Julian Finn

Billionaire beating up poor people as a hobby. Think about it.

So, below you’ll find my final response to a particularly annoying douche. if you want to see the whole exchange, here’s the link.

“Okay.

I gave you the benefit of a thought out and measured response and once again you came back with arguments that don’t actually address the things I’ve said but rather argue against things you’ve decided I’ve said. At no point, either in my post or in my comments, have I said anything that would lead anyone to believe that I want to maintain the status quo, or submit to current definitions of democracy, government, or fairplay. You seem, however, to feel that I must be in support of these things because I don’t believe everything you believe and am therefore to be pitied and or ridiculed.

So…enough. I was going to do another line by line refutation of your nonsense, but you would just seize on the things that you want to (like your complete and utter failure to read my example of anarchy producing new governance as a metaphor, which you’d have to be blind to miss and so was clearly on purpose) and ignore that which is inconvenient to your tiny little worldview.

Here, instead, is the shortlist of claims that I have made, first in my article and then in my comments. I have made no other claims or arguments other than these. Refute them if you choose to, or don’t, but if you come back with a lengthy treatise on the virtues and vices of positions I did not take, you will henceforth be ignored as the intellectually fascistic buffoon I now believe you to be.

1. Revolution is needed.
2. The current system is corrupt.
3. Before tearing down the current system, we should first decide what its replacement will look like.
4. The individuals currently rousing others to join this brilliantly motivating movement have not engaged in the planning required by item three.
5. Item 4 is concerning to someone who values life and liberty and doesn’t want to see the world burn for the sake of a good marshmallow bonfire.
6. Things really, really need to change.
7.An individual person can be awesome. People are generally shit.
8. Democracy, true democracy, the Platonic ideal of democracy, is not the system we currently exist under but rather a hoped for ideal. It is the best, most egalitarian system of rule we’ve ever come up with. It is not that system’s fault we’re so bad at applying it.
8.Government is not a shadowy abstract, but rather a collective of people trying to exercise power we’ve given them and doing a piss poor job. The problem isn’t government but rather our apparent inability to care enough to put the right people in those roles.
9.Anarchy is unsustainable. True anarchy, the Platonic ideal of anarchy (not the wishy washy, pick and choose, everyone be nice to each other because, but otherwise do whatever the fuck you want, anarchy) would last just long enough for those with organizational skill and charisma to form new ways of governing groups. People form groups. We’re social animals. Just ask Facebook.
10. Any group requires rules to protect the group at large from the whim of the individual. Put more than three people in any room or situation and they will form a hierarchy and rules of engagement. You can call those rules whatever you like, but those of us who care what words actually mean call them law.
11. There is no “system” that is responsible for our current predicament. We are responsible. We have abdicated authority, responsibility and free agency in exchange for expensive cars, affordable childcare and iPads. Our greed and apathy have produced or allowed every evil that walks the earth. What you are fighting is people and the creations of people. Not abstractions.
12.If you want to know who the villain is you need only look in the mirror. Anyone trying to pass the buck or defer responsibility for the current state of the world is guilty of the same travesties that they rail against.
13. If revolution is to succeed it has to be more than just a revolution in the streets; it has to be a revolution of mind. We have to decide what is of value and what is not, and sacrifice that which is not so that no one, anywhere, has to go without that which is. That includes money. Yes, even in the form of taxes. Money only has value in what it can be exchanged for. If you feel that you have a right to more money and more things than your neighbour and so shouldn’t have to be taxes, you’re not a revolutionary, you’re not even a philosophically astute spectator. You’re just an asshole.

That is all.

Please, please find a way to twist that to suit your agenda of ‘shit on those who dare question the movement.’

I’m out.”

Douglas Adams: The world isn’t as funny without him in it…

Love this. So much.

How to anger every geek in the world simultaneously. :D

You know that feeling?

If you’re a sports fan (the obsessive kind, not the kind that watches baseball just to avoid people for a few hours) you’ve known that weird, prickly certainty that the success or failure of your team rides entirely on your efforts.

If you didn’t do your pre-game ritual and your team loses? Your fault.

If you didn’t cheer hard enough and your team loses? Your fault.

If you turn your head for a second to talk to someone and your team fumbles the ball/scores on themselves/spontaneously implodes? Your fault.

