Fractally wrong
Posted by Dave Bath on 2009-02-21
What with blog wars discussions, dain-bramaged policy makers, fundy-christian-contraception-is-murder-types (esp in North Dakota), suits and other losers, it’s worth pointing at a poster that sums up what will probably become by favorite insult, from Fractal Wrongness (after the fold).
FRACTAL WRONGNESS
You are not just wrong. You are wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. Zooming in on any part of your worldview finds beliefs exactly as wrong as your entire worldview.
Fractal Wrongness
Balneus 
skepticlawyer said
Oh that’s good, Dave.
Lyn said
There’s something for the pinboard. Except I won’t be filing it under ‘humour’.
Dave Bath said
Lyn@2 wouldn’t file it under humor.
Maybe I’ve just got a strange sense of the sillies.
Maybe you’ll get a giggle out of the set of "demotivational posters" which may have inspired "Fractally Wrong" and have the same “Management love hanging these posters around the office” format.
Includes:
WISHES: When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it’s really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you’re pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it’s death by meteor.
VICTORY: Winners never fly higher than when they’re bouncing up and down on the egos of those they defeat.
CONSULTING: If you’re not a part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
MEETINGS: None of us is as dumb as all of us.
INSPIRATION: Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99% perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
CONSISTENCY: It’s only a virtue if you’re not a screwup.
BEAUTY: If you’re attractive enough on the outside, people will forgive you for being irritating to the core.
HOPE: May not be warranted at this point. (it’s got a pretty photo that you eventually realize is an orange sky with a victim’s eye view of circling vultures)
Legal Eagle said
I think I’ve got the same sense of humour as you, Dave (but then, you knew that). Very funny.
Ink stained fingers « Still Being Nice, even to the undeserving said
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Dave Bath said
Ink Stained Fingers@5 misreads me somewhat. I watched insults flying about (from SL’s “Blog Wars Redux” post), heard of the win of the fundies in North Dakota, and a couple of other frustrations, lucked upon this great insult, and threw it up in the air for everybody to laugh about… much more elegant than this sort of behaviour outlined by LegalEagle.
That said, a Pure Poison writer /did/ did start getting nasty and personal about Skepticlawyer – and inaccurate to boot. I try and respect people’s privacy, maintain their pseudonyms (even when I know their real names)… although I cannot guarantee against a slip of the fingers, and there might be extreme circumstances that would lead me to break that rule.
I’m kinda glad that "Blog Wars Redux" is now closed for comment for legal reasons. It was getting nasty.
And, actually, I wanted more people to read the toxic and downright stupid North Dakota law reviewed by Feministing. It’s so bad I was at a loss for words.
Legal Eagle said
WTF! That North Dakota bill is appalling. A fertilised human ovum is not the same as a human being. It is a potential human being, to be sure, but it cannot grow and survive outside the womb for months after fertilisation. Its survival is dependent upon successful implantation too (as the Feministing crowd recognise, this bill might stop certain forms of contraception which prevent implantation).
The difficulty is that once a fertilised ovum turns into a zygote, and then a foetus, it gets closer and closer to a human being. That’s when things start getting really difficult. Where do you draw the line? But I don’t think you draw it way back at the fertilisation stage.
Dave Bath said
I must write something on this soon: but it /is/ a bit like using residential tenancies acts to complain about no water in the toilet when the house is still on the drawing board.
Given the number of concepti that don’t last more than a few days after implanting (the “oh dear, I’m a couple of days late with my period” bit for regular women), perhaps North Dakota women who are a couple of days late can flood the police with inquiries “I’m a couple of days late, has a person died? Should I be charged with murder?”. Clog up the works until there is a ruling forced that the definition is like the one where (Tennessee I think) they tried to make pi=3 exactly because that’s what the bible says.
zombinol said
It has been said…
The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person’s worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person’s worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.
Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person’s opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time.
If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet–in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums–your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.
Ink stained fingers « IAIN HALL said
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Ink stained fingers | IAIN HALL's Sandpit said
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