The Etymology of 'Idiot'

If there is one sure fire way to spot an idiot, it would have to be the way some people – usually conspiracy theorists (ironically also referred to as ‘truthers’) – think they have figured out what some words actually mean or how words are sometimes used against them. 

For example, I recall one particularly idiotic truther tried entertaining his disturbingly large audience of 200 people with the revelation that the word ‘youngster’ is really referring to youngsters as being ‘young stars’ as human beings are in fact beings of light. Nevermind that the etymology (the study of the origin of words and their historical usage) of the word ‘young’ stems from the Old English word ‘geong’ and Middle English word ‘yong’ which both refer to someone as being from the early part of life or as possessing the looks of someone who looks as though they belong to the early part of life. The suffix ‘-ster’ is also derived from Old and Middle English (and Proto-Germanic) and at when added to a word refers to that thing as belonging to a specified group or as doing something specific. Unsurprisingly, the word for a youngster is ‘enfant’ in French and ‘junge’ or ‘kind’ in German, words that have ZERO to do with this truther’s claims about young people being the children of stars. Certainly one can just make up out of thin air their own etymologies, but that doesn’t mean their imaginings are true. [The same person completely ignored some key definitions of ‘defense’ and intentionally narrowed the meaning of the word to make a rather poor argument in their favor regarding imperialism.]

Then there’s this ridiculous conspiracy theorist meme, depicted on the left. In actuality, the word ‘govern-’ as it relates here is derived from the Old French word ‘governor’ which is itself derived from the Latin ‘gubernare,’ itself derived from the Greek word ‘kybernan’ meaning to pilot or captain a ship. Meanwhile, ‘-ment’ was imported from the French and Latin ‘-mentum’ and means the result of an action. As one clever commenter wrote on English.stockexchange.com “If ‘-ment’ always referred to the mind, then a replacement would be a brain transplant, punishment would be a headache, and an attachment would be a neural implant.”

More recently, another truther tried to explain in her Youtube video that when police ask you if you understand what they are saying, answering ‘yes’ means you are giving them permission to stand over you. Nevermind that the word comes from the Old English usage of ‘understandan’ which simply means to perceive the meaning of words or ideas spoken to you. That’s it. If what this conspiracy theorist is saying is true, then you simply have to tell police you don’t understand them when they ask you if you understand and it’s like a get-out-of-jail-free card!

Conspiracy theorists / truthers (‘-ists’ and ‘-ers’ is used in a very similar fashion to ‘-ster’, btw) claim to want to make you think, but when you do and actually do research the things the talk about and come to a ‘real’ conclusion, they’ll have none of it. They’ll throw every ad hominin attack or straw man fallacy in the book at you. Conspiracy theorists are alarmingly delusional and should be hospitalized before they hurt someone or themselves. Or, we can invite them to leave and start their own country. I know, I know, they’re too lazy for all that. A few idiots ruin it for the rest of us.

[‘Idiot,’ by the way, comes from the Old French and Latin word ‘idiota’ meaning ‘ignorant person.’ Unsurprisingly, the usage of idiot’ has risen exponentially with the advent of the internet.]

What Robin Williams Death Say About Us

Like everyone else with a conscious, I do not care about the details surrounding the death of comedian and actor Robin Williams. I do not care at all how he died. The facts of how he died do not change the fact that this influential comedian is dead. But the sad thing is, those of us with a conscious are in the minority. For every one person who claims to be upset at the details released by the media, there are ten people whose appetite to know is exactly the reason why the media releases such information. I agree when people say, “Let’s honor this man by remembering and focusing on his history in the performing arts.” If only most people would take it just that far.

 

Instead of being content to simply remember Robin Williams, many people are taking the man’s death to focus on the ‘illness’ of depression. Depression is not an illness, though; depression is a deviation from our normal chemical balance (or homeostasis, or baseline, or whatever you want to call it). Depression is no more an illness than happiness. Sure, extreme depression is a serious condition because it may lead to suicide, but extreme happiness is a serious condition as well – just observe any member of a cult. If Robin Williams was in a state of suffering so great that he decided suicide was his only way out, well, it was his decision to make; no one else’s. I may not agree that suicide is a reasonable solution to one’s problems, but because I personally don’t like it doesn’t give me a logical reason to categorize simple depression as an illness. Those of us who have never taken our own lives due to severe depression (which would be everyone reading this) doesn’t know what it’s like to be in such a state that the conviction it takes to take one’s own life is actually there. We are not Robin Williams. We do not know what he was going through. Should he have sought help? Maybe he did. We do not know. It shouldn’t matter.

