The Christoforge Column (13/11/16)

My Thoughts on the US Election

I've seen a number of articles since Trump shockingly won the US election whinging about how this outcome has to be the result of institutionalised sexism and bigotry. All these articles essentially fall into the same trap of not actually providing any evidence that sexism had the definitive role in this issue, and that's simply because sexism has no place in this debate. The real reason why people are blaming Trump's victory on sexism is that the people whinging about Trump's ascent into power just can't accept that their opinion might not be emulated by the American people. They're also in denial, believing in tinpot conspiracy theories because the truth in this issue is so much more shocking. The truth is that Trump is the deserved victor of this election, and actually spoke to the American people. I can't say I'm surprised by the outrage surrounding Trump's election win. After all these are the same radical fucktards that tried to protest democracy after the 'Brexit' vote here in the UK, but as American's are great at taking things to the next level, this protest is on a different scale. Maybe instead of blaming the system these people should be looking at themselves, as the constant bemoaning that sexism is inherently rooted in any opponent of Hillary Clinton is just another reason why the opposition got the victory.

This segment is not a rally cry for Trump supporters; I'm not actually a fan of the man, but despite recognising his many flaws, I also have to admit that Trump was a better candidate for the presidency than Hillary Clinton. I still wouldn't vote for the man, but given a choice at gunpoint between Trump and Clinton and the former would get my support hands down. The reasons are simple: Trump is not some two dimensional symbol of the establishment who simply repeats what the electorate want to hear. The average American citizen is fed up of hearing about this promised land of prosperity that keeps being alluded to every single presidential cycle. What Trump has shown is they would prefer a straight talking figure they believe can enact radical changes to give themselves a better vision of the future. Clinton played the election by the book. She spent a ridiculous amount more than Trump on her campaign, so I think it's refreshing to see a change in the atmosphere of politics. I'm still not convinced if Trump is the right man for this change, as he seems more of an evil billionaire putting on a facade than a beneficial President for the American people. Maybe Trump is the radical change that America needs. All we can say is that in this election the underdog won, and I think this is a huge chance for Trump to prove everyone wrong, because boy has he got a divided country on his hands at the moment.


Political Symbols in Sport

You may have recently seen that the English FA have decided to allow their players to wear poppy armbands during their Remembrance Day game with Scotland, going against FIFA laws that have banned any political messages from being worn at sporting events. Firstly I'd like to say I agree with the rule that political symbols should never be anywhere near a sporting event. Sport should always be free from political influences and commercialism, instead just showcasing sporting prowess. That's not always going to be a realistic view of the sporting world, but in this particular scenario the English FA have absolutely no business trying to force poppies on the armbands of football players.

This isn't a case where players that refuse to wear a poppy are disrespectful of fighting soldiers, nor are FIFA themselves. FIFA are absolutely correct in their ruling that the poppy represents a national and political symbol for warfare, and even in the British Isles it can be conversely seen as a symbol for Irish nationalism. This debate is a political issue that has no place at any sporting game, and the FA should be ashamed that this fiasco is being promoted ahead of the actual game. I have to ask the FA what the the fucking point of incurring a pointless fine for such a minor action is. Let's be honest this is nowhere near the same scale as the 1968 Olympics black power salute, rather just forcing poppies onto football players in the name of common decency. It's a shame that events like these have made the poppy into a trivial symbol that's become mandatory for anyone in the public eye to wear in recent times. But most of all it's a damn shame that the meaning of such a powerful symbol has become overshadowed by the actions of twenty two men on a football field. If I was the FA I would be embarrassed by this pitiful decision.


How Talent Shows Are Ruining Art

I fucking hate the current format of talent shows. How have we humans got to a stage where we can make and break the dreams of aspiring performers with the push of a button. Not only does this bring up a generation who think they can control famine in Africa with the single click of a TV remote, because as I'm now starting to realise viewers now need to be empowered for stupid formats like this to work. The format becomes even more hellish when you discover that on top of being ridiculed by half the national population the contestants also get judged by four so called experts, who in reality have about as much chance of spotting actual talent as Stevie Wonder has of wining a game of 'I Spy'. All these overpaid twats do is suck up to artificial charm that then forces the most divisive of entrants into the limelight, all to get views on their specific talent show. I'm sorry but cream should rise to the top, not cunts.

It's no wonder why the products of talent shows are almost always annoying cretins, because they're the ones who were instantly judged to be 'unique' in a split second, and not some actually decent people who worked their fucking ass off because they care about their creations. That's the genuine charm that these so called experts always miss. You don't find that unique charm or charisma from people being shoehorned into the public eye without merit.  The phony contestants that do find success not surprisingly don't find it for very long, but apparently we as the audience should believe that this moment of brief notoriety is what that person is living for. Sure it will change that person's life, but how many more examples of this rinse and repeat formula do we need before this cliched nonsense gets tiring. Talent shows are a fucked up formula that sees decent human beings exploited on television like some sort of circus act that the audience can't help but poke with sticks through the bars of the cage. What a surprise this horrific format rarely finds any genuine talent. Any of those judges will never find the next influential artist because because they're far too busy producing the same lame old thrown together shit, that although sells and is favored by the voting audience, but will be forgotten in time quicker than the time it took this undeserving asshole to appear on our screens.

