Morons of the Internet: Prahlad Friedman

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

In this edition we have one big wanker from the world of poker; a game I hold very close to my heart. As you can imagine there are many assholes attracted to a game that promotes cheating and behaving like a greedy asshole, and many of these mouthy idiots love to spout their rubbish over social media. Here we have a fine example of how not to claim the sport of poker suffers from systemic racism, straight from the mouth of one hateful young man.

The particular poker player in question is Prahlad Friedman, who has had his fair share of success in the past, although he's mostly known in the poker world for behaving like a dickhead to other players. That's not enough for Prahlad who also thinks himself a rapper named 'Pragress', although when we look at his freestyling and latest release we can safely conclude that only Pragress thinks himself a rapper, and anyone with a pair of ears can tell a stroke victim has stronger bars than this wanker. I suppose you don't expect much artistic flair from a man who called himself 'Pragress', but I certainly didn't expect the absence of talent on the level of this douchebag. Can it get any worse? Well yes, he's also a graduate in ethnic studies, and everyone who happily displays that hugely prestigious diploma alongside their name surely has a hilariously warped view of the world. This is about to be demonstrated by the following argument:

Oh wow, just look at that comment to like ratio. It's almost like people hate being demonised by virtue signalling idiots. We'll get to how dumb this argument is in a second, but what I hate the most is just how arrogant and condescending this tweet is. OBVIOUSLY it HAS to be systemic racism causing this complicated issue. It's so blatantly obvious for high-level academics like this guy that Prahlad won't even provide any form of a source to back up this big claim. His only reasoning is that everyone likes poker, so everyone should be playing the game an equal amount, which is possibly the most stupid reasoning it's possible to give. It's like the evidence a four year old child would give it's that plain stupid. I guess those people that turn down offers to play a game of poker with me don't physically exist in Prahlad's messed up world, nor do the countries where gambling is banned. You can easily debunk this moronic point by analysing how race affects almost any sport on the planet. Different cultures have different preferences over sports, and so we see a disproportionate number of Asian players in table tennis, a high number of Cuban boxers, and an abundance of South American footballers. Tell me Prahlad, is racism prevalent in these sports where whites constitute a minority? I've never seen you call for affirmative action in these scenarios.

The issue of racism in poker is a very complicated and divisive topic, and all Prahlad's argument achieves is completely blowing trivial issues out of proportion. There have been numerous people from a multitude of races and backgrounds to appear at the WSOP final tables despite the majority of the field being players predominantly white and Asian. The simple truth is that the cards you're dealt have fuck all to do with what race you are. Instead of promoting diversity in the sport Prahlad decides the best strategy is to penalise other players and criticise the majority who have just as much right to be at these final tables as minorities. The WSOP does not treat players based on race, so you probably do need sources if you're going to make the huge accusation that poker is an inherently racist sport. The good news is that Pragress is on hand to clarify and queries in the most patronising way possible.

With this ridiculous reasoning the NBA would be filled with white players, as would the sports which I've previously mentioned. Interestingly Pragress has never criticised the NBA for a monopoly of black players despite there being OBVIOUS racism involved. That's all the evidence I need to blindly call racism right? Why poker is magically different from other sports is another question I'd like to direct towards Pragress. Reductionist doesn't even begin to cover how simplified this idiocy is. You can simply look at the most successful poker players in the world and then look at the richest countries in the world and instantly see how there is no correlation between these two factors. It's almost as if Prahlad's argument isn't rooted in the truth in any way. To be fair Prahlad has seen non-diverse poker rooms, so his anecdotal evidence must surely trump the actual statistics.

Let's be honest, Prahlad's argument has fuck all to do with race. You could argue that on average black people are in a poorer financial situation than white or Asian Americans, but that's a general statistic, and this man is planning on helping individuals. I have no idea how Prahlad jumped to the conclusion that free time and race are intertwined, but my money would be on the fact he's an idiot. I still don't understand the race boundary. This is an argument solely based on wealth, and not at all dependant on race. It would make a million times more sense to aid individuals struggling financially, yet for some reason it's OBVIOUS, despite still no sufficient evidence being provided, that the sole reason for this issue is race. This is not a logical argument, just pure arrogance.

Oh, that's a simple solution, thanks for your words of wisdom. Once again backed up with some phenomenal reasoning. I guess in Prahlad's world, which is very different from that of a sane person's, repeatedly jumping to conclusions doesn't diminish the validity of an argument. I'd love to think governments across the planet will give equal pay for everything in order for poker to become more inclusive, even in the Islamic countries where gambling is banned, but then I suppose in Prahlad's fantasy world everyone loves poker. How arrogant do you have to be to start dictating that your understanding of the world is superior to others, and that we should take affirmative action towards what you deem as progressive?

