Patterico thinks Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is Hate Speech

From episode 2 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Narrator: The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as "a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man". The Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "your plastic pal who's fun to be with!"

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy defines the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes", with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications for anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that fell through a time warp from 1,000 years in the future defines the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."

I always thought that was pretty funny, but super sleuth Patterico
thinks it's hate speech. (You may remember Patterico from this
thread

where he spent two weeks trying (and failing) to make the case that
Glenn Greenwald used sock puppets).

Patterico gives this example of leftist hate speech, where Atrios quotes the HHGTG.

Duncan "Atrios" Black discussing ABC's The Note:

[M]y take on The Note has always been, with apologies to Douglas Adams:

A bunch of mindless jerks who will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

I'm sure everyone other than Patterico has realized this, but Atrios is calling The Note "mindless jerks" -- he is not, even in jest, calling for their execution.

KTK has more, if anyone cares.

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I am utterly appalled by Atrios' hate speech. It is beyond the pale to insinuate that The Note is a marketing division.

I love the reference to Charlie Brooker as a "prominent leftist" - I think reasonably obscure bile-spitting comedy journalist is nearer the mark.

OK, Patterico doesn't get that it's an innocuous riff on Adams; but out of all those examples, you only focused on that one?

Sarah, Ben:
I think Tim presents the highlight of the list, but the piece by KTK that Tim actually links to has far more detail. Most quotes are either so old as to be irrelevant in the current political climate, or by people who cannot rationally be regarded as prominent leftists. About 16% of the quotes are from Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.

Now, there are some genuine quotes there from left-wing political figures (if you allow that they stretch back a couple of decades), but the fact that the number is so small, and has to be padded out with lots of garbage only discredits the original argument. The number of genuine quotes provided in this list is outdated and outnumbered by the number of hateful quotes from a single column by Ann Coulter written in the past couple of weeks. As a list of the equivalence between left- and right-wing hate speech, this pretty much proves the opposite.

Blog mixed up the order (of posts) and ate half my post.

Yes Tim, you do seem to willfully ignore every other example. Out of context, the Atrios quote seems worse than it is... I read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I don't remember that part either.

So how about those other examples? Just darn good stuff, eh?

Read KTK's example, and you find one single, influential, invited everywhere conservative pundit/media darling's single column provides more (and authentic) hate speech than all of Patterico's moldy (average 7+ years old) quotes put together. "Darn good stuff" indeed...

Well, I just avoid that sort of thing altogether, from both sides, and I won't take part in it myself.

um...

as Tim says, the quote is from episode 2 (of the TV series), not the book.

as for selectively quoting, its not as if it was out of context, just the most glaring example of idiocy present, not the least of which is his quoting Greenwald to "prove" a point that is immediately shown to be false by the first sentence of the quote he is using as evidence. once something is patently wrong, further discussion of it is useless.

In the BBC TV adaptation, first among the aforementioned "mindless jerks" is none other than Adams himself.

By PMembrane (not verified) on 06 Mar 2007 #permalink

I've always thought that the Hitchhiker's Guide is offensive to small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Oh, and super-intelligent shades of the colour blue.

By Pseudonym (not verified) on 06 Mar 2007 #permalink

The quote is also in the radio show, which preceded the book and the TV series.

My granny, who once got very, very drunk with the Ravening Bugblatter Beast of Traal, said that he was terribly hurt by the insinuation that any of the grannies he romanced needed rescuing.

The quote is also in the book. I have never seen the TV show nor listened to the radio show, and I know this quote by heart, since I thought it was pretty funny.

So yeah, a person who'd read the book would have known it....

By Shining Raven (not verified) on 06 Mar 2007 #permalink

"[I]f there is retributive justice [Sen. Jesse Helms] will get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it."

"on Clarence Thomas:

I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease."

"For hypocrisy, for sheer gall, [Newt] Gingrich should be hanged."

"He's one more mistake away from not having any kneecaps."

"There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word."

"Democrat presidential candidate Jesse Jackson on Jews:

Hymies

and on New York City:

Hymietown"

" during the presidency of George W. Bush:

John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?"

"I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

Gosh, those other quotes seem rather tepid. Isn't it a little odd that you are attempting to refute part of a discussion on selective quoting by using very selective quoting?

By Sebastian Holsclaw (not verified) on 07 Mar 2007 #permalink

Of course Patterico is a tool, and Tim picked his worst example to make him look like the internet jerk he is.

But I didn't expect Sebastian Holsclaw to show up trying to defend his specious equivalence.

