Read the whole article here.
This was the most interesting thing I’d read in a long time. The author obviously did a lot of research, and it’s very accurate; I don’t generally go into these sorts of articles (articles having to do with online/tech/internet related topics) expecting the writer to know more about the subject than I do, but that’s just what I got.
I have personal experience running forums, so I know that the one guaranteed way to get rid of trolls is to ignore them, and that’s essentially the conclusion the author came to. If someone goes to a Mac forum and posts a rant about how Windows is better than MacOS because “I can right click lolz” or something, and everyone ignores it, the troll will leave. If some idiot responds with a badly written, angry rebuttal, full of spelling errors (which is invariably what happens), that’s like setting out a feast for the troll.
Reading this almost made me want to write a story about these people. I found them very interesting, especially Fortuny.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-08-01 | Filed under: Other, Tech and games | no responses
First of all, Dark Knight is an amazing movie. Heath Ledger gave an great performance, and the storytelling was very well done. I also think that, while the movie can easily be seen to have political implications, they were not intentional, or at least not meant to be viewed as such. That said, the movie initially struck me as having the usual strong right-wing themes found in superhero stories, but after a bit of thinking and reading I think there’s an alternate interpretation.
I know superhero stories are often very right-wing, what with the whole vigilante/taking-the-law-into-your-own-hands thing. For example, the recent Iron Man movie: The story revolved around a superpower (Tony Stark) giving weapons to a small group of arabs, then seeing them kill their own people. Since the superpower had the means to stop what was happening, and since the situation was partially his fault to begin with, that superpower felt it was his moral duty to step in and get involved. Sound familiar?
Dark Night is more complex than Iron Man in almost every way, and its plot doesn’t boil down into direct symbolism as easily as Iron Man’s does. As I said above, I don’t think there’s an inherent political message, but I do think there are several possible interpretations of the movie that cast the actions of the characters in a political context.
The right-wing interpretation is based around the fact that the movie can be seen as characterizing the Joker as a terrorist, which in a sense would justify the current administration’s position that it is pointless to negotiate with terrorists because they’re so completely detached from reality with no logic, reason, or motive behind their action. This isn’t true, of course — terrorists aren’t like that — but some people believe it. There are many other elements of the movie that fit in nearly perfectly to this interpretation; the wiretapping of everyone in Gotham as a necessary evil in order to catch the Joker, etc.
This seems to be the popular analysis, but I think there are a few things that this interpretation misses. First and foremost is that the Joker would not exist as we see him in the movie if not for Batman. In a sense, the Joker of Dark Knight is a response to Batman’s existence. Previously, in Batman Begins, there’s a very telling conversation between Gordon and Batman, where they talk about escalation.
GORDON: But there’s a lot of weirdness out there right now. The Narrows is lost. We still haven’t picked up Crane or half the inmates of Arkham that he freed.
BATMAN: We will. Gotham will return to normal.
GORDON: Will it? What about escalation?
BATMAN: Escalation?
GORDON: We start carrying semiautomatics, they buy automatics. we start wearing kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds.
BATMAN: And?
GORDON: And you’re wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops. Take this guy; armed robbery, double homicide. Got a taste for theatrics, like you. Leaves a calling card.
This event fits into a wider view of Gotham and Batman that points to the conclusion that, in many ways, Batman has been disaster for Gotham. Wayne asks Alfred “Did I bring this upon [Gotham]?” The answer might be yes.
In an even larger sense, though, the Joker isn’t the problem. He’s described as an agent of chaos, inherently without direction, and that seems to be an accurate assessment of his character. There are bigger problems, more fundamental problems, that need to be dealt with. The Gotham that we see in the movie is only a few steps away from anarchy. Criminals rule the night. And as we are shown in the end of the movie, what Gotham needs isn’t a masked superhero fighting super-villains; what Gotham needs is a better police force, better law enforcement, a district attorney ready and willing to take on crime. Harvey Dent was what Gotham really needed, not Batman. The rouge vigilantes, the people who feel it is justified to break the law in order to get the bad guy, do damage to a society in the long run. Just as Batman brought about the Joker as we see him now, the international policies of the US government brought about the radical terrorist groups as we see them today, and the actions of the US do damage to the international community.
Of course, there are problems with this interpretation as well. The biggest, in my mind, is that it suffers from the same fundamental false assumption of the right-wing analysis. Namely, that the Joker represents terrorists. Terrorists have an agenda. They want something, and use violence as a means to get it. The Joker is more primal than that, and it does a disservice to the complexity of his character to write him off as a symbol for terrorism.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-07-28 | Filed under: Other | 2 responses
I have created a Wordpress theme, which is live right now on this site. Previously I’ve always used pre-existing themes and modified them to my liking, but I finally decided to make my own from scratch.
Read more…
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-07-23 | Filed under: Site News | one response
I recently got back from Las Vegas (went to go see Penn & Teller and Spamalot), and had the pleasure of flying on an airplane there and back. I wasn’t searched or hassled or anything like that — being in the majority pays off, I suppose — but what bothered me more was the general incompetence everywhere.
This is a little personal post. I’ll have a few of these in the next day or so. I’ll be back to posting serious articles shortly. Read more…
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-07-13 | Filed under: Other | one response
I’m working on other stuff. BBL.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-07-02 | Filed under: Other | no responses
I’ve started a new section of this site, called Talking in Circles Games. I’ve already released one game (interactive fiction), and I plan to release more in the future.
Honestly, I’m surprised it took me so long to do this. I’ve been making games on-and-off for a long time now. In elementary school I messed around with QBasic. In middle school I messed around with Visual Basic and Game Maker. In high school, Flash, Multimedia Fusion, then Python and C++. That whole time, however, I never actually finished a game. I came close a few times, but ultimately got tired of the project and moved on.
Currently I have a few projects I’m working on, including more (longer) IF works, and a graphical point-and-click adventure game I’ve been toying with for months. I plan to release them all as freeware, or even GPL where applicable and useful.
Posted by probabilityZero on 2008-06-17 | Filed under: Other, Tech and games | 6 responses
