Two Towers Troll

I've been doing a lot of surfing around satirical sites recently, thank mainly to links posted in LJ or mailed by friends. The best part is watching the reactions of people who don't get that it's satire and feed the troll. Childish, I know, but fun.

However, as far as I can tell, there's still no consensus as to whether the petition to change the name of The Two Towers to something less offensive. An article in Spiked Culture thinks it's just possible that the site was genuine, and the petition it generated certainly made itself real, even if it was started as a troll. This means that over 3000 people actually believed that the title was deliberately intended to refer to the World Trade Centre attack.

Sometimes I yearn for the old days of the Internet, when getting online was difficult enough to require a minimum standard of literacy. In those days, you could be pretty sure that anyone you encountered online would at least know their Tolkien. Hell, they could probably reel off the names of all the dwarves in The Hobbit! Trolling was an art in those days.

On the subject of trolling, here are a few of my favourite spoof sites:

www.bonsaikitten.com
blackpeopleloveus.com (thanks, pserv!)
Why Micorsoft Rules My Univrese

Online primate grooming

Recent exchanges about how much people use the Internet (and especially LJ) as a way of bolstering their frail egos got me to thinking about whether and to what extent I do the same. I wouldn't say that winning praise is very high on my reasons for writing in LJ, but hell, I'm human, and a like it when people make nice comments.

However, it's unexpected e-mail that really strokes my ego. A few days back someone mailed me to ask if they could have a copy of my MA dissertation because it sounding so interesting. Woot. Then there was a mail on a list which really got me preening:

> Robin's reminder below of the various semantic nuances a
> term may obtain in natural language is right on the money.

You don't need to tell me I'm cool, sexy, a beautiful sensitive human being or whatever (though it doesn't hurt, I suppose). Just tell me how clever I am, and I'll love you forever.

Where is the dark boy?

Karaoğlan ne oldu? İki haftadır Cuma akşam Karaoğlan yok. Yerine Beyaz'ın dizisi kondu. Tamam, fena bir dizi olmayabilir; daha karar vermedim, ama zaten bir dizi daha istemiyorum. Ben Karanlığın kraliçesi Zenka'yı özledim. Kötü lens takan Camoka'yı özledim.

[in case my non-Turkish-speaking readers are wondering what this is all about, there's nothing interesting - just me moaning because one of my favourite silly TV series is off the air]

Embarrassing philosophical oversight

Amaaan, I really should be working on this philosophy paper. I want to send it off soon, because the journal I'm hoping will publish (Metaphilosophy) prefer hard copy by snail mail (they kindly agreed to allow me to submit by e-mail given my geographical position, but they wanted it as a Word document, and I have my pride). I'm also giving a talk soon at Middle East Technical University based on the same ideas, so I ought to get my ideas together.

I've got two problems. One is that I've revised this paper so many times I don't want to read it again. I know I'm a terrbile intellectual narcissist, but there is a limit to how much even I can read my own work without getting bored.

The other problem is more serious. I think I've discovered a big hole in the section on "Desire and the Good". This is where I argue that if we describe something as "good" in any meaningful way, it implies that it is either desirable in itself (for at least one person) or aids in the realisation of some desired state/event. The whole of the second paper in this series is based on this premise.

It seemed so obvious at the time - I couldn't think of anything which was good but was not desired by any person in any way. Silly Solri. After some posting on philosophy, it occurred to me that I can say something like "The lion is a good hunter." No one need desire that the lion hunt. I'm amazed and embarrased that it didn't occur to me before.

Now it looks like I'll have to rework "good" as a radial category or something. It's either that or slide slowly into teleology.

Aaaaaaaa!

(sound of Solri sliding into teleology)