Fact is, I've heard comments as numerous, and as bad as Sebastian's entire list in one Melanie Morgan show. And unless Sebastian's never listened to any right wing demagogues, there's no way he can make his argument in good faith.

Let's face it: it feels good to get angry and demonize your enemies, sometimes. Occasionally you'll even see a prominent leftist do it.

But the Father Coughlins of the right do it NONSTOP. And their listeners are numerous enough to buy millions of copies of Coulter, Savage and Limbaugh's hackish cash-ins. Go read Digby's archives, or Media Matters, or any of the other people who document the right-wing filth that spews over the nation's airwaves.

Sebastian, go somewhere else and fulfill your destiny of upholding civility on the Internet.

That isn't MY list. That is Patterico's list. This entire discussion began with Greenwald complaining that charges of left-wingers 'hate speech' were based on things from comments on blogs instead of from principals on the left. Greenwald went on an extentded rant on the evils of cherry-picking for an argument. Patterico demonstrated that you don't have to rely on anonymous comments, you can rely on high profile members of the left. Tim cherry-picked the least offensive of Patterico's examples in order to try to discredit the whole concept. The irony of cherry-picking for rhetorical effect may or may not amuse you I suppose, but it certainly is present.

By Sebastian Holsclaw (not verified) on 08 Mar 2007 #permalink

> Patterico demonstrated that you don't have to rely on
> anonymous comments, you can rely on high profile members of > the left.

Did you click on the KTK link at the bottom of Tim's
post?

Which is politically more powerful, Byrd or Coulter? Jackson or Coulter?

By Sebastian Holsclaw (not verified) on 09 Mar 2007 #permalink

I suspect more people read or hear the words of Coulter than either Jackson or Byrd, but both men certainly fall into the prominent left-wing category. Both Jackson's 1984 statement and Byrd's 2001 statement qualify as vile. So I suppose if some have claimed that high profile left-wingers *never* make vile hateful inflammatory statements, Patterico has answered them.

Given that the average age of a quote on Patterico's list is nearly 8 years and that about half of his quotes come from people who are not generally identifiable as prominent left-wingers, I can't see how he's answered the argument that prominent right wingers make hateful inflammatory statements at a far higher rate than do prominent left-wingers.

Sorry, Greenwald was indeed engaging in sockpuppetry.

> Sorry, Greenwald was indeed engaging in sockpuppetry.

Greenwald wrote in response to that accusation:

"Not frequently, I leave comments at blogs which criticize or respond to something I have written. I always, in every single instance, use my own name when doing so. I have never left a single comment at any other blog using any name other than my own, at least not since I began blogging. IP addresses signify the Internet account one uses, not any one individual. Those in the same household have the same IP address. In response to the personal attacks that have been oozing forth these last couple of weeks, others have left comments responding to them and correcting the factual inaccuracies, as have I. In each case when I did, I have used my own name."

In short, while denying that he was responsible, Greenwald admitted that someone in his household had done it. If he knew what was going on, he's still guilty. If he didn't then he's not.

His explanation is at least plausible.

I feel compelled to state the obvious:

Tim's post contains a link which comprehensively discredits Patterico's list. The Doug Adams example in this post is not cherry picking - its _additional information_ that cannot be found by clicking on the link.

Sometimes, when you write a blog post, you don't particularly care to repeat what has been said by people before you. Fortunately, the internet contains hyperlinks which allow you to get around that. If you are accusing Tim of "cherry picking," you either did not click on the link, or your understanding of the practice of linking in general needs some improvement.

"""(You may remember Patterico from this thread where he spent two weeks trying (and failing) to make the case that Glenn Greenwald used sock puppets)."""

Well to be fair, if providing numerous examples of someone posting under multiple identities but using the same IP address and stylistics fails to prove someone is doing what you just chronicled them doing, then it would appear to be a rather hard thing to prove.
Personally I wasn't aware that someone replaced the old TCP/IP based internet with one which makes identical client IPs no longer indicative of identical clients, so someone less technically knowledgable as Patterco can hardly be blamed for not knowing this also.

Or he was right and you were wrong on that matter which was about as hard to read as a pop-up book.

*"""Fortunately, the internet contains hyperlinks """*

Another breakthrough!

I certainly haven't heard of a flavour of NAT that also translates content in addition to routing addresses Tim.

You know, like the kind that would be required to account for multiple identities sharing not only an IP address but also the favourite phrases, writing styles and stylistics of a prominant blogger, and coincidently, only in posts which defend the same blogger.

That would appear to be a remarkable advance in network protocols integrated with something akin to artificial intelligence you've been keeping secret Tim.

