Wil Wheaton playing for EFF

Quintin Stone (and every other Slashdot reader on the planet) writes: "Wil Wheaton is among the many Star Trek actors on tonight's Weakest Link, except that the charity he's playing for is the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Though so far he's been doing well." CD: I don't want to give away the ending, many people have yet to see the show.

Comments

I quit watching Weakest Link

[sessamoid]

The problem with WL is that the brightest out of the bunch almost never wins. By logic, when it gets down to the last 3 or 4, it's in the best interests of the other players to vote out the player who is clearly the strongest. This has happened on almost every single episode I've watched, sometimes quite a bit earlier in the game as well.

The few exceptions tend to be those episodes that are made up of celebrities from a similar background. They're generally all independently wealthy, so aren't driven by personal gain. In addition, they've all got "personal history" between them which often leads them to vote off other players without regards to what would give them the best chances of winning.

It's nice to see the EFF getting national publicity though, as I'm a paying member myself.

In all, though, when I watch game shows (not often) I tend to watch Jeopardy for the reasons stated above.

Re:what a waste

[1010011010]

Yeah, freedom is not nearly as important as children.

Not.

Damn.

[Chris Johnson]

Wil, you just flat out _rock_.

Actually this tends to confirm a theory I have- the coolest/healthiest/sanest people out there are those who HAVE to be, because they learned the hard way. I think Wil definitely illustrates this- if you get heavy into being not only a Hollywood teenager, but are also saddled with being Wesley Crusher, you'll get off to a really bad start- and then, unlike most people, you have to _really_ grow up.

That's my theory, anyway, for explaining how Wil Wheaton turned out to be one of the cooler humans I've ever seen. Keep it up my ex-starfleet friend :)

Re:what a waste

[PD]

Your comments reflect a common sentiment, but it's not logical to take that position. Here's why:

1) First statement (yours) summed up neatly: why play for charity A when charity B appears to address a more pressing need. That is where you stopped thinking about it and reached a conclusion.

2) The conclusion was premature: one can go further - why play for charity B when charity C is addressing an even more pressing need. But that's not the end of it either.

3) The set of all charities is finite, meaning that if you continually favor the charity that address the more important need, then eventually you will find THE charity that addresses the MOST important need. That is where you stop. Give them your money.

4) Unfortunately, that situation leads to starvation. If you accept the first idea as true, (the one that you offered) then only one charity can logically be funded. Obviously, this is a far worse situation than we intended,

5) Therefore, we must reject the original premise as leading to an undesirable outcome, and therefore flawed for purposes of efficiently distributing money to charity.

The insult "get a life" is similarly flawed. At the end of the chain of thinking, one must live as the finest human being ever, and to be any lesser earns the "get a life" smackdown. One could offer my argument that I gave above as a logical retort. Or, one could simply offer a middle finger and a "hearty colloquialism".