"I am the Vine"
Comments on Vox Popoli
Submitted by Wayne on Tue, 2008-07-01 08:23.
Stupidity
I usually appreciate Vox' blog entries. He's a reasonably smart dude, and that's refreshing. He's not the strongest theologian, so his worldview occasionally suffers (e.g., creationism), but I think he'd admit to that anyway. By and large, he's most often right. I plan to continue reading his blog more or less regularly.
The comments to his articles, however, leave much to be desired. Even most of his supporters aren't terribly bright (brighter than average, mind you). Those of his detractors who bother to lurk "in the enemy's camp" and attempt to stir things up, though, are downright retarded. Besides being socially autistic, illogical, self-contradicting, and generally unable to maintain a coherent thought for the time it takes to type it, they're amazingly boring. Often, stupidity can be entertaining, but not at Vox Popoli.
For a long time, I never bothered to read the comments to his blogs, but I recently decided to try doing so. Wow! What a mistake that was! And a waste of time. I never did find a discussion that held my interest (or a point). I even tried participating in one or two just to see if I could steer things toward interesting. No such luck.
Vox' blogs are mostly entertaining (for his correctness), so I'll continue reading them as time permits. The comments on these blogs, though, with no reflection on Vox himself--well, I won't waste any more of my time. With all the stupidity available for entertainment purposes, I needn't watch the blogged equivalent of color bars.
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fair, not great
Submitted by Wayne on Tue, 2008-07-01 09:32.
While I appreciate Spacebunny's comments, she does tend to quibble with morons more than they deserve. Her insults of them are funny, though. VD's comments are certainly more thoughtful than the idiots commenting there, but even then, he's more or less arguing with those who probably cannot (or will not) comprehend.
Vox' blogs (as opposed to the comments) don't usually add much to what I already know. I suppose it's nice to know I'm not alone in my "far-out" perspectives (not that this makes a difference), but it means the informational value is minimal. However, the entertainment aspect--when Vox pokes fun at morons (and there are plenty of them!)--makes his blogs mostly worthwhile.
Vox on Vox Popoli comments
Submitted by Wayne on Tue, 2008-08-26 12:41.
It seems Vox more or less agrees with me on the quality of comments on his blog. He obviously has more time than I do, though, to wade through the muck there and provide his two cents every now and again. I'm a fast reader, but the comments still aren't worth the time. They're not even worth the time it takes the oddball javascript to display them. (It's an inappropriate use of javascript, in my opinion--not that blogger was ever good either, but cocomment blows.)
math
Submitted by Wayne on Wed, 2009-05-20 10:07.
The most recent blog about teachers' IQs demonstrates some of the idiocy of the commenters there. One guy couldn't figure out the area of a rectangle (with rounded dimensions) because he couldn't read the instructions correctly (about the rounding). Another mentioned the rounding but still didn't solve the problem. Nobody else did. The irony is, it was supposedly a sample test similar to the one that 75% of teachers are failing, and the commenters were complaining about how stupid teachers are. True, they are stupid, but if these "bright" commenters (Vox's commenters claim to be of above-average intelligence) couldn't figure out many of the problems in the sample test...well, it's just funny. Given how easy the problems really were, rather than suggesting the test was harder than it should have been (suggesting the teachers aren't so dumb), I'd sooner believe Vox' commenters are dumber than they claim (a common phenomenon). (This is no reflection on Vox, mind you.)
Pick and choose
I agree with Wayne's comments about Vox Popoli. I just wanted to add that there can be entertainment value in the comments if you pick and choose which ones to look at. When I read the comments -- and it's rare these days -- I tend to search for Vox's comments, or Spacebunny's. (For the uninitiated, "Spacebunny" is the screen name for Vox's wife.) I find them to be the most entertaining, and among the more intelligent. For some reason, Spacebunny tends to get into spats with some of the more combative posters, and that can be fun.
If you're interested in a blog with good participation, check out the Original Cyberpunk's blog. The focus of the blog is writing, and each week, the O.C. (real name: Bruce Bethke) tosses out a writing challenge. The resulting entries are often entertaining, and worth a look if you have a chance. Of course, Bruce is a very bright guy, as well as being a superb writer, and his posts are well worth reading. Some of them (most, really) are downright funny, too.