Then there’s the goddamn conspiracy theorists who are taking this opportunity to suspect that 1) It wasn’t a suicide because 2) they can’t fathom why someone would kill themselves or can’t fathom the conviction it takes or because 3) the media is trying to cover up other major world news events. As a mentioned just a few sentences ago, none of us know what it was like to be in the actor’s shoes, so just because we can’t fathom the why’s or how’s of suicide does not mean foul play is afoot. In thinking the media is trying cover some other important bit of news is preposterous; imagine all the major news network owners getting together and saying, “Wow, first this shit with Russia and now ISIS is really fucking up things in the Middle East. People are getting scared. We’d better kill off a celebrity and distract the public. Who can we get to?” You really have to be a moron to concoct a narrative like that. What I love/hate about conspiracy theorists is that they insist there’s a conspiracy to use fear to control the masses, while they themselves use fear to try and sell you on the idea that there’s a conspiracy.

In the end, it is the end of Robin Williams. I will fondly remember his stand-up comedy, him as Mork from Ork and the creep from One Hour Photo. I don’t care how he died. I care about the art he made.

Where's the Beef, Conspiracy Hypothesists?

It’s been awhile since a rant about conspiracy wonks, so I’m due…

I’ve begun thinking that conspiracy theorists should be renamed “conspiracy hypothesists” seeing how little evidence there is for 99.9% of their claims. To be a proper “theorist” one has to present evidence that is possibly compelling enough to lead to the conclusions so-called conspiracy theorists make. Now, I like speculating and hypothesizing as much as the next person, but I’m sure not going to tell you Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by garden gnomes without compelling evidence. Similarly, I’m not going to tell you there WAS a conspiracy to assassinate JFK even though I do believe there is something fishy about the whole thing. BUT, since I cannot prove it, since I have no compelling evidence, all I have is a hypothesis about the assassination and NOT a theory. 

However, it appears the average conspiracy hypothesist has never taken a basic philosophy course, much less any instruction in epistemology. [To be fair, most people haven’t, hence, all kinds of weird ass beliefs.] To illustrate how batshit crazy some conspiracy hypothesists are, I came across a video by one wonk that proclaimed, among other ramblings, that there is a reason why your navel and doctors are named what they are. Um, that would be because YOU are akin to a ship (which apparently MUST be part of a navy) and you are delivered by a DOCtor (get it) who cuts your umbilical cord, which creates your navel. They (whoever they are) are very clever and like to make a joke out of taking freedom away from good people. Our legal terminology is no coincidence! [No, I am not making this shit up. Someone else is.] Of course, none of what our fine theorist says is backed up by any research, especially seeing how the etymology of “navy” is rooted in Latin and “navel” is rooted in Germanic. What our wonk has done is nothing even close to theorizing. 

Moreover, the always popular David Icke – famous for his works of fiction about interdimensional aliens running the New World Order being mistaken for non-fiction, especially by himself – has failed to produce a single alien body or flat-out uncover an alien posing as a politician. At best then, Icke is a conspiracy hypothesis, not a conspiracy theorist. The same rebranding applies to people who believe the ancient yet suppressed “art” of sun-gazing cures all illnesses or that orgone energy isn’t pseudo-science. As I’ve said many times before, prove it conspiracy hypothesists! Prove these things beyond a shadow of a doubt and they’ll not only be theorists, they’ll be fucking scientists in some cases. 

I’m not going to dispute that there HAVE BEEN conspiracies in the past. However, proven conspiracies are no longer in the realm of the theoretical once they are revealed. Sure, they may be conspiracies currently taking place as well, but until they can be proven they are a matter of speculation (thus, hypothetical) and there must be evidence to compel us to accept that any given conspiracy is actually taking place. You rarely, if ever, get such evidence from conspiracy hypothesists who instead like nothing more than to play connect the dots, poorly at that.

Let’s stop our tacit legitimization of the beliefs of conspiracy theorists by calling a spade a spade; conspiracy theorists are actually conspiracy hypothesists. The terminology is no coincidence.

5 Suggestions For Conspiracy Theorists

5. Get off Youtube – Like anyone else, you conspiracy loons love having an outlet for your madness. Funny thing is, you bemoan “tell-a-vision” while believing without any investigation of your own everything one of your kind spew. I might also mention that if you really do pose a threat to the Illuminati/Whomever that they know who and where you are because you can’t keep your big mouth shut on the internet. Yet the conspirators don’t do anything about you. Hmmm, could it be because they don’t exist? Could it be that the conspirators are powerless against the 2^nd Amendment? Etcetera.

4. Stop oversimplifying – You call everyone outside your little circle “sheeple” who don’t think. Believe me, as an actually educated and fully-fledged philosopher, I can guarantee you that you’re not thinking either. While the law doesn’t persecute cars because cars don’t kill people the driver does, the analogy is not the same as trying to restrict gun ownership. For example, agencies do background checks on driving records and you have to pass tests to drive. The same cannot be said for gun ownership. See how quickly your argument falls apart?
 

