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The problem with him isn't that... It's that he's a colossal IDIOT. If what he is supposed to say isn't laid out in front of him, he's a completely empty jug of milk. No substance, no value, nothing. The empty chair caricature laid it out pretty well.

I'm not sure if banning social media for children that age is a good thing, but having seen and heard what it has become, it does seem to magnify some dysfunctional social interactions happening at those ages.

Even before the internet, teens went through a period of trying to measure and compare their social standing, but social media seems to have created a caricature of that. Now, it is "directly measurable" to them: my selfie got 50 likes in one day, and yours only got 28. People said, "OMG you're pretty!" to me, but only "you're pretty!" to you. Teens are getting obsessed with constant, real time monitoring of these things - by some attempts to measure it, checking likes to their selfies as much as every 2 or 3 minutes throughout their entire day. In class, waiting for the bus, it doesn't matter.

It's hard to see that as a healthy thing. Of course, it's tempting to view anything new and different as bad. It happens with every generation: rock and roll, computer gaming, etc. Still, I can't help but think this is different. This is:

* Permanent. What you put out there, good, bad, or ugly, stays out there. If it's embarrassing or hurtful, it will be used against you potentially for the rest of your life, rather than being forgotten as stupid shit used to be. Your name will be forever attached.

* Commercial. It's used to build profiles of kids to advertise to them, which will follow them through life.

* Direct. It seems to magnify whatever "popular vs unpopular" axis that has always existed at those ages. It makes the popular feel more so, and the unpopular feel even more alienated. And kids can be very cruel to the unpopular.

I'm not sure social media is anything good for kids, but somehow, banning it doesn't seem likely to fix those problems, either. Maybe the better approach is to help them deal with it in better ways. Like it or not, it's here to stay, and it is changing our culture. Best to try to to improve how that change happens.

Both parties are horrible, no sane person can argue that. But for the past 7 years or so the only thing the GOP has done is try to sabotage anything the left does. Anything. They're on record saying as much. Hell, they shut down the government and threatened to do it again. The deep rooted insanity is evident in the candidates this year. I'm no Hillary fan but the idea that any current GOP candidate is going to with the election is completely laughable. They're all nutjob caricatures, which seems to be the new GOP brand. Even the GOP causes are championed by crazy. Every time I hear someone talk about Obama taking their guns I just want to take that gun and shoot them because there is no serious, real movement to ban guns. The Dem's crazy just pales in comparison and it's been that way for most millennial's political lives which is proving to be a real problem for the GOP.

Return of the Jedi became pretty much, "Revenge of the Muppets". That's when it all started going downhill.
I do think the anti Jar-Jar hype is over the top, (he was annoying but I've seen worse) but everyone has to be on board with it now, because of the "racist" connotation.. despite the fact that other characters (the Trade Federation) who seemed to be little more than shallow caricatures of Asians didn't so much as raise an eyebrow.

Are you a libertarian caricature troll or something?

Yakov Smirnoff started this genre of jokes back in the 60s. At the time, Russia was usually conflated w/ the Soviet Union (just like England to this day is conflated w/ the United Kingdom). His usage of the term 'Soviet Russia' meant the USSR, rather than the RSFSR. Since Kazakhstan was a part of the USSR, this genre of jokes could remain relevant for this case.

At any rate, this is by no means the worst to hit Kazakhstan. Nor are Borak caricatures of that country. The worst thing that could ever hit Kazakhstan is if it becomes a hotbed for Jihadi activity, since it was in medieval times the playground of Muslim sultanates, and an Islamic revival like in neighboring Uzbekistan could end up screwing them up to no end

Obviously, you're talking about some kind of delusional caricature of the Green Party and not the actual thing itself; thus, engaging with you is pointless.

So you spend your daze hoping for negative things to happen, for people to suffer, and things to be destroyed because they have displeased you. Wow. YOU must be a real laugh-riot at parties. Oh wait...

You're never invited to parties. You're never invited to anything, being a social outcast that has now become a caricature of Butters / Capt. Chaos. Scarry, forgot about that.

You're trying to defend a pejorative by using an absurd caricature as a straw man stand-in for people who actually support justice. It is pretty weak sauce. I mean, think how awesome and powerful Justice must be that you have to pretend it doesn't exist in order to argue against people who support it?

Justice and Social Justice aren't the same thing. One is intended to right a wrong, the other is intended to make everybody the same. While that might sound good, it often results in knocking people down just for the crime of being successful. When taken to an extreme, (such as an SJW) it results in the examples I listed, and instead of bringing down successful people, they come down harshly upon anybody who happens to make an ill conceived but otherwise benign action.

You even throw in a True Scotsman for good measure

Not at all. I very clearly outlined what it is, in my own opinion. To pull a "No True Scottsman" fallacy you have to create a definition that can never truly be met.

Do you even comprehend that you're fighting for perceived social justice in your argument? What is an "SJW?" People who do as you do here, and make a case for social justice. You can't be against bullies, and admit you are, and not be a social justice warrior.

