Completing the circle on ignorant loonbaggery

December 19, 2006 9:39 PM

"And guess what software Osama Bin Laden uses on his laptop?"
posted by docgonzo (77 comments total)

Satire, right? Please?
posted by lekvar at 9:41 PM on December 19, 2006

Yes, satire.
posted by Shutter at 9:44 PM on December 19, 2006

I think we established that this was satire here
posted by bunglin jones at 9:45 PM on December 19, 2006

*heh* Oh my. If not satire let me just say (from my Ubuntu anti-American laptop)... BWA-HA-HA!
posted by smallerdemon at 9:46 PM on December 19, 2006

Finally, remember to include Linux users in your prayers tonight. As individuals we may not be able to change people’s minds, but the Bible teaches that God can make any sinner repent.

Priceless.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:46 PM on December 19, 2006

Thank goodness this is satire. At least the little built-in-chat-thing proved to be five minutes of fun, as incredulous mefites popped in and out.
posted by ScotchLynx at 9:50 PM on December 19, 2006

Holy. Cow. That you cannot be sure it is satire (I am still not) speaks volumes about one's expectation of stupidity from the right.

Before 2000 I would have had no problem accepting this as such. The past years have... confused the issue for me somewhat.
posted by lekvar at 9:51 PM on December 19, 2006

Jesus...

It makes me so sad that I didn't even recognize this as satire at first. I have read so much stupidity and utter ignorance that I could easily have seen this as being serious... I actually had to read a bit before it got so weird that it occurred to me that it MIGHT be satire...

I feel so sad and sick about the state of affairs...

(sigh)...

The idiots are winning.
posted by orbis23 at 10:03 PM on December 19, 2006

I'm pretty sure he uses DOS.
posted by isopraxis at 10:14 PM on December 19, 2006

So this is where the folks at adequacy.org ended up. Huh.
posted by stet at 10:23 PM on December 19, 2006

That you cannot be sure it is satire (I am still not) speaks volumes about one's expectation of stupidity from the right.

Of course. It only speaks volumes about the right.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:25 PM on December 19, 2006

Wow.

Can we get a Gabbly for MeFi???? (ding, ding...)
posted by niles at 10:26 PM on December 19, 2006

It only speaks volumes about the right.

Perhaps one could reread the bit where it says "one's expectation".
posted by Wolof at 10:33 PM on December 19, 2006

Who cares? The sentiment is the same.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:35 PM on December 19, 2006

And we're sure it's satire?

Positive?
posted by djgh at 10:36 PM on December 19, 2006

"A free thinker is Satan’s slave".

Hilarious. Had to admit you had me going for a bit there...

"Please, for the sake of the children - this soy madness must end."

Amen!
posted by somnambulist at 10:37 PM on December 19, 2006

Satire is best when you aren't sure.
posted by bardic at 10:50 PM on December 19, 2006

The idiots are winning.

Well, the 'idiots' might not understand that this was just a joke.
posted by porpoise at 10:51 PM on December 19, 2006

And we're sure it's satire?

Well, by the traditional definition, "satire" is supposed to be funny. I think this more speaks volumes about the impossibility of writing something actually humorous about computer OS's.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:00 PM on December 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

I was in a conference call with some other tech people and some patent attorneys once and the attorneys were distressed to find that we all advocated open source tools - "that's communist shit" was one choice quote.
So yeah, it's hard to recognize satire.
posted by 2sheets at 11:02 PM on December 19, 2006

Metafilter: "A free thinker is Satan’s bitch."
posted by vhsiv at 11:03 PM on December 19, 2006

osama bin laden uses two different browsers.
dromedary and bactrian.
posted by bruce at 11:18 PM on December 19, 2006

I knew it was satire when it mentioned SCO. Only linux nerds know (or care) about the SCO lawsuit.
posted by clockworkjoe at 11:20 PM on December 19, 2006

Had to admit you had me going for a bit there...

Come on! By paragraph two when he calls Microsoft a productive organization I thought, "Now here's somebody with a sense of humor."
posted by peeedro at 11:22 PM on December 19, 2006

I think this more speaks volumes about the impossibility of writing something actually humorous about computer OS's.

Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning...was the Command Line" is about OSs and it is quite funny, esp. in his analogy about Windows, Macs and Linux as car dealers.
posted by msjen at 11:30 PM on December 19, 2006

Pretty fun. I like wondering which comments are play along and which aren't in on the game.
posted by Chuckly at 11:40 PM on December 19, 2006

I'm not so sure this is satire. In any event, if it is, it sure fooled many of the posters there!
posted by Sukiari at 11:45 PM on December 19, 2006

I'm not so sure this is satire. In any event, if it is, it sure fooled many of the posters there!

Click around a bit. It's satire.
posted by eyeballkid at 12:16 AM on December 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

One of the reasons that small, ad-hoc violent movements (i.e. terrorist groups) can beat the big guys is because they're faster and communicate more effectively with better tools.