3. Stop calling yourselves “truthers” – Really, you think you know what the truth is? Somehow, you of all people have some special knowledge most everyone else does not? Hey, you might as well start a religion. Religious people claim special knowledge; they’re just not asses about it and don’t go to great lengths to prop up their egos by audaciously calling themselves “truthers.”

2. Get lost – If you’re all so worried about where the United States is heading, leave. You have the option of renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country. What’s that, you aren’t going to bother because of the New World Order’s global reach? Oh, that’s right, we’re talking about the same organization that doesn’t have the power to stop you from exposing their plans on Youtube. There, there, it’s going to be alright. Just gaze into the sun…

1. Stay, and get involved – Obviously you’re not going to leave because you’re all too comfy with your Industrialized Western way of living that allows you a good measure of free speech. So, how about you get organized and campaigning against elected representatives OR run for office yourselves. How about getting off your fat, whining asses and doing something more than just putting information out there as if that’s going to wake people up? You know why people aren’t waking up? Because even if the Illuminati or New World Order existed, people don’t care. So you might as well get yourself elected so you can actually help the rest of the world as you so desperately claim to want.

Still Full of Shit

So much for taking a month off to blog about nonsense like style and music. I think it's time to get serious about nonsense.  

I knew within moments of the Boston marathon bombing yesterday that the event would be another fist-pumping confirmation to conspiracy theorists of some nefarious New World Order plot to take over the world. Conspiracy theorists would rather confirm their own biases based on information they simply do not know than take a minute to sympathize with victims of an evil deed. Not only are conspiracy theorists full of shit, as I wrote in a previous blog, they're douchebags, too. I'd be sick of their nonsense if I weren't so fascinated by their delusional beliefs.  

I'm fascinated by conspiracy theorists for the same reason I am fascinated by religious zealots; their propensity to believe stupid shit. For example, conspiracy theorists believe that the misinformation that is often a result of the news outlets' rush to report is in fact intentional. What they don't understand is that news media is a business and the agency that leads with information wins. (Take for example the 2000 US presidential election, in which Fox News called the election for George W. Bush without justification.)  

And so conspiracy theorists like to play connect the dots where either connections or dots do not exist. They can't tell you the difference between a correlation and a cause. One conspiracy theorist I know well had the nerve to speculate that recent events with North Korea, Cyprus, the drop in value of gold and silver, and the Boston Marathon are all connected, a plan to part American citizens at least from their God given rights. It's all well and good to speculate, but how about proving such fucking absurd assertions? 

Nor do conspiracy loons ever search for other possible explanations for such events. For example, what's more likely, that the Boston Marathon was bombed by a fucking nutjob or terrorist group, or that it was the latest chess move by some global shadow government, a government that no one has been able to expose with hard evidence? There's hard evidence of government corruption alright, it's just not the evidence that points to a secret conspiracy. The fact that lobbyists from big businesses such as Monsanto wind up with government jobs is a matter of public record. The fact that US CEO's make approximately 285 times their average workers is something just about everyone knows. There doesn't need to be some Illuminati plan for world domination. The average person allows themselves to walked all over despite the great injustices of this world.  

It is my belief - as long as we're on the topic of erroneous beliefs -  that conspiracy theorists are simply upset that they have so little control over their own lives and are looking for a scapegoat, seeing how their shitty lives can't possibly be their own fault. That's where conspiracy theorists referring to themselves as "truthers" really becomes laughable; they're going to expose all the horrible truths about the world, all of them, except the truth that where they're at in life is their own fault. (Or not; it depends if you believe in free will.)

I also take issue with conspiracy theorists for their cowardice. They are simply not willing to do what it takes to overthrow the evil forces at work against them and everyone else. They could organize and lobby their representatives en masse or take up arms against their enemy, but they don't do that. No, they think it is enough to get their somehow reliable information to people from safely behind their computer screens, over the internet that the big, bad New World Order isn’t bothering to monitor. Supposing there really were a reptilian shadow government to expose, do you think they’d let “truthers” expose the truth on the internet? Nah, they’re content to allow conspiracy theorists to add to all the misinformation already out there. On a side note, conspiracy theorists, Youtube – that outlet for all your temper tantrums and misinformation dissemination – is as much a “Tell-A-Vision” as television you fucking dipshits. 

To be fair, difficult as that may be, I’m not going to say governments never do bad things. Yes, The US government has committed some pretty heinous acts in the past and will likely do them again at some point. But that particular monster is not lurking around every single corner. If that monster is, then I say: Fucking prove it. That is, prove it in a court of law, not the court of public opinion. I’m betting a gajillion dollars no conspiracy theorist can do it. (Why a gajillion dollars? Because that’s how much money the conspirators have.) 

In the meantime, conspiracy nuts, here’s a little gem from Patton Oswalt that reveals just how little the New World Order is controlling all of us, because if they were, no one would have run to help the victims of the bombing.

* * *

Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will." ~ Patton Oswald