere else, and it seems like dynamite worth discussing.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Are you able to use your preferred audio format (AAU?) on the phone, or do you have to step it down to MP3?
I am in the process of a general music reorg and was thinking about bumping up the Droid to a 32GB card and moving over a lot more tunes. Always find myself wanting to hear something that is not currently on the phone.
Lee
@Mouse-Bear:
You do realize that was probably a massive trolling by SA right?
There is already a subreddit that is nothing but SA trolls and people on reddit still fall for it.
Are there disreputable parts of reddit? Yep. Just like there are disreputable parts of the internet.
If there were actually any proof of the child porn the FBI would have been all over it. There are redditors that work for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
You must be new to the internet. Every major platform has been accused. BBS, chatrooms, IRC, usenet, Myspace, Facebook have all had the “OMG CHILD MOLESTORS!!!” tossed about.
maya
@dmsilev:
Jarheads TDY MacGyver.
Mouse-Bear
I’m a long-time member of SA and followed the Redditbomb from the beginning; posting screencaps of admins in complicity with proud pedophiles is not “trolling”.
You know, one of the SA goons involved in forcing the Reddit admins to finally take action, after months of being banned for even reporting such sub-reddits, works for a particular company where his job is to review internet transactions to ensure they are not involving any type of fraud. At least once a week, he has to report yet another video of some toddler weeping from fear because she knows what is going to happen when “uncle” carries her over to that sofa.
And here you are, trying to treat that child’s fear and trauma as some intellectual exercise, where you get to rub one out yourself with such stellar pedo-apologist arguments of, “Oh, it was just trolling!” (Reddit admins deleted the sub-reddits only after what was, in their own words, a “difficult decision), and “But it happens other places, too!”, as if that makes it somehow all right for Reddit to harbour and protect such people.
What proof do you have that the FBI is -not- all over it? Child porn rings often takes months (at the least) for a complete investigation. Quick arrests that make the news are for when someone turns in a hard-drive with videos and images, not for tracking down people on the internet.
But, please, do continue with your efforts to support and excuse child rapists. It’s always better to get you people identified as quickly as possible.
kledd
I guess the trick is to get the Romans worshipping the Marines like gods before the tanks run out of fuel. Maybe if the commanding officer looked like Liam Neeson and could trick people into thinking he was Jupiter it would work.
RSA
What a great Cinderella story about James Erwin. I was originally thinking, as I read a t few paragraphs into the article, “Wow, that sounds like it could happen to almost anyone.” And then later I read that he spent two-and-a-half years writing an Encyclopedia of U.S. Military Actions, 700,000 words long, working in his spare time. Not many people can do that (my own professional writing speed is about a tenth of that), and not many people have literally encyclopedic knowledge of some area. Very cool that he was discovered.
TomG
Mouse-bear, I’m hardly surprised to learn you are a member of SA. It explains your irrational hate of Reddit quite well. I lurk the game forums over at SA fairly often, but I’d never dream of judging the entire SA community (or the admins) based on the limited threads I read.
That one thread in D&D is a totally one-sided circle-jerk focused on the worst threads on Reddit. I have no idea why SA members even CARE about Reddit as a whole so much that you are convinced all the admins are twisted sickos that are actively helping the worst subreddit mods. There are a lot of very positive sub-reddits that apparently don’t even exist because Reddit to you is so evil.
I’m not going to bother responding further. Go ahead…drag out more “proof” that Reddit’s admins are unspeakable cretins. I have a life to live, and I plan to enjoy the few subreddits I read while ignoring the ones I don’t.
Again, what amazes me about you SA goons (your own term, by the way) is that you seem determined to destroy all of Reddit for the sins of some members. Ever hear of the fallacy “guilt by association”? I guess not.
isildur
Mouse-Bear is absolutely correct. The problem is not that the site was (and still is) full of the lowest kind of human waste. It’s that the people who run Reddit cooperate with and protect the pedophiles.
Sorry to take a shit on what seems to be the absolute favorite internet destination for some folks here, but if you click through the link Mouse-Bear has provided, there’s a metric shit ton of evidence of the collusion between the pedophile Violentacrez and the admins of Reddit. Go ahead, click through the link and read; it’s worth reading, especially if you’re planning to defend Reddit from those mean awful SA trolls.
SA has a zero-tolerance policy for child pornography and pedophilia. Because that’s the normal fucking human policy to have. Reddit, not so much.
isildur
@TomG:
“That one thread in D&D is a totally one-sided circle-jerk focused on the worst threads on Reddit.”
That one thread is full of exactly the kind of evidence you’ve dismissed with scare-quotes around the word ‘proof’. No, really, it’s full of proof. The very first post is all you have to read.
“I have no idea why SA members even CARE about Reddit as a whole so much that you are convinced all the admins are twisted sickos that are actively helping the worst subreddit mods.”
Maybe it’s because they are actively helping the worst subreddit mods. Here’s hueypriest, Reddit general manager, giving violentacrez, pedophile and purveyor of child pornography, a heads-up about their policy change towards what he calls ‘jailbait type content’: http://i.imgur.com/nJ11V.png
Note how reluctant hueypriest is to do this. That’s because Reddit’s philosophy, as stated by founder Alexis Ohanian, is that FREE SPEACH!!!1! is more important than stopping the distribution of child porn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXZYvrue1BE
“Again, what amazes me about you SA goons (your own term, by the way) is that you seem determined to destroy all of Reddit for the sins of some members.”
Yes, SA members call themselves goons. Good catch there; you really stuck it to them.
They’re determined to destroy Reddit because of its admitted policy of defending and collaborating with child fucking pornographers. Using ‘other subreddits’ as a defense is pretty damn weak. It’s like the ‘hitler made the trains run on time’ argument. There are other places on the internet to talk about science or romans with guns or whatever. Places that don’t enable and encourage pedophiles, and profit from their activities.
Mouse-Bear
@TomG:
Don’t confuse contempt for hate. Of course the D&D thread is picking on the worst stuff; it says so right in the OP. Not sure how you missed that. I, personally, don’t care about Reddit as a website. I care about pedos and their apologists being coddled under the flag of FREE SPEECH.
Some goons want to burn Reddit to the ground, others hope it never goes away (we’re all about the mocking, after all), and others are entirely indifferent to its fate. Almost as if we’re individuals who share one opinion in common: Pedos and their apologists should be shown no mercy. Not now, not ever. Stop making pathetic excuses for the likes of Violentacrez, stop treating child rape as a high-minded topic for debate, stop weeping into your Cheerios because some really vile crap was finally deleted off your favourite site. It’s sick and wrong and so are you for defending it.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I’d be very surprised if Mr. Erwin hadn’t read Harry Turtledove and/or Leo Frankowski extensively before he started banging out his story on Reddit.