If this argument on free time were to be correct then we would expect final tables in poker to be populated by retired white men, who don't have a job, and have a ton of money saved up over their lifetime. The strange, and not at all surprising thing, is that this scenario isn't remotely true. Just by looking at the previous final tables you can see a growing trend of young men dominating the standings. Again Pragress, it's almost as if this issue is too complex to be described by your woeful reasoning. At this stage Mr Friedman could have looked at empirical data across poker tournaments in different countries, and analysed the relationship he's banging on about here. However as we've discovered Pragress doesn't use evidence, as his worldview is obviously superior to factual information. Eventually Pragress does treat us to some evidence, and my what a beauty it is:

Oh what a shame, the one fucking statistic is a completely meaningless generalisation. I do fucking hate any point made with 'yall' in it, as it indicates the language of a simpleton. It's of no surprise then that this point is just as idiotic as the others, and can easily be torn apart with a simple example. White people outnumber Asian people in the UK by a big margin, yet a disproportionate number of Asian people are playing in the England cricket team when compared with population statistics. Therefore by Prahlad's logic we can OBVIOUSLY see that there is systemic racism towards white people in England, as if not the ethnicities of national teams would be roughly proportionate to the population. You could just as easily make the same argument for the NBA in America. This is the sort of moronic logic we're dealing with here. What Prahlad has done here is found a statistic and implied misleading conclusions from it, nothing more. This does not constitute evidence, and it sure as hell doesn't constitute an argument.

The quality of this argument can easily display the low intelligence of Prahlad, but for good measure he's added another 'yall', so any reasonable human can join me in not taking him seriously for one moment. Here we have yet another meaningless comment questioning why people avoid taboo subjects. I always thought that was just called civility, and whilst I agree taboo subjects should be discussed, you can't start whining at people when they refrain from openly expressing opinions on these difficult subjects. Also when we're referring to black people we're not all as narrow-minded as Prahlad is to assume that this solely means African Americans. Funnily enough there are loads of black people in Africa, and I bet you tribes in the heart of the Congo aren't talking about racism every single day. It's quite hard to have a broad opinion on something when all you can see is the contents of your own ass. Congratulations Mr Friedmann that is a 100% retention rate of awful generalisations. Truly your idiocy is astounding, and I would have thought that you as a white person would have realised this when you talk about racism non-stop. You deluded idiot.

Prahlad then decided to just go crazy, spurting even more random nonsense with no real relevance to anything.

I just can't imagine why the people you're attacking are the ones getting worked up. It's almost like people don't enjoy being verbally abused. You're the sort of simpleton who kicks a hornet's nest and then blames the hornets for attacking you. But Prahlad is a generous soul, and for being born a certain way you can get coaching from this poker legend. I'll sure fear minorities at the poker table now Prahlad is involved. I suppose I'll also have to fear those Congolese tribespeople as well, because of course everyone likes poker, so I'm sure each one of the clan will have Prahlad in their corners, and with Prahlad in your corner everything is possible. I just worry he's going to have to clone himself when every minority in poker gets to the final table at the World Series and Prahlad has to be in each of their corners. That's the legendary coaching Prahlad thinks he will give, but in reality fuck all difference will be made.

The final hot take I just had to include. I'm not sure that's a sentence, but my God is there some fantastic bullshit in that one. It's the classic 'I can't be racist towards these groups of people because I have friends there' line. I also doubt Pragress is a multilinguist considering he can barely speak English, his mother tongue. It's also interesting how the argument has now shifted into Conservatives versus Democrats, rather than race, but I guess we couldn't have an ethnic studies argument without shifting the goalposts.

I'm not sure what I was expecting by analysing a twitter hot take from some random idiot, but surely any human with half a brain cell can construct a better argument than this nonsense. I'm not angry that Prahlad believes helping minorities is the way forward, and I would happily welcome more diverse tables in poker, as I believe diverse tables generate the best poker games. However what I do have an issue with is the reasoning behind Prahlad's actions, and refuse to accept that the way to reduce inequality at poker tables is by getting suffering black people to gamble more. That's a really slippery slope with the potential to ruin lives, and I hardly see Prahlad's unproven training changing this reality. Basically Prahlad is wanting to take minorities out of a rigged system and straight into another one.

But the most disgusting part of this tirade is not his pathetic argument, it's his arrogant attitude that this viewpoint makes him somehow morally superior. I wouldn't act like the greatest human being alive if I spouted out this sort of shit. Stick to rapping over politics mate, even though you've shown that's beyond your severely limited capabilities as well. Maybe you could find a rapper with the same mentality as you to coach you past the majority of black rappers. Either way, just shut the fuck up.