SRF Heavy Industries

2012 US Presidential Election, State by State, Nate Silver, http://FiveThirtyEight.NYTimes.com

So the 2012 Us Presidential Election is over and went exactly as predicted by Nate Silver at his FiveThirtyEight blog at the New York Times website. This is unsurprising to me, as Silver has had many years of practice at collecting this kind of data and analyzing its worth based on the sources involved and is a competent mathematician.

Still, a huge number of people are surprised. And angry. And crying foul. Because these facts — the measurement of the universe in its current state — are not consistent with what they knew in their hearts to be true.

I blame a combination of things, the chiefest of which are sadistic manipulators who set out to lie to these people deliberately so as to milk their wallets to back a lame mule in a horse race (said sadists being under a separate delusion that the world is cynical enough that a tarted up mule with the best press money can buy can win a horse race). Also I blame Walt Disney.

Stern denial of a fact one does not like, whether one’s heart is filled with bitter hatred or sorrow or the strong emotion of one’s choice or not, will not alter that fact. Ask anyone who has ever watched a loved one die. Neither will wishing really, really hard. (I’m looking at you, Disney.) Facts aren’t poisoned fairies that one can cure with child-like (read: naive) belief and clapping one’s hands.

Nor can one simply apply money and go shopping for facts one likes better, or have them manufactured to order in “fact”-mills. Because people are predictable, they will take your money and give your something in return, but the thing they give you will be something known in common parlance as a “lie”.

And paying huge wads of money to distribute these lies to the largest number of people possible and having them all clap their hands and believe really hard (paying attention, Disney?) will never make your lies true. All it does is leave a large number of people angry, with hands sore from clapping, soaking in the lovely feeling of what it’s like to be bilked for a chump.

Some national cultures have quaint traditions for ridding themselves of this chumpy feeling, frequently expressed in terms of taking to the streets and smashing up stuff and setting huge stacks of tires on fire — when they can’t get their hands on the bilkers and include them in the festivities. These celebrations are too huge and colorful to be fully described with such a tiny word as “riot”, but we’ll make do.

Facts are the way things are. If it helps, you can think of facts as the expressed will of the god of your choice. Many do, and those are typically happier people, and less bilkable. Also, if it helps, you can think of faith as sticking to your guns in the face of inevitable unfavorable outcomes — again, many do — instead of a childlike naive magical belief that, if performed strongly enough, backed firmly with unwavering, profound yet unfounded emotion (thanks again, Disney), will warp the world in the direction of your strongest and most selfish desires.

Screw you, FOX NEWS — and screw your owners and programmers — for the misery-spreading propaganda engine you are, and, yes, also, screw you, Disney, for lying to five generations of children about how the world works and what faith means.

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