Random Observations With Dark Implications
Seth Godwynnson
Have you ever looked at your hands? I mean, really looked? They’re just weird, aren’t they? But, as disgusting as you may find yourself, your repulsive appendages are not half as weird as some of the other things we take for granted on a day to day basis.
Here is a veritable plurality of such instances that you may find more or less interesting, depending on the sorts of things you are typically not disinterested in.
Boy Band lyrics = Questionable Implications
Such manufactured bands are well known for clean images and catchy songs aimed at young female audiences, before becoming washed-up alcoholics, desperately trying to make a comeback until their livers explode.
This however covers up a dark secret few dare talk about.
In a typical line-up, there will be precisely 4 or 5 young, agile men, who all sing because none of them can write songs or play an instrument—they have professionals for those things. So you have 4 or 5 young men taking turns to sing bits of a song.
Now listen to the lyrics. Have a good listen, and keep in mind that they are all singing to the same girl.
Ian: “I’m going to take you home and we’re gonna get it on.”
Dave: “I’m going to pleasure you all night long.”
Ron: “The sheets will be soaked in our love.”
Alfie: “I’m going to film it, but it’ll be our little secret.”
!Donk: “I prefer to watch from the sofa with a box of Kleenex.”
Yes, in essence these five nice men are describing a gang-rape.
If you’re considering buying one of these singles for your underage daughter, I suggest checking the lyrics very carefully. Replace all instances of “I” with “We” and see if it’s the sort of thing you want her listening to.
This doesn’t seem to be a problem with girl bands, as they only sing about handbags, shopping, and the shoes some random stranger is wearing.
Poorly Informed Juries = Miscarriages of Justice
While we’re on the topic of gang rapes, have you ever wondered what it is a jury does during a criminal trial? That is to say, what exactly is their job?
If you’ve ever wondered that, then there’s a good chance you’ve actually served on a jury and never once had it explained to you in simple, easy to understand terms.
The myth: The prosecution and defence present evidence, and you decide if the defendant is guilty of the crime or innocent of any wrongdoings.
The truth: As far as you are concerned, it is the prosecution on trial, not the defendant. You begin with a blank slate, and if the prosecution does not make an airtight case against the defendant, if they do not convince you beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant was naughty, then you score them a not-guilty verdict. Any reasonable doubt at all qualifies to disqualify.
Because there seems to be some confusion over this, miscarriages of justice are very common, especially with crimes that inspire mob-justice responses.
A classic example is Brock Turner of the Stanford rape case. It’s the “dry humping behind a dumpster” one that made the headlines a few years or so back. Everybody hates rape (except boy bands, obviously), but facts matter too in a court of law. The public was quick to be outraged at his short sentence, but the public record shows a very skewed perspective.
According to the court documents, which are freely available for everyone to inspect, the prosecution not only failed to prove he was guilty beyond any doubt at all, but also failed to provide any evidence that a crime had even taken place. I can’t claim to know what really happened, and nor can you. Nobody can. Neither the defendant nor the alleged ‘victim’ had any recollection due to them both being—of their own volition—three sheets to the wind at the time. And as a practising functional alcoholic, I can tell you that having no recollection of something while drunk is vastly different from being blacked out. As far as we know—and the law compels us to presume—everything asserted to have happened between them was consensual. All of this information was presented in court.
But the jury didn’t know what their job was, and now a young man’s life has been ruined over… well, nobody knows what with any real certainty.
Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what actually happened. Let me repeat that, in case there’s any misunderstanding. What actually happened does not matter one iota. When you’re on the jury, the only thing that matters is what the prosecution can prove. And they didn’t prove squat.
The Boy in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ = Summary Execution
The æsop of this story as commonly told is that people in large groups are often blind to the truth, which is actually a pretty good lesson to learn, if only people actually learned it (spoilers: as a species, utter idiocy is our primary weakness). That’s how atrocities happen: willing mass brainwashing.
The story actually originated in China, where the lesson to be learned was quite different. If you could even call it a lesson at all. It wasn’t even a story.
A person of some importance named Zhao Gao was on his first day on the job and he wanted to give the right impression, so he paraded out a deer and told his men that it was his horse, the finest in the land. One brave man was quick to point out that it wasn’t in fact a horse at all but a deer—a majestic one, mind. Quickly, he came to find that his head was no longer connected to his neck in a way anybody would describe as meaningfully. Zhao then asks what everyone else thinks of his horse. They all agreed it was the finest in the land.
It’s a popular means of establishing authority. By getting people to voluntarily humiliate themselves—often by saying something stupid and obviously untrue out loud—they become a lot more pliable and willing to do whatever they’re told once they’ve accepted the inevitability of control.
So the boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes was not the hero, but the fool. He said what everybody else was thinking, but knew better than to articulate.
Fun fact: “point deer, say horse” remains a common expression in Chinese for pulling a fast one with questionable intent. In Japanese, “horse deer” simply means “idiot.”
Children’s stories are all pretty terrifying when you think about it. Most Disney princesses are underage when they meet their Charmings; the sisters in Cinderella cut off their toes to fit the slipper, and they would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for all that pesky blood; the wolf eats Little Red Riding Hood; The Little Mermaid turns to fishy foam at the end.
The point of these stories was not to entertain, it was to teach important life lessons passed down from generation to generation, like “Don’t go into the f—–g woods!” Actually, that’s the only one I can make any sense of.
The Clones in “Clone Wars” = Regular People
In the Star Wars prequels, the Jedi were never presented as being the ‘good guys.’ Which is just as well because they weren’t, and that became their undoing.
Nowhere is this more clear than their choice to use the clone army that had been presented to them.
Sure, it’s easy to think of them as “just” clones, and therefore expendable, but cloning technology exists in real life and there’s something you may not have considered. We already have a word for a human clone—a human. It may have acquired its genetic material via an unorthodox means, but in every way that counts it’s a human just like you and I. Well, you anyway.
So these human babies were given special implants to take away their free will, were experimented on and raised to be super soldiers in a war against people they had no beef with. The Jedi would then—with this full knowledge—take them into battle and put them in deadly danger without giving them any choice in the matter.
“But they’re just clones!”
Yeah, that’s exactly the sort of thing dictators say when instigating history-changing atrocities.
It’s just as well the Jedi were wiped out, because those were some serious war crimes they committed. Had they beaten Palpatine and restored democracy to the Republic, they should then have been rounded up, faced trials, and executed for their abominably poor judgement.
And good riddance.
And finally a few bonus quick shots.
Eating off a Plate = Not Much Better than Eating off the Floor
Yeah, I’m just going to let that one sit there and stew.
Pure Water = No Flavour
That taste you associate with water is impurities.
Getting Liquid from your Mouth to your Stomach = No Gravity Required
People drink just fine in space. So how the hell does that work then?! More importantly, why?!
Implanting False Memories = Very Very Easy
And they are indistinguishable from real memories. Much of what you think you know isn’t real and never was.
Want a completely free sci-fi comedy? This one is not that
Rob is a ginger waiter who successfully fails at dating. Dave delivers towels. Join them on an adventure that might change the entire galaxy – but won’t – as they drink free beer and travel out to the edge of the known galaxy for reasons that barely seem worth mentioning.