Morons of the Internet: Wessex Scene (11/11/2016)

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 I'm continuing my war against shitty journalism, and what better way to find shitty journalism than looking in student publications. Here we have an opinionated, but unfortunately ill informed piece on this year's US presidential election. And if you're wondering, yes I did delay this article until after the election because I'm that petty.
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https://www.wessexscene.co.uk/politics/2016/09/28/if-clinton-was-male-she-would-win-in-a-landslide/
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Wow, you certainly can't complain this student publication doesn't address the big issues, or at least tries to. To make such a huge overriding statement like that you're going to have to provide a lot of evidence and insight, because this is a huge accusation that a lot of sophisticated and detailed commentary can be centered on. However to say there's going to be any journalistic talent in this piece would be wishful thinking. Remember the initial assertion in this piece is that Clinton isn't dominating the election because she's a woman; let's keep that statement in mind for future reference.

The article doesn't start well. The first paragraph is full of hypothetical points that mean fuck all. Just stating that Hillary Clinton is not a man doesn't answer the fucking question, it's just conjecture. Yes, you've put forward the suggestion that she's a respectable candidate in your mind, but what's that got to do with sexism? Amazingly the generalisations get even worse in the second paragraph, and unsurprisingly there's no fucking evidence to back any of it up. The author here couldn't even find anything anecdotal to pointlessly include, instead spewing random sociological nonsense that in no way proves her point. Pathetic really. I also have to take issue with the many ridiculous assumptions. You claim that Clinton is the most qualified presidential candidate ever, but is that strictly true? Sure she was the Secretary of State, but Richard Nixon was Vice President before he went into office. How did his presidency turn out? George Bush was the son of a former president. How did his presidency turn out? Just because someone is qualified to do something doesn't mean they'll be successful in that role, and unless you prove otherwise that has nothing to do with sexism. Also I'm of the belief that Trump's win actually came as a huge surprise, with Clinton miles ahead in the poles throughout nearly the whole bloody campaign, so actually when this piece was written it was thought Hillary would win by a landslide. Maybe you should have considered that before resorting to such horrific generalisations and nonsensical arguments in the first few paragraphs that are all factually incoherent.

So just because you don't like Donald Trump the only feasible reason why Hillary can't win is because of sexism. That's the quality of argument this article resorts too. Sure there's evidence that Trump is a sexist asshole, but how does that relate to your point? It's a shame as for the first time there's actually evidence provided for these points; but none of it's fucking relevant to the original accusation. Normal service soon resumes with valuable insight soon being replaced with more irrelevant waffle and heinous generalisations. Seriously, how the fuck do the above paragraphs even contribute to the idea that Clinton would win if she was a man? You keep saying Trump is a vastly different human to Clinton, so why the fuck would their sex be the definitive difference? Maybe Trump is the inferior candidate in your mind, but that doesn't mean you should simply dismiss the man's widespread popularity because of your own clear biases. Instead of just judging men by their sex instead of their policies, which interestingly you don't do with Clinton, maybe you should actually bother considering the counterargument. I think you'll be surprised to learn that the vast majority of the anti-Hillary argument has nothing to do with sexism. That's still not the worst thing about this article. That's this incredibly warped logic that repetitively cries sexism despite providing zero evidence or even any relevant information.

Lovely anecdote, BUT IT'S NOT FUCKING RELEVANT. Definitely Trump the one that brushes over big issues.

This article just reeks of ignorance. You simply cannot just sweep aside monumental flaws in the Clinton campaign and blame her defeat on institutionalised sexism. Apparently sexism is the deciding factor in this argument, and not Hillary being in the pockets of the establishment, how she's funded, her controversial actions as Secretary of State, her constant health issues, allegations of corruption, and last but not least acting like a federal criminal. If for some reason you decide to moronically ignore all those issues then yes maybe this article has a point somewhere. You would struggle to find that point in this pile of shit however as it NEVER ADDRESSES THE ORIGINAL POINT. This is just pointless rambling, absolutely worthless uninformed shit that makes a mockery of serious journalism. You ignorant wanker.

