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Havelock Vetinari

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    Scanty Demon

    Posted

     

    Honestly, what I'm really curious is how far medical science will be by then. Considering how effective prosthetics are getting, and how much progress is being made with 3D printers, who's to say that in 50 years, I won't be able to get an exact replica of my heart printed, and two brand new, perfectly-fitting knees?

     

    If you can hold out long enough, you can make it until we achieve immortality, overpopulate the earth, realize life is meaningless without death and exponentially increase the suicide rate because we've robbed ourselves of the ability to wait for natural death.

     

    Bonus points if you have to delete yourself when the time comes.

     

     

    - :burnmad:

     

     

    I highly doubt people that life needs death to have meaning. Like, at all.

    Xaeraz

    Posted

    Alright. Where do I start on this?


    I’m just going to ignore the wider ideologies at play here in favor of explaining my own observations on the brony community, observations that tend to support DeeVee’s overall point. I’ve had the rather unique opportunity to observe the spread of the brony meme on not one but three websites, with intensive community discussion in at least one of the three, followed by my own research into parts of the brony community. I’ve interviewed one of the first bronies on one of these websites, I’ll be calling this brony Subject Zero. Because it sounds cool. Subject Zero provided me with insight into the first days of the fandom and it would appear that the initial fandom was notable for the near-complete lack of certain materials, but was in fact a reaction to the gritty, grimdark entertainment that had become prevalent during the period of the shows initial airing.


    At worst, this is indicative of a tendency to hide away from the nature of reality and that, by itself, is only harmful to the one who is doing the hiding. Even then, that aspect probably wasn’t overly common or was merely one factor in why they enjoyed the show. Subject Zero noted that this viewpoint was more than a little harsh but didn’t seem overly offended, indicating that it was probably true for some aspects of the brony community. Then, as the meme spread, reached more people, the brony community began to degenerate, to the point where people like Subject Zero left the fandom in disgust. I’ve made my own inquiries as to the current status of the community…and I am inclined to agree with Subject Zero on its current nature.


    The current makeup the community, based on observations of fan websites, general forum posts (BZP has, for clear reasons, mostly avoided the worst of it, other websites were less lucky) and common types of fanfiction indicate that the current brony community is ill, severely so. To a degree that certain types of fanfic aren’t just common, but a major selling point for many fan websites. Other websites that have similar policies to BZP weren’t immune, in part due to the lax approach taken to enforcing the rules. It got to the point where a moderator was given the sole job of purging the websites creative writing section of the culture that had taken hold of it. It was a mixed success at first, but I am given to understand their efforts eventually succeeded, if only by the noted decrease in the mention of certain materials, one can still find remnants however.


    I’ve also noted a strong anti-human ideology in parts of the fandom, that pops almost wherever one finds bronies-it’s not uncommon to find fanfiction where humans are destroyed by the “morally righteous” ponies or otherwise proven inferior to them, indicating that the relatively innocent escapism that led some to the fandom has also mutated, into a virulent feeling that the world depicted within the show is innocent and superior, whereas Earth and one’s fellow man are, at best, seen as unwittingly evil. It has gotten to the point where one can easily find fanfiction depicting the destruction of humanity, popular flagship fanfictions, it should be noted.


    Based on what I’ve seen, BZP’s brony community is innocuous and nonmalignant, as was the brony community at first. I won’t speak much on the gender breakdown of bronies, I’ve seen men and I’ve seen women, but the males did appear more common on most websites. I don’t think this effected the corruption of the fandom however, as the gender ratio changed very little on the websites I observed-I.E pre-corruption and post-corruption. I don’t think the current state of the brony community was inevitable-spreading to more people is often a positive thing for fandoms, it is not that the community spread to more people, but rather the areas in which it spread that led to its current state. I’m not going to be naming names here, for clear reasons, as the websites involved are in no sense BZP appropriate.


    The only conclusion I’m comfortable in drawing beyond that, is that DeeVee is almost certainly right about the reasons the fandom is viewed with distaste-in its current state at least-speaking from my own observations and feelings on the matter, the reason I have distaste for the fandom isn’t that it’s men, predominately young men, expressing a love of multicolored equines, but rather that the fandom is, taken together, largely degenerate and such as. Perhaps there is a silent majority of bronies out there, just as disgusted as I am, but based on Subject Zero I’m inclined to believe most of them left.


    *Note, the use of degenerate here is used in the sense of "degenerating from intial status of the fandom", not in the old-fashined moral degeneration sense, I prefer not to make value judgements on such things. The problem isn't that they exist-but rather that young children, both male and female can be exposed to them with relative ease, due to their virulent presence within the brony fandom.

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