This is a great opportunity for you to write your own problematic joke!

December 26, 2017 8:25 PM

Cards Against Humanity takes the pulse of the nation.
posted by tivalasvegas (76 comments total)

note: some content is side-scrolling, as befits an avowedly anti-humanity set of cards.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:27 PM on December 26, 2017 [8 favorites]

As much as I loathe the actual game, what the people who created it are doing with their money delights me more often than not. This was fun to read, and thanks for posting it!
posted by hippybear at 8:46 PM on December 26, 2017 [28 favorites]

Darth Vader would be the second black president, so it makes sense that white people preferred Rmptu.
posted by um at 8:53 PM on December 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

I suspect boomers do pee in the shower, they just lie about it.
posted by adept256 at 8:55 PM on December 26, 2017 [7 favorites]

We asked people if they supported white nationalism, and only 9% of Republicans said yes

Only? 1 in 10 republicans self-reported as fucking nazis! ONLY 1 in 10.
posted by adept256 at 9:05 PM on December 26, 2017 [49 favorites]

The thing about pee in the shower is... it gets places. I mean, you guys think you are such a good aim. What about ladies peeing in the shower? Your feet and the mat...? Ugh.

Gen-X-er, for the stats.
posted by amanda at 9:06 PM on December 26, 2017

Wait, your feet have water running across them constantly in the shower. They are rinsed clean even before they had urine on them because they had a layer of water on them. Also, urine is sterile.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 PM on December 26, 2017 [24 favorites]

Ethnic minorities are particularly worried about robots taking their jobs. White people are more worried about ethnic minorities taking their jobs.

If ever there was a pair of sentences that summed up our present economy.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 9:20 PM on December 26, 2017 [56 favorites]

Only? 1 in 10 republicans self-reported as fucking nazis! ONLY 1 in 10.

By that logic, 95% of white Americans in 1945 were fucking Nazis.

Maybe this thread needs a uspolitics tag.
posted by Coventry at 9:28 PM on December 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

People who are worried about civil war are more likely to support Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a candidate for president.

God help me, I would be okay with him as President.

Fully 65% of Democrats, 43% of Independents, and even 8% of Republicans prefer the order of the Galactic Empire to the chaos of the Trump administration.

I keep trying to write a good First Order joke but I'm realizing there aren't any so please just enjoy the sound of my tears coming straight to you live thanks to the Force.
posted by Hermione Granger at 9:29 PM on December 26, 2017 [4 favorites]

Maybe this thread needs a uspolitics tag.

Speaking of pee getting everywhere...
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:31 PM on December 26, 2017 [6 favorites]

You can't spell uspolitics without pee!
posted by hippybear at 9:42 PM on December 26, 2017 [4 favorites]

"You can't spill uspolitics without pee!", surely.
posted by loquacious at 10:10 PM on December 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

How does 'Asian' exist as a race when discussing peeing in the shower, and not exist when we start talking about race?
posted by batter_my_heart at 10:11 PM on December 26, 2017 [6 favorites]

How does 'Asian' exist as a race when discussing peeing in the shower, and not exist when we start talking about race?

Remember... Against Humanity is literally in their name!
posted by hippybear at 10:17 PM on December 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Look Lord Vader is tough but fair
posted by The Whelk at 10:18 PM on December 26, 2017 [11 favorites]

I think the temper tantrum Vader from Rogue One is my favorite Vader so far. He's just so... Vadery.
posted by hippybear at 10:20 PM on December 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

Vader probably pees in that recharge pod of his. And in the suit.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:21 PM on December 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

Which is, of course, a Pee Versus In Pee Problem.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:24 PM on December 26, 2017 [38 favorites]

So this is it, then. We're going to have another civil war... armed with pee. Or about pee, and armed with Asians? And Vader will be President. No, pee will be President and we'll be fighting a civil war over Asians armed with Vaders.

So, if I start voting Republican does the "dumb and happy" part automatically follow? Has that been an option all along?
posted by loquacious at 10:30 PM on December 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Which is, of course, a Pee Versus In Pee Problem.

