0610: "Sheeple"

[Sp3ctre18]

look at all the sheep discussing politics, taxes, and political systems again, never stopping to think!

to make a quick comment, I point out that the people in the comic are not doing much thinking either, simply making assumptions and judgments for their own egocentric desires. As the irony of the comic points out, they are still sheep. Still unevolved, primitive animals, going about their lives out of instinct and emotion and not any free will.

not sure why I felt that was worth posting, because it probably wasn't, but oh well. *scurries back into his hole*

[Deus]

look at all the sheep discussing politics, taxes, and political systems again, never stopping to think!

to make a quick comment, I point out that the people in the comic are not doing much thinking either, simply making assumptions and judgments for their own egocentric desires. As the irony of the comic points out, they are still sheep. Still unevolved, primitive animals, going about their lives out of instinct and emotion and not any free will.

not sure why I felt that was worth posting, because it probably wasn't, but oh well. *scurries back into his hole*

Do you understand the irony of that post : )

[Eikinkloster]

look at all the sheep discussing politics, taxes, and political systems again, never stopping to think!

to make a quick comment, I point out that the people in the comic are not doing much thinking either, simply making assumptions and judgments for their own egocentric desires. As the irony of the comic points out, they are still sheep. Still unevolved, primitive animals, going about their lives out of instinct and emotion and not any free will.

not sure why I felt that was worth posting, because it probably wasn't, but oh well. *scurries back into his hole*

Interesting.
I don't associate egocentric desires, or the capacity for making assumptions and judgments, with the instincts and emotions of primitive animals, though. The very sense of self is exclusive to the most advanced animals... and is definitely absent in literal sheep.

Minds that remind me of sheep are reactive, passive, following a predictable collective script. Minds that would be surprised that anyone would think different from them, instead of like them, as happens in the strip. The meta irony of the strip is that Randall is conscious that solipsism is an uncommon phenomenon, hence the alt text suggesting that the scenario of the strip is only likely to happen in the proximities of an Objectivist convention...

[TheSkyMovesSideways]

Sorry Randall, your comic was first, but Zach's was funnier.

[Fred]

I think they were going to a Rush concert. Lucky bastards.

[Brace]

All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted. Not so coldly charted it's really just a question of your honesty, yeah your honesty. You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path that's clear. I will choose free will. There is unrest in the forest. There is trouble with the trees. For the maples want more sunlight, and the oaks ignore their pleas. The trouble with the maples, and they're quite convinced they're right; they say the oaks are just too lofty and they grab up all the light. But the oaks can't help their feelings if they like the way they're made, and they wonder why the maples can't be happy in their shade. There was trouble in the forest, and the creatures all have fled, as the maples scream "Oppression!" and the oaks just shake their heads. So the maples formed a union and demanded equal rights. "The oaks are just too greedy; We will make them give us light." Now there's no more oak oppression, for they passed a noble law. And the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw.

This thread is now the official Rush Rules!! thread. Any objections?

[andrewclunn]

YYZ!!! Play YYZ!

[Ivora]

I am not a sheeple!

I wonder how many people think like that?

[Manticorehunter]

Most people in my school think like that. As I sometimes tell people, "There are two types of people in this world: sheeple, and sheeple in denial." Most of my friends don't understand my reasoning, believing that the fact that you are aware that you are part of a brainless mass makes you better than the rest of the group, even if everyone else has realized the same thing. Maybe I ought to read some Ayn Rand.

[Eikinkloster]

Most people in my school think like that. As I sometimes tell people, "There are two types of people in this world: sheeple, and sheeple in denial." Most of my friends don't understand my reasoning, believing that the fact that you are aware that you are part of a brainless mass makes you better than the rest of the group, even if everyone else has realized the same thing. Maybe I ought to read some Ayn Rand.

Some might have not understood... some might have understood it for the flawed reasoning it is.
That's generally true whenever people disagree with us. It's either that they didn't get it... or that we ourselves didn't get it.

The truth in the matter of the sheeple is painfully more simple: There is indeed a "brainless mass"... who either can't see where we're going or just don't care... and there is also a brain mass... maneuvering us there.