No, that falls under justice; that is, righting a wrong.

Outside of the hipster lifestyle in San Francisco and other tech hotbeds, the "gig economy" isn't being celebrated as a major achievement in labor economics. It's a major disruptor, and not in a good way. Doing freelance style work is fine for artists, performers and younger people with no responsibilities other than themselves. Try stitching together a living on 6 jobs at a time while being a parent. Hot internet startups are getting all the tech press lately, and I am worried that engineered PR for things like Uber, Airbnb, Etsy and other "sharing economy" companies is going to permanently shift companies' perception on their workforces. I worry that they're going to take the media's Millenial caricatures that are held up as being the new way forward, and conclude that people don't want to work stable jobs anymore. As a short aside, I'm seeing this in workplaces also; HR people are panicking that the image of a Millenial they've seen in the media (social, job hopper, entitled, etc.) isn't going to want to work for their stuffy old company, so they're slavishly copying Google and turning their office spaces into all-inclusive preschools. Our stuffy old company is doing this now and it's very humorous to watch them try to act like they cater to a bunch of hipsters -- it's like a life insurance salesman trying to market to a bunch of extreme snowboarder dudes.

Unless society reorganizes itself totally around people having a variable income, the resulting instability of more and more jobs being automated, outsourced or part-time "gigs" is going to have a major effect on economies. 30-year mortgages were developed when people had one or maybe two jobs in their entire career. Same thing with car loans and credit card lending -- all of these assume a steady stream of income to pay current obligations as well as a progression of income over a career. If things get to a point where unemployment or underemployment wipes enough people out, things are going to get pretty hairy. No one is going to want to buy a house, a car, or anything at all if they don't think they can pay for it. People will be moving their whole families around the country every few years military-style and whatever sense of community people have now is going to disappear.

I sound like a relic, I know, but I do miss employer/employee loyalty. I'm fortunate to work for a good employer, but know many people who are willingly being taken advantage of by bad ones. I know that for companies to be loyal to their employees, there has to be some give on the employee side also, and a lot of people don't understand that. I've worked under people who have had 20 and 25 year stints at the same employer in the past. IBM was pretty famous for this, and although their corporate culture was weird and you had to make some sacrifices, if you worked hard they would make sure you were taken care of. Same with big companies like GE, defense contractors and others. I just hope companies realize that not everyone is a Milennial living in their Mom's basement or in an apartment with 6 other people. Some of us have real world/family responsibilities and aren't looking to hop jobs every 6 months for a 10% pay raise.

I think that if employees did show a little more loyalty (which is a huge ask in the current climate, I know) then companies would respond by training people properly, not firing them every time the stock goes down a few percent, etc. The problem is shifting the public perception away from the "entitled job hoppers" that the media loves to portray as normal.

You're trying to defend a pejorative by using an absurd caricature as a straw man stand-in for people who actually support justice. It is pretty weak sauce. I mean, think how awesome and powerful Justice must be that you have to pretend it doesn't exist in order to argue against people who support it?

You even throw in a True Scotsman for good measure; they are incapable of comprehension, even of a basic ethical concepts like "bullying," because of the nature of Justice. They're just not a real SJW in your explanation unless they just don't care, and can't comprehend extant realities.

Do you even comprehend that you're fighting for perceived social justice in your argument? What is an "SJW?" People who do as you do here, and make a case for social justice. You can't be against bullies, and admit you are, and not be a social justice warrior.

It is really not impressive at all. Turn on the news if you want to know how silly and pathetic and freakin' tiny your complaints are compared to the problems in the world that cause people to seek Justice.

Take his immediate following, Khrushchev, and consider him banging the table and going off on a tirade about destroying the US. I can keep going. Learn some real history.

The irony of you admonishing others to "Learn some real history" may become apparant to you if you do a little research and try to find some actual documentation of the table banging, america destroying event you're talking about. What you'll find is that it's mostly apocryphal. It's more a caricature, drawn together from multiple sources.

Well, that's the point, isn't it? They need a scapegoat because the terrorists were known, flagged by several foreign secret services, and communicating by unencrypted SMS which is dirt easy to scoop up.

The only reason the intelligence community let them operate for years is that they wanted to see where they'd be going. Note how their communication methods meant that they were able to grab up most of the rest within days. That would have been possible from the start.

Now the intelligence community needs a scapegoat because they let this happen consciously. So far, the "blame Snowden" scapegoat has worked for the most absurd things. The "traitor Snowden ran off to Putin and sold all our secrets" narrative has worked surprisingly well so far (never mind that the U.S. pulled his passport and stranded him in Moscow), and with the amount of political education the average American sports, we'll end up with the storyline "Snowden told Putin how ISIS terrorists could avoid discovery", never mind that we're pissed at Putin for helping Assad too much fight ISIS at the same time.