Hey, man, be careful. The last time this joke escaped the Caltech campus they had to hunt it down and rapidly oxidize it, and then flashy thing a whole bunch of innocent people.
posted by loquacious at 10:34 PM on December 26, 2017 [15 favorites]

Wasn't fighting a civil war over Asians armed with Vaders what the Prequel trilogy was about?
posted by hippybear at 10:35 PM on December 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

"So Republicans want a more equal society, but only if it happens by magic." Seems accurate. Alternately, they perhaps want a more equal society, but only if it involves white factory workers getting those blue-collar manufacturing jobs back. Hence magic.
posted by limeonaire at 11:01 PM on December 26, 2017 [4 favorites]

We are not making this into a pee vs. not-pee thread. I won't have it!
posted by shalom at 12:06 AM on December 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Shitting in the shower is where it's at!
posted by Pendragon at 1:10 AM on December 27, 2017 [9 favorites]

I think a question to ask of folks is this: is it acceptable to pee on your relatives just before they get in the shower? If it is - then fine - continue to pee in the shower, and on your relatives... otherwise, recognize that other people have to deal with your disgusting bad habit and the smell and related ephemera. The smell of urine does not rinse away in the tub as quickly as you'd like to think it does.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:27 AM on December 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

I don't seem to remember that version of the categorical imperative where you have to imagine doing everything with/to your relatives.
posted by Pyry at 3:31 AM on December 27, 2017 [12 favorites]

Is rap music? This is a very complicated question.

No it's not, it's a vocal style. Hiphop mos def is music though.

And how the hell should you know how smelly the average fart is?
posted by farlukar at 3:54 AM on December 27, 2017

Boomer here. I've been peeing in the shower all my life, and I like rap (though, to be fair, I'm more of an old-school hip-hop guy, but still...)
posted by Thorzdad at 4:04 AM on December 27, 2017

Our results indicate that we are in the midst of an inter-generational pee-pee revolution.

This sentence makes me very happy.
posted by zardoz at 4:24 AM on December 27, 2017

I've been peeing in the shower all my life

You should get out more
posted by thelonius at 4:52 AM on December 27, 2017 [46 favorites]

MetaFilter: a good way to get weird mold
posted by chavenet at 5:25 AM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

I've been peeing in the shower all my life

Oh Lord
[drum fill]
posted by uncleozzy at 5:25 AM on December 27, 2017 [42 favorites]

Questions like the peeing in the shower one should be cross-referenced with answers to questions which have a potential answer that is an obvious lie, like "have you ever enjoyed the sensation of a bowel movement." If you answer no to that and no to peeing in the shower, barring some sort of medical condition, you're a god damned liar on both points.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:32 AM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

Also, urine is sterile.

Urine is absolutely not sterile.

This is a myth/lie that has been pushed by people who want to piss on other people.

Urine picks up bacteria and other contaminants every step of the way out of the body because bodies are not sterile.
posted by srboisvert at 6:00 AM on December 27, 2017 [17 favorites]

So Republicans want a more equal society, but only if it happens by magic.

This perfectly explains Republicans today.
posted by Splunge at 6:05 AM on December 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Shitting in the shower is where it's at!

🎵 I got two turntables and a microphone! 🎵
posted by Celsius1414 at 6:06 AM on December 27, 2017 [10 favorites]

Urine picks up bacteria and other contaminants every step of the way out of the body because bodies are not sterile.

Well the people being pissed on are not sterile, either, then. No problem!
posted by thelonius at 6:20 AM on December 27, 2017 [9 favorites]

The feet that are walking on your shower floor are way less sterile than your pee.
posted by saturday_morning at 6:23 AM on December 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

The peeing in the shower question really needs a follow up:

How often do you clean your shower?

If you pee in the shower and your answer to that question is less than twice a week you are a disgusting human being. I may allow once a week if you don't shower daily.

You can tell if you're in a shower that someone has peed in. There is a distinct funk. The people who pee in the shower can't smell it, it's like smokers not smelling it in their homes.
posted by Hactar at 6:45 AM on December 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

This poll had a bit of annoying both-sidesism, if you ask me. I guess I would think that, being on one side. But is "income inequality is overestimated" and "white nationalism isn't the problem some people think it is" really helpful? Are those even really true?
posted by salvia at 6:49 AM on December 27, 2017

- HEY! YOU'RE ON FIRE!

- Oh don't worry, I'm only nine percent on fire. Don't you think peeing in the shower is gross?
posted by adept256 at 6:50 AM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

In re: peeing in the shower, I'm kinda shocked that people in this thread seem to have never heard of soap. Like, you pee in the shower and then clean yourself with soap? You regularly clean the shower itself with a cleaning product? Yes? People are acting like you pee in the shower and on your feet and then leave it for forever.
posted by chainsofreedom at 6:54 AM on December 27, 2017 [13 favorites]

The big takeaway from me here, aside from the 9% of republicans self-identifying as nazis, is that those who didn't identify as such (to a random poll, at least) over-estimated the number who would.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:55 AM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

9% is pretty good honestly, because something like 17% of people don't really hear the question properly.
posted by Merus at 7:10 AM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Hey, just because I'd rather be dumb and happy doesn't mean I already am!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:18 AM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

You can't spell uspolitics without pee!

