Comments on: It just goes to show, you can't be too careful!

It just goes to show, you can't be too careful!

WPW — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:35:44 -0800

"A friend of mine has come up with an idea to stem the tide of bile. He wants people to post, as a comment, on as many opinion-garnering web pages as possible, as often as they can be bothered, the phrase: 'It just goes to show you can't be too careful!'"

A fairly routine column by David Mitchell on the inanity of comment threads is made rather wonderful by its comment thread.

By: notyou

notyou — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:43:09 -0800

"Christ, what an asshole."

By: Science!

Science! — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:49:41 -0800

If I ever see this guy trip, or drop his groceries or spend four hours cooking a delicious meal only to burn it at the last moment I'm going to say "It just goes to show you can't be too careful!" And then I'll punch him in the dick and tell him his idea is an obviously ineffective approach that will just add more and more noise in what's sure to become a self feeding hate fest on more webpages. He should listen to the latest MetaFilter podcast where this very thing is talked about for a while.

By: Locative

Locative — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:50:57 -0800

It just goes to show you can't be too careful!

By: Locative

Locative — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:52:57 -0800

Sorry.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:54:26 -0800

Don't be -- it had to be done.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:54:45 -0800

It is apparent that the authors of the above comments have not read the article. How fitting. Oh, and sad.

By: 5imian

5imian — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:56:15 -0800

"Christ, what an asshole." posted by notyou at 9:43 AM on March 15 [+] [!] eponysterical .

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:56:20 -0800

Warning: Youtube contains Youtube comments. When I accidentally encounter them, here's what works for me: Command+w.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:03:14 -0800

(I should probably point out, before my previous comment gets flagged a million times and deleted for breaking the guidelines, that it was intended as an example of the useless things people say in comments.)

By: Science!

Science! — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:06:57 -0800

Heh, I was going to argue with you, but I figured that this is the internet and you probably meant something other than how I took it. That's usually how it goes.

By: box

box — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:07:34 -0800

Careful, you can't just show it to the Bee Gees.

By: namespan

namespan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:10:41 -0800

Kibo knows you can't be too careful.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:12:02 -0800

It just goes to show, that's Numberwang!

By: fullerine

fullerine — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:14:32 -0800

i am a heron. i ahev a long neck and i pick fish out of the water w/ my beak. if you dont repost this message on 10 other threads i will fly into your kitchen tonight and make a mess of your pots and pans

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:15:27 -0800

Oh man, I love David Mitchell. Not only for The Peep Show but his sketch comedy series with Webb is a riot. This line from the article especially made me laugh: "if there's one thing the internet demonstrates it's that a lot of angry people can read." That comment thread is just amazing.

By: Ella Fynoe

Ella Fynoe — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:24:22 -0800

David Mitchell is funny on QI, too. Also: Metafilter: a self-selecting bunch of inexplicably livid weirdos

By: liza

liza — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:36:41 -0800

it goes to show that all sorts of wonderful can't be too careful :)

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:40:50 -0800

"It doesn't go away from hide that I can be insufficiently incautious," chibbed the contrarian. Kibo knows you can't be too careful. The USGS has put out a Giant H warning. If you see angry men in Starfleet uniforms, lock your doors.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:50:21 -0800

Gordon Brown wants citizens to be able to " comment online about GPs, hospitals, nurseries, schools and the police, just like they can on Amazon, eBay, TripAdvisor and, indeed, the Observer website" ?! What the hell, has he even used the internet?

By: Chorian

Chorian — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:56:41 -0800

I like to lurk. I'm not going to leave my boring comments all over the place.

By: sswiller

sswiller — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:04:20 -0800

Hey mefi, there's a US version of http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/?

By: netbros

netbros — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:10:19 -0800

See 1st comment

By: furtive

furtive — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:17:33 -0800

t jst gs t shw, y cn't b t crfl!

By: mannequito

mannequito — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:41:30 -0800

hehe. Funny stuff. It was meant to be funny, right? From the article : "There are many perfectly reasonable remarks put online, and others that are only bland or harmlessly nonsensical, but if there's one thing the internet demonstrates it's that a lot of angry people can ~~read~~mash their keyboards with one hand while flinging poo at their next door neighbour with the other. Phew, that was one hell of a typo, glad I caught it.

By: DaddyNewt

DaddyNewt — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:52:58 -0800

It just goes to shizzle you can't be too carefizzle.

By: theora55

theora55 — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:01:12 -0800

Hey, cool, let's start a new Internet meme. The sentence isn't particularly apt, and is likely to get snarked into even more meaninglessness.

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:14:19 -0800

if there's one thing the internet demonstrates it's that a lot of angry people can read. Also demonstrated by every "Letters to the Editor" page of every printed publication ever. Not unique to the internet. I think that angry people read more to fuel the bile cycle than the average non-angry person. Bile is made out of words, angry, angry words. You must ingest the words to create the bile!