Shitty Journalism and Evolution

I've decided that war needs to be declared on shit journalism. I'm sick and tired of reading stupid fucking articles that are as pointless to read as they are in content. They're written by fucking idiots to appeal to fucking idiots, which is a trend that has to stop. To start with I'll focus on how evolutionary science is being ruined in the media by these clickbait based shitty news sources, written by morons just to try and cram their own stupid and worthless opinions into unrelated scenarios. Whilst I'm critically analysing this horseshit, please keep in mind that this is intended to be a factual piece of journalism that should inform the reader.
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http://www.upworthy.com/something-fascinating-happened-after-these-male-baboons-died-men-should-keep-this-in-mind
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- Aside from being just an excuse to post vaguely related pictures instead of writing anything of note, this article just loves to make huge sweeping statements without ever explaining them. I suppose that's not surprising when for some fucking reason the article is in bullet point form. Has this really become the standard of journalism when the actual journalists don't have any care for the quality of written communication? There isn't any quality in the argument either, it's on par with something you would hear at a nursery school. I get the point of aiming this argument at men, as they're more naturally aggressive than females, which is more common knowledge than informative. However to then make the stupid point that men cause all wars, which isn't true, is just an insult to anyone's intelligence. How am I supposed to take an article about evolution seriously that claims poison gas is the fault of human males?  How in any way can you justify that meaningless shit in an article centered on animal behaviour?

- Natural human behaviour does not go all the way back to when we were monkeys because humans have never been monkeys, only primates. At one time humans and monkeys would have shared a common ancestor, but your lack of knowledge on the subject is instantly apparent. Having said that your description of mating behaviour is actually largely correct, albeit worded incredibly poorly, with no notion of any principles that lead to the increase in a certain behaviour. You prove my doubts in the next sentence by claiming that natural selection and evolution are the same thing. They are not. Natural selection is a singular component in the process of evolution. Survival of the fittest, another concept you clearly don't understand, is a Darwinian term that aids the explanation of how natural selection favors certain adaptations within a population. Nice to see we have an informed scientist writing this article.

- I'm getting the gist of this piece being set on the moronic assumption that instinctive human behaviour can be rewired by learning about a single group of baboons. Baboons really aren't that closely related to humans, and are separated by tens of millions of years of evolution, so it's a very questionable process to start drawing unqualified parallels between the two species. Even if we do give the author the benefit of the doubt in suggesting humans and baboons are related enough to draw comparisons on, we still have to address the fact that baboons live totally different lifestyles to humans, so we absolutely cannot suggest that this particular behaviour in baboons would benefit humans. For that matter we don't even know if this behaviour benefited the baboons, only that it happened in a single group.

- The baboons didn't invent a culture on the scale of what the author here is implying. Biologically they have adapted their behaviour in a way that doesn't appear to have been impacted by genetics or the environment, but that's simply not comparable with the human concept of culture. They changed their behaviour, that's it. Under the principles of natural selection you can bet your fucking life that this peaceful and idyllic behaviour would change if we introduced some unfavorable selection pressures, and only then can we really start to draw any form of conclusion. The author here hasn't grasped how scientific reasoning works, just comparing apples to oranges and inventing some skewed sociological point that stupidly assumes two drastically different behaviors are even vaguely related.

- The whole piece has an unbelievable confirmation bias, and one that arises from the echo chambers of websites like Tumblr, that enjoy cherry picking information and mangling it into a misrepresented point that resembles some form of pseudoscience. For reference here is the Tumblr response to this scientific work. Watch how these morons use this case study as a feeble excuse to start demonising male behaviour because a SINGLE SOURCE agreed with them. Neither Tumblr or this shit article decide to actually look at the wider picture and set up any form of scientific debate; they simply misrepresent any form of serious science with their own stupid opinions. This is the result of this toxic echo chamber of lies I was talking about, and I'm fucking sick of it degrading a proper science by lowering it to the standard of feelings and opinions. They have no place in evolutionary biology; rather more worthless subjects such as gender studies.

- The conclusion however culminates in a show of stupidity that trumps the rest by a mile. Despite naming only a single example of animal behaviour out of a whole kingdom this moron has decided that a single case study obviously suggests that culture is more important than biology in terms of behaviour for humans. You see I was under the strange impression we were talking about the behaviour of baboons, not the vastly different tendencies of humans. And even then, when the fuck does the study cited claim that culture is more important than biology in human behaviour? It doesn't. Still, even that's not the most stupid thing this guy says. He also say that unlike biology, culture can change. WELL THEN HOW THE FUCK DOES EVOLUTION WORK YOU BELLEND?

The actual study behind this pointless article is actually quite interesting and informative, and also something this author could learn a thing or two from. This article however is neither interesting or informative, drawing moronic conclusions that are weakly supported by the primary evidence. I'm mot sure what the actual message is supposed to be, but this article appears to be suggesting that it might be beneficial for more human alpha males to get tuberculosis. The thing is there's no proven benefit to this change in behaviour from the group of baboons in question, but apparently that's enough justification for this imbecilic author. All the study proved was that more aggressive males in a social group leads to higher stress levels in baboons; that's it. The continuation of this behaviour was largely debated, but that fact is completely ignored by these stupid journalistic sources that jump to conclusions and misrepresent a study just to push their very unscientific agendas. The mere fact that male dominance is prevalent in various primate genomes is enough counter evidence to prove that aggressive and dominant behaviour from males has an inclusive fitness benefit over a given population. That's the overriding science here, not some sociology based moral story that takes any science away from this article. How about journalists start sticking to stuff they actually know something about and stop broadcasting myths on the internet that idiots will suck up and believe?