Tags updated.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:02 AM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

RE: Vader peeing in his suit, Storm Trooper suits are designed to be sealed systems with an absorbent/recycling layer in them (at least from those books I had as a youngling nerd). So assuming Vader's are somewhat similar to those of his troops, one can safely assume he's Enjoying the Go™ at work.
posted by msbutah at 8:18 AM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

can "peelotics" be a thing please.
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:06 AM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

They really should have divided the pee question by anatomy. Penis-havers vs. non-penis-havers. I am guessing far more of the former will answer yes because it's easier to aim towards the drain, and penis-havers, on average, have a lower standard of cleanliness.
posted by AFABulous at 9:13 AM on December 27, 2017

The big takeaway from me here, aside from the 9% of republicans self-identifying as nazis, is that those who didn't identify as such (to a random poll, at least) over-estimated the number who would.

Not necessarily, I think? My impression has pretty consistently been that bigots all assume that everyone else is a bigot too, deep down (including their opposition, who must secretly be bigots in the other direction). If the 9% white supremacists all believe that they're in a silent majority and therefore answered e.g. "90%" to the second question, it'd probably be enough to drag the average up to 15% from whatever low number the rest of the republicans picked.

Mind you, I wont pretend I've looked at the raw data so I don't know for sure. Your interpretation definitely could be correct, it's just not the only one that fits the presented data.

9% is pretty good honestly, because something like 17% of people don't really hear the question properly.

Yes, while 3000 respondents seems pretty good (although we don't know how many actually answered any given question), isn't there a big error margin with every survey from people not understanding, or deliberately fucking with the answers as revenge for their dinners being interrupted? This must be something well-characterised by pollsters, but I've no clue what that fudge factor actually is.
posted by metaBugs at 9:15 AM on December 27, 2017

what the people who created it are doing with their money delights me more often than not.

Indeed. Not sure if this has been posted before. Cards Against Humanity Stops the Wall.
posted by HumanComplex at 9:19 AM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Only? 1 in 10 republicans self-reported as fucking nazis! ONLY 1 in 10.

Per the crosstabs, 9% of strong Democrats, 8% of white people, 16% of Asian people, 9% of black people, and 14% of latinos self-reported as fucking nazis.
posted by jpe at 9:50 AM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm with chainsofreedom* here... I almost feel like the people who think peeing in the shower is gross are on a totally different page than I am.

Are they assuming that instead of peeing into the toilet I pull aside the shower curtain and spray down my shower like a cat in heat and then just leave the bathroom??

Where in reality, it's me getting into the shower, and turning the water on (triggering the "oops I have to pee!" reflex), and then peeing down the drain before completely soaping down and washing my whole body afterwards and rinsing gallons of soapy water down the drain, which serves as a very effective pee chaser. There's no way it changes the smell of the bathroom. The question isn't "Is it ok to pee into the shower?", it's "Is it ok to pee when you're taking a shower?"

The answer, of course, being yes 1,000% yes.



* - what's a 'reedom'?
posted by Grither at 10:01 AM on December 27, 2017 [12 favorites]

Re: farts.
Seems like they context-switch when reporting the fart data. There are two questions to answer: "Do my farts smell more" - i.e., is either the volume or intensity of my farts greater than average; and "Do my farts smell worse" - i.e., is the actual scent more noxious?

Having been blessed with what the men in my family refer to as "the Ovies curse", I can answer in the affirmative on both counts. However that same blessing, I suppose, is why I even noticed the discrepancy...
posted by notsnot at 10:24 AM on December 27, 2017

I wonder if they knew the fart question would be the most offensive, and hence had it as the last question (the polling company might have helped them with the order of the questions - do they do this sort of thing?).

I also find it interesting that 'are you a fucking nazi' is a less offensive question than asking about farts. In fairness though, that might be a good part of the call for the person being called to think 'wait, am I being pranked?' (answer: sort of).

I think this thread is missing a great opportunity though: to come up with future poll questions (some one should submit them after discussion of the matter though).

My question to Trump supporters (coming back to the subject of Pee): if the pee-pee tape were real, would it diminish your support of Trump, not impact it all, or increase your support of him?