By: private_idaho

private_idaho — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:50:56 -0800

I didn't read the above mentioned article; reading the comments, I'm not going to. I'm not sure what is meant y the "too careful" statement. I do know that I'm aghast when I see hundreds of comments on a NYT or Huffington Post article. WTF? Why do people take the time? Of what possible motivation do these comments arise? Regardless of what deep emotion an article provokes, I am not about to read 300 comments or throw my dollar bill from the top of the Empire State Building. Arguing on the internet is like sex with oneself, it might feel good, but it touches no one else. It is the editorial page run amok. If the NYT or any newspaper or magazine ran every letter, every day, they'd have gone out of business 50 years ago. It's a shame, in a way, that many very insightful, well reasoned opinions are buried in a sea of inanity. One reason I read MeFi and AskMefi, is because there are mostly reasonable contributors. And moderators who keep things sane. And why, like this post, many times I will peruse the comments before the links. The comments made it clear that there was nothing of substance to follow.

By: Artw

Artw — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:00:53 -0800

Mitchell 1 Metafilter 0

By: jtron

jtron — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:17:52 -0800

I just don't know.

By: Schmucko

Schmucko — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:25:46 -0800

You know who else wasn't too careful?

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:32:15 -0800

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:18:37 -0800

This is why people don't like you, internet.

By: kittyprecious

kittyprecious — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:02:14 -0800

Are salt and vinegar really biodegradable?

By: edgeways

edgeways — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:48:02 -0800

Intermocracy

By: justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow

justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:49:52 -0800

Why does our new conciliatory phrase sound vaguely like a threat? "That's a nice column you've got there, Mitchell. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. Didn't you hear what happened to Louie Bucco? It just goes to show, you can't be too careful."

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:55:02 -0800

The.

By: JustAsItSounds

JustAsItSounds — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:45:46 -0800

@private_idaho I didn't read the above mentioned article; reading the comments, I'm not going to. ... I am not about to read 300 comments or throw my dollar bill from the top of the Empire State Building. ... It's a shame, in a way, that many very insightful, well reasoned opinions are buried in a sea of inanity. ... The comments made it clear that there was nothing of substance to follow. You didn't read it and decry the absence of meaningful comments, but felt that you were qualified/needed to comment on it? Am I missing some deep sarcasm here? FYI and for the edification of others who haven't read the article, and yet have formed an opinion of it and wish to share: David Mitchell was suggesting that the bile seen in a lot of comment threads could be diluted by the silent majority posting the innocuous phrase; 'It just goes to show, you can't be too careful'

By: Artw

Artw — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:54:56 -0800

ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com is the perfect rebutal to annoying web dude in the FlickTubeFaceSpace.com post.

By: Lipstick Thespian

Lipstick Thespian — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:41:11 -0800

I have striven all my life to be too careful. I wore mittens and a full bodysuit when delivered in hospital. I spent my formative years in extensive padding, and rolled about my home and school in a specially-made bubble. Everything I ate or wore was inspected by a pair of qualified women hired by my parents from the ER of a local hospital. My first word was: beware. It took me several decades of intensive physical and mental therapy to get where I could walk barefoot and buy my own food. All for naught now, it seems.

By: stargell

stargell — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:19:31 -0800

It's insane, this guy's taint.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:21:09 -0800

It's true, you can't be too careful, I mean, if it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:20:06 -0800

*has an aneurysm*

By: louche mustachio

louche mustachio — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:32:10 -0800

Stem? If I see a tide of bile coming, I grab a surfboard. To Hell with careful.

By: aniola

aniola — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:36:52 -0800

Wow. Context is really important. I'm going to be chuckling over "The." all day.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:51:48 -0800

private_idaho I didn't read your comment but I favorited you anyway since you wrote alot of words, and for all intensive purposes that means you win this thread.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:40:21 -0800

ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com Holy shit, http://www.ifyouloveitsomuchwhydontyoumarryit.com/ is like totally available!

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:24:57 -0800

Well why don't you marry it then?

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:26:31 -0800

Mods may particularly enjoy the section on moderation martyrs.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:15:18 -0800

Well why don't you marry it then? Because I'm going to marry Potomac Avenue for his ironic misuse of 'alot' & 'intensive purposes.'

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:23:30 -0800

Mods may particularly enjoy the section on moderation martyrs. That's actually a pretty damn funny site, now that I read through a bit of it. Thanks.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:32:42 -0800

Oh dear lord, Artw.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:47:10 -0800

The mods don't want you to know! I bet this comment gets deleted!

By: private_idaho

private_idaho — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:55:08 -0800

First of all, I meant no criticism or sarcasm toward anyone. I haven't engaged in that stuff since the days of DOS, 1200 baud modems and BBS's. I'm 61, and I have my own issues to address. But I do respect MeFi. It has remained an interesting place only because the mods seem to allow an eight lane highway on ideas and content, but keep conversation fairly civil. Though my comments here are rare, I feel comfortable doing so when I have something I feel is meaningful. I peruse the Huffington Post daily along with dozens of other informative sites. I'm a ruminant. A lot off chaff but some very worthwhile reading. On Saturday I noticed a front page story that was less than 24 hours old. 750 comments! I cannot bring myself to believe that it contributes anything to anything. One of the blogs I read is "The Daily Dish" by Andrew Sullivan. He allows no comments. You wanna comment? Email him and he may publish it. I think it is a matter of self preservation. My point was merely that unabated "free speech" leads to insignificance. respectfully, PI