But of course in Basically Decent times it is ugly to recognize there *are* people who are "better than the rest of the group". "Hitler, you know, thought that way". And there you go, in a perpetual state of self lobotomy. When you are part of the tiny minority that actually gives a damn about it to start with.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I know some folks who accuse me of being a sheep because I believe that Islamic extremists perpetrated the September 11th attacks.

I just thought I'd make my first post here since my sig (taken from the 'secretary' series) seems relevant.


And on an unrelated note - Wow! That's the second fewest number of available Smilies I've ever seem on a forum! (the fewest is 'none').

[yourmindonpot]

i just wanna point out that South Park uses the word 'sheeple' a few times here http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103769/plug-these-leaks and yeah.

[Gust]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2254

Probable reference.

[Monika]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2254

Probable reference.

Probable independent idea .

[Plasma Mongoose]

What I get from this particular comic is that the very concept of the mindless conformist is little more than a counter-culture based boogeyman that in reality is about as common as the dodo bird.

[addams]

Most people in my school think like that. As I sometimes tell people, "There are two types of people in this world: sheeple, and sheeple in denial." Most of my friends don't understand my reasoning, believing that the fact that you are aware that you are part of a brainless mass makes you better than the rest of the group, even if everyone else has realized the same thing. Maybe I ought to read some Ayn Rand.

Some might have not understood... some might have understood it for the flawed reasoning it is.
That's generally true whenever people disagree with us. It's either that they didn't get it... or that we ourselves didn't get it.

The truth in the matter of the sheeple is painfully more simple: There is indeed a "brainless mass"... who either can't see where we're going or just don't care... and there is also a brain mass... maneuvering us there.

But of course in Basically Decent times it is ugly to recognize there *are* people who are "better than the rest of the group". "Hitler, you know, thought that way". And there you go, in a perpetual state of self lobotomy. When you are part of the tiny minority that actually gives a damn about it to start with.

There is something that rings of truth about your post.
I can't figure out what it is.
Is it the fact that there are exceptional people?
Is it the truth that the common man thinks that he or she is exceptional?
There is the matching truth; Exceptional people tend to think that they are common.

[Eikinkloster]

There is the matching truth; Exceptional people tend to think that they are common.

No they don't.
They just say it so that common man can relate to them.
They know damn well they aren't common.

[Pfhorrest]

There is the matching truth; Exceptional people tend to think that they are common.

No they don't.
They just say it so that common man can relate to them.
They know damn well they aren't common.

There is something to what addams said, though he may not be precise. People with competence in an area are better able to judge their own flaws and so tend to be highly critical of their own competence, while people with low competence in an area have no idea what competence is and naively assume they have it in abundance.

[markfiend]

There is something to what addams said, though he may not be precise. People with competence in an area are better able to judge their own flaws and so tend to be highly critical of their own competence, while people with low competence in an area have no idea what competence is and naively assume they have it in abundance.

This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[Plasma Mongoose]

There is something to what addams said, though he may not be precise. People with competence in an area are better able to judge their own flaws and so tend to be highly critical of their own competence, while people with low competence in an area have no idea what competence is and naively assume they have it in abundance.

This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.

This reminds me of this quote:

"The wise man knows that he knows almost nothing, the fool thinks he knows everything."

[Eikinkloster]

There is something to what addams said, though he may not be precise. People with competence in an area are better able to judge their own flaws and so tend to be highly critical of their own competence, while people with low competence in an area have no idea what competence is and naively assume they have it in abundance.

This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.

This is a very common misunderstanding of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Here, this text tackles this problem better than I'd be competent to:

I suspect we find this sort of explanation compelling because it appeals to our implicit just-world theories: we’d like to believe that people who obnoxiously proclaim their excellence at X, Y, and Z must really not be so very good at X, Y, and Z at all, and must be (over)compensating for some actual deficiency; it’s much less pleasant to imagine that people who go around shoving their (alleged) superiority in our faces might really be better than us at what they do.