Should Trump get credit for individual law enforcement and military 'wins'? Should Obama have gotten credit for such wins? (I encountered a Trump defender recently, and this sort of startled me, that they thought Trump should get credit for individual cases that law enforcement was engaged with).

Should loot boxes be treated as gambling from a regulatory standpoint?

Would you be supportive of strict immigration enforcement if it meant your produce would cost twice as much?

Do you support gun rights? Do you support 'stand your ground laws'? Do you support 'stand your ground laws' as a defense for killing an abusive spouse?

Should the US subsidize the oil industry? Should the US subsidize wind and solar power?

Should twitter switch back to a 140 character limit? Has the 280 character limit endangered global stability?
posted by el io at 10:52 AM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

I had to read the discussion for "is rap music" three times to figure out that it was an actual question and not designed to provoke the response, "is rap music what?" (Why is this commercial?) Sadly, the correlations suggest most respondents weren't just answering a nonsense phrase with random answers as I would have done.

The buried headline, for me, is that there have been five Transformers movies. There are far better reasons for a civil war, but preventing a sixth is surely one even the least politically engaged among us can get behind.

As someone who's never experienced the actual card game except in a very small circle of aging, leftist academics who all know each other rather well, I find it hard to think of CAH as anything but juvenile fun. But, the world tells me they cause bad things to happen at parties, and I believe that must be true.
posted by eotvos at 1:07 PM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Honestly, for all it's problematic aspects, the worst thing about CAH at game night is that once it comes out, you don't get to play anything else. The game basically doesn't end.
posted by pwnguin at 1:26 PM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

I am guessing far more of the former will answer yes because it's easier to aim towards the drain, and penis-havers, on average, have a lower standard of cleanliness.

Perhaps it's that we have a higher appreciation of marksmanship.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:44 PM on December 27, 2017

For the record, I don't pee in the shower.

However, I buy foot cream with urea to help my poor callused feet.

Am I missing a possiblity here?
posted by BlueHorse at 2:08 PM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

Fortunately, they posted the data.

They really should have divided the pee question by anatomy. Penis-havers vs. non-penis-havers.

$ csvtool namedcol Gender,'Do you think it is acceptable or unacceptable to urinate in the shower?' 201709-CAH_PulseOfTheNation.csv | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
264 Female,Unacceptable
231 Male,Unacceptable
196 Male,Acceptable
179 Female,Acceptable
56 Male,DK/REF
44 Female,DK/REF
16 Other,Acceptable
10 Other,Unacceptable
2 Other,DK/REF
1 Gender,Do you think it is acceptable or unacceptable to urinate in the shower?
1 DK/REF,Unacceptable
1 DK/REF,Acceptable


So thats a rough 40 percent acceptable rate for the ladies, and a 45 percent rate for the gentlemen. Not as dramatic as you might expect.


How does 'Asian' exist as a race when discussing peeing in the shower, and not exist when we start talking about race?

It's possible they didn't feel the sample size was big enough to be valid for some of the questions. It's been a long time since I've thought about real statistics, but the Asian group is 52 people for that survey of 1000 people. Perhaps that group is riding a thin line of significant vs not depending on whether two or three extra people choose to not answer on specific questions.

$ csvtool namedcol 'What is your race?' 201709-CAH_PulseOfTheNation.csv | grep Asian | wc -l
52

Not necessarily, I think? My impression has pretty consistently been that bigots all assume that everyone else is a bigot too, deep down (including their opposition, who must secretly be bigots in the other direction). If the 9% white supremacists all believe that they're in a silent majority and therefore answered e.g. "90%" to the second question, it'd probably be enough to drag the average up to 15% from whatever low number the rest of the republicans picked.

This does indeed appear to be the case:

csvtool col 5,11,12 201710-CAH_PulseOfTheNation.csv | grep Republican | grep Agree | csvtool col 3 - | sort -hr | numaverage
59.3333333333333


Verusus those who Disagree:

csvtool col 5,11,12 201710-CAH_PulseOfTheNation.csv | grep Republican | grep Disagree | csvtool col 3 - | sort -hr | numaverage
21.1640625

And this overestimation persists even in the Democratic party:

$ csvtool col 5,11,12 201710-CAH_PulseOfTheNation.csv | grep Democrat | grep Agree | csvtool col 3 - | numaverage
50.6315789473684

Also, they kinda forgot to mention that the data shows just as much of a Republican white national problem as a Democratic one:

$ csvtool col 5,11,12 201710-CAH_PulseOfTheNation.csv | grep Agree | csvtool col 1 - | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
45 Independent
18 Strong Democrat
15 Strong Republican
6 Not Strong Republican
6 Not Strong Democrat
5 DK/REF

posted by pwnguin at 2:40 PM on December 27, 2017 [9 favorites]

* - what's a 'reedom'?