I would probably require my terrorist cells to use OS X.
posted by blacklite at 12:22 AM on December 20, 2006

That gabbly thing was neat. What? There was an article there too?
posted by Tacodog at 12:27 AM on December 20, 2006

my problem is that I can't tell if Krrrlson is satire or not.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 12:41 AM on December 20, 2006 [2 favorites]

I've gotten so accustomed to defending FLOSS against people who actually think this way, I admit I might not have immediately pegged this for satire either if I hadn't been warned beforehand.

And I agree with Chuckly, it's fun to watch the clueless get outraged.
posted by Spike at 12:42 AM on December 20, 2006

What clued me in was the "and even search the Bible" line, as though that were particularly impressive. That line got me wondering, and the SCO Group comment clinched it. From there, I was grinning all the way through. It's a well-done piece.

And yes, I can totally see real right-wingers getting sucked in by this. The quality of this thinking is every bit as good as O'Reilly's or Hannity's. Their audiences would eat this stuff up and repeat it as gospel.
posted by Malor at 1:01 AM on December 20, 2006

"I can totally see real right-wingers getting sucked in by this. The quality of this thinking is every bit as good as O'Reilly's or Hannity's. Their audiences would eat this stuff up and repeat it as gospel."

Amen, though I must admit it did suck me in at first glance. If you listen closely enough, you can hear slow-witted republicans across the land quoting this with smug assurance.
posted by ReiToei at 2:57 AM on December 20, 2006

Even if it is satire, there are a lot of people that are not....perceptive enough to realize that fact. Furthermore, not knowing anything about computers or anything else, they'll believe every word.

< \sigh>
posted by jaded at 3:56 AM on December 20, 2006

And we're sure it's satire?

I was pretty sure of it after reading the very first sentence. Whether or not the quality of the satire is any good, that so many people seem to take it seriously has to make it funny.

"Vista includes an all-new sercurity system called TCP/IP which will no doubt stump foreign hackers for years."
posted by sfenders at 3:58 AM on December 20, 2006

it's not as funny as Jesus General, but I chuckled
posted by matteo at 4:14 AM on December 20, 2006

it's not only been done before, it was done better
posted by pyramid termite at 4:27 AM on December 20, 2006

my problem is that I can't tell if Krrrlson is satire or not.

I rarely agree with Krrrlson, but I do here. "That you cannot be sure it is satire (I am still not) speaks volumes about one's expectation of stupidity from the right" speaks much louder about the mentality of the unsure person. Turn it around: if this were some heavily right-wing site and somebody responded to a link to a dumb parody of liberal/Democrat/godless attitudes with "That you cannot be sure it is satire (I am still not) speaks volumes about one's expectation of stupidity from the left," what would you say? But I keep forgetting, right-wingers are dumb and MeFites are smart.

Even if they can't tell an obvious satire when they're looking right at it.
posted by languagehat at 5:59 AM on December 20, 2006 [2 favorites]

Please oh please convince me that it is satire before my brain goes supercritically fissle and wipes out half of the northern hemisphere. I'm begging you. It's for all of your own good.

I could only get 3 or 4 pages through the comments before I wanted to smash my own face in with a brick and then stomp on it with my own boots.

Gaaah, my teeth are still hurting from gritting fiercly against all the apalling stupidity.
posted by loquacious at 6:37 AM on December 20, 2006

The opposite side of the coin.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:42 AM on December 20, 2006

stupid website, that shtick got old a long time ago
posted by Addiction at 6:45 AM on December 20, 2006

But I keep forgetting, right-wingers are dumb and MeFites are smart.

If you are still affiliated with the American right-wing political machine, you are dumb. If you style yourself as a conservative, and genuinely take those values seriously, then you cannot accept the current Republican party platform, as it is actively antithetical to generally accepted conservative ideals.

If you do not recognize the degree to which the American right-wing has become corrupt and degenerate with imperial wet dreams and totalitarian solutions, then you. are. fucking. dumb.
posted by sonofsamiam at 6:49 AM on December 20, 2006 [2 favorites]

Of course, if one were to spend about 15 minutes watching O'Riley or Hannity or Glenn Beck, and then read this website, you would be excused for not, immediately, seeing it as satire. One could further be excused for thinking it was more restrained at times.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:13 AM on December 20, 2006

See, calling linux communist is laughable, and calling a duly elected Muslim-American Congressman a terrorist collaborator or crying about the Liberal War On Christmas is utterly reasonable.

Oh, not reasonable? Well, you must admit he has a point! To a degree! To a certain extent?
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:22 AM on December 20, 2006

"Of course, if one were to spend about 15 minutes watching O'Riley or Hannity or Glenn Beck, and then read this website, you would be excused for not, immediately, seeing it as satire. One could further be excused for thinking it was more restrained at times."

