Mount Rushmoron

[WyattSheepMask]

1 minute ago, Keith Houchen said:

Yeah I love Bill Hicks. It’s just that seemingly every boring weed smoker I’ve encountered seems to as well. Not for his opinions and insights into society but because he liked drugs and so do they.

See also Howard Marks

[Mr_Danger]

I was thinking about nominating Andrew Tate since he invaded my algorithm but decided against it as he probably doesn’t carry enough sway yet. He’s getting there though. However I’ve just watched him be ripped to shreds by an actual human adult with a fully functioning brain and it’s wonderful. It’s a long one but the first 15 minutes of this is beautiful.

 

[sevendaughters]

Richard Dawkins has to be there. He is the ultimate example of no such thing as universal intelligence. He is the font that all the other atheist/'logic' bullies draw from, y'know, this guy:

He's also a bigger draw than Neil DeGrasse Tyson, hence his elevation to Rushmore status.

I think stone two would have to be Stephen Fry. I like some of his work (mainly as an actor) but he's also - kind of like other incredibly well-spoken polymath Will Self - not really someone who has thrown down brilliant work befitting of their status as cultural giant and, in fact, are more famous for their lighter work playing an intelligent person on telly. He (Fry, but also Self) is also capable of saying some of the most deranged and demented things from time to time, like the whole thing about women not liking sex.

You could argue that no real moron likes Fry, that he's mostly loved by harmless people whose TV turns on at Dave automatically, but I think it's the lack of depth Fry seems to encourage - fun facts as conversational lifehacks over emotional depth or analysis - that gets him carved into a mountain.

Stone three might be controversial but I think it would be Karl Marx.

I'm leftist and have genuinely read Das Kapital and Der Grundrisse and even the whole bolts of cotton bits and use/exchange value sections, not just the greatest hits of Marx, and I've even read books by other eggheads explaining Marx and I think I get it and agree with his descriptions of capital and even can get on board with some (not all) of his prescriptions. His work, taken with a degree of cynicism and no little worldliness about individuals and psychology, can be really enlightening. A truly great thinker; I think it is hard to think about the modern economy and its relationship to other spheres and not be invoking Marx on some level.

So why do so many people who follow him, particularly in the vocally online way, become such steaming "angry" performative tossers? If you've ever spent a nanosecond in young leftist circles, these are some of the biggest freaks on the planet. Marx is Jesus, Lenin is John the Baptist. The 'Rik from the Young Ones' image is out of date and also several shades too redeemable. If none of this is known to you, thank your lucky stars that you have never had your every public comment and utterance scrutinised by the spectre of ideological purity.

Lastly, there has to be a major shithead capitalist to balance it out. Musk fits the bill perfectly - beneficiary of apartheid stomping around pretending like he's a mate of the free world with his memes and calling a guy physically trying to help some drowning kids a paedo. He's developed a full on cult of weirdos who really believe he is a force of good and will change the planet into a technocratic utopia when in fact he can barely stop a firmware update crashing an entire car.

 

[sevendaughters]

I just tried explaining this thread concept to the Mrs and she didn't get it for ages and then nominated Stephen Hawking.

[Butch2000]

I once read a description of Stephen Fry as “The stupid persons idea of an intelligent person” and I think that’s pretty much spot on.

[Factotum]

9 minutes ago, Butch2000 said:

I once read a description of Stephen Fry as “The stupid persons idea of an intelligent person” and I think that’s pretty much spot on.

I must say people who say stuff like that annoy me just as much. The guys clearly very intelligent.

[BomberPat]

He's intelligent, but there's a sense of "oh, he knows everything" that's largely based on two things - him having had the privilege of a very expensive private education, and one which still deals in many of the hallmarks of what we consider signs of intelligence in a society built on classism (i.e., the same sort of thing that convinces people Boris Johnson is intelligent because he can remember some Latin), and him having hosted QI, which somehow convinced people that he knew all the things he was talking about, not that they had a team of researchers and writers, and that he had an earpiece, cue cards and an autocue to see him through the whole thing.

He's not a polymath or anything like that, by any means. He's never published a paper, never really achieved anything of note academically - just looking at his Wikipedia, he has a BA and no post-graduate qualifications - and done nothing to further any area of knowledge. Not that any of those things are the only meaningful measure of intelligence either, of course, but it's interesting that he's held up as an example of some kind of public intellectual when he's just written some pretty flimsy novels and, as @sevendaughters put it, played a smart person on TV.

 

I don't think there's enough to warrant placing him on Mount Rushmoron, but that kind of "intelligence as anecdote" vibe that he brought to QI does remind me somewhat of the more genuinely toxic equivalent, which is intelligence as debate, where the ability to "win" an argument is seen as the be-all and end-all, and I think it's the people who fall into that category - the Petersons and Shapiros of the world that can't be left out of the conversation.

[Mr_Danger]

Peterson doesn’t even present the veil of intelligence anymore he’s a full time provocateur these days. He’ll post on Twitter about scaling back his time on there and letting his people handle it then pop up a few hours later with a picture of a plus size model saying “Not Beautiful”. I listened to a couple of his podcast episodes too and they’re dog shit, a very odd man. 

[sevendaughters]

I hate yer Shapiros and yer Petersons (and especially people like Mike Cernovich) more than all of the above because of their potent mix of awful politics and pure grifting, but I think they synthesise some of the above aspects (particularly a kind of sick debate club mentality to life) rather than doing pioneering work in the field.

There's a really good book by a playwright called Simon Gray called Fat Chance. It's a recollection of the West End play Cell Mates that Stephen Fry was cast in the lead in and subsequently walked out on mid-run, leaving Rik Mayall and a few others holding their dicks in quite a spectacular way.

Gray goes in quite hard on Fry - caveat obviously being how spectacularly pissed off he is with him. I'll try and find a couple of choice extracts and post them here.

[Keith Houchen]

47 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

hosted QI, which somehow convinced people that he knew all the things he was talking about, not that they had a team of researchers and writers, and that he had an earpiece, cue cards and an autocue to see him through the whole thing.

I always wince at the “Thou shall not question Stephen Fry” in the Le Sac / Pip song. I remember on one episode they were on about the word and meaning of Kangaroo. Fry recanted the story of it meaning “I don’t know” in the native language and said the word in a right “Deepest darkest Africa” accent. Was well racist. I think terminal bore Alan Davies even pulled him up on it. 
 

I like the way he says how offence is taken and not given and how people need a thicker skin, then having a Twitter flounce every few months. 

[Keith Houchen]

Just on the back of this. 

Elons rocket blew up after launch but his moron fans are spinning it like it was a success. Absolute weapons the lot of them, they are why he is on Mount Rushmoron. 

[Jazzy G]

Apparently because the rocket left the launchpad it's a success. Mind you this is from the same person who had no idea how to solve world hunger with almost a trillion dollars, so what should we expect.