Getting Some Things Off My Chest

Alright, this post turned out to be pretty ranty, so I'll share some fun photos I took over the past couple of weeks to lighten the mood on it...

This photo, taken at one of the Columbus Metro Parks, turned out better than I thought it would thanks to a tiny bee making an appearing as it zoomed past.

This is gonna be a little bit of different than some of my other posts, mainly because it's kind of focused on a few random things that have been bothering me and I find it cathartic to write/make videos when I've got things on my mind. I'm gonna start by venting just a bit about a couple of recent comments I received on YouTube.

Now, these are comments I've deleted, and I won't be really focusing on the content of them because in reality it really doesn't matter what they said, it was the tone in them and the reminder they provided of what the internet is full of.

Ever since the early days of the internet, it has been full of people sharing their opinions about any and every topic you can imagine. From politics to movies, books to fashion, the vast majority of people have participated at one time or another in throwing around their thoughts and opinions with little regard for who is on the other end of the connection. It's relatively normal human behavior, all things considered, as we've all got our own perspective and most of us just want to be heard and feel like we are more than just a spec in the vast, endless universe.

Not many people are fans of spiders, but this one was actually kind of cool. It's called a rabid wolf spider, and it hunts bugs while also not being dangerous to people!

Where it kind of goes off the rails, however, is when people start sharing their opinions as facts and muddying the waters of what could otherwise be good discussions.

From time to time, I get these comments on my videos, specifically on the videos where I use games as philosophical thought experiments to discuss some of the more difficult to broach concepts, from people who are either trolling for a response or who genuinely didn't get the premise.

For the latter, I kind of get it in a way because for the past decade and a half, games have been mainly seen as silly pastimes, children's playthings that shouldn't be looked at any closer than the average let's player is capable. These comments I can at least kind of grasp the intention of because I'm basically asking people to dive beyond the lore the game provides and connect things like the world of Grand Theft Auto V to the real world as if any of the characters or activities in that game could possibly be tied in any way to things like poverty, social justice issues, or government overreach.

On the flip side, there are also people who feel the need to troll, to try and provoke a response either just for the fun of it or because they seriously believe that their perspective is right, even when it is demonstrably wrong. These are people who ignore the information presented, refuse to look into any of the sources I may present in the course of the content, and don't care how many times their arguments have been debunked or proven wrong. They often approach the comment section with little regard for things like basic punctuation or spelling, and spout spoon-fed arguments like they are reality.

Butterflies make the world better, even when I'm ranting about things that annoy me.

And yes, I'm being incredibly harsh with that description because I'm honestly sick and tired of living in a world where people get to make up their own "facts" and where suggestions of things like universal basic income, universal healthcare, and affordable housing get met with name calling and assumptions rather than reasoned, factual counter arguments. If you don't like the ideas, respond with some alternatives and cite actual reliable sources to further the conversation.

"But", I hear you saying, "people don't have time to learn more about these things, and you're being unreasonable by asking people to do more than the bare minimum and expecting too much from the YouTube comment section". As nicely as I can put it, Mr. or Mrs. Strawman, that is absolute bullshit and I'm tired of pretending otherwise.

A major driving factor for the problems we face in the world today is the lack of awareness or willingness to learn, and if people can't be bothered to get things right when they have the time to look up sources and really focus in a comment section, how do they get by in their day to day lives? It's no wonder we have people in charge, like those running the executive branch of government in the United States in 2026, when we can't even take the time to think critically before hitting send on a hastily typed comment that has no factual basis in reality attached to it.

This bird is disappointed in the people who leave comments that make no sense.

And that gets me to the next point of order in this rant no one will ever see, because to have a presence on the internet in the way I do you have to have a pretty thick skin. These comments don't bother me personally, because for one, they aren't personal attacks and for two, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong and adjust my views when necessary. I've done that plenty of times throughout my life, going from a young-earth creationist Christian growing up and into my teens to a much more progressive, scientifically focused adult. Show me a good, evidenced-based argument and I'll happily change my mind because I'm not worried about ME being right, I'm worried about the argument being correct.

That stems from my autistic brain and how my mind works overall, and while it took me 35+ years to really understand the reasons behind it, it's the way I've been my whole life.

What really bothers me about these kinds of comments is what it says about the world we live in and the state of education. It makes me extremely sad to think of the world that my children and potential grandchildren will have to live in and makes me question what kind of future we can realistically hope for when the best response to progressive ideas is "bUt SoCiaLisM".

I'm not sure what this bird is. It's blue, but not a Blue Bird, and it seemed kind of pompous as it sat on its house chirping at the sky like it was on a tangent of some kind.

This whole thing probably comes across as 'old man yells at sky', but it makes me feel just a tad bit better to get it out of my mind and into a more tangible space. Maybe you feel the same way as me, maybe you think I'm off my rocker, I only ask that any comments you leave are thought out and well-reasoned. I don't have any qualms with removing comments that aren't furthering the conversation and my patience for stupidity in this world went away a long time ago.