Unfortunately, Kruger and Dunning never actually provided any support for this type of just-world view; their studies categorically didn’t show that incompetent people are more confident or arrogant than competent people. What they did show is this:



So the bias is definitively not that incompetent people think they’re better than competent people. Rather, it’s that incompetent people think they’re much better than they actually are. But they typically still don’t think they’re quite as good as people who, you know, actually are good.
http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/ ... -and-isnt/

I'm particularly keen to appreciate the difference between being ordinary and special, among other reasons, because I'm bipolar. When I'm down, I'm pretty much average. So I get to experience the difficulties ordinary people have. When I'm hyper, very few people can keep up with me. The Richard Gere movie Mr. Jones captures a lot of the essence of this experience. How he can do instant calculations when he is hyper, and how he can't teach basic math to a child when he is down. Perhaps this is why so many artists are bipolar: we're made like bridges between the worlds of man and angel. Incidentally, I've used this ability to do private tutoring on math. I could understand what was hard for the kids, and I could also understand the math well enough to find ways around those blocks that their teachers couldn't possible dream about.

And the kids would tell me just that.

So if Bruce Dickinson wants more cowbell, we should probably give him more cowbell.

[picnic_crossfire]

The previous post was brought to you by Irony^TM.

[Eikinkloster]

The previous post was brought to you by Irony^TM.

Yep. Something like "Everybody thinks they are above average. Only the best dare believe they are the best". Or



It's more of a "cosmic irony" though:

The song's usage of the word "ironic" attracted attention by media for an improper application of the term, and, in fact, the song gives an "unironic" sense.According to the Oxford English Dictionary "irony" is "a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used". Thus, lyrics such as "It's like rain on your wedding day" and "A traffic jam when you're already late" are not ironic, but they fall into a "cosmic irony"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_%28song%29#Linguistic_usage_disputes

[addams]

There is something to what addams said, though he may not be precise. People with competence in an area are better able to judge their own flaws and so tend to be highly critical of their own competence, while people with low competence in an area have no idea what competence is and naively assume they have it in abundance.

This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.

This reminds me of this quote:

"The wise man knows that he knows almost nothing, the fool thinks he knows everything."

Yes. That is it. Thank you.
Umm. I think that I know some stuff. Not everything. Not almost nothing. Just, some stuff. The internet knows almost everything else.
Of course, I can't read a great deal of what there is to know. I only read in English and a very little in Math.

[Sean Quixote]

So I have a question: What is the singular form of the word "sheeple"?

[Pfhorrest]

So I have a question: What is the singular form of the word "sheeple"?

Sherpson?

[addams]

So I have a question: What is the singular form of the word "sheeple"?

Sherpson?

Sherpson?! HA! HA! That is funny. Good you.

Sherpson. You people are so funny.

Goes into a group of sheeple and isolates a sherpson.

[Plasma Mongoose]

I can just imagine hipsters wearing something like this to be IRONIC.

[addams]

Most people in my school think like that. As I sometimes tell people, "There are two types of people in this world: sheeple, and sheeple in denial." Most of my friends don't understand my reasoning, believing that the fact that you are aware that you are part of a brainless mass makes you better than the rest of the group, even if everyone else has realized the same thing. Maybe I ought to read some Ayn Rand.

No! Don't Do It!
Don't read Ayn Rand. Don't read Kafka. Don't read the Communist Manifesto.
Don't read any of that crap. Read science and science fiction, then, science some more.
Science and the History of Science is Great reading. Scientists have done some stupid things for really smart reasons. The way that scientists figured stuff out is so entertaining. There have been casualties. There have always been horrible Lab accidents.
Science lurches forward with the mighty cries, "Huh. I didn't know it would do that.''
And, "That's Funny."

Politics is impossible. Science is simply difficult.

[thehardmenpath]

I've just finished a "film version" of the strip. Hope you like it.

http://www.notodofilmfest.com/index.php?lg=en&corto=34195

[Copper Bezel]

Very cool! Nicely captures the feeling of the strip, and the production quality is solid. I like the casting, too, so that there are some representatives of the "hipster" type you'd expect, but some exceptions, too.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

Reading this comic, why do I think that they are AIs?