I am Irish. :-p
posted by chainsofreedom at 2:51 PM on December 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

TIL about csvtool. I'll probably stick to using python's options, but nice to know it's there.

BTW, does anyone know of a good tool for streaming parsing of fixed-schema json which comes in as a single, gigabytes-long blob, uninterrupted by newlines? I dealt with this recently with a fragile sed 's/}, */},\n/g' pipe. There has to be a better way, though...
posted by Coventry at 3:18 PM on December 27, 2017

So you want SAX style json processing? Just a random googling yields ijson, which you could probably wrap into a simple CLI or integrate into your Python app.
posted by pwnguin at 3:24 PM on December 27, 2017

My default recommendation for handling JSON is JQ, and it looks like it even specifically has a streaming option.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:26 PM on December 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the suggestions. I considered/tried both of those. They were worse than sed for my purposes. Don't want to derail further, though. (Apologies.)
posted by Coventry at 3:52 PM on December 27, 2017

TI(also)L about csvtool. That's pretty damn handy compared to just greppin' a CSV like a flat file and pipin' and catting them around like some kind of doofus. I have no idea when I'll ever have to try to briefly query a CSV file efficiently from a shell again, but it's happened in the last year at least.
posted by loquacious at 6:27 PM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Democrats and Independents overestimate Republicans’ support for white nationalism.

I'd say they overestimate how many Republicans would admit their support for white nationalism.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:18 PM on December 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

I only wish pee worked as a soap scum remover.

I'd save so much time!
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 10:07 PM on December 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

As someone who's never experienced the actual card game except in a very small circle of aging, leftist academics who all know each other rather well, I find it hard to think of CAH as anything but juvenile fun.

I introduced Cards Against Humanity to a group of leftist academics after work and let me tell you, it's probably the only place where I would consider playing Cards Against Humanity now. There's something really refreshing about playing with people who have no interest in playing the obvious opportunities for prejudice and instead make absurdist plays and really dark jokes about environmental issues.

The Deputy Director of the Institute where I work wandered in part-way through, and wanted to know what we were playing. I got incredibly nervous, as you would when your boss's boss's boss walks in and shows interest in the not-work-safe thing you're doing, even if it's after hours. But I explained it, taking pains to point out that I don't know who's responsible for any of these answers and thus no-one can be disciplined, and she decided to call her wife to let her know she'd be late, sat down, and wiped the floor with us.
posted by Merus at 5:51 AM on December 28, 2017 [11 favorites]

she decided to call her wife to let her know she'd be late, sat down, and wiped the floor with us.

Are you sure this isn't the academic version of letting the boss win at golf?
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:04 AM on December 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'd say they overestimate how many Republicans would admit their support for white nationalism.

Yeah, considering how often the worst racist remarks are usually prefaced by, "I'm not a racist, BUUUT," I'd say you're right. There's some kind of cognitive blind spot that allows people to say, "I may look like a duck, walk like a duck, and talk like a duck, but how dare you insinuate that I might be a duck?!?"
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:19 AM on December 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Maybe it isn't colostomy bag Vader...
posted by Nanukthedog at 11:04 AM on December 28, 2017

Storm Trooper suits are designed to be sealed systems with an absorbent/recycling layer in them (at least from those books I had as a youngling nerd).

So, stillsuits, basically.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:58 PM on December 28, 2017

9% is pretty good honestly, because something like 17% of people don't really hear the question properly.

You might say, they did 'Nazi' what the question was asking. ;)

Serious question, though: is "white nationalist" always identical to "Nazi", or is it not a distinction worth making?
posted by theorique at 8:31 AM on December 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

I make the distinction and I think it's a good one to make.

I'd call them, maybe, first cousins: white nationalism in the US and fascisms in Europe (Naziism, Francoism, Italian Fascism) have a common grandparent, if you will, that goes to the establishment of the nation-state and the construction of whiteness to justify colonialism, settler states, etc.

But I'm also not mad about the perspective that "oh god they're fucking nazis, just call them fucking nazis". It's a difference in rhetorical strategy I guess.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:19 PM on December 29, 2017