And you can’t possibly miss a game. Then they’ll definitely lose. And who will they blame? You; the only logical culprit.

It’s an odd feeling; the notion of guilt for something you have absolutely no possible connection to. But no true fan of sport would fail to understand it.

I’m a fan of technology.

Yesterday I traded in my iPad for an Asus Transformer. 

And then Steve Jobs died.

Right this second, I am at a trade show filled with people like this. FML

wholeyghost:

omg.

My First Movie. I’m frikkin’ Spielberg.

I want my democracy back…

Give it fifty years. When no one can remember what the words Central Bank or Republican mean, things will get better again.

autolysis:

solitudinous:

I don’t know if you guys can see that well but those are the red marks on my wrists for being handcuffed for three straight hours today, with my hands twisted unnaturally behind my back. 

I decided to go to the wall street occupation in NYC and…

-was maced in the face while standing on a public sidewalk calmly asking an officer if I could continue walking. 

-was forcefully arrested (arms pulled behind my back by two police officers then lifted off the ground and dragged to a nearby wall) while being treated for the mace on my skin

-had my requests for information (whether I was being arrested or simply detained, why I was being arrested, whether they could read me my rights) greeted with silence by a wall of policemen standing with their nets, watching us sit there handcuffed. 

-was bused, as the cuffs got tighter and tighter, to police headquarters (along with about 80 other peaceful protesters) and made to wait in the van outside headquarters for another two and a half hours

-was detained inside a prison cell for about another 6 hours, again with barely any information about why I was arrested and for how long

-was told I could have a phone call but only if it was to a New York number, and then was subsequently ignored when I asked if I could use a phone book 

-was finally released with a charge of disorderly conduct and a court date nov 3

Right now I’m overwhelmed and exhausted. I missed the last train back to sarah lawrence because of being in fucking jail, so I’m staying at my friend’s dorm at parsons. I had just about every right I “have” violated tonight and it makes me really angry. when the police feel the need to use the amount of force they did on me - i’m 93 lbs and 4 ft - you know something’s off. when they’re detaining the “granny peace brigade” along with me, you know there’s really something off. this isn’t right, this isn’t democracy. that’s all I can say right now because I’m so fucking tired and I need to just go to bed. perhaps I’ll have some more coherent thoughts tomorrow, but again, right now I’m just totally overwhelmed.

I want my goddamn democracy back. These 1st amendment violations paired with outright ASSAULT need presidential attention immediately. This movement needs a jack bauer. Get me the president

I posted the following on this article (sans .gif) after Gizmodo’s mods flagged me for spam for daring to share a link in a comment pertaining to the article. It was promptly deleted, I assume for using the word twats, which is what they are.

Dear Gizmodo: When posting an article about the scuzzy practices of another website, one should always make sure that one’s own practices aren’t equally offensive. To whit: just because my comment signature contains a link, it doesn’t mean I’m spam.

Also, until you verify that the comment that wasn’t spam, isn’t spam, perhaps blocking all other posts from my email account is a wee premature.

Twats.

If anyone ever asks you why you left Facebook for the greener pastures of Google+, just show them this, pat them on the shoulder and comfort them while they set up a new account.

You know that feeling you get? The one that says, “Fuck yeah, I’m awesome!” If you’re a writer, going  back and reading your earlier stuff can be like time machine access to the opposite of that feeling. 

And suddenly, I know what George Lucas feels like. Well, not exactly; I’m not rich, crazy*, or driven to insert Ewoks into everything. But I understand the impulse to go back in time to fix past you. It’s hard not to re-edit and just let the mistakes lie.

I read this stuff, and yeah, it’s funny. But ye gods, the adverbs! And my cavalier attitude towards punctuation. 

I used to get that “Fuck yeah!” feeling every time I hit the PUBLISH button. Now I want to go back and hit Past Julian in the mangina before he has a chance to embarrass me. 

Heh.  

*I think

Originally shared by Ward Anderson @ http://bit.ly/qYETJs

My favorite pictures of the day. I know, my friends make better stuff than yours do. It’ll be okay.

I love it, I do. Especially the dock icons. But I like mine better :D 

ibarfonbabies:

eeveeeee:

You wish you had my desktop. 

Superman is where it’s at. No clutter anywhere.