Snowden is really single-handedly as bad as the "Jewish World Conspiracy" was according to Hitler Germany and probably lusts after our impressionable chaste American girls as well, eager to corrupt them.

So there is little surprise that the CIA directors clamor for an end solution of the Snowden question. Probably we'll get honored with Snowden caricatures in the style of "Der Stürmer" next.

I doubt you've the testicular fortitude for such. However, there's your chance to make some money and put your money where your mouth is. Instead, you go keyboard warrior and pretend to be tough. You're a joke, a caricature. If you're so certain then, well, here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is. Any escrow service you want, so long as I can vet them to ensure they're insured and have a track record, and the money is yours for the taking. We can even agree on a lower percentage, say 10% of the population dies from methane releases when the ice melts? How about 1%? Yeah, I'll agree to 1% if you want.

Put up the money or quit your yammering. It's obvious that you're going for the tough guy and hope I back down thing. Nope, not a coward. One of us doesn't dare to put their money where their mouth is... Which one of us is that, do you think? Which one of us is behaving immaturely and making unrealistic threats on the internet? Which one of us is demonstrating an ability to use logic and reason and which of us is behaving irrationally?

I think we're pretty much done here. Until you're willing to put up the money to back your claim, you're dismissed. I've no further use for you.

Evil is a childish blanket statement that suggests you see no redeeming, humane, or worthwhile aspect to them. It suggests you don't care about anything they do and you see them just as a caricature of a villain. I don't support them, but when you make a point of painting them with such a broad and uncaring stroke you end up helping their cause more than you hurt it, as they will use that in their own propaganda.

Think of it this way - is there a politician in your country (sitting or running) who you would describe as "evil"? Hopefully not, as it would show again that you are not paying enough attention to what they are doing to understand that evil is at best a very childish way to describe them, and at worst it would only end up aiding whatever it is that they do which you dislike so much as to be willing to lower yourself to such a silly level of discourse.

Hmm... Sounds a bit like the caricature of the "SJW" or the "Liberals." They want the rich to be as poor as they. They will shout down those who have different views instead of listening and considering alternatives. They don't like that other cultures (or people) have different views. If you look at them funny or anything else they'll find it as a cause to be outraged and become keyboard warriors, pull fire alarms, or complain until someone loses a job. They rely on numbers and noise rather than individual strength. And so on and so forth.

I originally started my reply as a tongue-in-cheek thing. I think it should be said that I'm probably further to the left than any elected "liberal" in my country. I could go on and all but, I guess, I'd figure that it's much to do about fear and a desire to control and it's not limited to just Christians. The idea that it is your fault is absurd! We can't have that personal responsibility thing. It's just easier to blame something/others than it is to try to change yourself. With some introspection, you'd probably find you're just as guilty - and I suspect we all are.

Of course, you have actual links and quotes to back up your psychotic delusional fantasies, yes?

When I say Space Nutters believe we only have computers because of space, I don't even have to look very hard. Of course, you'll then ignore the link, or veer off on tangents, or argue over definitions.

And it looks like you may lack some understanding of satire. I often post absurd caricatures of what Space Nutters say. However, what actual Space Nutters say is not too hard to spot, I've got a list of the most rabid Space Nutter users on here.

However, I admit that it looks like most of the Space Nutter users may actually be mentally ill or just plain old-fashioned stupid.

For the record, I'm not a moon landing denialist, I understand how satellites and probes work. I have issues with the content- and fact-free fantasies Space Nutters seem to live by, and especially the kind of absurd beliefs that revolve around "this rock" and "the species".

I think I've destroyed the "spinoffs" fantasy enough times now, but it looks like I have to keep posting reality-based posts about that too.

My heart goes to the victims and their relatives.
Btw, will Charlie Ebdo make now caricatures of these incidents? It would be double-standard if they don't...

I am very disappointed that this is currently modded +5, Insightful. While I very much agree that we - as a modern, liberal (in the true European sense of the word - not the American caricature of a rich elitist sipping Chardonnay from the backseat of a limousine) society are confronting a medieval, barbaric, religious-whacko movement that wants to apply religious law (as does Ben Carson, etc., BTW) to everyone in the world, just where in the hell do you get the idea that NOT just declaring all of muslims as evil who should be exterminated becomes "Blame America First"? What kind of disjointed, fucked-up thinking can lead from one to the other? Let me guess - you watch Fox News almost exclusively and keep talk radio tuned in all the time. Try expanding your thought process to be able to hold 2 separate thoughts in your head at the same time. Trust me, it can be truly liberating to think independently.

You statements are simplistic, naive and just wrong.

Read a damn history book. No country in history has ever "become the ruling force in a country by offering nice health plans and a school for everyone". The Visigoths who were defeated by the Muslims conquered the country through force after they finished sacking Rome. Every country has blood on their hands. Stop being simplistic.

I feel like you want to believe that human history and interaction is a series of simplistic events, carried out by caricatures rather than by complicated human cultures, each with their own desires, fears and circumstances. It's never that simple. NEVER.