This here is a classic post that my Singaporean counterpart wrote up about three years back. It’s every bit as relevant today as it was back then, given what all has happened since the day that he wrote it. Since I do not have permission to reprint it in its entirety, here are the first few paragraphs, along with a link to the rest. Pay him a visit and see if you can prod him into writing again.

I hate the masses.

Really, yes. What tipped you off?

More bellyaching from me? Who coulda guessed? Cyprus wasn’t enough, so
when I point out that New Zealand, Spain and Italy are considering
hopping on the bandwagon, they shrug their shoulders and go back to the
televitz.

It seems that for every step forward in humankind supplied by the great
thinkers, inventors and movers, the masses have the uncanny ability to
take those advances and completely twist them around in the stupidest
and most degenerate fashion possible.

*They get dynamite to blow up mountains; dynamite is promptly turned
around and used to blow up people. Alfred Nobel is sad, institutes Nobel
Prizes. Nobel Prize devolves into a circlejerk popularity contest,
especially with regards to the peace prize, which is a complete joke. If
we dug up the corpse of Alfred Nobel it’d be spinning so fast, we could
hook him up to some wire loops and magnets and turn him into a goddamn
generator. He’d provide power to the whole of Eurasia, at the very
least.

“Mr. Nobel, the people still living have given a communist imbecile the
peace prize before he’s ever done anything useful. Oh, and they’re still
blowing other people up.”

“Can I please commit suicide?”

“Mr. Nobel, you’re already dead.”

“I know, I know. And the worst thing is I don’t know if I’m in heaven or hell.”

“Purgatory, my friend.”

*They get the televitz and the internet, two great forms of mass
communication, and then promptly manage to fill it up with daytime talk
shows, reality tee-vee, and Facebook. They muck it up to the point where
the inventor of the televitz regrets ever having come up with the damned thing.
Those moving pictures piped straight into their homes, where folks can
see and hear people and places, and the person is some fat talk show
host and the place is a gringy studio prettied up to make it look like a
suburban home, with an audience packed so tight it’d stink if not for
the air-conditioning.

“I would like to watch the travel show that showcases cultures and
peoples I will probably never get to see in person and nevertheless
interest me deeply.”

“Fuck you, the game is on.”

*They get antibiotics, miracle drugs that ward off the pestilences of
old, and instead of reserving them for their own use they go ahead and
pump cows and chickens so full of them they get into the water supply
and the environment. Even when they want them for themselves, they use
the damn things willy-nilly, believing them panaceas. And of course, no
one wants to pay money developing short-term drugs when you could be
making high blood pressure drugs that people have to be on for a
lifetime, so there haven’t been any new classes of antibiotics since
1987. Whoo-ee.

So be it. You want surgery? Be prepared for a massive risk of infection
and gangrene. Be prepared to die from Tuberclosis. Let’s all go back to
the days of aqua vitae, boiled wine and piss, and honey.

“Why are you denying me my antibiotics? I got a right to health care! You hear me? A right!“

“Now, Mr. Brown, you’ve got Athlete’s Foot. That’s not treatable with -“

“I got a damn right, and if you don’t give me my damn
antibiotics I’m going to sue you for malpractice, regardless of whether
you are justified or not!”

“Fine, fine.” (Under breath) “Cretin.”

Read the rest here