This is why I can't tell satirical faux-republispeak from the real deal. The 'conservative' talking heads are so far out there that you kind of expect they would have a few worshippers that are just as batshit crazy.
posted by Sukiari at 7:32 AM on December 20, 2006

You can not be excused for watching Hannity, O'Reilly, or Glenn Beck.
posted by Mister_A at 7:37 AM on December 20, 2006

Linking to Shelly the Republican is almost always bad. Linking to a Shelly the Republican article from nine months ago should mean instant deletion.

Seriously, sometimes I think people don't look at the websites they post before they post them, or search Metafilter, either. Not only is this satire, but we've done this twice before. I'm not saying you have to read the site every day, but c'mon...
posted by koeselitz at 7:42 AM on December 20, 2006

sonofsamiam: "If you do not recognize the degree to which the American right-wing has become corrupt and degenerate with imperial wet dreams and totalitarian solutions, then you. are. fucking. dumb."

The thing that continually impresses me about us Americans is that all of us seem to think that the world is very simple, and wonder why everyone else doesn't see it our way. This provincialism becomes even more impressive when I notice that it often presents itself as a kind of open-mindedness.
posted by koeselitz at 7:51 AM on December 20, 2006

So, this "Shelly the Republican", she's like a Betty Bowers with slightly less Xian stuff, right?

It's become so hard to tell the difference between the right-wing and satires of the right-wing nowadays... ultimately extremists end up parodying themselves.
posted by clevershark at 8:07 AM on December 20, 2006

Steven C. Den Beste writes "The opposite side of the coin."

It might work better if it weren't written by someone functionally illiterate. Most blog software nowadays come with a built-in spell-checker.
posted by clevershark at 8:10 AM on December 20, 2006

"Windows, which is a mature commercial product which is normally included with every new computer...."

Guess he never heard of the 20 million Americans who use OS X.
posted by Lucy2Times at 8:11 AM on December 20, 2006

Clevershark: I think the mis-spellings, etc, are intentional - perhaps trying to mimic the work of someone for whom english is a second language? In any case, it does make it hard to get through a paragraph. It's a little too obvious to be funny.
posted by Mister_A at 8:13 AM on December 20, 2006

The thing that continually impresses me about us Americans is that all of us seem to think that the world is very simple, and wonder why everyone else doesn't see it our way. This provincialism becomes even more impressive when I notice that it often presents itself as a kind of open-mindedness.

Are you saying we think the shortest distance between two points is a line or something?

Actually I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

Turn it around: if this were some heavily right-wing site and somebody responded to a link to a dumb parody of liberal/Democrat/godless attitudes with "That you cannot be sure it is satire (I am still not) speaks volumes about one's expectation of stupidity from the left," what would you say? But I keep forgetting, right-wingers are dumb and MeFites are smart.

They're either dumb or liars, either way the crap they spew is utterly incoherent. What do you think this year's election was about?
posted by delmoi at 8:17 AM on December 20, 2006

That was vaguely amusing to members of the choir, but, as others have suggested, may be quoted by impassioned tumoroids as the real McCoy. The effect may be less funny when selected quotations appear in more mainstream publications in support of asshattery and FUD.

For my money it wasn't nearly subtle enough, but I'm Canadian so I like my satire streamlined and smooth. Nevertheless, I applaud the effort. Comedy is much pointier than rhetoric when wielded correctly.
posted by CheeseburgerBrown at 8:18 AM on December 20, 2006

The thing that continually impresses me about us Americans is that all of us seem to think that the world is very simple, and wonder why everyone else doesn't see it our way. This provincialism becomes even more impressive when I notice that it often presents itself as a kind of open-mindedness.

Yeah, whatever, you know exactly what I mean. I've yet to see any Republican seriously defend current Republican policies from the basis of principle, it's all contingencies and extenuating circumstances. This war is "unlike any we have fought before," necessitating budges like we've never had before, citizen profiling like we've never had before, etc.

You can't tell me with a straight face that Republicans are operating right now according to any higher principle than easy, short-term gain and willful blindness to consequence.
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:21 AM on December 20, 2006

I'm pretty certain that pirated copies of WIndows are the number 1 operating system for Jihadis, as it is for most of the rest of the world.
posted by Artw at 8:37 AM on December 20, 2006

"I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport."

-- Jack Kemp
posted by paulinsanjuan at 8:46 AM on December 20, 2006

For example, this rugged IBM laptop I am using was designed and built by an American company.

Satire or not, that's incorrect. IBM laptops are/were manufactured in China by Lenovo (which acquired the PC division of IBM in December 2004).
posted by ericb at 9:01 AM on December 20, 2006

You guys sure know how to suck the moderately funny out of things.
posted by Mister_A at 9:31 AM on December 20, 2006

If you see a company using Linux, it may be that they have not paid for this software. Report them to the Business Software Alliance who have the legal authority to inspect any company’s computers for illegal programs like Linux.