Is this new version of NAT something the Chinese have come up with to ensure all Chinese bloggers say the same thing as the party ?
Do tell.

> but also the favourite phrases, writing styles and
> stylistics of a prominant blogger, and coincidently, only > in posts which defend the same blogger.

Curious. I believe I have read in a number of places that the main similarity is that both Greenwald and the "other person" wrote in English.

Which favorite phrases are you talking about?
How did you determine writing style?
What do you mean by stylistics?

Rob

Curious. I believe I have read in a number of places that the main similarity is that both Greenwald and the "other person" wrote in English.
Posted by: rob | March 22, 2007 03:25 PM

First of all, by "other person" we mean 4 other identities who appear exclusively on blogs which reference Greenwald to post defences of him, and all disappeared when their non-Greenwaldity was questioned.

But no, the main similarity wasn't a common language. The main similarity cited was that Greenwald posted comments to blogs with the same IP as 4 other Greenwald fans did. This occurred with two different IPs, making it something really fun to watch someone try explain away as multiple Brazillian Greenwald/blog fans sharing a NAT pool. Hence the abrupt cessation of comments above.

Which favorite phrases are you talking about?

Well the most obvious, glaring, and frequently mentioned was of course these fans of Greenwald repeatedly pointing out his achievements, in the same words, format and order as they appear in the bio Greenwald wrote for his blog.

As I said, if Patterco didn't make a convincing case that Greenwald had been posting under multiple identities, then this is understandable given that clearly no such thing is possible if his isn't it.

How did you determine writing style?

Eyeballs mostly.

What do you mean by stylistics?

Well I guess it's not commonly used, but the word is defined in dictionaries and does have its own wikipedia entry.

Frankly if you'd like to figure this toughest of nuts out that'd be further down the recommending reading list than the posts which recount multiple Greenwald fans all posting from the same IP on the same day and posting the same opinions, complaints and defenses relating to Greenwald.
You know, the ones that go a little further than suggesting similarities beyond 2 people on the internet writing in english.

Tim has of course explained that all this is mere coincidence and explained by what happens when you switch off your modem and another subscriber at your ISP assumes your IP and identity. Sure he didn't explain that convincingly or how it would account for the phenominal coincindence of this repeatedly reoccurring over long periods of time but he offered it nonetheless.

Anyways, I'm off to bed now, and not unworried by the fact that I may wake up as a completely different person due to this well known and not laughably ridiculous phenomenon plaguing the internet accessing population of the world.

Frankly I'm wondering why I didn't buy a Linksys modem instead of the Mindswapper 3000. Damn your low low prices Mindswapper Corporation!

Now back to reading Tim's more recent criticisms of what other gullible and intellectually dishonest bloggers write.

Kilo claims:
>Tim has of course explained that all this is mere coincidence and explained by what happens when you switch off your modem and another subscriber at your ISP assumes your IP and identity. Sure he didn't explain that convincingly or how it would account for the phenominal coincindence of this repeatedly reoccurring over long periods of time but he offered it nonetheless.

I said no such thing. Try reading the previous discussion and finding out what I actually said instead of making stuff up.

Kilo:

I don't see you saying anything that isn't consistent with
Greenwald's boyfriend being the culprit.

I said no such thing. Try reading the previous discussion and finding out what I actually said instead of making stuff up.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | March 29, 2007 10:42 AM

Strange comment. Your previous discussion is dedicated to making things up. In particular, that Greenwald had suggested his partner was responsible for these posts. Greenwald neither says nor suggests anything about who authored those comments other than it wasn't him.

So I guess that settles it. Patterco's clearly a joke, because although he's documented what he has, you can invent an excuse for Greenwald which he doesn't claim himself and doesn't actually contradict anthing.
Awesome.

Kilo: I don't see you saying anything that isn't consistent with Greenwald's boyfriend being the culprit.
Posted by: rob | March 29, 2007 11:45 AM

Then you don't.
But we've made significant headway if you can now see the connection is a little stronger than what you and I have, being two people who write in english.

Still, the claim made was that Greenwald was using a sockpuppet to post defenses of him. I can't see anything inconsistant with that if his partner was responsible for all of these, even if Tim does not.

Reason gets us to the fact that someone in Greenwald's household made the posts(Greenwald has admitted that much) and no further. I think it is fairly safe to assume that Greenwald's boyfriend would be least somewhat familiar with Greenwald's writing which appears to be a sufficient explanation for any stylistic similarity. And I think a boyfriend would likely have a motive in coming to Greenwald's defence.

Therefore, I find the boyfriend explanation to be entirely plausible.

I'm not sure that that will count as progress from your
point of view.