For fuck's sake, the problem with the Series of Tubes speech is not that it's a bad metaphor, even though it is. The problem is that he's a shit-for-brains manipulator trying to pass laws affecting your rights. Imperfect metaphors are fine when the author actually knows what he's talking about. Read any TCP/IP protocol discussion and it will be full of such metaphors that could be taken to comical extremes, but we know the author is explaining something they Actually Understand. This is not the case with Stevens, he knows he doesn't have any idea what he's talking about - but that's what's insulting about his speech: it's not designed to inform, it's designed to mislead.posted by odinsdream at 7:08 AM on November 19, 2008 [6 favorites]
1963: JFKposted by pracowity at 7:09 AM on November 19, 2008 [2 favorites]
1968: MLK, RFK
1972: Begich?
"an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially. [...] if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."He marked himself as a luser as readily as any officeworker who tried to impress you with how fast 'hard drive' is, while pointing at the monitor or keyboard rather than the big beige box under the desk. Except instead of being a low-level corporate staffer you have to avoid at a party before he chatters your ear off about his MMORPG characters, Stevens is in charge of regulations for the Internet, a system that he clearly fails to understand.
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posted by daHIFI at 6:14 AM on November 19, 2008