This was my favorite part, because it so perfectly captures the kind of speculative and founded leap of (il)logic that it is attempting to portray.
posted by davejay at 9:56 AM on December 20, 2006

I've seen the picture (but cannot now locate a copy online) of UBL using a macbook from a hideaway location. It was concurrent with the whole 'Think Different' ad campaign, I believe.
posted by Busithoth at 10:32 AM on December 20, 2006

sonofsamiam: "I've yet to see any Republican seriously defend current Republican policies from the basis of principle, it's all contingencies and extenuating circumstances. This war is "unlike any we have fought before," necessitating budges like we've never had before, citizen profiling like we've never had before, etc."

My argument was more about conservatives and people who voted for Bush in general than about Republicans. That's a huge chunk of society, and they have reasons that are many and difficult to reason out. That's not to say they're right or brilliant or great; that's to say that claiming they are of subhuman intelligence is just closedminded.

But, yes, Republicans are scum-sucking, baby-killing, mind-fucking assholes. They're like Democrats that way.
posted by koeselitz at 10:53 AM on December 20, 2006

"subhuman"? Friend, human equals dumb.

But: accepting a policy which ostensibly is derived from some principles, but in actuality is clearly not, is exactly like accepting a clearly false proposition ostensibly derived from some axioms, i.e. dumb. Why would you do that?

I'd be happy if this movement would just quit kidding themselves and openly advocate their revolutionary platform. Maybe you feel it is all justified and necessary, fine, but don't pretend you are what you aren't.

Republicans are scum-sucking, baby-killing, mind-fucking assholes. They're like Democrats that way.

Yes, we were talking about Democrats, weren't we? I'd go back to that country-club corruption (which I hated so much) in a second if the utterly amoral SOBs who have run things for the last 5 years would be [edited for graphic content].
posted by sonofsamiam at 11:11 AM on December 20, 2006

As I read (well, skimmed) the linked article, I could already see the ensuing thread so clearly that I decided to make a game of predicting just how it would go. Here is my scorecard:

EventPredicted PostActual Post
Someone realizes that the article is satire42, or even, charitably, 1. Good job, Metafilter!Someone argues that our inability to recognize it as satire actually proves how true it is103. Ouch.Last post in which someone seems honestly confused about whether it is satire3041, or, less charitably, 53... so far

This proved to be a rather entertaining way to pass the time. I invite others to join me in playing the MetaFilter Satire Recognition Game the next time someone posts one of these godawful things.
posted by moss at 11:53 AM on December 20, 2006

clevershark: I think that's actually on purpose, to beef up the alleged humor value of the site. You know, "stupid liberals can't even spell right, ha ha ha". It takes a special kind of insecurity to invent a character with a deficiency unrelated to the failing you're trying to make fun of, just so you can feel even more superior to him.
posted by scalefree at 11:53 AM on December 20, 2006

Oh, er, right, guess I can't use table tags. Probably not worth redoing that.

::shakes fist at the heavens in rage::
posted by moss at 11:54 AM on December 20, 2006

moss, what were you trying to do?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:14 PM on December 20, 2006

I'm disappointed. No one has used the term "self-hating" yet.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:28 PM on December 20, 2006

No, they snuck it into your very own comment, just look!
posted by sonofsamiam at 12:49 PM on December 20, 2006

Not knowing who Shelley is, I failed to grasp the satire. Although her assertions are laughable, they aren't particularly funny. They're also rather confused. Who is she making fun of? Microsoft? MS fanboys? Republican warmongers?
posted by owhydididoit at 1:52 PM on December 20, 2006

Now y'see, this is why I use FreeBSD. Solid Canadian/American code.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:18 PM on December 20, 2006

moss, what were you trying to do?

Okay, with less exciting formatting this time, my scorecard:

Event: Someone realizes that the article is satire.
Predicted Post: 4
Actual Post: 2, or even, charitably, 1. Good job, Metafilter!

Event: Someone argues that our inability to recognize it as satire actually proves how true it is.
Predicted Post: 10
Actual Post: 3. Ouch.

Event: Last post in which someone seems honestly confused about whether it is satire.
Predicted Post: 30
Actual Post: 41, or, less charitably, 53... so far
posted by moss at 3:23 PM on December 20, 2006

I run Damn Small Linux from a flash drive because I am a nihilist.
posted by aliasless at 5:12 PM on December 20, 2006

Damn Small Linux

Oops.
posted by aliasless at 5:13 PM on December 20, 2006

Hm. My first clue was the scripture quote: Put on the whole armor of God.
posted by ancientgower at 6:59 PM on December 20, 2006

Tnx moss. I get it now.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:00 PM on December 20, 2006