{"id":5847,"date":"2022-06-13T06:14:22","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T06:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=5847"},"modified":"2024-02-08T09:46:51","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T09:46:51","slug":"free-speech-wit-humour-quotations-and-the-idiot-robots-of-fb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=5847","title":{"rendered":"MiSC: Free Speech – Wit, Humour, Quotations, and The Idiot Robots of FB*"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

* And their compliant human drones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Oh dear, the humourless idiot machines are winning!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s kind of shocking when one learns that films like Idiocracy<\/em> turn out not to be mere satire, but \u00dcber-Nostrodamian prophecies, or even just simple documentaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Iain Overton says, in his book, The Price Of Freedom<\/a><\/em>, and others do elsewhere (for example Sam Harris, in The End of Faith<\/em>), the responses to perceived threats are sometimes more damaging – usually by dint of curtailing the freedoms of the more docile many in order to supposedly more fully control the errant few – than the threats that supposedly prompt them into existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I can\u2019t make a particular joke, quoting Count Arthur Strong, in a FB group dedicated to him, because a human will do the bidding of a robot that doesn\u2019t understand or can\u2019t differentiate between my innocent humour – and let\u2019s not forget it\u2019s a quote<\/em>, so it\u2019s not even me saying the allegedly egregious thing – and a genuine incitement to violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is of course utterly ridiculous.<\/em> Those intent on acting out violence will both do so, and find ways to express themselves, regardless of what anybody else does. And such folk are, thankfully, are a very small minority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, a much larger and more benign majority have their freedoms curtailed, in a very real way, and to no real benefit. The idea that maybe one day<\/em> we\u2019ll be the slaves of robots is grotesquely outdoated. We already are! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, in a tip of the reality had to the apparently ludicrous fantasies of The Matrix<\/em> series of films – whose overall adolescence of aesthetics rather undercuts the more sinister and prescient ideas about what constitutes reality, and our relationships with technology – we, the soft machines, are already becoming the willing collaborators and enforcers of this joyless, soulless, brainless automaton culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
My reply to the citing of \u2018evidence\u2019 re a former \u2018offender\u2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t bode well for the future of the species! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little did I expect it to be a flippant and lighthearted response to a Count Arthur themed post, in a Count Arthur based group, that would bring this home so forcefully! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adopting the CA voice, \u2018Well, I mean\u2026 is it any wonder we tire of this ceaseless handholding? And you robots, you have to meet us at least halfway. Honestly, you couldn\u2019t make this stuff up!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* And their compliant human drones. It\u2019s kind of shocking when one learns that films like Idiocracy turn out not to be mere satire, but \u00dcber-Nostrodamian prophecies, or even just simple documentaries. As Iain Overton says, in his book, The Price Of Freedom, and others do elsewhere (for example Sam Harris, in The End of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MiSC: Free Speech – Wit, Humour, Quotations, and The Idiot Robots of FB*”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[89,77,68,20],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-1wj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5847"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5847"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11542,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5847\/revisions\/11542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}